Remarketing sends an email to people who already gave a brand their address, usually after they abandon a cart. Retargeting shows paid display ads to anonymous visitors through networks like the Google Display Network, no email required. Baymard Institute puts the average cart abandonment rate at 70.22% as of September 2025.
What Is the Difference Between Remarketing and Retargeting?
Remarketing and retargeting both re-engage people who already visited a site, but they run on different data and different channels.
- Remarketing: an email sent to a known contact, triggered by a specific on-site action such as an abandoned cart or a wishlist add.
- Retargeting: a paid display or social ad shown to an anonymous visitor through a pixel-tracked ad network, no email address required.
- Shared goal: bring a visitor back to finish an action they already started, whether that is a purchase, a signup, or a download.
How Does Remarketing Work?
Remarketing fires an automated email after a specific on-site trigger, most commonly cart abandonment or an inactive wishlist.
Email platforms such as Klaviyo and Mailchimp watch for that trigger, then send a message within a set window, often a few hours. Abandoned-cart flows are the highest-yielding automated email type on Klaviyo's platform, averaging a 50.5% open rate and a 3.33% placed-order rate across more than 143,000 flows, according to Klaviyo's 2023 platform data.
In a hypothetical example: a shopper named Joseph adds beard oil to his cart on a grooming brand's site, then leaves without buying. Four hours later, he opens an email offering 15% off, clicks through, and completes the purchase. The email did not find a new customer; it reminded an existing one.
How Does Retargeting Work?
Retargeting places a tracking pixel on a website, then serves paid ads to that same browser across other sites, apps, and social feeds.
No email address changes hands. The ad network, such as the Google Display Network or Meta Audience Network, matches the pixel to the visitor and shows an ad tied to what that visitor viewed. Retargeted display ads convert 0.7% of viewers on average, ten times the 0.07% average for standard display ads, according to Invesp's ad retargeting research (Invesp, updated 2024).
In a hypothetical example: a shopper named Jamie browses a swimsuit on a retailer's site, reads the shipping policy, then closes the tab to decide later. The next day, the same swimsuit appears in her Instagram feed as a sponsored post, and she completes the purchase. No email was ever collected; the ad network did the reminding.
Does Retargeting Actually Deliver Results?
Watchfinder, a UK retailer of luxury pre-owned watches, generated a 1,300% return on ad spend after six months of a remarketing campaign built on Google Analytics.
Watchfinder's agency, Periscopix, built 20 audience lists segmented by location, language, and on-site behavior, then served tailored display ads across the Google Display Network to shoppers who had not purchased. Average order value rose 13%, and cost per acquisition dropped 34% compared with Watchfinder's non-brand search campaigns, according to the Think with Google case study (Google, 2014). The visitors who had spent ten minutes or more browsing without buying converted at the highest rate of any segment.
Which Channel Should a Business Run First?
A business with an email list of past visitors should launch remarketing first, then layer retargeting on top to reach the larger group who never signed up.
Set up an abandoned-cart or wishlist email trigger before building any ad audience; it costs less to run and does not depend on ad network approval. Once that list reaches meaningful volume, add a retargeting campaign through the performance marketing channel to catch the visitors an email list will never reach: the ones who browsed without ever handing over an address.
The Bottom Line on Remarketing and Retargeting
Remarketing and retargeting recover the same kind of visitor: someone who already showed interest and left before converting. The difference is the data each one runs on, an email address versus a browser pixel, and that difference is why the two tactics compound instead of compete. Run remarketing on the list already collected, then run retargeting to reach everyone the list missed.
Retargeting and remarketing recover visitors who already found a brand; GEO work gets that brand found inside AI answers before the visit ever happens. 5W runs AI Search (GEO) programs for brands across consumer, B2B, financial services, healthcare, and technology: building the machine-readable footprint that gets brands cited, not just ranked. Learn more at 5W's GEO optimization practice.
