97% of Your Website Visitors Leave Without Buying. Here's How to Get Them Back.
Let me hit you with a number that honestly still messes with my head every time I think about it.
Ninety-seven percent. That's the average percentage of first-time website visitors who leave without buying, signing up, or doing basically anything you wanted them to do.
You spent money to get them there. You spent time building a page. You put together an offer. And 97 out of every 100 people just... bounced.
For a long time, I thought that was just how it worked. Traffic goes in, most of it walks out, you make peace with it and focus on the 3% who convert. That's what the funnel looks like, right?
Then I got serious about remarketing and retargeting — and I realized that those 97% aren't gone. They're still out there. They visited your site, which means they were curious enough to show up. That curiosity doesn't just evaporate the second they close your tab. They're browsing other sites, scrolling through social media, watching YouTube videos — and with the right setup, your brand can follow them there and bring them back.
This guide is everything I know about remarketing and retargeting after years of running campaigns across e-commerce, B2B, and service businesses. No fluff. No theory-only stuff. Just what actually works.
Wait — Remarketing and Retargeting Aren't the Same Thing?
People use these words interchangeably constantly, and it drives me a little crazy. They're related, but they're not identical. Here's the distinction that actually matters:
Retargeting is specifically about showing online ads to people based on their previous behavior — usually a pixel placed on your website that tracks visitors and lets you serve them ads as they browse other parts of the internet. It's a paid advertising tactic.
Remarketing is the broader concept. It encompasses retargeting, but it also includes email follow-up sequences, SMS reminders, push notifications, and any other method you use to re-engage someone who's already interacted with your brand.
So technically: all retargeting is remarketing, but not all remarketing is retargeting. When I run a 5-email abandoned cart sequence on Klaviyo, that's remarketing. When I serve display ads to someone who visited a product page and didn't buy, that's retargeting.
In practice, most people mean retargeting when they say remarketing — and in this guide, I'll cover both because you really should be using both.
Why Remarketing Campaigns Hit Different
The conversion rate difference between cold traffic and remarketed audiences is not subtle. It's dramatic.
"Retargeted visitors are 43% more likely to convert than cold audiences. And they cost a fraction of the price to reach." — WordStream, 2024
Here's the psychology behind why this works so well:
When someone visits your website for the first time, they're usually not ready to buy. They're researching. Comparing options. Getting a feel for things. The fact that they didn't convert on visit one doesn't mean they're not interested — it means they need more time and more touchpoints.
The old marketing principle that someone needs to see your brand 7 times before making a decision? That number is higher now, not lower. People are bombarded with more messages than ever. Getting back in front of them with targeted, relevant messaging is how you earn that trust over time.
And remarketing lets you do that at a cost that's almost always lower than cold acquisition — because you're not fishing in the ocean, you're fishing in a tank where everyone already knows what you look like.
The Two Main Types of Retargeting: Pixel vs. List
Pixel-Based Retargeting
This is the most common type and what most people picture when they hear "retargeting." Here's how it works:
- You install a tracking pixel (a small snippet of JavaScript code) on your website — from Google, Meta, or whichever platform you're using
- When someone visits your site, the pixel drops a cookie in their browser
- As that person browses other websites, your platform recognizes the cookie and serves them your ads
The beauty of pixel-based retargeting is that it's automatic and anonymous — you don't need to know anything about the person. As long as they visited your site, they're in the audience. And you can segment that audience based on which pages they visited, how long they stayed, whether they added something to their cart, and so on.
Key advantage: Works on anyone who visits your site, regardless of whether they gave you any contact information
Key limitation: Depends on cookies, which are increasingly being blocked or limited by browsers and privacy regulations
List-Based Retargeting
With list-based retargeting, you upload a customer list (usually email addresses or phone numbers) to a platform like Google Ads, Meta, or LinkedIn, and they match those contacts to their users. Then you can serve ads specifically to those people.
This is powerful for reaching existing customers, warm leads who opted into something but never bought, or past buyers you want to upsell. The match rates aren't 100% — typically somewhere between 40–70% of your list will match — but even a partial match can be incredibly valuable depending on the size and quality of your list.
Key advantage: First-party data, no cookie dependency, works with people you have actual relationships with
Key limitation: Requires you to have contact information in the first place
Where You Can Run Retargeting Campaigns (Platform Breakdown)
Google Ads Remarketing
Google's remarketing reaches people across the Google Display Network — over 2 million websites, apps, and videos — as well as directly on YouTube and in Google Search results (through RLSA, which I'll get to in a minute). If your audience uses the internet, Google remarketing can reach them almost anywhere they go.
