Retargeting is a fascinating and scarily effective marketing tool that has been used for customers buying online through desktops for some time. However, until recently, it was absent from mobile.

In this guest article, Simon Wajcenberg, Global CEO of Clash Group explains why this is now available, and what this ground-breaking development means for marketers and their brands.

Most people will have been aware of retargeting even if they didn’t know what it was called – websites use cookies to track items customers have viewed or even added to their basket before abandoning it, and will then use this information to hit the customer with product-specific adverts to encourage them to actually go through with the purchase.

On average, 95% of users leave a site empty handed – but with retargeting, consumers are somewhere in the region of 70% more likely to make a purchase. Obviously, the potential for this to be applied on a mobile platform is enormous.

However, smartphones and tablets will not support third party cookies and are covered by strict privacy laws. One advertising company, Clash Group, has developed cutting edge technology in accordance with Europe’s privacy regulations (considered to be the strictest in the world) as well as in the US. Consumers are provided with detailed privacy policies and the quick ability to opt out if necessary.

In addition, the technology behind this solution had to be more complex than traditional online advertising products due to a much more fragmented mobile landscape – from technology and device diversity to supply source and methods of identification points.

Clash Group’s clients cover a broad range of sectors including major retailers, airlines, banks, charities, and telecoms. Clash’s research has found that basket abandonment is normally between 60-88%. When mobile retargeting is introduced, however, clients have seen an average of 40% of those retargeted coming back to the mobile-site.