What Is Remarketing in Google Ads (and Why It Works)
Most of your website visitors leave without converting. That is not a failure. It is normal. Even high-performing landing pages convert only 3-5% of traffic. The other 95% leave, and without remarketing, most of them never come back. This guide walks you through how to create a remarketing campaign in Google Ads, from audience setup to launch.
Remarketing lets you show ads to people who have already visited your website or interacted with your brand. Google calls it "remarketing." The broader industry often calls it "retargeting." They mean the same thing. You are re-engaging users who already showed interest but did not complete a desired action.
The reason remarketing delivers higher conversion rates than cold targeting is simple. These users already know who you are. They have seen your product, read your landing page, or browsed your pricing. They are further along in their decision-making process. A well-timed ad can bring them back when they are ready.
Remarketing Across the Customer Journey:
- Awareness: Reinforces brand recall after a first visit
- Consideration: Reminds users who compared options but did not decide
- Conversion: Nudges cart abandoners or trial page visitors to complete their action
When remarketing is not the right move: If your site gets fewer than 1,000 monthly visitors, your audience lists will be too small for most campaign types. You need a baseline of traffic before remarketing becomes viable. Focus on driving new traffic first, then layer remarketing on top.
Types of Remarketing Campaigns in Google Ads
Google Ads offers several remarketing campaign types. Each serves a different purpose. Understanding when to use each one prevents you from defaulting to the same approach every time.
Standard Display Remarketing
Shows banner and responsive ads to past visitors as they browse websites in the Google Display Network. This is the most common type and works well for general brand recall and re-engagement.
Dynamic Remarketing
Shows personalized ads featuring the specific products or services a user viewed. If someone looked at a pair of running shoes on your site, they see an ad for those exact shoes. This requires a product feed through Google Merchant Center and works best for e-commerce.
RLSA (Remarketing Lists for Search Ads)
Adjusts your search campaign bids or targeting for users who have previously visited your site. When a past visitor searches for your keywords again, you can bid more aggressively or show them different ad copy. RLSA is underused and often delivers the strongest ROI of any remarketing type.
Video Remarketing
Targets users who have watched your YouTube videos or visited your channel. You can show them follow-up video ads or Display ads across Google's network.
Customer Match
Lets you upload your own email lists to target existing contacts. This works for re-engaging lapsed customers, upselling existing ones, or reaching newsletter subscribers with paid ads.
Priority order for most performance marketers: RLSA first (highest intent), then Standard Display (broadest reach), then Dynamic Remarketing (if you run e-commerce). Add Video and Customer Match as your strategy matures.
Prerequisites: What You Need Before Starting
Before you create a remarketing campaign, make sure these foundations are in place. Skipping any of them means your campaigns will either not work or produce unreliable data.
Google Ads Conversion Tracking
If you are not tracking conversions, you cannot measure remarketing performance. You also cannot use smart bidding strategies that optimize toward conversions. If you have not set this up yet, start with our guide to Google Ads conversion tracking first.
Google Analytics 4 Linked to Google Ads
This connection lets you import GA4 audiences into Google Ads for richer segmentation. GA4 audiences can include behavioral signals like session duration, pages per visit, or specific events.
Remarketing Tag Installed
The Google Ads remarketing tag (or GA4 tag) must be installed on your website. This tag collects visitor data and builds your audience lists. Verify it is firing correctly using Google Tag Assistant before you launch anything.
Sufficient Website Traffic
Display remarketing requires at least 100 active users in the past 30 days. Search (RLSA) campaigns require a minimum of 1,000 users. If your lists are too small, your campaigns will not serve ads.
Privacy Compliance
Depending on where your audience is located, you may need cookie consent banners for GDPR (EU) or CCPA (California) compliance. Your remarketing tag should only fire after users provide consent.
Step 1: Setting Up Your Remarketing Audiences
Audience setup is the foundation of effective remarketing. Poor audience selection means your ads reach the wrong people. Good segmentation means your budget works harder.
Creating Audiences in Google Ads vs. GA4
You have two options. Google Ads Audience Manager lets you create audiences based on website visits, app usage, or YouTube activity. GA4 lets you build audiences based on deeper behavioral data, such as users who spent more than 3 minutes on your site, viewed at least 5 pages, or triggered a specific event. For most marketers, start with Google Ads native audiences for simplicity, then layer in GA4 audiences as your strategy matures. You can reference Google's official audience creation guide for the full list of options.
