Prospecting vs Retargeting

What This Page Answers

Prospecting targets people who have not recently shown direct intent toward the brand. Retargeting targets people who already interacted with the brand, site, app, content, or products. Both are useful, but they should be measured differently.

Prospecting

Prospecting is for new demand and new customers. Examples:

  • Broad Meta audiences

  • TikTok interest or Smart+ campaigns

  • Non-brand Google Search

  • Demand Gen prospecting

  • ChatGPT Ads in category discovery contexts

Key metrics:

  • New customer rate

  • CAC

  • CPA

  • MER impact

  • Creative learning

  • Incrementality

Retargeting

Retargeting is for users who already showed interest. Examples:

  • Site visitors

  • Cart abandoners

  • Video viewers

  • Lead form openers

  • Product viewers

  • CRM lists

Key metrics:

  • Frequency

  • Conversion rate

  • CPA

  • Incrementality

  • Audience size

  • Saturation

Why Retargeting Looks Better

Retargeting often reports higher ROAS because users are already warmer. That does not mean it created all the demand. Many retargeted users may have converted without the ad.

Budget Balance

Too much retargeting can create attribution inflation. Too little retargeting can waste demand created by prospecting. A healthy system:

  • Uses prospecting to create or find demand.

  • Uses retargeting to answer objections and reduce friction.

  • Uses blended metrics to avoid over-crediting retargeting.

Practical Rule

Prospecting grows the pool. Retargeting harvests part of it. Do not judge both by the same ROAS screenshot.