DSP Retargeting: How to Improve Targeting and Boost Conversions
In eCommerce, getting a customer to notice your products and brand is a huge win—but it’s only the first step to sustainable profitability.
What matters next is how you engage with shoppers, especially when they show interest but don’t convert. That’s where Amazon Demand-Side Platform (DSP) retargeting comes into play. DSP gives you a strategic advantage by focusing on converting, cross-selling and upselling to customers already in buying mode, paving the way for increased revenue and customer loyalty.
Optimize multiple eCommerce campaigns in one click.
Try the eCommerce platform that gives brands powerful PPC tools to scale on Amazon and beyond. Demo Trellis today.
What Is DSP Retargeting?
DSP retargeting is a type of programmatic advertising that helps Amazon sellers reengage shoppers who have previously interacted with their product listings (or a competitor’s) without making a purchase. Retargeting campaigns typically serve these users ads across Amazon and external sites to keep your products top of mind, sometimes using incentives like discounts to draw them back.
The distinction between DSP and other Amazon ad formats like Sponsored Display Ads is that DSP allows for non-endemic ads, which means your message can appear in a variety of off-Amazon locations. DSP retargeting helps you broaden your reach and connect with interested shoppers beyond the Amazon advertising ecosystem.
Examples of DSP Retargeting Strategies
If you’ve ever shoe shopped online, then been digitally haunted by that one pair you didn’t buy, congrats—you’ve been retargeted. However, Amazon retargeting strategies get more sophisticated than this common scenario. Here are a few examples of additional ways you can use retargeting to increase revenue.
Increase Purchase Frequency
Remind your customers how great the products they purchased were, and encourage them to shop again. For consumables like toiletries, a gentle nudge can lead to increased purchase frequency and brand loyalty. Even if immediate conversion doesn’t occur, staying visible keeps your products top of mind.
Cross-sell and Upsell
Analyze customer data to identify complementary products to those your customers already purchased, then get those products in front of them with DSP. Use dynamic and rule-based bidding to increase media bids for these high-intent audiences.
Competitor Conquesting
Shoppers viewing your competitors’ product pages? Not on your watch. With DSP, you can create custom segments to target users who viewed ASINs similar to yours but didn’t purchase. You can even serve ads to users who searched for competitor brand names. Be sure to use creative to your advantage in these scenarios, highlighting your products’ unique features.
Contextual Targeting
Reach potential customers using, well, context. Since DSP is non-endemic, it lets you place ads on external blogs and sites where likely shoppers are engaging. Layering contextual targeting with retargeting non-converters is especially effective on high-intent content like buyer’s guides and product review rundowns.
4 Strategies to Improve Retargeting Using Amazon DSP
Since you’re here, you’re probably already experimenting with DSP, and ready to dive deeper into refining your retargeting efforts. Perfection is a journey, not a destination—but you can get a little closer with these four advanced techniques.
1. Use Data to Understand Shopper Behavior
The success of any retargeting strategy comes down to one thing: data. Amazon DSP is a treasure trove of behavioral data. Many eCommerce sellers are working with DSP, Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), and potentially other platforms like Walmart and Shopify . Amazon even announced at Amazon Accelerate 2024 that Amazon DSP would be available to sellers who use Buy With Prime on their DTC websites.
The bottom line is that many brands have more data than they know what to do with. The trick is integrating all this data and then digging up the most valuable nuggets and putting them into action. Amazon DSP offers advanced targeting based on these categories:
- Behavioral : Target shoppers who have viewed specific products, added items to cart, frequently browsed certain categories, or spent certain amounts of time with product videos or descriptions.
- Contextual : Advertise on sites where the content aligns with your products, e.g. if you sell fitness equipment, your ads might appear on health and wellness blogs.
- Lifestyle : Target specific audiences based on demographics and lifestyle indicators like age, income level, hobbies, and purchase history.
By layering these data-driven targeting options onto audience segments that already have brand awareness, you can create personalized ad experiences that convert.
Try it today:
- Create custom audiences to target users who have looked at complementary or similar products and reviews.
- Implement dynamic retargeting to tailor ads based on users’ past interactions with your brand.
- Use Amazon’s first-party data for retargeting even for products you’re not selling on Amazon .