Audience Types to Create
All Website Visitors
Your broadest remarketing audience. It captures everyone who visited any page. Use this for general brand recall campaigns, especially if you are just starting with remarketing.
Specific Page Visitors
Target users who visited high-intent pages like pricing, product demos, or feature pages. These visitors showed deeper interest than someone who bounced from your homepage.
Cart or Form Abandoners
Users who started a purchase or form submission but did not complete it. This audience converts at the highest rate because they were moments away from taking action.
Converters (for Exclusion)
Create an audience of users who already converted. Exclude them from your remarketing campaigns to avoid wasting budget on people who already completed the desired action.
Custom Combinations
Build audiences using AND/OR logic. For example, "visited pricing page AND did not submit demo form." These combinations let you target users at specific stages of consideration.
Membership Duration
Membership duration defines how long a user stays in your audience after their last visit. Shorter durations (7-14 days) work for quick purchase decisions like e-commerce. Longer durations (30-90 days) suit B2B products with longer sales cycles. Start with 30 days as a default. Test shorter and longer windows to see what converts best for your business.
Audience Size Requirements
| Campaign Type | Minimum Audience Size |
|---|---|
| Display Remarketing | 100 users (past 30 days) |
| Search (RLSA) | 1,000 users |
| Video Remarketing | 1,000 users |
| Customer Match | 1,000 email addresses |
Note: If your lists are below these thresholds, focus on driving more traffic to your site before launching remarketing.
Step 2: Creating Your Remarketing Campaign
With audiences built, you can create the campaign itself. Here is how to set it up properly.
Choosing the Right Campaign Type
For Display remarketing, select "Display" as the campaign type and "Sales" or "Leads" as your goal. For RLSA, you will add remarketing audiences to an existing Search campaign (covered in a later section). If you want to understand how different bidding strategies affect campaign performance, see our guide to Google Ads bidding strategies.
Campaign Settings
Budget
Start with 10-20% of your total Google Ads budget for remarketing. These campaigns typically deliver stronger ROI than prospecting, so you can scale up based on results.
Bidding Strategy
For new remarketing campaigns, start with "Maximize Conversions" to let the algorithm find converting users in your audience. Once you have 30+ conversions per month, switch to "Target CPA" for more predictable cost control.
Locations
Match the locations where your business operates. Do not default to "All countries." Also check that targeting is set to "Presence" (people in your target location), not "Presence or interest" (which includes people searching about your location from elsewhere).
Ad Schedule
Unless you have data showing specific days or hours perform best, run ads on all days and hours to start. Optimize scheduling after collecting two to four weeks of performance data.
Ad Group Setup
Create separate ad groups for each audience segment. Do not combine all your remarketing audiences into one ad group. Separate them so you can tailor ad messaging and track performance by segment.
- Ad Group 1: All website visitors (broad awareness messaging)
- Ad Group 2: Pricing page visitors (conversion-focused messaging)
- Ad Group 3: Cart abandoners (urgency-oriented messaging)
Targeting Expansion
Google Ads may suggest expanding your targeting beyond your remarketing audiences. For pure remarketing campaigns, turn this off. You want to reach your specific audiences, not let Google broaden targeting to users who never visited your site. You can always create separate prospecting campaigns for broader reach.
Content Exclusions
On the Display Network, your ads can appear on millions of websites. Use content exclusions to prevent your brand from showing on low-quality placements. Exclude:
- Parked domains
- Error pages
- Sensitive content categories (unless relevant to your business)
- Below-the-fold placements (optional, but often low-performing)
Step 3: Building Remarketing Ads That Convert
Remarketing ads need different messaging than prospecting ads. Your audience already knows who you are. Do not repeat your introduction. Advance the conversation.
Messaging Strategy for Remarketing
All Website Visitors
Focus on brand reinforcement. Remind them of your value proposition and give them a reason to come back.
Pricing Page Visitors
Address common objections. Mention your free trial, money-back guarantee, or customer results. These users are close to a decision and need reassurance.
Cart Abandoners
Be direct. "You left something behind" or "Complete your order" works because the intent was already there.
