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Originally Posted by Notsoprobro
You're noticing the ads because your cookies/cyber footprint is most likely making you a target. If you simply visit their site, they can target your device/IP and market to you nonstop. This is a powerful tool for companies who want to close a deal, especially when someone spent 15 minutes looking at a group of watches.
You don't even need to visit their site, if you have a trend of googling Rolex sellers, they can also target you through that as well.
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I'm actually a marketer that does this and remarketing/retargeting doesn't quite work like you're suggesting.
1.) Platforms (Facebook, Google, .etc) aren't the one's retargeting, it's the individual advertisers, i.e. Zappos, Amazon.
2.) In order to remarket to a user you have 2 options.
- a.) The user has visited some portion of a page you control with a corresponding platform pixel. This means it can be a landing page or your own website and if you're using Google then it must have a google remarketing pixel. Same with Facebook, the page must have a remarketing pixel to use it.
In this instance the pixel fires a cookie and it stays on your computer for a very long time. You can clear your cookies, though.
-b.) You can target people through their email address. Sadly, this is true. If I have your email address I can create a custom audience on Facebook and retarget you. On Google I would be able to retarget your when you search only, but it can be for unrelated terms.
In this instance you either signed up for something or your email was found and added to a list. The last example being extremely unprofessional.
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How Advertisers Use Remarketing
If I was to run an ecommerce website selling watches, as long as I had a pixel on every page, I could set up a campaign on Google to show you the exact product you were just looking at...on every website you visit with Google Ads installed.
On Facebook it's only on the FB platform (FB/IG), but on Google it extends to millions of websites.
It's a very powerful tool for getting buyers back in the sales funnel, and you have so many different ways to filter a person.
1.) Time on site: Are they serious? Show them ads!
2.) Abandoned Cart: Let's show them a discount and get them back!
3.) Purchase: I need them to make another purchase!
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Without getting too in-depth you can see why advertisers use remarketing and how it's associated to you specifically.
On both Facebook and Google ads you only have to report the ad to never see it again. Click the report link on FB or the X on Google Ads and explain why you don't like it. This kind of feedback works incredibly quickly, not only for you but for everyone. So don't think reporting ads doesn't matter because it does. If only 5 people reported an ad it could easily get shut down, sometimes even less.
If multiple ads from the same advertisers continually get shut down due to user reporting/SPAM the advertiser can lose their account within days of the 2nd or 3rd infraction.
Hope it helps.