I’ve been seeing these Car Wash Show ads everywhere I go online… what’s the story there, and how can I get my wash’s ads to do the same thing?

-Mike in Michigan

Hey Mike! Glad you’ve seen the ads. All part of our magical plan to get you to the show. Did it work?

What you’re experiencing is an advertising phenomenon known as retargeting. Some (Google) will call this remarketing. Remarketing, though by definition, is related to things like shopping-cart abandonment and email campaigning.

I digress.

Basically, the marketing mavens with The Car Wash Show purchased ads from a display network, and as you crawl around the interwebs, you visit different sites all using the same display network, so the ad you saw in one location mystically appears in another.

Or, you visited thecarwashshow.com or carwash.org and in doing so, became a potential prospect for these ads. And they follow you to different sites based on tracking cookies in your web browser.

So how does it know what you like?

These ads are targeted to you based on several factors, but primarily it’s through your browsing history, i.e., your cookies. In more sophisticated scenarios, they can be targeted based on lots of demographic data collected on you, depending on the ad network. That’s contextual advertising.

A little creepy, right? Right.

So, if you want to get your ads to start showing up for people who visit your site, or perhaps fit a certain demographic in your area, you want to talk to your marketing folks about retargeting and contextual advertising.

Just be careful. Some studies show that overuse of this strategy can lead to creating a feeling of unease associated with your brand.

My advice? Keep the ads fresh, so while your potential customer may be seeing lots of advertising from you, it’s not the same ad repeatedly.