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By Agency Long
How to Tell If Your Retargeting Ads Are Actually Working (Or Just Annoying People) You know that feeling when you visit a website once and suddenly their a...
You know that feeling when you visit a website once and suddenly their ads follow you everywhere for the next three weeks? Your retargeting might be doing the same thing to your customers.
Most boutique owners set up retargeting ads the wrong way. They blast everyone who visited their site with the same generic "Come back!" message, then wonder why people aren't buying.
Here's how to tell if your retargeting is actually nurturing potential customers or just burning money while annoying people.
Log into your Ads Manager and look at the frequency number on your retargeting campaigns. Frequency tells you how many times the average person has seen your ad.
If your frequency is above 4, you've crossed from helpful reminder into annoyance territory. People start hiding your ads, which tells Meta's algorithm to stop showing your content to similar people. This hurts all your campaigns, not just retargeting.
The sweet spot for retargeting frequency is 2-3. High enough that people remember you, low enough that you're not stalking them.
Many boutique owners retarget anyone who visited their website. That's like sending a follow-up email to everyone who walked past your store window.
Better retargeting targets people who showed real interest:
Skip retargeting people who only hit your homepage or bounced in 10 seconds. They weren't that interested to begin with.
Your retargeting ad should acknowledge what they already know about you. If someone was looking at dresses on your site, don't retarget them with a generic "Shop our collection" ad showing random products.
Show them the dress they were considering, or similar styles. Reference the fact that they were already interested: "Still thinking about this one?" or "Complete the look you started."
When your retargeting message connects to their original interest, people feel understood rather than randomly targeted.
Don't wait a week to retarget someone who added items to their cart. Their excitement has cooled off by then.
Start retargeting add-to-cart people within 24 hours. For product viewers, you have about 3 days before they forget why they cared.
But also don't retarget immediately. If someone just left your site 20 minutes ago, seeing your ad right away feels creepy. Give them at least a few hours.
Always exclude people who already purchased from your retargeting campaigns. Nothing kills trust faster than asking someone to buy something they already bought from you last week.
Set up your retargeting to automatically exclude customers from the past 30 days. If they bought once recently, focus on getting them to come back for their next purchase, not pushing the same products.
If you're spending more than 20% of your total ad budget on retargeting, you're probably overdoing it. Retargeting works best as a support system for your main campaigns, not as your primary strategy.
For most boutiques:
The bulk of your budget should go toward finding new customers, not repeatedly asking the same people to buy.
Try this: Ask a few friends to visit your website and browse around (but not buy anything). Then have them report back over the next week about how often they see your ads and whether the messages make sense.
You'll quickly learn if your retargeting feels helpful or pushy from the customer's perspective.
Good retargeting doesn't just remind people you exist. It gives them a reason to act now that they didn't have before.
Maybe you're featuring the product they viewed in a new styling video. Maybe you're letting them know that their size is running low. Maybe you're showing them how other customers are wearing the pieces they were considering.
The best retargeting ads feel like updates from a friend, not desperate sales pitches from a stranger.
Your retargeting should make people think "Oh good, I'm glad they reminded me about that" - not "Ugh, them again."
If your current retargeting campaigns feel more like the second response, it's time to pull back the frequency, tighten up your targeting, and give people space to actually miss you a little bit.