Remarketing Strategies for Lead Generation: Retargeting Website Visitors, Email Re-Engagement Campaigns and Multi-Channel Follow-Up for B2B and B2C Businesses
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Most of Your Website Visitors Leave Without a Trace
The average website conversion rate across industries is 2-5%. That means 95-98% of people who visit your website leave without filling out a form, requesting a quote, booking a call, or taking any identifiable action. They found you through a search, an ad, or a referral. They looked at your pages. They considered what you offer. And then they left.
Some of those visitors were never going to convert -- they were doing broad research, they landed on the wrong page, or your offering was not what they needed. But a meaningful portion were genuinely interested. They read your pricing page. They looked at case studies. They spent three minutes on your services page. They were in the consideration phase of a buying decision, and something interrupted them before they took action: a phone call, a meeting, a competing tab, or simply not being ready to commit in that moment.
Remarketing is the practice of reaching those visitors again -- through ads, email, or other channels -- after they have left your site. It works because the hardest part of marketing is getting someone's attention in the first place. A visitor who has already been to your website has already given you their attention once. Remarketing is a second chance to convert an audience that already knows you exist.
Display Ad Retargeting
Display ad retargeting uses cookies or pixels placed on your website to identify visitors and serve them ads on other websites they visit afterward. The two dominant platforms are Google Ads (which serves retargeting ads across the Google Display Network, reaching over 2 million websites) and Meta (which serves retargeting ads on Facebook and Instagram).
The mechanics are simple: you install a tracking pixel on your website (Google Ads tag or Meta Pixel). When a visitor loads a page on your site, the pixel fires and adds that visitor to a retargeting audience. When the visitor later browses other websites (for Google) or scrolls through Facebook/Instagram (for Meta), they see your ads.
The effectiveness of retargeting depends entirely on audience segmentation. Showing the same generic ad to every website visitor is a waste of budget. Instead, segment your retargeting audiences by the pages they visited, which reveals their intent.
Visitors who viewed your pricing page have high purchase intent -- they were evaluating cost, which is a late-stage buying signal. Show these visitors ads with a strong call-to-action: "Ready to get started? Book a free consultation" or "Get your custom quote in 24 hours."
Visitors who read blog content have lower purchase intent but demonstrated interest in your topic area. Show these visitors educational ads that drive them back to more content or to a lead magnet: "Download our free guide to [topic]" or "Watch our webinar on [related subject]."
Visitors who viewed a specific product or service page were considering that offering. Show them ads specific to what they viewed, not generic company ads. A visitor who looked at your "Commercial Cleaning Services" page should see an ad about commercial cleaning, not an ad about your residential services.
Email-Based Remarketing
Email remarketing targets people who are already in your email list but have disengaged -- they have stopped opening emails, stopped clicking links, or stopped visiting your website. These are leads who were warm enough to give you their email address at some point but have since gone cold.
The re-engagement sequence is a structured attempt to win back their attention. A typical sequence runs three to four emails over two to three weeks.
Email 1 (subject: "Still interested in [topic/benefit]?"): "Hi [Name], we noticed you have not opened our recent emails, and we wanted to check in. We have been sharing [brief description of recent content or offers]. If this is still relevant to you, here is [one high-value piece of content or offer -- the best thing you have published recently]. If your priorities have changed, no hard feelings -- you can update your preferences here: [link]."
Email 2 (one week later, subject: "We have something new for you"): Share a genuinely new piece of content, tool, offer, or announcement. Not a rehash of old content -- something that gives the disengaged subscriber a reason to re-engage. "We just published [new resource]. It covers [specific value]. Read it here: [link]."
Email 3 (one week later, subject: "Should we stop emailing you?"): "Hi [Name], this is the last time we will reach out unless we hear from you. If you want to keep receiving our emails, click here: [link]. If not, we will remove you from our list in [X] days. Either way, thank you for your time."
After the sequence, remove subscribers who did not engage with any of the three emails. This is not a loss -- it is list hygiene. Keeping unengaged subscribers hurts your deliverability (email providers interpret low engagement as a signal that your emails are unwanted, which pushes future emails to spam) and inflates your list size without adding value.
Before running a re-engagement campaign, export your full subscriber list and upload to Email Extractor to identify and remove duplicates and invalid addresses. Sending re-engagement emails to bounced addresses wastes sends and hurts deliverability further.
Multi-Channel Remarketing Coordination
The most effective remarketing programs coordinate across channels so the prospect experiences a cohesive sequence rather than disconnected touches.
A coordinated remarketing workflow looks like this: a visitor comes to your website from a Google search and views your services page. They leave without converting. Over the next two weeks, they see a Google Display retargeting ad twice (awareness reinforcement). They see a Facebook retargeting ad once with social proof (a client testimonial or case study). If they return to your site and fill out a form (converting to a lead), they enter your email nurture sequence and exit the retargeting audiences. If they do not return within 30 days, they see one final retargeting ad with a strong offer (free consultation, discount, limited-time promotion). After 60 days without a return visit, they exit the retargeting audiences (continuing to show ads to someone who has not returned in two months is unlikely to convert and wastes budget).
This coordination requires that your ad platforms and email platform share audience data. Most email marketing platforms (Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, HubSpot) can sync subscriber lists with Google Ads and Meta as "Customer Match" audiences, allowing you to suppress converted leads from retargeting ads (so you are not showing ads to people who already signed up) and to create lookalike audiences based on your converted leads (showing ads to people who resemble your best customers).
Measuring Remarketing ROI
Remarketing ROI is calculated as the revenue (or lead value) generated from remarketing-influenced conversions, minus the cost of the remarketing campaigns. The challenge is attribution: a lead who saw three retargeting ads, received two emails, and then searched for your company name and converted through a Google search ad -- which channel gets credit?
The pragmatic approach is to measure incrementality: compare the conversion rate of your remarketing audience (people who saw ads after visiting your site) to a holdout group (people who visited your site but were excluded from remarketing). If the remarketing group converts at 3% and the holdout converts at 1%, remarketing is driving 2 percentage points of incremental conversion.
Most small and mid-size businesses do not need this level of statistical rigor. A simpler approach: track your overall lead volume and cost per lead before and after implementing remarketing. If lead volume increases and cost per lead decreases (or stays flat), remarketing is adding value.
