Retargeting Plan (Global)

Retargeting is a conversation with people who already know you. The message must differ completely from cold ads: handle objections, do not reintroduce the brand. Never serve the same ad to cold and warm audiences.

Information gathering

Ask up to 4 questions:

1. Which platforms and which offer are being retargeted? Meta / Google / TikTok / YouTube / Pinterest / email and SMS?
2. What event data already exists? Video views, page engagement, landing page visits, add to cart, checkout started, form submits, purchases. If none, run 53-tracking-setup-global first and let data accumulate.
3. How large are the current warm pools, and how large is the first-party list? Pixel audience size plus email/SMS/CRM list size.
4. Budget, and what is the main objection? Price, trust, timing, or "not now"?

Principles

1. Message intensity follows audience heat. Hotter audiences get the offer and urgency; cooler audiences get trust and value.
2. Shorter window means hotter audience means stronger message. Someone who visited yesterday is not someone who watched a video last month.
3. First-party data is the durable base, not pixel audiences. Post-iOS ATT and with third-party cookies deprecated, pixel-built retargeting pools are materially smaller and decay faster than they used to. Email, SMS, and CRM lists you own do not disappear when a browser changes policy. Build the plan on owned lists and treat pixel audiences as an accelerator.
4. Always exclude converters. Do not waste impressions on people who already bought, unless there is a genuine upsell.
5. Frequency caps are mandatory. High-frequency retargeting produces irritation and negative feedback, which raises costs.
6. Retargeting is 10-20% of budget (repo operating standard is 15%). The pool is finite; volume comes from cold.
7. Seed quality beats seed size. A lookalike from purchasers beats a lookalike from viewers.
8. Consent applies to every uploaded list. Custom Audience and Customer Match uploads require documented marketing consent, hashed data, and removal on opt-out — see the consent section in 53-tracking-setup-global.

Workflow

1. Build the durable first-party base first

Before designing pixel tiers, confirm these exist:

Asset	Why it matters	Minimum action
Email list with consent	Survives cookie and ATT changes; usable on every platform	Capture email before or during checkout, and on the lead magnet
SMS list with consent	High-intent channel in US markets	Explicit opt-in with a documented double confirmation where required
CRM with source fields	Connects retargeting to actual revenue	Source, campaign, stage, revenue, opt-out flag
Logged-in or account users	Stable identifier across devices	Encourage account creation post-purchase
Server-side event stream	Recovers events browsers drop	Conversions API / Events API (53-tracking-setup-global)

If pixel pools are too small to run, the first-party list is what keeps retargeting alive. Upload it as a Custom Audience and Customer Match list, and run email and SMS flows in parallel through 14-email-marketing-global.

2. Audience tiers

Tier	Audience	Signal	Window	Message direction
1 (hottest)	Add to cart / checkout started	Pixel + server event	7-14 days	Strong offer, urgency, guarantee
2	Lead form opened but not submitted, open sales conversation	Pixel, CRM	3-7 days	Reminder, remove the next-step friction
3	Landing page visitors who did not convert	Pixel + server event	14-30 days	Trust, social proof, objection handling
4	Video viewers above 50%	Platform engagement audience	14-30 days	Deepen interest, educate, prove
5	Page and post engagers	Platform engagement audience	30-60 days	Soft offer, value add
6	Email / SMS / CRM list	First-party upload	Continuous	Nurture through owned channels, ads as reinforcement
7	Past customers	Purchase event + CRM	180 days	Upsell, cross-sell, replenishment, loyalty

Note on durability: tiers 1-5 are pixel-dependent and will be smaller than the platform-reported estimate suggests. Tiers 6 and 7 are the ones you control. If tiers 1-3 are too small to spend the planned budget, merge them into a single hot tier rather than running several starved ad sets.

3. Message framework per tier

• Tiers 1-2 (about to buy): offer, urgency, guarantee. CTA: "Complete your order", "Finish signing up". Formats: dynamic product ads, countdown, limited availability, abandoned-cart email plus SMS in sequence.
• Tiers 3-4 (interested): objection handling, social proof, soft CTA. CTA: "See how it works", "Read the reviews". Formats: testimonial video, FAQ, comparison, founder explainer.
• Tiers 5-6 (aware): value add and soft offer. CTA: "Learn more", "Get the free [resource]". Formats: educational content, case study, newsletter.
• Tier 7 (existing customers): upsell, cross-sell, replenishment, member-only pricing. CTA: "Your exclusive offer". Formats: bundle, subscription, referral (see 18-referral-program-global).

