Mobile retargeting: 12 actionable takeaways from global experts

Is user acquisition the art of getting attention? If so, mobile app retargeting is the science of not losing it. And, ultimately, making it profitable.

Mobile marketers spend 10s if not 100s of billions running ad campaigns, driving installs, encouraging sign-ups, and pursuing purchases. But as all UA pros know, the hard horrible truth is that most users vanish within hours or days. If you have 15% of your acquired users in a cohort 30 days later, you’re an all-star.

But of course … that means 85% have jumped ship. 

Mobile retargeting is the quiet hero of growth marketing. It can turn that fleeting attention into lasting value. But only if you do it right.

That’s why we just released 2 resources for you … 1 you can read, and 1 you can watch:

• Guide
  Mobile app retargeting: How to boost engagement, retention, & revenue
• Webinar
  Retargeting That Works: Winning Back Users Across iOS, Android & Web

They’re free and available on-demand right now: check them out.

While you do that, here are just a few of the key learnings from the webinar, which featured experts who run mobile retargeting campaigns dozens if not hundreds of times each month.

• Gabriel Oyarzabal, VP LATAM, Jampp
• Karl Berta, VP Americas, Appier
• Jonathan Yantz, Managing Partner, M&C Saatchi
• Martje Abeldt, CEO, RevX
• Olivia Sears, Head of Account Management, Smadex
• Angela Humphrey, VP of BD, YouAppi
• Mike Gadd, Customer Success Director EMEA & India, Singular
• John Koetsier, VP Insights, Singular (moderator)

Here are their biggest takeaways:

1. Mobile retargeting and re-engagement: better together

We kicked off with an important distinction: re-engagement is owned, retargeting is paid. Think email, push, and SMS for re-engagement; think DSPs, social ads, and programmatic for retargeting. 

But think about them together.

Both matter, and both should be part of a holistic strategy. 

As Olivia Sears noted, segmentation is the key: different cohorts need different nudges. Cart abandoners might require urgency; lapsed users may just need a reminder.

“ Retargeting is more about intent,” she says. “Reengagement rather, is more about how to add value, or rebuild the relationship.”

Critically important: unifying the data layer for owned and paid channels, says Mike Gadd. Data has to flow into one system, enabling real-time audience updates and consistent messaging across push, email, CTV, and mobile ads. 

Frequency caps are essential: nobody likes feeling stalked by an app.

And consistency matters, says Karl Berta. A user who gets an SMS with a discount and then an ad with a completely different message is confused, not convinced. Or, worse, annoyed.

And that won’t boost sales.

2. Budget allocation: start with 20–30% for mobile retargeting

How much of your growth budget should go to retargeting? 

Jonathan Yantz suggested 20–30% as a starting point, but emphasized: it depends. 

App lifecycle, vertical, and audience maturity matter. Brand-new apps, of course, spend zero on mobile retargeting because they have no or few lapsed users to retarget.

On the flip side, Martje Abeldt shared that mature apps often spend 50%+ on retargeting because they’ve already saturated their UA channels and maybe their markets, and it’s much more about getting users back.

3. When does the clock start? Right away

When should you retarget?

The answer might surprise you.

Gabriel Oyarzabal dropped one of the most striking insights: in some cases, mobile retargeting should start within 15 minutes of install.

As in, you’ve just won them, and BOOM … you’re instantly retargeting them.

Why?

Because attention drops off fast. I can’t count how many times I’ve installed an app or game, then kept playing my game or scrolling my feed. When the game’s over, I don’t even remember to go back to the app that I just got. A few months later I noticed this app or game icon and think … what is this?

That’s why Oyarzabal essentially telling us that the retargeting clock doesn’t start at D7 … it starts at minute 15.

The moral of the story … if you wait, you risk losing users and not even getting that first open. Push notifications and emails can help, but they’re limited. 

Paid retargeting can catch those who slip through the cracks and ensure that the users you’ve acquired actually open your app or game.

4. Measurement: incrementality or bust?

If you’re not measuring incrementality, you just might be flying blind. Multiple panelists hammered this point home. 

You can do it lots of different ways — talk to Singular about how — but whether you’re using geo-holdouts, ghost ads, A/B testing, or just wide divergences in spend and activity, incrementality is probably the best way to know if your retargeting spend is actually driving conversions you wouldn’t have gotten anyway. 

As Gabriel Oyarzabal emphasized, it’s not a one-time thing: incrementality testing should always be on.

5. iOS is a challenge for mobile retargeting, sure, but increasingly, so is Android

We know mobile retargeting on iOS is tough with ATT and IDFA opt-outs, but it’s not impossible.

But it’s also getting tougher on Android in some geos.

 ”In some European countries, Scandinavia, for example, opt-out rates on Android are very, very high … about 50%,” Abeldt said. “ So when you look at the global landscape, there’s a lot of audiences that are opting out these days also on Android, and it’s a total blackout, basically on the device.”

That means you have to adopt different tactics.

Which ones?

