Pajama Entrepreneur

ReTargeter is an Internet advertising engine that places ads for websites you are browsing, on sites that you subsequently visit. ReTargeter works this way: Let’s say you are browsing around the website of a resort hotel in Asia, planning your holiday. Then, you decide to go to another website, for example, the New York Times. You will see an ad on the New York Times website for the resort (if the resort is a client of ReTargeter) and it “reminds” you to go back to the resort’s home page. According to clients of ReTargeter, this “reminder” system has resulted in higher conversion rates than plain vanilla banner ads. It works better because people have already expressed some interest in the products and services of the advertiser (since they already visited the advertiser’s site).

How does ReTargeter remember that you visited the resort’s home page? ReTargeter places a cookie on your computer. Your personal information is not transmitted to the advertiser. Advertisers can also limit the geography and category in which their ads appear and can restrict the number of impressions per user per day so that people are not bombarded by the same ad. ReTargeter’s prices are reasonable, starting at $500 for 175,000 targeted impressions.

Q&A with Arjun Arora, founder of ReTargeter

When did you start ReTargeter? What is your background?
May 2009. I worked at Yahoo between 2007 and 2009.

Are you self-funded or angel-funded?
I invested my own money in ReTargeter and received funding from Auren Hoffman (Rapleaf) and Tod Sacerdoti (BrightRoll).

What inspired you to start ReTargeter?

I saw retargeting in action at Yahoo and noticed that this was awesome but way too expensive for anybody other than a Fortune 500 company. Moreover, inventory was limited and I could see that this would be great for small and medium sized businesses.

Do other websites (e.g. online publications) complain that you show ads from companies that are part of the ReTargeter network, instead of the ads that pay the online publication (the NY Times example I gave above)?

We are actually buying that ad from NYT and pay more than they would receive otherwise. Our publishers love us because we pay more (since, after all, the user is worth more).

Where do you see ReTargeter going in 2010?

We want to get more customers and find creative ways to use our technology, not just to please our clients, but to make sure that you see ads that are relevant to you.

www.retargeter.com