Ad Formats for Display Remarketing
Responsive Display Ads are the standard for remarketing. Upload multiple headlines, descriptions, images, and logos. Google assembles them into the best-performing combinations for each placement. Provide at least 5 headlines, 5 descriptions, and 3-5 images in different aspect ratios. More creative assets give the algorithm more combinations to test.
Image Ads give you full creative control but require more design work. Use these when brand consistency matters more than algorithmic optimization.
RLSA Ad Copy Adjustments
When past visitors search for your keywords, your RLSA ads should use stronger, more direct calls-to-action. They already know your brand. Skip the introduction and go straight to the offer.
Instead of:
"Discover how [Brand] can help you manage campaigns."
Try:
"Come back and start your free trial. No credit card needed."
Creative Best Practices
Keep your ads clean and focused. One clear message per ad. One clear call-to-action. Use your brand colors and logo consistently so users recognize you across placements. Rotate creative every 2-4 weeks to prevent ad fatigue.
Step 4: Frequency Capping and Bid Strategy
Frequency and bidding decisions make or break remarketing performance. Get these wrong and you either annoy your audience or overspend.
Why Frequency Capping Matters
Without a cap, one user might see your ad 50 times in a week. That is not remarketing. That is harassment. Ad fatigue leads to banner blindness, negative brand perception, and wasted impressions.
Recommended Frequency Caps
| Campaign Type | Recommended Cap |
|---|---|
| Standard Display | 3-5 impressions per user per day |
| Dynamic Remarketing | 5-7 impressions per user per day |
| Video Remarketing | 1-2 views per user per day |
Start with these ranges and adjust based on your conversion data. If conversion rate drops as frequency increases, your cap is too high.
Bid Strategy for Remarketing
Remarketing audiences convert at higher rates than cold audiences, so your bids should reflect that. For RLSA campaigns, set a positive bid adjustment of 20-50% for your remarketing audiences. This tells Google to bid more aggressively when a past visitor searches for your keywords. For Display remarketing, "Maximize Conversions" or "Target CPA" are the most effective strategies. Manual CPC is an option if you have low conversion volume and want more control, but it requires more hands-on management.
Budget Allocation: Prospecting vs. Remarketing
A common split is 70-80% of budget on prospecting (driving new traffic) and 20-30% on remarketing (converting existing traffic). The exact ratio depends on your audience size and conversion rates. If remarketing consistently delivers 2-3x better CPA than prospecting, consider increasing its share. But never let remarketing fully cannibalize prospecting. You need fresh traffic to feed your remarketing lists.
Setting Up Dynamic Remarketing for E-commerce
Dynamic remarketing shows users the exact products they viewed. It requires more setup than standard remarketing, but the specificity drives stronger results for product-based businesses.
What You Need
Google Merchant Center account with an active product feed. Your feed must include product IDs, titles, images, prices, and availability. The feed connects your product catalog to your ads.
Custom parameters on your website. Your remarketing tag needs to pass product-specific data (product ID, page type, total value) so Google can match viewed products to your feed. Work with your developer or tag management platform to implement these. See the Google Merchant Center documentation for feed requirements.
Campaign Setup
Link your Merchant Center account to Google Ads. Create a new Display campaign and select "Sales" as your goal. When configuring the campaign, choose your product feed as the data source. Google will automatically generate responsive ads using your product images, prices, and descriptions. You can customize the template layout, color scheme, and logo to match your brand.
Testing Dynamic Ads
Start with your highest-traffic product categories. Monitor performance by product group and pause categories where conversion rates are significantly below average. Not all products benefit equally from dynamic remarketing.
RLSA: Remarketing Lists for Search Ads
RLSA is the most underutilized remarketing type, and often the most profitable. It works differently from Display remarketing because you target users who are actively searching, not passively browsing.
How RLSA Works
When someone who previously visited your site searches on Google, RLSA lets you adjust your approach. You can bid higher for these users, show them different ads, or target broader keywords you would not normally bid on.
Two RLSA Strategies
Observation Mode (Bid-Only)
Add your remarketing audience to an existing Search campaign with bid adjustments. The campaign targets all users as normal, but you bid more for past visitors. This is the safest starting point.
Targeting Mode
Create a campaign that only shows ads to users on your remarketing list. This lets you bid on broader, more expensive keywords that only make sense for warm audiences. For example, you might bid on competitor brand terms only for users who already visited your site.
