This past week I caught a video on YouTube for Moby’s song “In This World” (if you haven’t had the chance I suggest you check it out when you get a chance.) In the video you see tiny aliens travel to earth, with signs that read “Hi” and “Hello”. They go all over New York City holding up these signs to get people's attention; simply to make friends with the people of Earth. Most of their attempts are futile, however towards the end they do get one human to see them and wave back. There is a short celebration, but before the aliens know it, he leaves and is walking down the street, continuing on his day. Eventually the aliens leave Earth, rejected. The end of the video shows the aliens on their own planet making a much larger “HELLO” sign; which leaves you with the impression that they will be back at some point to attempt to get our attention again - and warming our hearts with their little alien can-do attitude.

As an online marketer; I found myself relating to these aliens.How many times have you tried to get in front of your customers with a great message, product, solution, or promotion and been completely overlooked? In our world today, there are more marketing messages than ever before, especially online. I, on average, receive 91 emails a day to my personal email account. Most are advertisements, articles, and other communications that I have told ‘someone’ along the way that I wanted to receive, but I probably read only 5 a day. I also use search engines, but rarely do I click on sponsored listings; and as the data continues to support the fact that click through rates are on the decline, I am not in the minority (see ComScore’s recent study about declining click through rates.)

The online customer is evolving, and so is the online advertising space. Behavioral Targeting (BT) is a hot topic this year; and not only because it’s new, but because it works. Companies that are able to target their customers based on their behavior are seeing a rise in traffic and conversion rates, in a manner that is affordable and produces results. One of the newest and fastest growing segments in BT is known as Retargeting. Retargeting is the art of identifying prospects that visited your website but did not make a purchase; and then directing them back to your site via targeted online advertisements and ultimately getting them to convert. Once converted, they can be easily added to your loyalty marketing programs, and should remain as on-going customers.

The genius of Retargeting, in my opinion, is that it allows you to continue your conversation with a potential customer effortlessly – your ads just happen to appear on the sites your potential customer normally goes to on a daily basis (i.e. email sites, social networking sites, news sites, etc – what a coincidence!) Data shows that even if a customer does not click on a Retargeted Ad that they have viewed, they are still more likely to return to your site and complete a purchase. The power of staying in front of your customer is now more easily achieved; so where do you start?

There are a handful of companies out there who offer this service. However; if you are looking for a company that specializes in Retargeting, I suggest you check out FetchBack.Many BT firms dabble in various areas of online advertising, normally with Retargeting being a small part of their service. FetchBack focuses solely on Retargeting, and nothing else. I suggest you visit their site today and get in touch with them for more information. Even if you just visit the site and look around, be prepared to start seeing more FetchBack Ads as you surf the web… Hey, they practice what they preach! They not only have built a bigger and better sign; but they can get the sign right in front of your customers so that you stand out in the crowd.