But… How Do I Price Remarketing Effectively?

In my previous post, “Remarketing: Move Beyond the ‘Did You Forget Something?’ Trap”, we explored how effective remarketing isn’t about echoing the same message––it’s about offering something new and enticing the second time around.

But understanding what remarketing should say is only half the battle. The other half? Knowing how to price it properly.

Remarketing campaigns may look efficient in platform dashboards, showing strong click-through rates and solid conversion numbers, or the opposite could be true, and this will vary based on your unique audience. Either way, if you’re pricing it purely based on what the platform tells you it “converted,” you may be missing the point and the actual value.

In reality, remarketing is not the single-handed hero at the finish line. It’s the helpful nudge,

strategic reminder, and partner in a multi-touch dance that leads to conversion. It can come in to play at the end, or even simply along the way. Pricing it properly means acknowledging its actual role, and its influence, across the entire user journey.

Understand the True Role of Remarketing

Effective remarketing keeps your brand in consideration. It builds familiarity. It addresses hesitations. But it’s rarely the sole reason someone converts.

And yet, that subtle influence can have measurable down-funnel impact. It can shorten the sales cycle. It can increase brand search. It can even reduce customer acquisition costs by turning more passive interest into action.

Here’s the nuance: remarketing is an add-on cost to an audience you’ve already paid to get in front of. You’re spending again to re-engage users, with the expectation that doing so will increase the value of that audience, justifying the added expense. Remarketing doesn’t generate new demand, it works to improve the value of existing demand.

Your pricing framework shouldn’t treat it like a standalone channel. Instead, it should reflect remarketing’s role as a performance amplifier, a tool to boost the conversion potential of users already in your ecosystem.

So how do you price that?

Not by chasing a campaign-level ROAS target or holding it to the same efficiency bar as prospecting. Instead, price remarketing like the supporting actor that makes the lead look better. Allocate budget with a clear understanding of where remarketing fits in your conversion path, not just how it performs in isolation.

Don’t Let Last-Click Metrics Lead You Astray

If you’re only measuring what remarketing closes at the last click, you’re undervaluing what it does along the way.

Consider this scenario:

A user sees a prospecting ad, visits your site, and leaves. Later, they see a remarketing ad but don’t click. Then a day later, they Google your brand, click a search ad (or maybe an organic link), and convert.

Remarketing didn’t “get the conversion,” right? Not according to last-click attribution. But it absolutely influenced that decision.

This is the trap: when we value remarketing purely on last-touch ROI, we see inflated returns, or worse, cut it prematurely because the tracked numbers don’t look strong enough on paper.

Pricing remarketing properly means factoring in what it contributes—even when it’s not the closer.

Look at the Audience, Not Just the Ad

Here’s a better way to evaluate remarketing: step back from the campaign-level data and look at the audience-level performance.

Ask, since we introduced remarketing:

• Are more people who previously bounced completing purchases at a higher rate?

• Have we seen increases in repeat orders, or decreases in churn rates, from existing customers?

These questions will vary based on who you are remarketing to, for example, you will need to look through a different lens when remarketing to cart abandoners vs. past purchasers. Regardless, remarketing should be seen as a lever that influences these types of metrics. If your returning visitor conversion rate has jumped from 2% to 4% after launching remarketing, that’s real value, even if only half of those conversions came through remarketing clicks. It’s about pricing for lift, not just last-click or directly-tracked results.

Don’t Give Up Right Away

With new remarketing tests come, well, testing. If you're running remarketing and notice no net change in your site's conversion rate or returning user behavior, don’t be too quick to pull the plug. You may have a pricing, creative, or other strategy issue. You may just have to wait out a long sales cycle (more about dealing with latency). Iterative changes to your remarketing strategy will likely be necessary before you see success.

Just as important: set up tests to measure for incrementality. Run experiments with tests and controls to see what the net effect is. You could hold out a portion of your audience from seeing remarketing ads and compare their behavior to those who did see them. Another option is geo testing—run remarketing in certain geographic areas while not in others to evaluate lift. Neither test will be easy to execute perfectly, and the results are often directional rather than definitive. But they offer a more honest look at whether your remarketing is creating meaningful value, or simply capturing conversions that would have happened anyway.

Final Thought: Price for Performance, Not Credit

Remarketing works best when you view it as part of the system, not a standalone channel competing for credit.

So when you price it, think beyond direct conversions. Ask what it’s enabling, who it’s reaching, and how the presence of remarketing is changing user behavior and audience value across the board.

The value is there. You just have to know where to look.