Overview

When creating retargeting campaigns, there are four main components to consider:  

• Audience Segmentation  
• QPS/Traffic  
• Campaign Setup  
• Measurement/Attribution  

Audience Segmentation

Align on Segmentation Strategy

How are you segmenting your users? Are you grouping them broadly or are they segmenting them based on the user's journey? Is there any messaging variance intended based on exposure or visitation behavior? Each of these questions should be considered when aligning on a pixel/audience strategy. 

• Recency: Retargeting lookbacks should be in alignment with the product purchase cycle. Beeswax has two primary features to help manage recency:  
  • Segment Recency: This allows you to target users based on how recently they were added into your segments.  
  • Segment TTL (Time-to-Live): Custom Segment Expiration (also known as Time-To-Live or TTL) allows customers to define the number of days users should remain within a given segment.  
• User Value: If users visiting certain pages or taking certain actions are more valuable than others, this should be reflected in your segmentation strategy.  
• User Journey: Segment out the user journey from homepage through order confirmation. This will enable you to amend your bidding & creative strategy for a user at each stage of the journey.  

Create Segments

The first step to building retargeting segments in Beeswax is to create the segment shells in the Beeswax UI.  

Populate Audience Data 

Once Segments are created in the UI, audience data can be populated via one or more of the below methods.  

• Segment Tags & Postbacks: It is important that Segment tags are optimized to their intended implementation environment.
  • Web Visitation/Ad Exposure: Beeswax supports four forms of web-based Segment Tags.   
    • For Site Visitation, it is recommended to use Multi-Sync tags to maximize exchange match rates and, in turn, reach against the retargeting audience(s).   
    • Segment tags can be configured to add the user to multiple segment keys. This can be done by specifying more than one segment_key parameter within the segment URL.   
    • Segment Tags can also be added as a pixel to your creatives, to build sequential targeting or exclusion audiences based on Ad Exposure  
• App/CTV Visitation/Ad Exposure: Beeswax Segment Tags can also be adapted to run in in-App or CTV environments via the addition of the additional parameters found here.   
  • Multi-Segment Tags and Ad Exposure Audiences can also be built for App/CTV, using the same methodologies outlined for Web tags.  
• Dynamic Segments via Segment Alternative ID: You can dynamically add a user to a given segment with a value from a website instead of installing a separate pixel for every possible segment.    
• Latency for Tag-Based Segments: Users captured by Site Tags and Postbacks will be associated with the segment within seconds of the visitation.  
• Event Tags: Similar to Segment Tags, Event Tags can also be used to populate Retargeting or Suppression Audiences.   
  • Event tags can be used in in-app environments as well, via Postbacks (though specific implementation may vary between attribution providers).  
• First Party Audience Uploads: For customers retargeting based on offline activity or who are unable to pixel their sites/creatives; Beeswax has integrated with Adobe, Salesforce DMP (fka Krux), Liveramp and Lotame. The integration allows customers to push first-party data segments directly into Beeswax.  
  • LiveRamp RampID: Beeswax is also integrated with LiveRamp RampID which can be used both for cookie-less audience onboarding as well as cross-device extension.   
  • Latency for DMP-Based Segments: Depending on the size of the queue at the time of the segment upload, a segment upload can take from a few minutes to a few hours before users are targetable.  
• Cross-Device: Cross-Device Amplification allows customers to leverage person-and household-level links during targeting to expand the available inventory and reach for a given first party segment. 

QPS/Traffic

 Follow these best practices when enabling QPS for retargeting campaigns.  

• Advanced Filtering: It is important that when you are running retargeting campaigns, you are utilizing RUF Filtering to ensure real-time traffic against your retargeting user segments.  
  • Segment Filtering may also be useful for exclusion of Suppression Audiences  
• Broad Scale: It is recommended that as few filters as possible (beyond the retargeting audiences) are applied at the QPS level. For retargeting campaigns, it is generally considered best practice to reach consumers as soon as possible wherever they may found be vs waiting for them to appear on specifically targeted inventory.  

Campaign Setup

While campaign setup may vary from use-case to use-case, it is recommended to take each of the following into consideration when trafficking a retargeting campaign.  

• Suppression Audiences: As RUF filtering will pass all users included in any first party segments, it is important for customers to consider their Suppression Audience strategy to apply at the QPS and Campaign levels. General best practices include:  
  • When multiple conversions are impossible or unlikely, exclude users who have already converted   
  • Exclude previously existing customers (regardless of campaign exposure or site visitation) if they are ineligible for re-conversion  
  • Exclude customers’ internal employees who visit the site for non-consumer reasons (most applicable for large organizations)  
• Segment Recency: Segment Recency targeting allows customers to target users based on how recently they were added into their segments.   
  • Recommendation: For many retargeting campaigns, the sooner a consumer can be reengaged the more likely they are to convert. Use Segment Recency Targeting in tandem with Bid Modifiers to bid up consumers who have most recently been added to a retargeting segment.  
• Bid Shading: Often customers may want to intentionally bid higher against their retargeting audiences than the expected fair value of the underlying inventory, to ensure they are winning at high rates against their most valuable consumers. As such, Bid Shading should be used with caution on retargeting campaigns.   
  • Recommendation: Either do not Bid Shade or use Beeswax’s “Less Aggressive” Bid Shading setting for Retargeting campaigns.  
• Frequency Capping: Take latency to conversion into consideration when analyzing frequency caps to ensure that you engage with the user through the expected conversion window.   
• Ad Sizes: What creative sizes does the customer have available? Do they cover the majority of the retargeting audience QPS with the creatives?  
• Sequential Messaging: Are audiences segmented in a way that would allow for messaging or bidding variance? If so, this should be taken into consideration during setup to break out line items accordingly.  
  • Recommendation: Utilize sequential messaging across multiple line items to engage users throughout the purchase funnel. E.g. “Last chance” for those who navigate away from the basket page compared to “hot new deals” to the homepage visitors  
• Device OS/Browser: Certain Device OS’s (e.g. iOS 14) or Browsers (e.g. Safari) may have a low prevalence of targetable UUID’s. If line items are broken out by OS or Browser, the percent of request with a UUID present should be taken into consideration when assigning budgets.  
  • Recommendation: Utilize Metamarkets, Reporting, or Logs to find the percent of request with a targetable ID present for each Browser or OS.  

Measurement & Attribution

• Site Pixels: A robust site pixel strategy will not only allow for more insightful audience segmentation, but will also provide closed-loop feedback on the consumer journey and help identify optimization opportunities.  
  • Recommendation: Best practice is to implement site pixels at least 30 days prior to campaign launch. The greater pixel granularity that can be implemented, the more powerful the feedback loop can be.  
• Attributed vs Non-Attributed Conversions: While a customer may want to map only Attributed Conversions for purposes of campaign performance tracking and optimization; it is still recommended to pass Beeswax all conversions for purposes such as creating Suppression Audiences and user-journey analysis.  
• Cross-Device: Beeswax does not currently support out-of-the-box cross-device attribution (though do plan on implementing in the future). If customers are running cross-device campaigns on Beeswax, they will want to ensure that they either ingest Beeswax Logs for in-house attribution analysis or utilize an outside attribution vendor to map cross-device conversions.