Guides / Paid
Retargeting without following people around for six months
The shopper who looked at one Tucson in March should not still be seeing it in July. Three settings fix it.
There is a version of retargeting every shopper has experienced. You looked at one Tucson in March. It is now July. That Tucson is still following you through every weather app you open.
That is not a campaign. That is a leak.
Why it happens
Nobody sets an exit condition. The audience is "visited a vehicle page", the window is 180 days because that was the default, and there is no rule that removes a person once they buy — from you or from anybody else. So the spend keeps running against people who are finished shopping, and the store's name gets attached to mild irritation.
The three settings that fix it
- Window — 30 days for people who viewed a specific vehicle, 14 for people who only hit a listing page. Car shopping cycles are shorter than the default assumes, and a 90-day-old view is not intent, it is history.
- Frequency cap — three impressions per person per day, ten per week. Above that you are not reminding anyone. You are testing their patience.
- Exit conditions — remove anyone who submitted a lead, booked service, or matches a sold record. Most stores can push a sold list back as a customer match audience. Almost none do.
A shopper who bought from you three weeks ago should not be seeing your conquest ad. That ad is telling them you don't know who they are.
What to actually show them
Not the brand video. Not the tent event. Retargeting works when it shows the vehicle they looked at, the price, and one reason to come back — a payment, a trade offer, or a specific unit that just landed and is close to what they viewed.
If the inventory feed is stale, retargeting will faithfully advertise a car you sold last week. Check that the feed updates daily. That one check resolves more retargeting complaints than any bid adjustment.
What to measure
View-through conversions will make retargeting look magnificent. Ignore them — they credit the campaign for people who never clicked. Look at click-through appointments, and look at the frequency report. If average weekly frequency is above ten, you are paying to be resented.