Blog post
Unlocking the power of impression-based remarketing
It is a crowded and saturated advertising landscape, so finding the right audience and delivering the right message at exactly the right time is more important than ever before. In fact, studies indicate that a consumer typically needs to see an advertisement 7-8 times1 to achieve a meaningful impact. Advertisers need to consider not only the message, but also the frequency and sequencing of their ads to meet their marketing objectives.
Introducing impression-based remarketing: Control at every stage of the funnel
Microsoft Advertising’s impression-based remarketing provides a solution to reach and engage audiences across the entire marketing funnel—from awareness to conversion.
Impression-based remarketing empowers advertisers to design a complete campaign strategy focused on ad exposure, incorporating valuable insights to enhance their marketing approach. In addition to traditional remarketing, which allows you to target users once they have clicked on your ad and landed on your site, impression-based remarketing allows you to target users based on ad exposure. This means that you can reach people who saw your ad, and did not make it to your site. This approach ensures that ads seen across different channels—search, native, display, video, and CTV—are connected and relevant at every stage of the funnel. Advertisers can use sequential messaging to tell a cohesive brand story, increasing performance with high-value audiences.
With impression-based remarketing, you can:
- Control your budgets: reallocate budget across channels to keep your message in front of consumers as they move down the funnel.
- Target with precision: target users based on previous ad exposure, ensuring the next message is tailored in the decision journey.
- Align your creatives: drive creative consistency across the journey to deliver a seamless ad experience.
From awareness to conversion: Navigate the complex consumer journey with greater controls
Today's consumers follow a more complex path to purchase than ever before. They can learn about products, compare prices, read reviews, and transact seamlessly across devices and services almost instantly.
Impression-based remarketing allows advertisers to keep their message in front of customers throughout their entire decision process. Whether they’re actively searching for products in your category or casually browsing, you can retarget them with relevant content and reach them with similar messaging at various touchpoints.
Example: Let’s say you’re a flower company, Contoso Flowers, targeting people who are in market for gifts and occasions
- Olivia is searching on Bing for a gift that she can get for her husband for their fifth wedding anniversary.
- She sees many ads including one for Contoso Flowers, but clicks on a different ad.
- Olivia is placed in your impression-based remarketing list.
- The next day, Olivia visits MSN and sees your ad, driving further brand awareness and keeping Contoso flowers top of mind.
- Later, as she is checking her emails on Outlook, she sees a display ad, she clicks on the ad and lands on your site.
- Olivia chooses your company, Contoso Flowers, to surprise her husband with an anniversary gift.
This seamless experience across channels solidifies the product and drives action. You could also reverse this strategy by creating a list of individuals exposed to your native, display, video, or CTV ads and bidding higher for those users on your search campaigns.
Exposure to ads drives lift
Our research shows that users exposed to both Search ads and Audience ads are significantly more likely to take action, leading to better performance for you.
When compared to just exposure to Search ads, exposure across formats leads to: 3x increase in site visitation rate and 7x increase in conversion rate.
With such a significant positive effect on site visitation and conversion, implementing a strategy focused on ad exposure across channels ensures campaigns are not only impactful but also efficient, driving both awareness and conversion.
A clear path to better outcomes
Impression-based remarketing offers a powerful solution for streamlining consumer journeys, boosting ad engagement, and delivering consistent brand messaging. By increasing ad recall, enhancing consumer interaction, and driving performance, advertisers can effectively guide every stage of the customer journey—from building brand awareness to achieving conversions and fostering ongoing relationships.
Get started with impression-based remarketing to meet your goals and grow your brand today.
[1] Microsoft Internal Data, July 2023. Rounded to nearest whole number. Results may vary for each advertiser based on campaign settings, targeted audiences, and other factors. Lift metrics represent an average of all advertisers with completed lift studies to date (Nov. 2021). These advertisers may be a non-representative sample of all advertisers on the marketplace. Lift measured between exposed users and a control group of eligible unexposed users, with lift represented on a per-user basis. Average user count per advertiser study = 1.6M.
