What Is Ad Retargeting? Video Ad Serving, Costs, and Setup

With catchy hooks (“Too shy shy, hush-hush, eye to eye”), 80's pop songs were everywhere, consistently reminding listeners to head to Sam Goody to pick up more ca-singles — proving that staying top-of-mind leads to successful outcomes. A retargeting ad campaign can help your brand in much the same fashion.

Compared to regular ads, retargeting campaigns help keep people interested, so your brand gets more sales, more people know about it, and more people remember it. Of all the ways to do retargeting, video ad serving helps people remember your brand the most and earns the most money for each view, so advertisers choose it when they want to do more than just remind people they are there.

This article helps you understand how retargeting works and decide if it is right for your marketing channel needs. Let's dive deeper into how retargeting works and why it's a must-have tactic in your marketing playbook. Like diving into the catalogs of Simple Minds or Pet Shop Boys to get into 80's rom-com pop, let's start with the required materials to understand the essence of retargeting ad campaigns.

What is Ad Retargeting? Retargeting Ads Definition

What is ad retargeting, exactly?

Ad retargeting is the practice of serving advertisements to users who have previously visited a specific site. Retargeting allows an advertiser to showcase their wares across the many sites a customer visits during a particular period. This allows the customer to continue learning about the advertiser's products, be offered an incentive to purchase, or simply evoke existing interest in certain goods or services.

What is a retargeting ad?

A retargeting ad is a paid placement shown specifically to users who have already interacted with your brand, visited a page, viewed a product, or abandoned a cart.

In 80's terms, this would be like hearing “The Power of Love” by Huey Lewis on the radio on your way to school, catching the video later on MTV, and then watching the song power Marty McFly to skitch on a garbage truck. (Sorry if we lost a few Zoomers there)

But would “The Power of Love” be as catchy as it was if you heard it on the radio only once? A resounding “no.” The product of any company is not an exception; see what usually happens in the commercial world:

How Do Retargeting Advertising Works? And What is a Retargeting Pixel?

Retargeting is a simple process, but can be daunting to tackle, as it's hidden behind some mighty-odd-sounding terms. Retargeted advertising works by connecting a tracking pixel on your site to a DSP, which then bids for ad placements wherever that user goes next.

The process of ad retargeting begins when a user visits a specific website that has added a retargeting pixel. This pixel is just a small piece of code designed to capture the viewing activity of everyone who visits a specific site.

Retargeting pixels are also filled with rich data on the user's session visit to the site and is designed to give programmatic advertising tools the info needed to serve relevant ads to that user. Programmatic retargeting automates the process: tracking tools are triggered, user groups are created, and ads are placed instantly, all without anyone having to do it manually. Outside of regular websites, social media platforms like Meta and LinkedIn let advertisers show retargeting ads right in users' feeds, often at a higher cost per view but reaching people who are more likely to be interested.

The next step in learning how retargeting works is to understand retargeting cookies.

I Want Candy...and Cookies! (Retargeting Ones)

Once a pixel is assigned to a specific user, it follows the user's behavior for a preset period of time. This crazy tech feat is accomplished by the pixel placing a piece of data onto the user's browser, known as a cookie. The reason for this fun moniker is the cookie's ability to follow the user through their web journey, leaving “crumbs” that regargeting display ads to the user from the original site that placed the pixel.

Keep in mind, there is also mobile ad retargeting. It tracks users across apps and mobile browsers using device IDs and information collected directly from users, making it work well even as cookie-based tracking becomes more limited on desktop. Mobile automated retargeting has become increasingly important as mobile now accounts for most web traffic. In-app audiences can be grouped by device type, operating system, location, and previous interactions.

So how does retargeting work? Let's check out an example:

As you start to view some sites on hip, techy ways to make a food item that's been around for hundreds of years, you see an Epom ad. It could be a rectangular banner ad retargeting for our solutions, a link in a video to our site, or even a text ad about our white label DSP. You'll notice, too, that you start seeing our serve ads more often as you visit other sites. This is the magic of retargeting!

Retargeting advertising is a standard line item for both brands and agencies. A majority of businesses will be using it actively to recover lost leads in 2026. Common retargeting ad examples include:

• a banner showing the exact product a user viewed;
• a video reminder of an abandoned cart;
• a native ad offering a limited-time discount to a returning visitor.

What Are The Benefits of Programmatic Retargeting?

