Retargeting

Retargeting (also called remarketing) is the practice of serving paid ads to people who have already shown some level of intent with your brand — typically by visiting your website, viewing a product page, adding to cart, or engaging with your social content.

Because these users are already familiar with your brand, retargeting campaigns typically achieve dramatically higher conversion rates and ROAS than prospecting campaigns targeting cold audiences.

How Retargeting Works on Meta

Meta retargeting relies on:

1. The Meta Pixel (or Conversions API) — a tracking script on your website that fires events when users take actions: PageView, ViewContent, AddToCart, InitiateCheckout, Purchase.
2. Custom Audiences — audience segments built from Pixel event data. You create an audience of “people who viewed product pages in the last 30 days but did not purchase.”
3. The ad — often a Dynamic Product Ad (DPA) showing the exact products the user viewed, but can also be a static creative.

Retargeting Funnel Segments

Effective retargeting treats different intent signals as distinct audiences with different messaging:

Audience	Intent level	Typical message
All site visitors (30 days)	Low	Brand awareness, hero product
Product page viewers (14 days)	Medium	Specific product, social proof
Add-to-cart (7 days)	High	Product + urgency or free shipping
Checkout abandoners (3 days)	Very high	Cart recovery, offer
Past purchasers	Post-purchase	Cross-sell, upsell, reorder

The Shrinking Retargeting Pool

iOS 14+ privacy changes (2021) significantly reduced Meta’s ability to track web visitors. Brands that relied on large retargeting audiences saw pool sizes shrink by 40–70%. This accelerated the shift toward prospecting-first strategies — Advantage+ campaigns, broad targeting — and made Conversions API (CAPI) integration essential for recovering signal quality.

Retargeting remains valuable, but in 2026 it’s typically a smaller portion of a D2C brand’s Meta spend than it was in 2019–2020.

Retargeting vs. Prospecting Budget Allocation

A common starting allocation for a D2C brand:

• 70–80% prospecting (finding new customers)
• 20–30% retargeting (closing warm audiences)

Brands that over-index on retargeting see diminishing returns quickly — the pool is finite and you’re recycling the same warm audience.