Most website visitors leave without buying. Retargeting ads bring them back. Instead of spending your entire ad budget chasing strangers, retargeting focuses on people who already know your brand — the visitors who browsed your store, viewed a product, or abandoned their cart.
The result: retargeting ads consistently outperform prospecting campaigns in click-through rate, conversion rate, and return on ad spend. Shopify brands using retargeting typically see 3–5× higher ROAS compared to cold audience campaigns targeting people who have never heard of them.
Quick answer: Retargeting ads are paid advertisements shown to people who have previously visited your website or interacted with your brand. They use tracking pixels or customer lists to re-engage warm audiences and convert them into buyers.
What Are Retargeting Ads?
Retargeting (also called remarketing) is an advertising strategy that targets users who have already engaged with your brand — by visiting your website, viewing a product, adding something to their cart, or interacting with your social media content.
Unlike prospecting campaigns — which target cold audiences who have never heard of you — retargeting campaigns focus on warm audiences. These users have already shown interest in your products. They just need a nudge to come back and complete the purchase.
Retargeting works across multiple ad platforms:
- Meta (Facebook and Instagram) — via the Meta Pixel or Conversions API
- Google Ads — via Google's remarketing tag or Google Analytics audiences
- TikTok Ads — via the TikTok Pixel
- Pinterest Ads — via the Pinterest Tag
- Display Networks — via programmatic retargeting across millions of websites
How Do Retargeting Ads Work?
The mechanics of retargeting are built on three core components: a tracking tag, an audience, and an ad.
Step 1: Install a Tracking Pixel
A tracking pixel is a small snippet of JavaScript code installed on your website. When a visitor lands on your site, the pixel fires and records that visit — associating the visitor with a browser cookie or device ID. For Meta ads, this is the Meta Pixel. For Google Ads, it's the Google Ads Remarketing Tag.
Step 2: Build a Retargeting Audience
Once the pixel is collecting data, you create audience segments based on visitor behavior:
- All website visitors in the last 30 days
- People who viewed a specific product page
- People who added to cart but didn't purchase
- People who initiated checkout but didn't complete it
- Past purchasers (for repeat purchase or upsell campaigns)
Step 3: Run Ads to That Audience
You create ad campaigns targeting these specific audience segments. The ads can be static images, video ads, carousel ads, or dynamic ads that automatically show the exact products a visitor viewed. The platform serves these ads when audience members use it — whether scrolling Instagram, watching YouTube, or reading an article elsewhere online.
Types of Retargeting Ads
1. Pixel-Based Retargeting
The most common type. A tracking pixel on your website automatically adds visitors to retargeting audiences based on the pages they view. No manual data upload required — it works continuously and in real time.
2. List-Based Retargeting
You upload a list of customer email addresses to an ad platform, which matches them to user accounts. This lets you target existing customers with re-engagement or upsell campaigns even if they haven't visited your site recently. Available on Meta (Custom Audiences) and Google (Customer Match).
3. Dynamic Retargeting
Dynamic retargeting automatically shows each individual visitor the exact products they viewed on your site. The ad creative is generated in real time using your product catalogue feed. If someone browsed a blue running shoe, they'll see an ad for that specific shoe — not a generic brand ad. Available on Meta (Dynamic Ads) and Google (Dynamic Remarketing).
4. Engagement Retargeting
Targets people who engaged with your social media content — liked a post, watched a video, or followed your page — without visiting your website. Particularly powerful on Meta, where you can retarget anyone who watched 50% or more of a video ad.
Retargeting on Facebook and Instagram (Meta)
Meta's retargeting capabilities are the most advanced available to eCommerce brands. Using the Meta Pixel and the Conversions API, you can build highly granular audiences based on specific events on your Shopify store.
Key Meta retargeting audience types:
- Website Custom Audiences — people who visited specific URLs within 1–180 days
- Add to Cart audiences — people who fired the AddToCart event but not Purchase
- Initiate Checkout audiences — people who got to checkout but didn't complete it (highest purchase intent)
- Video Viewers — people who watched your Facebook or Instagram videos
- Instagram Profile Engagers — people who interacted with your Instagram profile
- Customer List audiences — existing customers uploaded as email lists
For a detailed guide on Meta retargeting for Shopify, see our Facebook Dynamic Ads guide.
Retargeting on Google Ads
Google offers retargeting across its entire network — Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, and Shopping — referring to it as "Remarketing."
- Standard Remarketing — display banner ads to past visitors across Google's Display Network
- Dynamic Remarketing — ads showing specific products visitors viewed, from your Google Merchant Centre feed
- RLSA (Remarketing Lists for Search Ads) — bid higher on Search for users who have previously visited your site
- YouTube Remarketing — video ads on YouTube to people who visited your website
- Customer Match — target existing customers via email lists on Google Search and Gmail
Retargeting vs Prospecting: What's the Difference?
