Finding the right customers isn’t easy. You spend time and money attracting visitors, but most leave without buying.

Prospecting and retargeting help you solve this problem in two ways: connect with new potential customers and bring back those who didn’t convert.

In this article, we'll walk you through the ins and outs of these marketing techniques so you can optimize your lead generation and boost conversions.

What Is Prospecting and Retargeting?

Your marketing needs to do more than just attract traffic. You need to guide people through the sales funnel and proactively turn interest into conversions.

Prospecting and retargeting help you stay in front of your target audience, increase brand awareness, and drive more sales.

What Is Prospecting?

Prospecting is the process of finding new customers who have never interacted with your business before. Instead of waiting for people to discover your product or service, you actively reach out to them through prospecting campaigns. These can include ads, cold emails, or social media outreach.

A key component of a prospecting strategy is its focus on the right target market. Instead of advertising to everyone, you narrow down your audience based on:

• Demographics: Age, gender, income level.
• Interests and behaviors: Online activity, shopping habits.
• Lookalike audiences: People similar to your existing customers.

This precise targeting helps you get in front of people who are most likely to engage with your brand. The better your prospecting ads, the more qualified leads you attract, which makes it easier to convert them later.

What Is Retargeting?

Retargeting, on the other hand, focuses on people who have already shown interest in your business but haven’t made a purchase yet. These might be visitors who have browsed your product pages, clicked on your ads, or added items to their cart but left without checking out.

Retargeting ads appear on other websites, social media, or even in emails. They are effective at reminding people about your brand, which helps keep your business top of mind.

The Difference Between Prospecting vs. Retargeting

Many think prospecting and retargeting are interchangeable, but this is not true. There are several key differences between the two:

• Audience: Retargeting focuses on people who have previously visited your website but didn’t convert, while prospecting targets new users who haven’t interacted with your brand.
• Marketing purpose: Prospecting aims to generate awareness and attract potential customers, whereas retargeting re-engages interested users to increase conversions.
• Ad placement: While both use social media and display ads, prospecting focuses also on search engines, while retargeting uses email marketing.
• Budget: Prospecting generally has a higher cost per click due to targeting a cold audience, whereas retargeting benefits from targeting users already familiar with your brand.
• ‍Conversion rate: Retargeting tends to achieve a higher conversion rate as it engages users who have already shown interest, while prospecting has a lower conversion rate since the audience is unfamiliar with your brand.

In a nutshell: prospecting ads help you expand your reach, while retargeting ads help you recover lost opportunities. Without prospecting, your retargeting campaigns won’t have an audience to target, and without retargeting, you risk losing people who were close to converting.

Your business needs both retargeting and prospecting campaigns to build a strong customer base.

Best Strategies for Prospecting

There are two main ways you can create prospecting ads. These are as follows:

Paid Advertising for Prospecting

Paid prospecting ads help you reach new audiences on platforms like Google Ads, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

To maximize results:

• Use compelling ad copy that highlights your product or service benefits.
• Explore different types of formats (video, images, etc) to see which performs best.
• Run A/B tests on headlines, visuals, and call-to-action buttons.
• Focus on new potential customers, not those who already know your brand.

Organic Prospecting Techniques

Not all prospecting campaigns require paid ads. Organic methods can also help attract new leads and turn them into new customers without direct advertising costs through:

• SEO-optimized blog posts that drive traffic from Google.
• Video marketing (YouTube, TikTok) that engages audiences and builds trust.
• Social media marketing to position your brand as an authority.
• Email marketing so you can connect with leads and provide relevant content.

Combining organic and paid prospecting strategies increases your reach while keeping costs balanced.

How to Identify High-Quality Prospects

Not all leads are worth pursuing. Use data sets from analytics tools to track engagement and identify strong prospects.

Some questions to consider include:

• Who has expressed interest? Look at post interactions, downloads, and video views.
• Are they likely to convert? Prioritize those who have engaged multiple times.
• What stage are they in? Move prospects through the sales funnel based on their actions.
• Where do they come from? Track social media profiles, search behavior, and past ad clicks.

Focusing on the right audience can improve conversion rates and reduce wasted marketing efforts.

How to Build a Powerful Retargeting Strategy

As with prospecting, there are several ways to create retargeting campaigns. These are as follows:

Retargeting Through Paid Ads

Most visitors leave your website without making a purchase. Retargeting ads bring them back by reminding them of your product or service across different platforms.

These ads appear on:

• Google Display Network: Shows ads on other websites visitors browse.
• Facebook and Instagram: Targets users based on their past interactions.
• YouTube and videos: Displays video ads to people who engage with your brand.

To run effective retargeting campaigns, remember to install tracking pixels on your website to collect visitor data and properly target customers.

To better define your target audience, you should segment users based on behavior, such as cart abandoners, blog readers, and past customers. Try adjusting your ad copy for each segment. For example, cart abandoners will appreciate a discount, whereas blog readers might enjoy educational content more.

You should also set frequency caps to prevent ad fatigue.

Retargeting Through Email Marketing

Email is another way to re-engage visitors who didn’t convert. Unlike retargeting ads, emails land directly in a lead’s inbox, which makes them harder to ignore.

Effective email retargeting campaigns include:

• Abandoned cart emails: Remind users of items they left behind.
• Follow-up sequences: Send educational content or testimonials.
• Personalized discounts: Offer limited-time deals to encourage action.
• Post-visit emails: Suggest relevant content or products based on browsing history.

Using tools like Klaviyo, Mailchimp, or ActiveCampaign, you can automate follow-ups and personalize messages for better conversions.

