As a business owner, have you ever felt perplexed when trying to choose between an ever-growing number of digital marketing tactics? At Castnet, we absolutely understand your frustration, so we’ve created this helpful guide! We’ll briefly explain some of the most popular target marketing tactic options and when it makes sense to use each one on your next campaign.  

Site Retargeting works by installing a retargeting pixel (a piece of code), on a website – the pixel fires when a user visits your website, and as the user continues to browse the web, they can be served ads. This tactic will only work if you have a website that receives traffic. For websites that don’t receive a lot of traffic, a site retargeting tactic could be added several months after running a few other target marketing tactics. Site retargeting is an excellent method for targeting current customers; reminding customers to visit your business’s website is worthwhile.

Search Retargeting describes a form of advertising that occurs when a user searches for specific terms on a web browser, like Google or Bing. Users can see ads later as they navigate to other websites. Keyword Contextual Targeting takes keywords found on a webpage a user is viewing (terms that they’re not necessarily searching for) and targets those users with ads. Either one of these tactics makes sense if people search for and/or read content related to your business’s products, services, or industry. As most purchases are researched online beforehand, both tactics are good choices on most any campaign.  

Category Contextual Targeting uses the category of websites to target users; a hardware store might want to target webpages categorized as ‘DIY’ or ‘home improvement’, for example. This tactic usually goes hand in hand with Search Retargeting, but it makes more sense to utilize it if the product or service your business sells doesn’t require a lot of research beforehand.

Geofencing works using GPS-enabled mobile devices. Users who enter invisible ‘fences’ can be targeted with ads once they leave the geofence. If there’s a place or an event where your ideal prospects would be, this tactic can be highly useful. If your business has a brick and mortar location, we can layer on an additional type of geofence, called a conversion zone, to track store visits, thereby increasing the benefit of geofencing.

Addressable Geofencing takes traditional Geofencing a step further. AGF gives us the ability to target users at the household level. Much like Site Retargeting, this tactic works well for targeting existing customers, as we can target a mailing list or CRM data. If you don’t have access to this data, we can also layer demographic and interest-based data on top of geography to target a custom audience.  

E-Blasts are a way of targeting direct mail users digitally through e-mail. Standard reporting metrics for E-Blasts include opens (the number of users who open an e-mail) and click-throughs (the number of users who open the e-mail and click on a link). This is a good tactic if you want to target various demos, interests, and behaviors attributed to e-mail users.

Facebook/Instagram ads are relatively straightforward – these are ads that deliver in a variety of positions on Facebook and Instagram. Facebook ads typically are better suited for older audiences, while Instagram ads usually are more effective among the younger crowd. Both platforms (along with social media ads, in general), are a great choice if you want to get specific with your targeting using demographics and interests.

OTT stands for Over the Top, and it’s any form of video content streamed over the internet directly to a television (e.g. Smart TVs). CTV is similar; it stands for Connected TV, and it refers to video content that is streamed to a TV using a streaming device (e.g. Roku, Xbox, Playstation, etc.). With OTT/CTV, we can also target small screens, like cell phones or tablets. This is more of an ad unit than a tactic, however; it can be layered onto other tactics like Addressable Geofencing. OTT/CTV is a relatively new form of advertising, and video streaming is a rapidly increasing form of internet media consumption, so it makes sense to include OTT/CTV to target a large-scale audience. Don’t be afraid of the higher rates associated with OTT/CTV – it’s worth it!

Ultimately, choosing a blend of the above tactics is ideal – this gives the person monitoring your campaign the ability to optimize it based on the best-performing tactics.

Castnet, a Tampa Bay, Florida digital agency, is proud to offer these tactics as some of many target marketing solutions. Contact us by calling (727) 892-2391 or emailing info@castnet.media to get started improving your local business presence today!


Jessica De Marco is an Account Manager with Castnet, a digital advertising agency based in St. Petersburg, Florida. When she’s not managing digital ad campaigns, she’s probably obsessing over musicals, playing video games, or cuddling with her miniature dachshund.