You've visited a website, and then that brand seems to follow you everywhere — on Facebook, in your Instagram feed, on news sites, on YouTube. That's retargeting. And it's not as complicated or expensive as you might think.
For Australian small businesses running paid ads, retargeting is often the highest-return part of the entire campaign. Here's how it works, what it costs, and whether your business is ready for it.
What Is Retargeting?
Retargeting (sometimes called remarketing) is a type of online advertising that shows your ads specifically to people who have already visited your website.
Instead of showing ads to strangers who have never heard of you, retargeting focuses your budget on people who already know who you are — they visited your site, looked at your services, maybe even started filling out a contact form. They just didn't take the final step.
Most website visitors don't convert on their first visit. They get distracted, they're comparing options, or they're not quite ready to commit. Retargeting keeps you visible while they're making their decision.
How Does the Pixel Work?
The mechanism behind retargeting is a small piece of code called a tracking pixel, which gets installed on your website.
When someone visits your site, the pixel drops a cookie in their browser. That cookie flags them as part of your custom audience on the ad platform. From that point on, the platform can show your ads to that specific person as they browse other websites, scroll through social media, or watch videos on YouTube.
There are two main pixels to know:
- Meta Pixel — powers retargeting on Facebook and Instagram
- Google Tag / Remarketing Tag — powers retargeting on the Google Display Network (the millions of websites and apps in Google's network)
Both pixels are installed once on your website and work automatically from that point forward. Every CodeQy website is built with tracking-ready infrastructure so these can be set up without any technical work on your end.
Google Retargeting vs Facebook Retargeting
Both platforms work on the same principle — show ads to past visitors — but they reach people in different places and have different strengths.
Google Display Network retargeting shows banner and image ads across millions of websites and apps. When someone visits your site and then goes to read the news, check the weather, or browse a blog, your ad can appear there. Google Display CPCs typically run between $0.50–$1 AUD, making it one of the cheapest ways to stay in front of a warm audience.
Meta retargeting (Facebook and Instagram) shows your ads in social feeds, Stories, and Reels. People spend a lot of time on Meta platforms, so it's a highly visible placement. Meta retargeting CPM (cost per thousand impressions) often comes in at $8–$15 AUD for warm audiences — significantly cheaper than running cold audience campaigns on the same platform.
For most small businesses, running both together gives you the best coverage. You catch people wherever they are online, not just on one platform.
When Retargeting Makes Sense for a Small Business
Retargeting only works if you have an audience to retarget. Both platforms have minimum audience size requirements before a campaign can run:
- Meta requires at least 100 website visitors in the past 30 days to activate a custom audience
- Google Display also needs a minimum of 100 users in your remarketing list
In practice, retargeting starts becoming genuinely useful once you're getting 200–500 monthly website visitors. Below that, the audiences are too small to run consistently.
If your business is already running Google Ads or social media campaigns that drive traffic to your website, retargeting is a natural next step — it capitalises on the traffic you're already paying for.
If your website gets most of its traffic from organic search, word of mouth, or local directories, that traffic is also retargetable. Anyone who lands on your site can be added to the audience, regardless of how they got there.
When Retargeting Doesn't Make Sense
If your website gets fewer than 100–150 visitors per month, retargeting isn't viable yet. The audiences won't meet the minimum thresholds, and even if they did, the reach would be too narrow to have much impact.
In that situation, the better move is to focus on building traffic first — through Google Ads, local SEO, or organic content — before layering in retargeting. Once traffic is consistent, retargeting becomes a very efficient way to close the loop on visitors who didn't convert.
How Much Does Retargeting Cost?
A sensible rule of thumb is to allocate around 20% of your total ad budget to retargeting.
So if you're spending $1,000/month on Google Ads, putting $200 of that toward a Display retargeting campaign is a reasonable starting point. Given the low CPCs on Display ($0.50–$1 AUD), that $200 can generate a significant number of impressions and clicks from people who already know your business.
The reason retargeting is cost-effective is the audience quality. You're not paying to introduce yourself to strangers — you're paying to stay top of mind with people who've already shown interest. Conversion rates from retargeting audiences are consistently higher than cold traffic campaigns.
3 Retargeting Audiences Worth Creating
Not all website visitors are equal. The most useful retargeting audiences to build are:
- Visited your services or pricing page but didn't contact you. These are high-intent visitors — they were genuinely considering your offer. This is your most valuable retargeting audience.
- Viewed 3 or more pages on your site. Someone who looked at multiple pages is clearly more engaged than someone who bounced off the homepage. Worth prioritising.
- Added to cart but didn't buy (for e-commerce). Cart abandoners are the classic retargeting use case — they were seconds away from converting.
You can create these audiences inside Meta Ads Manager and Google Ads based on URL patterns or page visit sequences, then run separate ads to each group.
Simple Retargeting Ad Ideas That Work
The creative doesn't need to be complicated. What works for retargeting is relevance — the person already knows you, so lean into that.
- "Still thinking about it?" — a simple, direct line that acknowledges they visited but didn't take action
- Testimonials and reviews — social proof that reinforces the decision to choose you
- Limited-time offers — a discount or deadline to create urgency
- FAQ content — address the common objections that stop people from converting ("How long does it take?", "What's included?")
The goal is to give them one more reason to come back and get in touch.
Your Website Needs to Be Tracking-Ready First
Retargeting only works if your website has the right pixels installed and firing correctly. If your site was built without tracking in mind — or if the pixel is installed incorrectly — you'll either collect no audience data or collect it unreliably.
Every website CodeQy builds is set up with clean tracking infrastructure from the start, so retargeting campaigns can be launched without technical delays. If you're already running ads but suspect your pixel isn't firing correctly, that's worth checking before you spend another dollar.
For help setting up Google Ads retargeting or running Meta retargeting as part of a social media campaign, get in touch with the team. And if your current website isn't set up for tracking, our web design service includes pixel installation as standard.
Talk to us about your paid advertising — we'll tell you honestly whether retargeting makes sense for where your business is right now.