One of the most nagging worries that digital marketers struggle with is how to make every ad impression count. But in getting to the bottom of the digital advertising quagmire, one must first understand the truth about retargeting, how to use it properly, when it is misused, how it can inflate costs in the current media environment, and how it can compromise the value of digital ads to the detriment of many brands.

A retargeting overview provided by Nathan Woodman, COO for adnetik, started with the simple fact that retargeting happens without our knowledge most of the time. A user visits an advertiser web page where pixels place a cookie on the user's browser. From that point, the media provider can find users with that cookie, and ads placed on content to pixeled users drive them back to the site.

• The most prevalent form of behavioral marketing is retargeting.
• Your attribution methodology makes retargeting the most valuable optimization signal in digital media.
• Multiple retargeting providers inflate your costs in the current media environment.

According to Woodman, improperly used retargeting tactics often steal credit from effective marketing. In essence, it is stealing credit from other advertisers, Woodman said, and it can't be treated like other tactics in a digital advertising campaign. However, 14 of the Fortune 25 are using some form of retargeting, and there are ways, when combined with other strategies, to make it work properly and effectively.

Enter adnetik, an independent digital media trading desk and targeting partner with a proven record of optimizing display and video advertising to more effectively plan, purchase, measure, and deliver digital media. Adnetik goes beyond DSP platforms to provide real-time bidding and targeting capabilities to maximize client campaigns and focus on:

• Brand protection
• Intelligent buying
• True transparency

Additionally, adnetik's Audience Investment Management (AIM) platform provides precise real-time targeting and bidding techniques that avoid personally identifiable information and adhere to privacy standards. AIM provides:

• Behavioral targeting to match ads according to actual online user behavior
• Demographic targeting based on age, gender, and income obtained from site registration or by inference
• Geographic targeting by ZIP code, area code, market state, or country
• Look-alike segmentation that identifies consumers with similar, productive profiles
• Retargeting to find high-value consumers, wherever they are on the web
• Social proximity to expand reach through social influence

Woodman concluded by saying:

• Retargeting tactics are an extremely strong signal.
• Retargeting tactics steal credit from non-retargeting tactics.
• Alternate forms of targeting drive users into the retargeting line items and need to be measured in separation from retargeting.

Gretchen Hyman is editor-in-chief of iMedia Connection.