Segmenting Your Retargeting Audience

Not all visitors should see the same retargeting ads. Segmenting your audience allows you to identify where leads are in their customer journey, which can improve engagement and increase sales.

Here are some ways to segment and convert your audience:

• Website visitors: Show general reminders or special offers.
• Cart abandoners: Offer discounts or free shipping to push them to buy.
• Past customers: Promote complementary products or loyalty programs.
• Ad clickers who didn’t convert: Reinforce your brand with testimonials or case studies.

A well-structured retargeting strategy makes sure that you’re delivering the right message at the right time, which can lead to increased conversions.

Best Tools for Prospecting and Retargeting

Using the right tools makes prospecting and retargeting campaigns more effective. From audience research to ad automation, these platforms help you optimize sales efforts by reaching new customers and bringing back previous visitors.

Top Tools for Prospecting Campaigns

To find and connect with potential customers, you need tools that offer precise targeting and audience insights, such as:

• Capturify: Captures visitor data to segment high-intent leads for prospecting campaigns.
• Google Ads: Reaches users actively searching for your product or service.
• Facebook Ads Manager: Targets new audiences based on interests and behavior.
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Ideal for B2B prospecting campaigns, offering detailed business filters.
• HubSpot and Salesforce: Track and manage leads, helping your sales team nurture new leads.
• Ahrefs and Semrush: Identify keywords and topics that attract organic traffic.

Best Retargeting Tools

Retargeting requires tracking, segmentation, and automation. These tools help optimize retargeting campaigns for better conversions.

• Capturify: Enhances retargeting campaigns by identifying high-value leads and tracking engagement.
• Meta Pixel and Google Tag Manager: Track visitors and run retargeting ads on social media and search engines.
• Klaviyo and Mailchimp: Automate email marketing for abandoned cart recovery and lead nurturing.
• AdRoll and Criteo: Manage display retargeting campaigns across multiple platforms.
• Google Analytics: Analyze user behavior to refine retargeting strategies.
• Hotjar and Crazy Egg: Use heatmaps to see where visitors drop off and optimize your website accordingly.

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Measuring Success: How to Track Your Prospecting and Retargeting Efforts

Tracking the performance of your prospecting and retargeting campaigns helps you optimize results and increase conversions. Without proper tracking, you may waste ad spend on ineffective strategies.

Key Metrics to Track for Prospecting

Prospecting campaigns aim to attract new customers, so the focus should be on engagement and lead quality.

Key metrics you should monitor include:

• Click-through rate (CTR): Measures how often people click your prospecting ads. A low CTR indicates weak ad copy or poor targeting.
• Cost per lead (CPL): Determines how much you pay to acquire a lead. A lower CPL means better ad efficiency.
• Lead-to-customer conversion rate: Shows how many new leads turn into paying customers.
• Audience engagement: Tracks interactions on social media, blog visits, and video watch time to measure brand awareness.

Retargeting Metrics That Matter

Retargeting campaigns aim to bring back potential customers and improve sales funnel performance.

Important metrics include:

• Return on ad spend (ROAS): Measures revenue earned for every dollar spent on retargeting ads.
• Conversion rate of retargeted users: Tracks how many people who saw your retargeting campaigns completed a purchase.
• Ad frequency: Makes sure that you’re not overexposing users to the same retargeting ads. Too many impressions can lead to ad fatigue.
• Engagement rate on retargeting ads: Measures likes, comments, and shares, helping you identify strong-performing ads.

Optimize Prospecting and Retargeting With Capturify

Capturify analyzes over 60 billion behaviors and accesses a database of 600 million contacts to deliver high-intent leads in real-time with 95% accuracy.

For prospecting campaigns, Capturify captures over 40 data points from unidentified website traffic, including names, emails, and locations, without requiring opt-ins. This allows your sales teams to automate outreach and engage potential customers at the peak of their interest.

In retargeting campaigns, Capturify helps you overcome challenges caused by cookie depreciation and privacy restrictions from updates like iOS 15 while leveraging advanced Conversion API event tracking. Expanding retargeting reach helps you reconnect with your most engaged website visitors, which can lead to higher conversions.

See how these all translate in real life by signing up.

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FAQs About Prospecting and Retargeting

What is the difference between targeting and retargeting?

Targeting focuses on reaching new potential customers who have never interacted with your brand before. It involves using prospecting campaigns such as paid ads, SEO, and content marketing to attract new audiences based on demographics, interests, and behaviors.

Retargeting, on the other hand, focuses on people who have previously visited your website or engaged with your content but didn’t convert. Retargeting campaigns use tracking tools to serve personalized ads or emails, reminding these users about your product or service and encouraging them to complete a purchase.

What is prospecting in marketing?

Prospecting is the process of identifying and reaching out to new customers who may be interested in your product or service. It involves marketing strategies such as prospecting ads, cold outreach, SEO, and social media engagement to generate brand awareness and attract new leads.

What is a retargeting strategy?

A retargeting strategy involves serving ads or sending emails to users who have expressed interest in your brand but haven’t completed a purchase. It helps you re-engage visitors who may need an extra push to convert.

What is an example of retargeting?

A common example of retargeting is when you visit an eCommerce website and browse a product page but leave without buying. Later, you see retargeting ads on other websites or social media, reminding you about the item and possibly offering a discount.

Another example is email marketing retargeting. If a customer adds an item to their cart but doesn’t complete the purchase, they receive an email reminding them about their abandoned cart, often with a limited-time offer to encourage checkout.