The key features worth knowing:
- Standard Display Remarketing: Show banner ads to past visitors as they browse websites on the Google Display Network
- YouTube Remarketing: Serve video ads to people who visited your site (or your YouTube channel) while they're watching videos on YouTube
- RLSA (Remarketing Lists for Search Ads): This one is underused and incredibly powerful — it lets you adjust your bids for people who have already visited your site and are now doing a Google search. You can bid higher for someone who added to cart but didn't buy, and show them a slightly different ad with a special offer
- Customer Match: Upload your email list and show ads to those people across Google Search, YouTube, and Gmail
Meta Ads (Facebook & Instagram)
Meta's retargeting is built around the Meta Pixel (formerly Facebook Pixel) and their Custom Audiences feature. You can create audiences of:
- Website visitors (all visitors, or segmented by page/action)
- Video viewers (people who watched X% of a specific video)
- Instagram and Facebook engagers (people who liked, commented, or saved your posts)
- Customer list uploads
- App activity
One of the most useful things Meta does is Lookalike Audiences — you take a remarketing list (say, your past purchasers) and Meta finds new people who look statistically similar. That's technically a prospecting tactic, but it's powered by your remarketing data, which makes it much smarter than cold targeting.
LinkedIn Retargeting
If you're doing B2B marketing, LinkedIn's Matched Audiences feature is worth taking seriously. You can retarget website visitors, upload contact lists, and even target people from specific companies who visited your site. The CPCs are significantly higher than Google or Meta, but the audience quality for B2B is hard to match anywhere else.
Microsoft Advertising (Bing)
Often overlooked, but if you're running Google remarketing, it takes maybe 30 minutes to set up the same campaigns in Microsoft Ads. The audience is smaller but frequently less competitive — especially for B2B and older demographics. I've seen lower CPCs and comparable conversion rates in several niches.
| Platform | Best For | Avg. CPM | Cookie-Free Option? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Ads | Broad reach, search intent | $2–$5 | ✅ Customer Match |
| Meta Ads | E-commerce, B2C, social | $7–$14 | ✅ Custom Audiences |
| LinkedIn Ads | B2B, high-value leads | $30–$60 | ✅ Matched Audiences |
| Microsoft Ads | B2B, older demographics | $1–$3 | ✅ Customer Match |
The Remarketing Campaigns You Should Actually Be Running
Not all remarketing audiences are created equal. Here's how I prioritize them, from highest intent to lowest:
1. Cart Abandoners (Highest Priority)
These are your warmest leads. They added something to their cart and left. According to the Baymard Institute, the average cart abandonment rate sits around 70%. That's a massive amount of potential revenue just sitting there.
For these people, I run both email sequences and paid retargeting simultaneously:
- Email sequence: 3–5 emails over 7–10 days. First email within 1 hour of abandonment (straight reminder, no discount). Second email 24 hours later (social proof, address objections). Third email 72 hours later (small incentive if needed).
- Paid ads: Dynamic product ads showing exactly what they left in the cart. Run for 7–14 days with a frequency cap of 3–5 impressions per day.
This combination consistently delivers some of the highest ROAS of any campaign I run.
2. Product/Service Page Visitors Who Didn't Add to Cart
These people saw the thing but didn't reach cart. They might have been window shopping, or they had a question your page didn't answer, or they got distracted. Your job is to give them a reason to come back.
For this audience, I run ads focused on:
- Social proof (reviews, star ratings, testimonials)
- Answering the most common objections ("Free returns. No questions asked." or "Includes free setup and onboarding.")
- If it's a considered purchase, a case study or comparison guide
3. Blog Readers and Content Visitors
Someone read your article about X topic. They're clearly interested in that subject. Show them an ad for your product or service that's directly related to what they were reading about.
This audience is colder than cart abandoners, but they're self-qualified by the content they consumed. Someone reading a guide about color psychology in marketing is telling you something about what they care about. Use that signal.
4. Past Customers
Don't just focus on people who didn't buy — your existing customers are some of the most valuable people you can market to. The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60–70%, versus 5–20% for a new prospect (Marketing Metrics, 2024).
Use customer remarketing for:
- Upsells and cross-sells related to what they already bought
- Product launches and new arrivals (they already trust you)
- Subscription renewals and replenishment reminders
- Loyalty program enrollment
5. Lookalike / Similar Audiences
Once your remarketing lists are large enough (typically 1,000+ people), you can ask Google or Meta to find people who look like your best customers. This is technically prospecting, but it's remarketing-data-powered prospecting — which is a lot smarter than cold interest targeting.
