Remarketing

Use Google Ads remarketing to re-engage with potential customers by adding your website and app visitors to remarketing lists. You can then target these lists with ads. Before you get started with this tag, we recommend that you learn more about how this feature works in the Google Ads help center.

Remarketing methods

Decide which type of remarketing suits your business needs and which tagging method you would like to set up. There are two types of remarketing:

  • Standard remarketing allows you to show ads to people who have previously visited your website or used your mobile app. This article focuses on standard remarketing.
  • Dynamic remarketing allows you to take a step further in remarketing by showing your visitors an ad with the specific product they had previously viewed on your site. This will require you to create a data feed. To get started with dynamic remarketing, see Dynamic Remarketing instead.

Once you have determined the type of remarketing you would like to set up, choose the tagging method that is most suitable for your website:

  • Google Ads remarketing: If you’re looking to enable basic remarketing only, the Google Ads tag is recommended. If you already run Remarketing Lists for Search Ads on your site, you can continue to use the same tag. You can create remarketing lists based on web page URLs or custom parameters. This method allows you to set up remarketing by placing a remarketing tag directly on your website.
  • Google Analytics remarketing: The advantage of Google Analytics remarketing is that you can target more specific audience lists, e.g. users in a particular region, users who completed a specific goal, etc. With Google Analytics installations with Google Signals or Advertising Features enabled, you most likely will not need to make any changes to the code already implemented on your website.

Google Ads and Google Analytics remarketing methods support both the Google tag and Google Tag Manager setups.

Standard Remarketing with Google Ads

To set up remarketing with Google Ads, create a new tag or retrieve the conversion ID for remarketing by following these instructions:

gtag.js

For existing Google tag installations: You don't need to make any changes to your existing installation as long as you have an ID with a prefix of "G" or "AW".

For sites that don't yet have a Google tag: In Google Ads, set up the Google tag and set the tag to "Collect standard data available from this data source". Learn how

Copy the new remarketing tag and paste it between the <head></head> tags of your website.

Tag example:

<!-- Google tag (gtag.js) -->
<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=TAG_ID"></script>
<script>
  window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
  function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
  gtag('js', new Date());

  gtag('config','TAG_ID');
</script>

Google Tag Manager

  • Get the conversion ID from Google Ads.
    1. In Google Ads, click Tools and Settings > Shared Library: Audience Manager
    2. Click Audience Sources
    3. On the "Google Ads tag" card, click Details.
    4. Click Tag setup.
    5. Click Use Google Tag Manager.
    6. Copy the Conversion ID.
  • Create a new tag in Google Tag Manager. Select the "Google Ads Remarketing" tag type.
    1. Select New Tag > Tag Configuration > Google Ads Remarketing.
    2. Enter your Google Ads Conversion ID.
    3. Click Triggering and choose one or more triggers to specify when the tag should fire. For example, select a trigger that fires on all pages if you want to add a remarketing tag to every page of your website.
    4. Click Save to complete your tag setup.
    5. Important: For optimal web browser compatibility, ensure that a conversion linker is enabled.
    6. Preview your changes, and publish when ready.

Important: Remarketing tags do not usually require a 'conversion label’. You will only need to use a conversion label for remarketing if you selected to create a list with a specific tag. Do not use your conversion action’s label in your remarketing tag.

Standard Remarketing with Google Analytics

Remarketing with Google Analytics relies on an audience definition based on the dimensions and metrics that are available in Analytics when you enable Advertising Features.

To set up remarketing with Google Analytics, you need the following:

Once the above steps are complete, follow the tagging steps below for your platform:

gtag.js

To enable remarketing features for installations of the Google tag, modify the Google Analytics property setting. No tag changes are necessary.

analytics.js

To enable these features for legacy Universal Analytics installations, insert ga('require', 'displayfeatures'); into your existing tracking code between the 'create' and 'send' commands, as in this example:

<script>
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');
ga('create', 'UA-XXXXXX-1', 'example.com');
ga('require', 'displayfeatures');
ga('send', 'pageview');
</script>

Tag Manager

  1. In Tag Manager, navigate to your current Google Analytics tag.
  2. Under More settings > Advertising, set Enable Display Advertising Features to true.

Learn more about how to add products to existing tags