Are We There Yet

Retargeting and Dad’s Patience.

Growing up, I loved our family vacations. We always traveled by car. It was hot because we didn’t have air conditioning. We were on a budget, so food stops were short breaks at the roadside with sandwiches, chips and a soda.

We piled into our 18-ft.-long Oldsmobile where I quickly fell asleep, waking just as the car started its final deceleration at each of our stops. When I was not asleep, my siblings and I entertained ourselves by convincing semi-truck drivers to blow their horns, waving at other families passing by or just looking around at all the things along the mid-1970s roadside.

Instant Gratification

We played typical road games, such as “I Spy”, and “The License Plate Game,” but the game we seldom played was “Are We There Yet?” We knew better. No, our dad was not an angry tyrant. Mostly, dad was even-tempered, soft-spoken and seemed to enjoy driving. We knew that distracting dad about how much longer, how many more minutes, or are we there yet would draw a quick warning from Mom; and if continued, Dad would switch from his typical soft, kind voice to the deeper growl reminiscent of a lion’s warning. For us, it was just enough to remind us to keep quiet, let Dad drive, and we will get there when we get there.

Let’s jump to today when kids’ activities are micro-planned to the moment. Car rides are more a testament to the ability of a mother’s planning skills than the child’s individual development. In-car entertainment, Wi-Fi-enabled vehicles, portable electronics and scheduled snack times have crushed self-entertainment for the sake of mom and dad’s sanity. It has become the norm in movies to depict family car travel as either the children are completely disconnected from all that is around them, or it’s the ritual-like chant “Are We There Yet?”.

Today, instant gratification is the norm, patience is dead and true customer service only exists in the spaces of specialty providers. Marketers are left scrambling to fill the want of a customer at a second’s notice, anytime and anywhere. So how do you stay at the top of the list the very second the decision to buy is made?

It was the billion-dollar question that was answered in March 2010 by Google.

Retargeting and/or Remarketing

Used interchangeably, remarketing is defined as collecting user information to create a list, which is used to send sales emails. Retargeting is the act of delivering an ad to people who have visited your website when they are surfing the web. Even though retargeting has evolved, the retargeting “company” is the kids in the back seat, and dad is the customer. Are we there yet? How about now?

It is undeniable that retargeting can be profitable, just do a quick search to see the countless companies that offer ad development, software and strategies for a custom retargeting campaign. The options and opportunities are endless. We are seeing more intrusions into our daily lives from Alexa and Siri listening to our conversations to Facebook conducting mass surveillance to make the most informed suggestions based on as much information obtainable.

Call me cynical but I prefer to make my purchasing decisions at my pace. Yes, we are all susceptible to flashy marketing and impulse buying, but are these the products we are passionate about? No, the purchases we want to tell our friends about are ones that we have gone through the entire buyer decision process from need-recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives to the purchase decision and are satisfied with the outcome.

We become loyal because we were invested in the process and not badgered into skipping steps along the way. Giving potential customers the tools to come to their own informed decision is the basis for creating loyal customers, and loyal customers are king.

For me retargeting is akin to website pop-ups, QR codes and robocalling. There could be an argument for it in a well-thought-out marketing strategy, but it requires the company to know its customers well, and in the age of instant, now, and more; how well do we know the customer at first contact? Is it enough to ask on every subsequent website they visit “Are We There Yet?

So, does retargeting work? It never did for us in the car.

Harold Coleman is marketing manager for Stedman Machine Co.

Related posts