Retargeting has been proven time and time again to be one of the most effective ways to reach an audience. By reminding website visitors of their past interest in a product, service, or brand, advertisers are able to reach out and bring them back through the networks and sites they have interacted with.

Simple and cost-effective, there’s every reason to use retargeting as part of your advertising campaign. But, as with every other strategy, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.

Read on for 3 of the worst ways to annoy people with your retargeted ads.

1. Leading customers to the Wrong Place

The aim of retargeting is to lead potential customers to a specific online destination - driving them towards a particular activity or point of engagement.

If you saw an ad for a specific item of clothing, but the landing page took you to a general sales page with hundreds of options, what would you do? Most likely get frustrated and abandon the website. As with any other advertising tactic, when a point of friction exists, it can prevent a user with serious buying intentions from visiting your site in the future. Steer clear of this mistake by ensuring that all retargeted ads lead to exactly what they’re advertising.

2. Too Much Motion

While animation can be an excellent way to attract attention, it can also drive consumers away from your brand. Just because you sell high-quality motion-activated sprinklers, you don’t need a motion-packed ad that jumps around the screen — that’s distracting rather than engaging and is unlikely to lead to the results you’re hoping for.

Implementing subtle transitions and motion effects is generally a great way of grabbing attention and increasing interaction, although you should limit the length to a non-looped 15-30 seconds.

Use common sense and test your ads on a focus group, prior to letting an animated ad loose in a retargeting campaign.

3. Not capping impressions

As an advertiser, you should have a solid understanding of the number of interactions it takes for a prospect to become a customer. This will go a long way in helping you create a successful retargeting campaign. If a conversion hasn’t happened after a certain number of impressions, your ad will irritate consumers and take impressions away from other prospects that could convert.

Make sure you set impression caps, or your brand will run the risk of being annoying rather than a legitimate option for a consumer looking to make a purchase.

How Does Retargeting Work?