Why 97% of Your Visitors Leave — And How to Bring Them Back
Here is a sobering statistic: according to the Baymard Institute, the average online cart abandonment rate hovers around 70.19%. And that only accounts for people who actually added something to their cart. When you factor in all website visitors, roughly 97% leave without taking any meaningful action on their first visit.
Think about that for a moment. You invest time, money, and creative energy into SEO, paid ads, social media, and content marketing to drive traffic to your site. Then the vast majority of those hard-earned visitors simply… disappear.
This is exactly where remarketing and retargeting come into play. These strategies are designed to re-engage those lost visitors, gently guide them back to your site, and convert them into customers. Done well, they are among the highest-ROI tactics in digital marketing.
In this guide, we will break down everything you need to know: the differences between the two terms, the platforms and tools available, proven strategies that work, and common pitfalls to avoid.
Remarketing vs. Retargeting: Clearing Up the Confusion
Before diving into tactics, let’s address the terminology debate that confuses even seasoned marketers.
Retargeting (Ad-Based)
Retargeting refers to serving paid advertisements to users who have previously interacted with your website, app, or content. It relies on tracking technologies — primarily browser cookies, tracking pixels, or device identifiers — to follow users across the web and show them relevant ads.
Common retargeting channels include:
- Google Display Network (Google Ads remarketing)
- Facebook / Instagram (Meta Pixel-based Custom Audiences)
- LinkedIn (Insight Tag retargeting)
- Programmatic display (via DSPs like The Trade Desk)
- YouTube (video remarketing)
Remarketing (Email-Based)
In its purest definition, remarketing focuses on re-engaging users through email. Think abandoned cart email sequences, win-back campaigns for lapsed customers, or personalized product recommendation emails.
However, Google muddied the waters years ago by naming its ad retargeting feature “Google Ads Remarketing.” As a result, the two terms are now used almost interchangeably across the industry.
The Practical Takeaway
For the purposes of this article — and in most real-world marketing conversations — we will treat remarketing and retargeting as complementary components of the same strategy: bringing back people who already know your brand.
| Feature | Retargeting (Ads) | Remarketing (Email) |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Channel | Display ads, social ads, video | Email campaigns |
| Tracking Method | Cookies, pixels, device IDs | Email addresses, CRM data |
| Reach | Broad (anyone who visited) | Narrower (requires email opt-in) |
| Cost Model | CPM / CPC (ongoing ad spend) | Low marginal cost per send |
| Best For | Awareness, consideration stage | Cart recovery, loyalty, upselling |
| Average CTR | 0.7% (10x higher than standard display) | 3–5% for well-segmented campaigns |
| Conversion Lift | Up to 150% vs. non-retargeted | Up to 30% cart recovery rate |
How Retargeting Works: The Technical Foundation
Understanding the mechanics helps you set up campaigns correctly and troubleshoot issues down the road.
Pixel-Based Retargeting
This is the most common approach. Here is how it works:
- You place a small snippet of JavaScript (a “pixel” or “tag”) on your website.
- When a visitor lands on your site, the pixel drops an anonymous cookie in their browser.
- As that visitor browses other websites, ad networks recognize the cookie and serve your ads.
- The visitor sees your brand again, clicks the ad, and returns to your site.
Here is an example of a basic Meta (Facebook) Pixel installation:
<!-- Meta Pixel Code -->
<script>
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',
'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js');
fbq('init', 'YOUR_PIXEL_ID');
fbq('track', 'PageView');
</script>
<!-- End Meta Pixel Code -->For WordPress sites, plugins like PixelYourSite or tag management via Google Tag Manager make implementation straightforward. At Lueur Externe, we typically configure pixels through GTM for cleaner code management and easier event tracking across PrestaShop and WordPress environments.
List-Based Retargeting
Instead of relying on cookies, you upload a list of email addresses (from your CRM or email platform) to an advertising platform. The platform matches those emails against its user database and serves ads to matched users.
