Hi, OctoClick user!
In this article, we’ll introduce our new feature, explain why it matters, what it can bring to your campaigns, and, of course, show you exactly how to set it up.
In just 10 minutes, you’ll be ready to open your account and launch a test. But then… the courier calls. Or an important message pops up in your messenger. Or some other urgent task suddenly needs your attention.
And just like that, our article gets lost among a dozen open tabs you’ll definitely come back to someday.
But that’s not a problem for us — we’ll find you anyway.
Every marketer knows this scenario. A user may become interested in an offer, visit the website, explore the product, and then get distracted before completing the desired action. Sometimes one touchpoint simply isn’t enough: the audience may need more time or one more reminder, and that’s completely normal.
The solution to this problem has been around for a long time — and now it’s available in OctoClick too.
Below, we’ll explain how retargeting works, what makes it different in OctoClick , and how to set it up.
What Is Retargeting?
Retargeting is a feature that helps bring back already engaged users, move them closer to conversion, and encourage them to complete target actions again.
It allows you to show ads to users who have already interacted with your product — for example, those who filled out a form, clicked a button, or explored an offer but stopped somewhere in the middle of the funnel.
We’ve already mentioned the common situation where a user becomes interested in an ad, checks out the offer, gets distracted, and never completes the target action.
But there are other scenarios where a user may still fail to convert:
The user has seen the offer but doesn’t fully understand its value yet or doesn’t trust it enough.
The user understands the product and is interested in it, but needs more time to think, compare options, or return to the decision later.
The user started registering, making a purchase, or depositing funds, but didn’t complete the process.
The same ad is shown to someone who has already seen it three times and to someone seeing it for the first time. The audience isn’t segmented deeply enough, and the messaging doesn’t reflect how warm each user is.
Ads continue to be shown even to users who have already completed the target action and either cannot or should not complete it again.
Retargeting helps solve all of these problems. Its main advantage is that your interaction with a user doesn’t end after the first touchpoint. Advertisers are no longer limited to a single attempt to convince a particular user to complete the desired action.
Below, we’ll look at specific examples of how retargeting can be used across different verticals, which scenarios work especially well, and at which stages of the funnel it brings the most value.
How to Use Retargeting Across Different Verticals
Dating
Imagine you’re promoting an 18+ dating service. Users can interact with this type of product in different ways.
Some users quickly browse profiles, choose a suitable match, and complete the target action right away. Others may spend a long time viewing profiles, using filters, and returning to the same profiles, but still never make a call, switch to a messenger, purchase a premium subscription, and so on.
But we already know there’s clear interest in the product: the user has spent a significant amount of time on the site and actively interacted with the content. Perhaps they simply weren’t ready to convert at that moment, or something distracted them.
Solution: segment this audience separately. For example, collect users who spent more than 10 minutes on the site and applied a filter for a specific city or area but did not convert.
Then launch a separate campaign for this segment with a creative tailored to the relevant location and remind them about the product. This gives you another chance to move the user toward conversion.
You don’t have to stop there. After the first conversion, move your most engaged users into a separate segment and later target them again to drive a repeat action.
Gambling
The same retargeting logic from the dating example can also be applied successfully here to re-engage interested users. But this time, let’s look at another useful advantage.
For example, you’re promoting a gambling offer and your KPI is FTD — the user’s first deposit.
Your campaign is performing well, and part of the audience has already become players and made their first deposit. Continuing to show them ads within an FTD-focused campaign no longer makes sense: they’ve already completed the target action and no longer count toward your KPI. They can’t make a first deposit twice, while your budget may still be spent on reaching them.
Solution: use retargeting to create a segment of users who have already completed an FTD and exclude them from the campaign focused on acquiring new players. This way, your ads are no longer shown to users who have already completed the target action, helping you spend your budget more efficiently.
Betting
Let’s say you’re promoting a betting offer during a major football match.
The user saw the ad, visited your site, checked the odds, explored the betting lines, and even started registering — but still closed the page.