Message-to-audience map to hand to 05-ad-copy-global:

Audience	Core message
Video viewers 75%	Education plus proof
Site visitors, last 3 days	Strong offer plus urgency
Page visitors who did not convert	Address the objection plus scarcity
Open sales conversation	Personal, last chance
Email subscribers, never purchased	First-purchase incentive
Past customers	Upsell, cross-sell, replenishment

4. Creative formats

• Dynamic product ads (catalog required): re-show exactly what was viewed.
• Testimonial and review video: answers "can I trust this".
• Comparison and FAQ: answers a specific, named objection.
• Urgency creative: countdown, limited stock — tiers 1-2 only, and only when the scarcity is real.
• Founder or behind-the-scenes: works well on tiers 4-5 where the barrier is familiarity.

5. Frequency caps

Platform	Recommended cap
Meta	2-3 impressions per 7 days (hot tiers may run slightly higher)
TikTok	3-4 impressions per 7 days
YouTube	2 impressions per day
Any platform, absolute ceiling	2-3 impressions per person per day

6. Lookalike and similar audiences

Seed	Minimum seed size	Lookalike %	Platform	Purpose
Purchasers	>= 100	1%	Meta	Highest-quality prospecting
High-value purchasers (top revenue decile)	>= 100	1-2%	Meta	Value-based lookalike
Qualified leads	>= 500	1-3%	Meta	Scale lead generation
Video viewers 75%	>= 1000	Broad	TikTok	Scale awareness
Email / CRM list	>= 300	1-5%	Meta, Google Customer Match	Extend from owned data

Lookalikes are cold campaigns and sit in the 5% lookalike slice of the 30/50/15/5 split, not in the retargeting budget — but their seeds are produced by this system. Build value-based lookalikes wherever revenue data is available; they consistently beat flat purchaser seeds.

7. Exclusions

• Existing purchasers (unless a genuine upsell path exists)
• Submitted leads and closed deals
• Email and SMS unsubscribes, and anyone who exercised an opt-out right
• Audiences currently running in prospecting campaigns (exclude in both directions)
• Cross-tier: hotter tiers excluded from cooler tiers, so each person sits in exactly one tier

Output structure

File name: retargeting-plan-[product]-[YYYYMMDD].md

# Retargeting Plan — [Product/Campaign]
Platforms: [x] · Budget: [amount] ([%] of total) · Primary window: [days]

## 1. First-party base      [lists owned, size, consent status, growth plan]
## 2. Audience tiers        [tier, audience, signal, window, estimated size]
## 3. Message per tier      [tier -> message -> CTA -> format]
## 4. Creative brief        [what to produce; hand to 05-ad-copy-global]
## 5. Frequency caps        [per platform]
## 6. Lookalike brief       [seed, %, purpose, refresh cadence]
## 7. Exclusion rules       [converters, opt-outs, prospecting overlap, cross-tier]
## 8. Expected KPIs         [retargeting CPA and ROAS, typically 2-3x better than prospecting]

Related skills

• 51-audience-research-global: defines the original cold/warm/hot tiering.
• 53-tracking-setup-global: pixel, server-side events, and consent are the raw material for every custom audience.
• 05-ad-copy-global: writes the copy for each tier's message.
• 52-account-structure-global: retargeting sits in its own campaign with cross-exclusions.
• 55-scaling-ads-global: scaling cold grows the warm pool — raise retargeting budget in step.
• 14-email-marketing-global: the owned-channel half of tiers 6 and 7.
• 16-marketing-psychology-global: objection handling, social proof, and honest scarcity.

Quality checklist

• First-party list plan documented before pixel tiers, with consent status per list
• Only tiers with enough people to actually spend are created; thin tiers merged
• Each tier has its own message, CTA, and format — no shared creative with cold
• Windows match audience heat: hotter means shorter window and stronger message
• Frequency caps stated per platform
• Lookalike seeds meet minimum size, with value-based seeds used where revenue data exists
• Exclusions complete: purchasers, closed leads, opt-outs, prospecting overlap, cross-tier
• Retargeting budget within 10-20% of total (standard 15%)
• Plan acknowledges pixel pool decay and does not depend on pixel audiences alone