Retargeting and prospecting are complementary strategies. Most successful eCommerce ad strategies use both.
- Prospecting targets people who have never interacted with your brand. Goal: awareness and first visits. Uses interest targeting, Lookalike Audiences, or broad segments.
- Retargeting targets people who already know you. Goal: convert warm traffic. Uses pixel data, customer lists, and engagement audiences.
A common rule of thumb: allocate 70–80% of ad budget to prospecting and 20–30% to retargeting. As your retargeting audiences grow, this ratio can shift further toward retargeting.
What Makes a Good Retargeting Ad?
- Frequency capping — limit to 3–7 impressions per person per week to avoid ad fatigue
- Segment by intent — cart abandoners deserve a different message than homepage visitors
- Address objections — use retargeting to tackle hesitations: free returns, fast shipping, reviews
- Use dynamic creatives — showing the exact product someone viewed dramatically improves relevance
- Exclude purchasers — always exclude people who have already bought to avoid wasting budget
How Much Do Retargeting Ads Cost?
Retargeting ads are typically cheaper per click than prospecting ads because audiences are smaller and more targeted. On Meta, retargeting CPMs range from $5–$25 depending on audience size and competition. On Google Display, CPCs typically range from $0.50–$3.00 for eCommerce brands.
In terms of ROAS, retargeting campaigns typically achieve 400–800% for Shopify stores with sufficient traffic. High-performing stores with well-segmented audiences regularly exceed 1,000% ROAS on cart abandonment retargeting specifically.
Frequently Asked Questions About Retargeting Ads
What is the difference between retargeting and remarketing?
The terms are used interchangeably. "Retargeting" is more common in the context of Meta and social ads; "remarketing" is Google's preferred term. Functionally they describe the same strategy: advertising to people who have previously engaged with your brand.
How big does my audience need to be to run retargeting ads?
Meta requires a minimum of 100 people in a Custom Audience. Google requires at least 1,000 users for Display remarketing. For practical performance, you want at least 500–1,000 people before drawing conclusions. Stores with fewer than 1,000 monthly visitors may find retargeting audiences too small to be cost-efficient.
Does retargeting work after iOS 14?
Yes, but with reduced precision. Apple's App Tracking Transparency means many iPhone users block cross-app tracking, limiting Meta's pixel data. Meta estimates browser-based pixel tracking now misses 20–30% of iOS conversion events. Using the Conversions API alongside the pixel helps recover some of this lost signal.
Should I offer discounts in retargeting ads?
Not always. Discounts can train customers to wait for a lower price. Start with ads that use social proof or address objections. Reserve discounts for cart abandoners who haven't converted after 7–14 days of standard retargeting — these are genuinely price-sensitive prospects who need an extra incentive.
What is the average ROAS for retargeting ads?
Industry benchmarks for eCommerce retargeting ROAS range from 400–800% on Meta and 300–600% on Google Display. Adwisely clients report an average ROAS of 600% across Meta and Google retargeting campaigns combined.
Ready to automate your retargeting? Adwisely sets up and manages Meta and Google retargeting for Shopify stores in under 10 minutes. Learn more about Adwisely Retargeting.
Retargeting Ads for Shopify Stores
Shopify merchants have access to several retargeting-specific advantages that most platforms don't offer by default.
Shopify's Web Pixel API and server-side event tracking. The Facebook & Instagram Sales Channel app on Shopify implements dual-tracking: browser-based pixel events AND server-side Conversions API (CAPI) events sent directly from Shopify's servers. This means that when a customer completes a purchase on your Shopify store, the event is recorded both in the browser and server-side — recovering signal that would otherwise be lost due to iOS 14 privacy changes, ad blockers, or browser restrictions. Better purchase signal quality means higher-quality retargeting audiences and more accurate ROAS reporting.
Shopify Audiences for lookalike-powered retargeting. Available to Shopify Advanced and Plus merchants, Shopify Audiences creates high-intent customer lists powered by aggregated, opt-in purchase signals from across Shopify's merchant network. You can export these audiences directly to Meta, Google, Pinterest, TikTok, or Criteo and use them as the seed for retargeting-style prospecting campaigns. Because the underlying data comes from verified purchase behavior across millions of Shopify transactions — not just your own pixel data — the resulting audiences tend to outperform standard interest-based or even self-built lookalike audiences for cold prospecting.
Automating Shopify retargeting with Adwisely. Setting up and optimizing retargeting campaigns manually across Meta and Google requires constant attention — updating audiences, refreshing creatives, adjusting bids as your catalog changes. Adwisely automates this entire workflow for Shopify merchants: it connects to your Shopify product catalog, builds and updates retargeting audiences automatically, and continuously optimizes bids toward your target ROAS — without requiring manual campaign management.