Segmentation: The Difference Between Good and Great Remarketing
The biggest mistake I see in retargeting campaigns is treating all past visitors the same. Someone who spent 45 seconds on your homepage is not the same as someone who spent 8 minutes reading your pricing page, then started filling out your contact form but didn't submit it.
Both of those people show up in a basic "all website visitors" audience — but their intent levels are completely different. Showing them the same ad with the same message and the same offer is leaving serious money on the table.
Here's a practical segmentation framework I use:
| Audience Segment | Behavior Signal | Ad Approach | Window |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hot Leads | Cart/checkout abandon | Direct reminder + incentive | 0–7 days |
| Warm Leads | Pricing/product page visits | Social proof, FAQ, demo offer | 0–14 days |
| Content Readers | Blog/resource pages | Related lead magnet or soft CTA | 0–30 days |
| General Visitors | Homepage or <30 sec on site | Brand awareness, content piece | 0–60 days |
| Past Customers | Completed purchase | Upsell, cross-sell, restock | 30–180 days |
EXCLUDE your recent purchasers from your "didn't convert" campaigns. This sounds obvious but it's a surprisingly common mistake — and showing a 20% off ad to someone who just paid full price is a great way to generate a support ticket.
A Real Example: How a Remarketing Campaign Turned Around an E-Commerce Store
One of my clients runs a mid-size online store selling specialty coffee equipment. Their Google Search campaigns were performing decently — roughly $28 CPA — but they had almost no remarketing setup beyond a basic "all visitors" campaign running at a low budget.
Here's what we built out over 6 weeks:
- Segment 1: Cart abandoners — Dynamic product ads on Google Display + 3-email Klaviyo sequence
- Segment 2: Product page visitors (no cart) — Static image ads featuring top-rated products + customer review quotes
- Segment 3: Blog readers — Lead magnet ad offering a free "coffee brewing guide" PDF to capture email
- Segment 4: Past buyers (90 days) — Cross-sell ads pushing related accessories
| Metric | Before | After (60 days) |
|---|---|---|
| Blended CPA | $28 | $17 |
| Monthly Revenue (Paid) | $18,400 | $31,200 |
| Cart Recovery Rate | 4% | 19% |
| Email List Growth | ~80/mo | ~340/mo |
The total ad spend increase was less than $800/month. The revenue increase was nearly $13,000/month. That's what happens when you stop treating remarketing as an afterthought.
Email Remarketing: Don't Overlook the Channel You Actually Own
Paid retargeting is powerful. Email remarketing might be even more powerful — and it's one that most businesses are massively under-leveraging.
Here's the thing about email: you own that list. No algorithm can cut your reach. No platform can change their rules and suddenly make your audience disappear. That's why building your email list is something I talk about constantly — because it's the foundation that makes everything else work better.
The key email remarketing flows you should have running:
- Abandoned Cart Sequence (3–5 emails) — Already covered above. Highest ROI of any email flow, period.
- Browse Abandonment (2–3 emails) — Someone looked at a product multiple times but never added to cart. Softer approach, no pressure, just "hey, still thinking about this?"
- Win-Back Campaign — Customers who haven't bought in 90–180 days. Start with a "we miss you" angle, then move to an offer if they don't engage.
- Post-Purchase Follow-Up — Deliver a great experience, ask for a review, introduce related products. This is how you turn one-time buyers into repeat customers.
"Abandoned cart emails have an average open rate of 39% and a click rate of 23% — significantly higher than standard promotional emails." — Klaviyo Benchmark Report, 2024
The Privacy Shift: What's Changing and How to Adapt
There's a reality I can't skip over in a 2026 guide to remarketing: the cookie is dying, and the rules around tracking are tightening.
Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) and Safari's Intelligent Tracking Prevention have already significantly limited pixel-based retargeting on iOS devices. Google has been dragging their feet on phasing out third-party cookies in Chrome, but the direction of travel is clear — cookie-dependent targeting is going to become less reliable over time.
What does this mean for you practically? A few things:
- First-party data is everything now. Your email list, your SMS subscribers, your loyalty program members — these are the audiences that will keep working regardless of what browsers do. Invest in building them.
- Server-side tracking is worth setting up. Sending conversion data directly from your server to ad platforms (rather than relying on browser-based pixels) is more reliable and less affected by ad blockers and browser restrictions.