This approach is especially powerful for:
- Re-engaging lapsed customers who haven’t purchased in 90+ days
- Upselling or cross-selling to existing buyers
- Targeting high-value leads from your sales pipeline
7 Proven Retargeting Strategies That Actually Convert
Not all retargeting campaigns are created equal. Here are the strategies that consistently deliver the best results.
1. Segment Your Audiences Ruthlessly
The single biggest mistake in retargeting is treating all past visitors the same. Someone who spent 3 seconds on your homepage is fundamentally different from someone who added a product to their cart and entered their shipping address.
Create distinct audience segments based on:
- Pages visited (product pages, pricing page, blog posts)
- Depth of engagement (time on site, pages per session)
- Funnel stage (browsed > added to cart > initiated checkout)
- Recency (visited in the last 3 days vs. 30 days ago)
- Customer status (new visitor vs. returning customer)
2. Use Sequential Messaging
Instead of blasting every retargeted visitor with the same “Come back!” ad, create a narrative sequence that evolves over time:
- Days 1–3: Brand reminder ad — “Still thinking it over? Here’s what you’re missing.”
- Days 4–7: Social proof ad — “Join 10,000+ happy customers.”
- Days 8–14: Incentive ad — “Here’s 10% off — just for you.”
- Days 15–30: Urgency ad — “Last chance: your saved items are almost gone.”
This approach respects the buyer’s decision-making process rather than hammering them with a single repetitive message.
3. Implement Frequency Capping
Few things damage brand perception faster than stalker-level ad exposure. Research from InskinMedia found that negative brand perception increases by 16% when users feel they see an ad too often.
Set frequency caps between 3–7 impressions per user per day and 15–25 per week as starting points, then adjust based on performance data.
4. Leverage Dynamic Product Retargeting
For e-commerce stores, dynamic retargeting is a game-changer. Instead of showing generic brand ads, you display the exact products each visitor viewed, along with personalized pricing and availability.
Platforms like Google Ads, Meta, and Criteo excel at this. On PrestaShop, product feed modules can automatically sync your catalog with these platforms — a setup that the Lueur Externe team has refined across dozens of e-commerce projects since 2003.
5. Exclude Converted Users
This seems obvious, yet many advertisers forget to do it. If someone already purchased your product, stop showing them the ad for that product. Instead, move them into a post-purchase audience for:
- Cross-sell campaigns
- Loyalty program promotions
- Review or testimonial requests
Burn pixels (conversion exclusion pixels) make this easy to automate.
6. Combine Retargeting with Email Remarketing
The most effective approach uses both channels in coordination:
- A visitor abandons their cart.
- Within 1 hour, they receive an automated cart abandonment email (first touch).
- If they don’t open or click, retargeting ads appear on their social feeds and browsing sessions over the next 3–7 days.
- A second email follows at 24 hours with a subtle incentive.
- If still no conversion at 72 hours, a final “last chance” email with a stronger offer is sent.
This multi-channel orchestration consistently outperforms single-channel approaches by 30–50% in recovery rates.
7. A/B Test Relentlessly
Test everything:
- Ad creative (lifestyle images vs. product shots vs. UGC)
- Copy (benefit-driven vs. urgency-driven vs. social proof)
- Landing pages (original product page vs. dedicated retargeting landing page)
- Offers (free shipping vs. percentage discount vs. bonus gift)
- Audience windows (7-day vs. 14-day vs. 30-day lookback)
Small improvements compound dramatically at scale. A 0.5% increase in click-through rate on a campaign serving 500,000 impressions means 2,500 additional visitors.
The Privacy Landscape: Adapting to a Cookieless Future
Retargeting strategies must evolve alongside the shifting privacy landscape. Key developments include:
- Google’s Privacy Sandbox and the deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome (now scheduled for 2025 and beyond)
- Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT), which has already reduced Meta’s retargeting effectiveness on iOS by an estimated 30–40%
- GDPR and CCPA compliance requirements for cookie consent
What This Means for Your Strategy
- First-party data is king. Invest in building your email list, loyalty programs, and logged-in user experiences.
