First, let's remember what retargeting is. Retargeting (or remarketing) is a means of bringing back audiences after online or offline contact. It allows you to personalize your communications with a user based on their previous actions on your site or in your store. If a user adds products to the cart but doesn't make a purchase, you can use retargeting to offer them a discount. Retargeting also means that you can inform your regular customers about new additions to your product range. In comparison to more generalized communications with your broader audience, retargeting offers more effective ads with a lower CPA.

The following data types can be used for retargeting:

Interact with user at every stage of the sales funnel

An individual approach to each customer is the key to effective communication. Gather prospective users into groups based on different features and convey to each of them a message relevant to them. This can be done by segmenting users according to their progress through the sales funnel and by using different bid strategies for your different segments. The main idea of the sales funnel is simple: the lower a user is in the sales funnel, the closer the user is to converting.

Give your Yandex.Metrica segments names that make them easy to identify, e.g. “Saw holiday banner on search” or “Ordered skates in December of 2017.” Segments with clear names will make it easier to organize your targeted ads.

Increase bids for “hotter” users

Below, you can see an example of how to segment users in the sales funnel — starting from users who know nothing about your offer to those who regularly place orders. The fact that each of these segments has a different value means that:
a) the ads each segment sees should contain different messages relevant for them, and
b) the different bids you set for each segment should reflect their value to you.

Those users who are already familiar with your product, but who haven't come to a final decision can be “warmed up” with retargeted ads, perhaps mentioning discounts and promotions. Likewise, it makes sense to raise bids for users who have already begun placing an order and avoid losing them at the final step before conversion.

Performance metrics for different users should also be different — expecting quick conversions from users who have just found out about your brand for the first time is unreasonable, as is hoping for cheap clicks from users on the verge of making a purchase.

Ad campaigns should always be supplemented with retargeting. For most businesses, new traffic from ad networks is “cold” and unwilling to convert immediately. Users require 3-4 visits on average before making their first purchase.

Set up Look-alike segments based on your active audience

No matter what people buy from you — plane tickets or leather jackets — it is a good idea to use your most loyal and profitable users to create a Look-alike segment in Yandex.Audience. This technology analyzes user behavior to determine patterns, and then finds users that match their collective profile. One of the most effective ways to apply this technology is to seek out users similar to those who have already converted.

Look-alike segments can also be applied to your site's visitors. We recently saw a good example from one of our advertisers: users who visited the site iPort from Apple devices and those users similar to them converted twice as often.

Write separate texts for each audience

• Compose different texts for each retargeting list. The more retargeting lists with personalized texts you have, the more effective your communication will be.
  
• Your ad texts and your retargeting lists should be as precise as possible: “Trendy footstool in cart” instead of “Items in cart.”  That way, the retargeting ad will show the user the exact product they have already viewed.
  
• Tell users about your updates and promotions. This is a great opportunity to draw back users who have already visited your site, but did not find products they were interested in ordering. Use your ads to tell about recent changes, for example, another operating system for your mobile app, new destinations for your airline, or recently opened branches of your store. If you are promoting a mobile gaming app, talk about new in-app items for sale.
• Change your ad texts when new promotions or offers appear on your site. When doing so, give users extra motivation to place an order by showing recent decreases in your prices.
• Vary texts based on the user's location. Let's say you are promoting a chain of cafes located in major airports. Use Yandex.Audience to create a geosegment of users currently in the airport. Then create a Yandex.Metrica segment of all users who have been on your site or regularly visit your cafe. In your retargeting settings, choose the Yandex.Audience geosegment and add the Yandex.Metrica segment. Select “Fulfilled all,” and your ads will help attract travelers currently in the airport who are already loyal to your brand.
  
• Write texts that appeal to your audience emotionally.
• Take advantage of holidays — remind users in advance about upcoming dates when they might want to present their loved ones with gifts. Previous customers are already familiar with your brand and therefore more likely to buy a Christmas or birthday gift from your site.

Carefully set up separate retargeting campaigns

• Allocate your budgets according to the efficiency of each channel, e.g. ad network campaigns, retargeting, smart banners. If the cost of goods and services is the same, compare the traffic channels by CPA. If the costs differ, compare them by ROI.
• Only disable host sites that you yourself have statistically determined to be ineffective. When viewing statistics, try to get an idea of the cost of losing the quality traffic you do receive from a site you are planning to disable. Yandex.Direct automatically decreases bids based on traffic quality and your CPA, so these calculations can be revealing.

Let's say that ten users arrived via an ad. Six of them quickly closed the site, two spent a short amount of time on the home page, and two others converted. Don't rush to make conclusions. First, check the CPC on this site and calculate the cost of the two conversions that you ended up receiving. Quite often “bad” sites differ very little from “good” ones when one compares CPA.

• You might find customers where your competitors failed to find them. Recommendations in the Yandex.Direct interface can help you determine which sites you had previously disabled could now be bringing you conversions.

Imagine your user's behavior

• Try to calculate the amount of time that will pass before your previous customers will need to repeat their order. If your sell products used in a short amount of time, consider reminding your previous customers after a week has passed since their last purchase. If a customer bought children's ice skates last year, it might be time for larger skates this year.
• Figure out the length of time users remain interested in your product. If a user did not purchase winter tires from you over a two-week period in November, they probably bought them somewhere else (and you can avoid wasting your campaign funds on this user). Users take their time with bigger purchases like cars or apartments. During their deliberation period, it makes sense to remind them about your offer. 
•  Experiment with impressions. If a user looked at a coat on your site, but left without making a purchase, consider showing them different models. Perhaps all they need is to see is that you have the right size or color.

Remember that retargeting is not available for all products and services. Bid adjustments and retargeting lists can still be of service, however. You can launch a campaign with the keyword “stomach ache” and a minimal bid, and set a +1200% bid adjustment for the retargeting list"Sent request for doctor's appointment.” This is how you can show retargeting ads to users who previously visited your clinic .

All of these tips are available as a checklist that so you don't miss out on anything when setting up campaigns.

If you need additional help, you can contact your Yandex manager or the customer service department. If you have your own retargeting tricks that you'd be willing to share, please tell us in a comment below this article — we will keep them in mind for future articles. Good luck with your campaigns!