- Contextual targeting is making a comeback. Showing ads on websites that are relevant to your product — without relying on user tracking — is becoming a more valuable strategy again.
- Clean, verified contact lists matter more. If your email list is full of old, unengaged addresses, your Customer Match audiences are going to underperform. List hygiene is an investment, not a chore.
Tools for Running Better Remarketing Campaigns
- Google Ads — Set up your Google tag and remarketing lists here. Use the Audience Manager to segment and refine your lists. Start with RLSA and YouTube remarketing before going broad.
- Meta Pixel / Meta Business Suite — Install the Meta Pixel for Facebook and Instagram retargeting. Set up standard events (ViewContent, AddToCart, Purchase) to enable proper audience segmentation.
- Klaviyo — If you're running e-commerce, this is the gold standard for email remarketing flows. Pre-built abandoned cart, browse abandonment, and win-back sequences that you can customize.
- Mailchimp — Solid for smaller lists and simpler email remarketing needs. Good integration with e-commerce platforms.
- Google Analytics 4 — Essential for understanding user behavior on your site. GA4's audience builder lets you create sophisticated segments that can be pushed directly to Google Ads for remarketing.
- Hotjar — Heatmaps and session recordings that show you exactly where people drop off. Invaluable for figuring out why people are leaving and what you should be saying in your remarketing messaging.
Things That'll Quietly Kill Your Remarketing Performance
I've seen these kill campaigns that should have been working. Avoid them.
❌ Ad Fatigue From No Frequency Cap
Showing someone your ad 15 times in a week doesn't increase your chances of converting them. It increases their chances of actively disliking your brand. Set a frequency cap — I typically use 3–5 impressions per week for most retargeting campaigns and go lower (1–2/week) for long-duration campaigns.
❌ Running the Same Creative Forever
Ad creative gets stale fast, especially for audiences who see it repeatedly. Rotate your creatives every 2–4 weeks. Not a complete overhaul every time — sometimes changing the main image or updating the copy is enough to reset the engagement.
❌ Targeting Too Broad a Window
A 180-day remarketing window sounds like a great idea — more people, more opportunity. In practice, someone who visited your site six months ago and never came back probably isn't interested. Shorter windows (7–30 days) with higher bids tend to outperform longer windows for direct conversion campaigns.
❌ Not Excluding Converters
Keep your "didn't buy" audiences and your "already bought" audiences completely separate. If someone just became a customer, showing them a "Haven't bought yet? Here's 15% off" ad is at best confusing and at worst insulting.
❌ Matching Bad Landing Pages to Good Ads
Your remarketing ad can be perfect, and your offer can be compelling, but if clicking the ad sends someone to a generic homepage rather than the specific product or offer the ad was about — you've broken the experience. Match your ad message to your landing page message exactly. Every time.
Quick-Start Remarketing Checklist
| # | Task | Done? |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Install Google Tag and Meta Pixel on all pages | ☐ |
| 2 | Set up standard events (ViewContent, AddToCart, Purchase) | ☐ |
| 3 | Create segmented audience lists (hot / warm / cold / past buyer) | ☐ |
| 4 | Set up cart abandonment email sequence (3 emails minimum) | ☐ |
| 5 | Launch paid retargeting campaign for cart abandoners | ☐ |
| 6 | Set frequency caps on all retargeting campaigns | ☐ |
| 7 | Exclude recent purchasers from "didn't buy" campaigns | ☐ |
| 8 | Set up past customer upsell/cross-sell campaign | ☐ |
| 9 | Schedule creative refreshes every 3–4 weeks | ☐ |
| 10 | Review performance monthly and adjust audience windows | ☐ |
Wrap-Up: The 97% Are Still Out There
Every single day, people land on your website, feel some degree of interest in what you offer, and leave. That's just how buying works — it rarely happens in one visit. But the gap between the businesses that recover those visitors and the ones that just let them go is enormous, and it compounds over time.
Remarketing doesn't require a huge budget to start. A few hundred dollars a month — combined with solid email flows you're probably not even paying extra for — can transform your conversion economics completely.
The businesses that are winning right now aren't necessarily the ones spending the most on acquisition. They're the ones who are smartest about what happens after someone first shows up. They're the ones who understand that a visit isn't a rejection — it's an invitation to keep the conversation going.
If you've got questions about building out your first remarketing setup or want to troubleshoot a campaign that's not performing, drop a comment below. Happy to dig into specifics.
— Mohamed Host
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