- Server-side tracking (e.g., Meta Conversions API, Google Enhanced Conversions) is becoming essential to supplement browser-based pixels.
- Contextual targeting is making a comeback as a complement to behavioral retargeting.
- Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) help unify first-party data across touchpoints for more effective remarketing.
Businesses that prepare now will have a significant competitive advantage. Those relying solely on third-party cookies are building on increasingly unstable ground.
Measuring Success: Key Metrics to Track
Don’t just launch retargeting campaigns and hope for the best. Monitor these KPIs closely:
- View-Through Conversions (VTC): Users who saw your ad but converted later without clicking. Often undervalued but critical for display retargeting.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): Benchmark is 0.7% for retargeting display ads (vs. 0.07% for standard display).
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): What you pay for each conversion. Retargeting CPA should be significantly lower than prospecting CPA.
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): Target a minimum 4:1 ROAS for retargeting; top performers hit 10:1 or higher.
- Frequency: Monitor closely. Rising frequency with declining CTR signals ad fatigue.
- Incremental Lift: The most sophisticated metric — would these users have converted anyway without retargeting? Holdout tests (excluding a control group from retargeting) reveal the true incremental value.
Common Retargeting Mistakes to Avoid
Even experienced marketers fall into these traps:
- No audience segmentation. Treating all visitors identically wastes budget and annoys users.
- Ignoring frequency caps. Over-exposure leads to banner blindness and brand damage.
- Weak creative. Retargeting with the same generic banner for months guarantees declining performance.
- Forgetting mobile optimization. Over 60% of retargeting impressions are served on mobile devices.
- Not aligning landing pages. If your ad shows a specific product, the click must land on that product page — not your homepage.
- Neglecting attribution. Last-click attribution undervalues retargeting’s role. Use data-driven or multi-touch attribution models.
A Real-World Example: E-Commerce Cart Recovery
Consider a mid-sized fashion e-commerce store running PrestaShop with the following baseline metrics:
- Monthly visitors: 150,000
- Cart abandonment rate: 72%
- Average order value: €85
- Monthly abandoned carts: ~8,640 (based on 12,000 add-to-carts)
By implementing a coordinated retargeting + email remarketing strategy:
- Email remarketing recovers 5% of abandoned carts = 432 orders × €85 = €36,720/month
- Ad retargeting recovers an additional 3% = 259 orders × €85 = €22,015/month
- Combined ad spend + email platform cost: ~€4,500/month
- Net recovered revenue: ~€54,235/month
- ROAS: 12:1
These are realistic, achievable numbers — not theoretical maximums. The key is proper implementation, segmentation, and continuous optimization.
Conclusion: Stop Losing Visitors You Already Paid For
Every visitor who leaves your website without converting represents a sunk cost — you already paid to acquire them through SEO, ads, or content marketing. Remarketing and retargeting allow you to recoup that investment by staying visible to people who have already expressed interest in your brand.
The formula is straightforward:
- Install proper tracking (pixels, server-side APIs, email capture).
- Segment your audiences based on behavior and intent.
- Craft sequential, personalized messaging that respects the buyer journey.
- Coordinate across channels — ads and email working together.
- Measure, test, and optimize relentlessly.
The businesses that master this process don’t just recover lost visitors — they build a compounding advantage over competitors who treat every website visit as a one-shot opportunity.
At Lueur Externe, our team has been helping businesses across the Alpes-Maritimes and beyond implement high-performance retargeting strategies since 2003. Whether you run a PrestaShop store, a WordPress site, or a custom web application, we can audit your current setup, identify missed opportunities, and build a remarketing engine that turns lost visitors into loyal customers.
Get in touch with Lueur Externe today for a free retargeting audit and start recovering the revenue you are leaving on the table.