/56-retargeting-plan-global

name: 56-retargeting-plan-global
description: "Use when the user needs a retargeting and lookalike plan: warm audience tiers, a different message per tier, frequency caps, attribution windows, lookalike seeds, exclusions, and a first-party data base that survives iOS ATT and cookie deprecation. Trigger on 'retargeting', 'remarketing', 'warm audience', 'custom audience', 'lookalike audience', 'retarget cart abandoners', or 'my retargeting pool is shrinking'."
metadata:
  version: 1.0.0
  category: performance
license: MIT
triggers:
  - "retargeting"
  - "remarketing"
  - "warm audience"
  - "custom audience"
  - "lookalike audience"
  - "retarget cart abandoners"
  - "my retargeting pool is shrinking"
  - "win back past customers"
output: "File .md — retargeting strategy: audience tiers, message framework per tier, first-party list plan, lookalike brief, frequency caps, and exclusion rules"
related:
  - product-marketing-context-global
  - 51-audience-research-global
  - 53-tracking-setup-global
  - 55-scaling-ads-global
  - 05-ad-copy-global
  - 52-account-structure-global
  - 14-email-marketing-global
  - 16-marketing-psychology-global

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 ho