Advertising and promotion · Field experiment by an online travel firm: after users visited the firm's site and viewed hotels, an ad network randomized/served dynamic retargeted versus generic brand banner content while users browsed other websites; subsequent response was compared across stages/signals of the decision process.
When Does Retargeting Work? Information Specificity in Online Advertising
Anja Lambrecht, Catherine Tucker (2013). When Does Retargeting Work? Information Specificity in Online Advertising. Journal of Marketing Research. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.11.0503
Plain-English take
Dynamic retargeting was, on average, less effective than generic brand advertising, but the disadvantage disappeared or reversed when browsing behavior indicated that consumers had developed specific preferences (for example, after visiting review sites). The implication is that retargeting content should match the consumer's decision stage and information specificity.
How much weight to give this
4/5 Field or experimental evidence with bounded scope
The 1–5 evidence-check score is a practical reading aid, not a formal peer review or a probability that a conclusion is true. It combines design strength (2 points), sample reporting (1), comparison/control clarity (1), and how much of the paper could be checked (1). Access affects how confidently this directory can assess a study, not the study's underlying quality. Blinding is reported separately because it is not relevant to every design.
Field experiment by an online travel firm: after users visited the firm's site and viewed hotels, an ad network randomized/served dynamic retargeted versus generic brand banner content while users browsed other websites; subsequent response was compared across stages/signals of the decision process.
Visitors to an online travel firm's website who had looked at hotel offerings, followed as they browsed elsewhere on the web; the article appears in Journal of Marketing Research 50(5), 561–576.
Review the paper for comparison conditions and analysis.
Publisher record checked; detailed methods were not verified.
Double-blind? Blinding was not established from the publisher page.
Research question
What the authors investigated
What does when does retargeting work? information specificity in online advertising show about customer behavior or marketing outcomes?
Design
Field experiment by an online travel firm: after users visited the firm's site and viewed hotels, an ad network randomized/served dynamic retargeted versus generic brand banner content while users browsed other websites; subsequent response was compared across stages/signals of the decision process.
Sample and setting
Visitors to an online travel firm's website who had looked at hotel offerings, followed as they browsed elsewhere on the web; the article appears in Journal of Marketing Research 50(5), 561–576.
Reported result
What the study found
Dynamic retargeting was, on average, less effective than generic brand advertising, but the disadvantage disappeared or reversed when browsing behavior indicated that consumers had developed specific preferences (for example, after visiting review sites). The implication is that retargeting content should match the consumer's decision stage and information specificity.
This is a paraphrase of the source. Check the original paper for definitions, estimates, statistical uncertainty and analysis details.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
The experiment is tied to one online travel firm, one ad network, and hotel-shopping behavior, so generalizability to SaaS, B2B, or other purchase cycles is uncertain. The design also compares the particular dynamic and generic creatives supplied in the campaign; it cannot isolate every possible personalization algorithm, and the observed outcomes do not by themselves establish long-run retention or lifetime value. Full-text methods and correction history were not independently checked.
Possible founder application
Use this study as a bounded example related to when does retargeting work? information specificity in online advertising; evaluate whether its customers, intervention and outcome match your own context.
Evidence access
Publisher page; full-text availability varies and was not established.
Study metadata and reported results were cross-checked against a direct publisher-page retrieval; detailed full-text methods were not reviewed.
If only an abstract or metadata was available, the profile is limited to claims supported there. A paper's paywall does not change its evidentiary status, but it limits what we can substantiate from accessible text.