Retargeting ads allow you to send ads to a specific audience (or exclude a specific audience) of people who have visited your website. We’ve all had the experience of shopping for a new item, only to see ads for the very same item in the following days and weeks—that’s because the e-commerce site you visited had a tracking pixel placed on their website. This tracking pixel allows them to collect a bit of data about your digital footprint—a combination of cookies, mobile device IDs and IP addresses. Then, they can provide you with retargeting ads so you don’t forget to buy the product.
In short, tracking pixels allow you to run new ads to users who have been to your website.
There are some limits to what we can do with retargeting ads. Tracking pixels do not let you know specifically who your ads are targeting—so there is no way to export a list of personally identifiable information (PII). There are strict data privacy laws that do not allow as tracking systems to report results for specific users (so we can’t say whether John Doe saw your ad or not, nor can we say why Jane Doe went to your site but didn’t get retargeting ads); we can only treat the retargeting group as one large data set. Tracking pixels also do not let us retarget visitors who have gone to websites other than those you own/manage. Without the ability to place a pixel on the website, there is not a way to capture or track visitor information.
Retargeting ads work through a tracking pixel. The Turn It Blue Ads system will generate a pixel for you, and you should place this code snippet into the header data of your website. It will be invisible to website visitors if placed correctly. Once your pixel is in place, you can use the ads platform to test your pixel and ensure it is placed correctly and data is flowing between your website and the Turn It Blue Ads platform.
Then, you can build a campaign in the Turn It Blue Ads platform that either targets the data flowing from this tracking pixel or excludes the data from this tracking pixel—just like you can add or exclude any other data in the platform.
There are so many ways retargeting ads can benefit your political campaign. For example, a tracking pixel placed on your donation or sign-up Thank You page can be used to send retargeting ads to solicit donations/volunteers or exclude those who have already signed up or contributed. Retargeting ads can also be helpful to provide a bit more information to people who have shown interest in learning more about your campaign. With a little creativity, you can use retargeting ads for countless purposes.