Example in practice:
Luxe Weavers, a premium rug company, used automation to collect and analyze shopper behavior data . Within Trellis, they were able to quickly respond to customer demand with promotions and dynamic pricing tactics. With all their data in one place, they increased RoAS by 38% and Return on Merchandising Spend by 72%.
2. Optimize Your Ad Creative
Creative elements are often the first impression your audience has of your brand. Ensuring these elements captivate and engage is essential for successful retargeting ads.
Try it today:
- Use high-quality images and videos optimized for various endpoints, such as smart TVs and mobile devices.
- Write clear, compelling ad copy that highlights your product’s unique selling points. Hint: If you let AI write your copy with no human input, it will sound like everyone else’s copy.
- Always have a clear call-to-action that urges shoppers to take the next step. Consider offering a discount code, including a sense of urgency, and above all, keep it simple.
- Make sure your creative matches your product content . A shopper should know what to expect when they click on an ad.
- Experiment with interactive components like shoppable images or videos that allow customers to engage with your products directly through the ad.
- AI-powered tools can help with responsive creative and image generation to create personalized, relevant ads.
Example in practice:
Simple, clean ad creative can be extremely impactful. Arlo’s display creative for its security camera feels simple, but it hits all the right notes. It’s got clear branding, a high-quality product image, concise but inspiring copy (“Shine like a Pro”), and a straightforward CTA.
3. Test and Iterate
Continuous testing and optimization are vital to refining remarketing strategies and maximizing ROI. Amazon DSP provides comprehensive analytics, but advanced media buyers often plug in to an external analytics platform for rigorous testing on various DSP campaign elements.
Try it today:
- Conduct regular A/B tests on ad formats, creatives, and messages to identify which combinations lead to the highest engagement and conversion rates.
- Combine Amazon’s reporting tools with advanced advertising platforms to monitor key campaign metrics and continuously adjust based on performance data.
- Incorporate Amazon’s dynamic ads feature to automatically tailor algorithm-driven content based on user behavior and interests.
Which metrics matter the most? For retargeting ads, we’re looking at mid- and bottom-funnel KPIs like:
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- Detail page views (DPV), DPV rate, and cost per DPV
- Product review page views
- New-to-brand percentage (NTB)
- Video completion rate
- Add-to-list and add-to-cart
- Advertising efficiency metrics like RoAS and ACoS
Example in practice:
The reality is, if you don’t test something, you’ll never know the potential outcomes. Boosted Commerce identified a few opportunities to
test increased prices
—setting prices on certain products higher than any they’d ever tried. As it turned out, sales on those products continued and the brand was able to increase its margins by 2%. This shows the power of testing and experimentation.
4. Track Your Conversions
Understanding how your retargeting efforts translate into actual sales helps you see the bigger picture and refine your marketing strategies to optimize spend, improve messaging, and increase profitability. Attribution can be tricky , so be prepared to experiment and expect some nuance.
Try it today:
- Implement precise attribution methods to ensure that each campaign is accurately tracked, whether through ASINs, tracking pixels, or advanced analytics tools.
- Analyze conversion data on a regular basis to uncover insights about the revenue each ad campaign generates.
- Explore different attribution models for a holistic view of your campaigns’ effectiveness, and incorporate multi-touch attribution whenever possible.
Example in practice:
In our conversation about AMC advertising strategies , Trellis Co-Founder Krishna Vemulapali discusses a client that was struggling to justify their Amazon DSP ad spend and thinking about pausing the campaigns. However, when Trellis revealed a more detailed path-to-purchase, the data told a different story about DSP’s value in driving sales.
“If I’m shopping,” explains Krishna, “the odds are, I’ve interacted with multiple organic listings, multiple ad placements, before I’ve made that shopping decision. Some of these data sets were not available even six to nine months ago.”
“Last-touch attribution is doing more of the same,” adds Ali Babul, Trellis Chief Evangelist. “Multi-touch attribution is where it will actually power you and get you profitable growth as well.”
Drive Sales and Profitability With Strategic DSP Retargeting
DSP retargeting is more than just reminding prospects about a product they viewed. It’s a sophisticated, strategic tool that drives conversions, improves brand recall, and increases sales.
By understanding and embracing the power of DSP, you can cultivate meaningful connections with your audience and guide them down the path to purchase.Want more insights like this? Subscribe to The Climb for the latest strategies and tactics to grow your business.
The post DSP Retargeting: How to Improve Targeting and Boost Conversions appeared first on Trellis .
Full content in Trellis
