The Australian market has really embraced digital advertising, says retargeting platform AdRoll. Unlike the US and the UK, digital advertising now attracts a larger ad spend than TV. Digital programmatic buying and big data prompted a marketing shift from analog guess-and-test programs to highly targeted real-time programmatic campaigns.
This shift has forced marketers to become more like analysts, using technology to react to always-on consumers in real time. It’s only natural that they’ve begun to demand tools that support their vision for a full-funnel, multi-platform, data-driven marketing strategy.
Retargeting allowed marketers to leverage first-party data to directly target the most promising individual consumers. It introduced a simple, practical way to put programmatic ambitions and valuable customer intent data into action and drove clearly measurable ROI. Today, programmatic buying techniques represent 60–70% of all display related ad spend in Australia.
But are Australian marketers truly embracing retargeting? Is it just a cheap conversion tactic or an important part of a full-funnel marketing strategy? Are marketers investing time and resources into retargeting?
To find out, we partnered with independent research firm Qualtrics to survey a diverse group of 200 professional marketers in Australia across a variety of industries and examined AdRoll retargeting campaign data.
Key findings:
Expanding the definition of retargeting
- Retargeting doesn’t just drive sales. 71% of marketers use retargeting for brand awareness and 55% for customer retention.
- The number one marketing objective of retargeting is brand awareness (71%), followed by driving sales (60%) and customer retention (55%).
- Total conversions came in as the #1 campaign success metric among Australian marketers. Insights into customer behaviour was a close second.
Increasing investment & performance
- 41% of marketers spend 10–25% of their entire online ad budget on retargeting.
- 69% of marketers intend to increase their retargeting budgets over the next 12 months.
- 74% of marketers claim retargeting campaigns increase online conversions—55% have seen an increase in mobile conversions.
- 93% of marketers claim retargeting performs equal to or better than other display, 90% equal to or better than email, and 88% equal to or better than search.
Catching up to consumers
- One in every two marketers is retargeting on mobile—rapid adoption driven by unparalleled cross-device performance.
- For both B2B and B2C, one in two marketers say social media is the single hottest topic in retargeting. Mobile and cross-device retargeting comes in at #2.
Addressing the attribution gap
- 90% of marketers consider attribution important or critical to success.
- Understanding the customer is the number one reason why marketers believe attribution matters.
- 47% of marketers think viewability tracking is the future of attribution.