At a very broad level, the main value proposition of retargeting is quite solid. As an advertiser, retargeting empowers you to consistently remind users (who are interested in your brand) to take action and re-engage — a subtle reminder like, “Hey, I'm still here.” However, the power of retargeting is impressive when we dive deeper into exactly how retargeting adds value through each step of the typical online sales cycle:

Cycle Step: First Visit

With an abundance of options for every product imaginable, it's a virtual “needle in a haystack.” 95% of website visitors do not convert on their first visit Marketing LTB, making it a near-universal challenge for advertisers.. Retargeting allows advertisers to begin the necessary work of bringing visitors back to their sites, with the added power of “top-of-mind” ad campaigns to increase conversions.

Cycle Step: Search

As visitors continue to see ads in retargeting placements, their interest in returning to the advertiser's site increases. This increase in purchase intent can be seen via increased site traffic and brand search from campaign placements. Retargeting has a massive effect on brand retargeting, as studies have shown that retargeting can boost search for brands by over 1,000%.

Cycle Step: Return to Site

As stated above, first-visit purchases, lead submissions, installs, or other online conversion targets are challenging for most advertisers. The good news is that retargeting's immersive effects keep visitors engaged with a brand longer and more often. Compared to traditional ads, retargeting campaigns bring a substantially higher amount of users back to the original site to complete a purchase. As we mentioned above, it increases the probability of completing an abandoned cart from 8% to 26%.

Cycle Step: Purchase

The cumulative effects of being served retargeting ads throughout a visitor's online journey have been shown to have a powerful impact on conversion. The repetition of seeing ads often on trusted sites and with incentives knocks down many of the conversion barriers. The average CTR of retargeted ads is 0.7%, compared to 0.07% for standard display ads, making retargeting ten times more effective at capturing user attention.

Based on Epom observations:

retargeting campaigns that rotate creatives every two to three weeks and use frequency caps of no more than 10 views per month perform significantly better than static, always-on placements.

RIP Cookies, Der Kommissar's in Town

As of 2026, third-party cookies are still enabled by default in Chrome, even though Google changed its plan to phase them out. Google will not add a new pop-up asking for permission to use third-party cookies, and Chrome users will keep managing their settings through the current Privacy and Security options. Still, the trend is clear: ad blockers, Safari's privacy tools, and stricter user privacy settings mean that using your own data is becoming a more dependable way to run retargeting ads.

Choosing the right ad retargeting platform depends on whether you need self-serve access, white-label control, or managed campaign support, the architecture of each determines your data ownership and pricing flexibility.

Therefore, retargeting efforts need to be utilized through solutions that offer more precise (and easy-to-use) targeting options. We're totally biased, but our white label DSP is packed with retargeting features to help advertisers continue to generate revenue from the smaller amounts of opt-in cookie users.

Video Ad Serving in Retargeting: Why It Outperforms Every Other Format

Video ad serving is the process of delivering video creatives to targeted users through a DSP or ad server, triggered by audience segments built from prior site behavior. In retargeting, it means a user who browsed your pricing page does not see a static banner, they see a short video ad that speaks directly to what they were considering.

There is a big difference in how well video and display retargeting work. According to Epom, video retargeting costs $14 to $17 per thousand views in North America and Western Europe, about three times as much as regular display ads. There is a reason for this higher price. That premium exists for a reason. Video retargeting on Facebook alone lowers cost per acquisition by 15 to 25% compared to image-only formats, according to 2025 data. The format holds attention, communicates more in less time, and drives stronger brand recall than any static creative.

Video ad serving for retargeting also works across more surfaces than display. Pre-roll and mid-roll placements reach users on YouTube and CTV. In-banner video runs within standard display slots. Out-stream video fires between paragraphs of editorial content. Each placement uses the same audience segment logic, the difference is where the user gets reached and in what context.

Video Ad Serving in Retargeting: Why It Costs More and Converts Better

"Video retargeting is not just a premium format, it is the most efficient one for closing the gap between intent and conversion. A user who already knows your product does not need to be educated. They need to be reminded, urgently and visually," says Epom specialist.

When to use video ad serving for retargeting:

• Cart abandoners. A 15-second video showing the exact product left in cart, with urgency copy, consistently outperforms static banners for this segment.
• High-consideration purchases. B2B products, SaaS, or high-ticket e-commerce benefit from short explainer retargeting videos that reinforce value.
• Sequential retargeting campaigns. Show an awareness video first, then a testimonial, then a product demo. Each step moves the user closer to conversion using the same audience pool.

One practical note on budget: because video CPMs are higher, frequency capping matters more. Based on Epom observations, video retargeting campaigns perform best with a cap of three to five impressions per user over a seven-day window. Beyond that, diminishing returns set in fast and cost per conversion climbs.

