• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, October 2, 2013

ChoiceStream on Wednesday announced the launch of Smart Retargeting, a product meant to improve the effectiveness of retargeting.

ChoiceStream claims retargeting is effective for only about two percent of consumers -- and only in the first few hours after a consumer leaves a site. A recent Adroit Digital poll says that 42% of consumer don't even notice retargeted ads. That figure from Adroit Digital doesn't deal directly with ChoiceStream's, but it does support the notion that retargeting can be improved.

“Traditional retargeting is a powerful tactic for retailers, but its success lies in winning over those furthest along the path to conversion,” stated ChoiceStream CEO, Eric Bosco.

The idea behind Smart Retargeting is to retarget only consumers that have a true intent to purchase rather than every consumer that has visited a site. The company claims the product can find those more valued consumers by using "site visitor performance" data.

"Where ad budgets are wasted is in hitting the high percentage of consumers who leave a site with no interest or intent to purchase anything. Reaching consumers who simply won’t convert is inefficient," Bosco added.

Bill Guild, VP of marketing at ChoiceStream, said that "by focusing on those most likely to be interested, [Smart Retargeting] has been able to avoid the irritation that can be caused by over treating the retargeting pool."

Part of that irritation comes when consumers are repeatedly shown the same ad, something Smart Retargeting was built to be smart about.

"One of the smarter aspects of Smart Retargeting is knowing when to stop showing the specific products that were recently viewed," Guild told RTM Daily. "Another...is to use predictive targeting to reduce advertising where it will have no effect and continue advertising to those who may respond."

Guild also said the new product can "repopulate the retargeting pool."

"Repopulating the retargeting pool refers to the fact that retargeting pools are populated by recent visitors. This pool of recent visitors is a fixed list which ages, and soon none of them will be recent visitors unless a) they visit the site again, or b) new visitors are created by prospecting efforts and added as fresh members of the pool," he explained. He added that Smart Retargeting campaigns can be linked with prospecting campaigns so consumers are always on the right lists.

ChoiceStream claims that an undisclosed clothing manufacturer has seen a 60% increase in retargeting ROI since it began using Smart Retargeting.