Keyword Strategy for RLSA
In targeting mode, you can afford to use broader match types and higher-funnel keywords. A past visitor searching "project management software" is more valuable than a cold user with the same query because they already know your product.
Measuring RLSA Impact
Segment your Search campaign reports by audience to compare performance between remarketing audiences and all other users. You should see higher CTR, higher conversion rate, and lower CPA for your remarketing segments. If you do not, your audiences or bid adjustments need refinement.
Monitoring and Optimizing Your Remarketing Campaigns
Setting up the campaign is step one. Ongoing monitoring determines whether it actually delivers results.
Key Metrics to Track
- View-through conversions: Users who saw your ad but did not click, then converted later. Display remarketing often drives more view-through conversions than click-through conversions. Do not ignore them.
- Frequency: How often users see your ads. Monitor this closely to prevent ad fatigue. If frequency rises above your cap settings, check your audience size. Small audiences exhaust quickly.
- Audience overlap: Whether your audiences share too many users. High overlap means users receive conflicting messages from different campaigns. Use the Audience Insights report to identify and resolve overlaps.
When to Refresh Your Audiences
Audiences go stale. Users who visited 90 days ago are less likely to convert than those who visited last week. Review your audience performance by recency and create fresh segments with shorter membership windows when conversion rates decline.
Exclusion Lists
Create exclusion lists for:
- Users who already converted (prevent wasting spend on existing customers)
- Irrelevant page visitors (job seekers on your careers page, for example)
- Bounced visitors with under 5 seconds on site (likely accidental clicks)
Exclusion lists are one of the simplest ways to improve remarketing efficiency.
Ongoing Monitoring
Remarketing campaigns do not live in isolation. They perform alongside your prospecting, brand, and conversion campaigns. Keeping track of how each type contributes requires constant context-switching in Google Ads. For a practical approach to staying on top of performance across campaign types, see how Google Ads Manager brings that data together, so you can see remarketing ROI in the context of your full account without building custom reports.
For teams running remarketing across Google, Meta, and other channels, Analytics Reporter consolidates cross-channel performance data so you can compare remarketing effectiveness without maintaining separate spreadsheets.
To go deeper on ongoing optimization across all your campaigns, read our Google Ads optimization guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the minimum audience size for remarketing in Google Ads?
For Display campaigns, you need at least 100 active visitors in the past 30 days. For Search (RLSA), the minimum is 1,000 users. Video remarketing also requires 1,000 users. If your lists are below these thresholds, focus on building traffic first.
How is remarketing different from retargeting?
In practice, they refer to the same concept. Google uses "remarketing" as its official term. "Retargeting" is more commonly used in the broader advertising industry, especially with display ad platforms. The mechanics are identical.
How long should my remarketing audience membership duration be?
It depends on your sales cycle. For e-commerce with quick purchase decisions, 7-30 days works well. For B2B with longer consideration periods, 30-90 days is more appropriate. Test different durations and compare conversion rates to find the right window for your business.
Does remarketing work without Google Analytics?
Yes, you can use the Google Ads remarketing tag independently. However, linking GA4 gives you richer audience options based on on-site behavior, engagement metrics, and conversion paths. The combination of both gives you the most flexibility.
How much budget should I allocate to remarketing?
Start with 10-20% of your total Google Ads budget. Remarketing typically delivers stronger CPA than prospecting because the audience is warmer. Scale up based on results, but always keep the majority of budget on prospecting to feed fresh users into your remarketing lists.
How do I prevent remarketing ads from annoying users?
Set frequency caps (3-5 impressions per user per day for Display), rotate creative every 2-4 weeks, and use membership duration limits so you stop targeting users who visited too long ago. If users are not converting after seeing your ad 15-20 times, more impressions will not change their mind.
Start Reaching the Visitors You Already Earned
Remarketing puts you back in front of users who already showed interest. Instead of relying on cold traffic alone, you re-engage people who know your brand and are closer to making a decision.
The setup takes a few hours. The ongoing maintenance takes minutes per week. And the return is measurable from day one.
marketingOS's Google Ads Manager gives performance marketers a clear view of remarketing results alongside prospecting campaigns. Built for marketers who want control over their data without spending hours in reports.