For the technical side, video ad serving for retargeting relies on VAST tags, the standardized protocol that tells a video player how to load and track your creative. Make sure your DSP or ad server supports VAST 4.x if you are running on CTV or OTT inventory, as older versions are not universally compatible with streaming environments.

How Much Does Retargeting Cost?

68% of agencies and 49% of brands have a dedicated budget for retargeting. Most of those (51%) spend no more than 10% of their general monthly marketing strategy budget on retargeting.

In programmatic advertising, retargeting ads, just like any other, are traded via CPM and sometimes via CPC (here, the cost is predicted, while the bidding is still based on approximate CPM). Based on Epom observations, the average CPM for retargeting ads in a self-serve DSP goes in-between $3 and $6 for regular display ads, reaching up to $6-10 for native and $14-17 for video advertisements. Note: stats are relevant only for North American and Western European geos.

*Based on Epom observations. Stats reflect North American and Western European geos.

Thus, this largely depends on the niche, geo, and the supply-side platform you partner with. Targeting audiences in lower-income countries allows you to decrease CPMs by half or even more. Using a white-label DSP, you also cut your spend up to 30%, thanks to the absence of intermediaries that add bid markups to each CPM you set.

The most widely used retargeting ad platforms: Google Display Network (Google Ads + Google previously known as Google AdWords), Meta Ads, and programmatic DSPs. Each serve different stages of the funnel and require different budget strategies.

As for CPC in programmatic, the bidder is still tied to the CPM model. So the approximate CPM is calculated as CPM = CTR × CPC × 1000. Google's average CPCs are $0.66 to $1.23 per click, but we won't recommend sticking to them, as Google's prices are usually higher than those across other DSPs and ad networks.

When to use CPM and when CPC?

• CPM is an excellent choice for creatives who deliver CTRs higher than average. If you see one of your campaigns perform well in terms of clicks, always choose CPM.
• CPC is better for under-performing campaigns, as you will pay less because your CTR is below average.

How to Set Up a Retargeting Campaign in Epom White-Label DSP

Recently, we made a brief 3-min video that explains both the targeting and retargeting functionality in the Epom white-label DSP. The retargeting part starts at 2:47.

NB: Ad retargeting software ranges from standalone pixel managers to full programmatic DSPs, the right choice depends on whether you need simple pixel based retargeting or full campaign control with real-time bidding.

If you don't feel like watching the video, here is a brief checklist on how to set up retargeting in our DSP:

1. Go to the retargeting tab and see “Segments.”
2. Here, you can generate a custom code for each segment and use it on your website or give it to your advertiser client to place on other websites.
3. Select the segment in the targeting section while setting a new campaign, and include or exclude a specific group of users.
4. Compare the first ad and retargeting campaign stats in the analytics tab.

"The biggest mistake we see in new retargeting campaigns is skipping audience segmentation entirely, everyone gets the same ad, the same bid, and the same message. Segment by behavior from day one," says Epom specialist.

All in all, we hope we didn't overload you with 80's references. All puns and jokes aside, retargeting helps your brand stay in your customers' minds long after they leave your site. Like the 80's pop song that you are now humming, retargeting will keep your potential customers thinking about your brand. Simply put, that should be the primary goal of any ad campaign.

FAQs

• What is a retargeting ad and how does it differ from a regular display ad?

  A retargeting ad targets users who have already visited your site or interacted with your brand. A regular display ad targets cold audiences with no prior connection to your business. Retargeting focuses on intent — this is why its CTR is ten times higher than standard display advertising.

• Which retargeting ad platforms should I use in 2026?

  The main options are Google Ads Display Network, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads for B2B, and programmatic DSPs for open-web and video retargeting. The right choice depends on your audience, format, and whether you need self-serve access or full white-label control over your ad spend and data.

• How much does a retargeting ad campaign cost?

  Costs vary by format and geo. Based on Epom observations, display retargeting CPMs run $3 to $6, native $6 to $10, and video ad serving $14 to $17 for North American and Western European traffic. Most marketers allocate 15 to 30% of their total digital advertising budget to retargeting.

• Does ad retargeting still work without third-party cookies?

  Yes. Third-party cookies remain active in Chrome as of 2025, but mobile ad retargeting, in-app retargeting, and first-party data segments work independently of cookie status. Building your own audience lists through a pixel or CRM integration makes your retargeting strategy cookie-resilient.

• What is the difference between retargeted advertising and remarketing?

  The terms are often used interchangeably. Technically, remarketing most often refers to email campaigns and email-based re-engagement with existing customers, while retargeted advertising uses display, video, and native ads served across the web via a DSP or ad retargeting software. Both are retargeting strategies, the multiple channels is what differs.