Maybe there wasn’t much time left before the match, something distracted them, or they simply decided to come back later. There was no conversion, but their behavior clearly shows that interest in the product has already been established. And now we know more about this user than we did at the first touchpoint.
Solution: you can save these users and place them into a separate segment for future use. For example, you can separately collect users who showed interest in a specific match or started registration but didn’t complete it.
Before the next match or another relevant event, this user can be shown a more specific offer — for example, a reminder about the product together with a welcome bonus or another benefit included in the offer. The creative can then be built not as a first introduction, but as a continuation of the previous interaction.
Ultimately, retargeting allows you to do more than simply show the same ad again — it helps make the next touchpoint more personalized.
How to Set Up Retargeting in OctoClick
Now we know how retargeting can be used across different verticals. And these are far from the only possible scenarios: the same retargeting logic can be adapted to almost any niche or vertical.
Now let’s take a look at how to set up retargeting in OctoClick and what makes our implementation different.
Setting Up Segment Collection
Retargeting is configured in a separate section on the left-hand side of the menu. First, go there and create the goals you need. Then, you can work with the collected segments at the campaign or creative level.
To get started, you need to create a Goal. The process consists of just three simple steps.
Step 1
First, create a group. It will be linked to a specific website or offer from which data will be collected later. Give the group a clear, descriptive name.
If you work with several websites — for example, one focused on dating and another on crypto — create a separate group for each one. This keeps the data from being mixed together.
Within a single group, you can create multiple goals, representing different actions a user can take on that specific website.
Step 2
Next, choose the types of user actions you want to track and use later. Several goal types are available, including button clicks, form submissions, page views, time spent on the site, visits to a specific URL, and the option to set up your own custom event.
At the moment, creating a segment based on S2S Postback conversions is not available, but we plan to add this option soon.
Fill in the goal conditions and give the goal a name. You can also specify how long a user should remain in the audience.
You can add multiple goals within the same group at this stage.
Step 3
At the third stage, you’ll receive a code snippet that needs to be placed on all website pages where you want to track goals. Copy the generated code and add it to the site users land on after clicking your ad.
That’s it. Once the code is installed, data collection will begin automatically.
If everything is configured correctly, after some time the Retargeting section will start showing reach data — the number of unique users collected for your goals — as well as the time of the most recently recorded event.
If the audience is not being collected for a prolonged period, the system will display a yellow notification to alert you to a potential issue. There may be several reasons for this: an error in the code implementation, an overly strict combination of conditions that must be met simultaneously, website issues, or a lack of traffic.
Setting Up a Retargeting Campaign
At the Creative or Campaign level, you can now select Retargeting when configuring your targeting settings.
Here, you can select the audience segments you created earlier or exclude them instead — all available segments will appear in this section. You can choose a specific goal within a group or select all goals at once, so you’re not limited to targeting entire groups only.
Other targeting options available for new-user campaigns are ignored in this case and cannot be applied when targeting specific retargeting segments.
Important Tip
Pay close attention to how your tracker handles URL parameters. Make sure it does not remove the GET parameters (click_id, octoclickid). Otherwise, we won’t be able to identify the visitor ID, and retargeting may not work correctly.
One more important detail: retargeting will only collect users who arrived through OctoClick ads. It is not possible to build retargeting audiences from other traffic sources.
Retargeting Is Now Available in OctoClick
We know how long you’ve been waiting for this feature, and we’re excited to finally bring retargeting to OctoClick in a flexible and well-thought-out implementation.
Now you can work with your traffic even more effectively: bring interested users back and move them toward conversion, exclude irrelevant audiences based on behavioral signals, test different approaches at every stage of the funnel, and build separate communication strategies for each segment.
If you still have any questions about setup or launch after reading the article, our managers are always available and ready to help.
We’re looking forward to seeing your retargeting tests in OctoClick . Launch campaigns, experiment with segments, and find the scenarios that deliver the best results.