So what is Remarketing?

Essentially it allows advertisers to identify users browsing on their site. This doesn’t sound that useful until you add the ability to directly advertise to these browsers through the content network after leaving said website. To put it in bricks and mortar High Street terms, imagine your local shoe store owner popping up at the bus stop with a big advert for his store all because you had earlier perused his offerings.

At first glance (and without testing) this appears to be an extremely useful tool. The search industry is well aware that consumers love to browse and research, mainly because we do it ourselves. This tool will allow marketers to stay connected to these potential customers and hopefully lure them back once ready to buy.

However Google aren’t the first to realise the benefits of tagging potential customers. Companies such as Criteo have been offering their Retargeting (sounds familiar) solution since 2005. Now it would appear their market share is about to be gobbled up by the juggernaut that is Google Inc.

At the moment it’s hard to directly compare the two solutions, as we haven’t been hands on with the Google offering. However, we would hope that it at least matches the ingenuity of the Criteo service. This gives the advertiser the ability to serve adverts of the actual products that a user was browsing, which is clearly an important feature. One thing’s for sure, Google’s Content Network, (purportedly the biggest in the world with more than 80% user reach) will definitely come in handy. After a good search I was unable to identify which network Criteo utilises (if not it’s own), however from experience as a consumer, it appears to have a good reach.

We’re definitely fans of Criteo’s offering after playing with the onsite demo, (especially the scrolling product list). We’re now itching to make a direct comparison. So once we’ve been set loose with Google’s new toy we’ll update you…