Angela Humphrey highlighted broader privacy-compliant segmentation plus a shift to aggregated signals like location, device type, OS version, app version, and more. Then for measurement, incrementality still works great because it’s not dependent on user-level signals.

6. Creative: personalization, relevance, and DCO

Retargeting is only as good as the creative you use. (Of course, timing, targeting, and offer matter too.)

Segmentation is critical to get the right creative and offer in front of the right users.

Ideally, you want to align creative with segments, says Olivia Sears. Big spenders should get different messaging than casual users. One way to personalize creative that doesn’t rely on user-level data: context-aware creative. These are ads that change based on weather, time of day, or market conditions.

And dynamic creative optimization (DCO) is an increasingly big deal. DCO has broken out of retail and is now effective in gaming, finance, travel, and subscription apps.

One of the reasons I personally like it is that DCO is like a mini-shopping experience in the middle of your scroll … just pause, see if you’re tempted, and if so, tap it for more info.

7. Seasonality: don’t just shout louder in Q4

Holidays are expensive and noisy. 

You want to have specific campaigns that align with the time of year and the events that are going on, but it’s risky: you don’t want to test brand-new creative when ads are the most expensive they’ll be all year.

So both Olivia Sears and Mike Gadd recommended evergreen campaigns that run year-round, so you’re not scrambling in Q4 with untested strategies. 

And, if you’re going to some holiday-specific messaging, build off one of your high-performing templates.

Start early, extend into post-holiday windows (Q5!), and complement paid retargeting with owned channels to control costs.

8. Future of retargeting: AI and cross-device?

AI is changing everything, so why not mobile retargeting too?

As most marketers, our panelists expect AI to revolutionize creative, from generating video ads for every SKU in an e-commerce feed to crafting hyper-relevant messages at scale. 

Beyond AI, however, cross-device marketing looks to be big.

Cross-platform and cross-device marketing, done right, builds that surround sound marketing effect that I’ve talked about before. It’s the ability to seem like your brand is everywhere … even when you’re tiny.

And that can be huge in driving action.

9. Orchestrate frequency across owned + paid

This is really hard to do when you don’t have IDFAs and GAIDs might be scarce in the geo you’re targeting, but make an effort to coordinate messaging caps across push, email, and SMS so you don’t over‑serve the same person. 

That’s just annoying, and we all know it.

Best-case scenario here is that you have users/players/customers who have willingly given you first-party data like email addresses or phone numbers, and you can use those cautiously but effectively.

Ideally, you centralize audiences and regulate overall pacing of all messaging so that one channel doesn’t nuke performance in another.

Or, worse, cause churn rather than prevent it.

10. Preserve journey continuity with deep links and deferred deep links

Post‑click matters. 

Nothing kills a conversion faster than confusing, different, or broken destinations.

Always route people to the exact screen, information, or offer promised in your mobile retargeting ads … even after an update or reinstall. It’s the fastest way to turn intent into action.

That means deep links, and it means deferred deep links.

11. Practice audience governance

Separate UA and retargeting with clean suppression lists, “do‑not‑target” uploads, and postbacks of every install to partners. 

It’s easier for an ad network partner to find you “new” users when it’s actually mobile retargeting at work. Ensure that doesn’t happen by practicing good campaign hygiene.

This avoids double-counting, eliminates cannibalization, keeps budgets honest, and ensure you know accurate ROI for both your UA campaigns and your mobile retargeting efforts.

12. Map bottlenecks, then retarget to unblock

The best mobile user acquisition marketers are also (almost) product managers who know their own apps better than almost anyone else.

Run cohort analysis on post‑install funnels (D0, D3, D7, D14, D30) to find drop‑offs. Identify the blocks or hurdles. Then build creative and offers that nudge users to the next milestone.

Now you’ve got a genuine and powerful mobile retargeting message … not just some generic “come back to us.”

Unlocking value with mobile retargeting

Mobile retargeting isn’t just about chasing users. Done right, it’s about delivering value, maintaining relevance, and extending lifetime customer relationships.

It also reduces your per-use cost of acquisition by wringing more value from your initial UA investment.

Or, as one panelist quipped: “Reduce CAC, get them back.”

That’s retargeting that works.

There’s so much more in the full webinar. Check it out here. And, of course, don’t forget to get the mobile retargeting guide, which is available right here.

Here’s what to expect from the full webinar:

• 01:16 Welcome and Overview of Retargeting Networks
• 02:39 Agenda and Expert Panel Introduction
• 04:21 Introduction to Singular and Webinar Purpose
• 05:19 Key Insights from the Retargeting Report
• 06:24 Audience Polls and Initial Panel Discussion
• 07:43 Deep Dive into Retargeting Strategies
• 18:51 Measurement and Incrementality Testing
• 23:41 Audience Engagement and Poll Results
• 25:14 Challenges and KPIs in Retargeting
• 26:51 Retargeting on iOS and Android
• 27:33 Privacy Compliance and Measurement Strategies
• 28:16 Targeting and Measurement Challenges
• 32:00 Creative Strategies for Reengagement
• 39:36 Running Effective Re-engagement Campaigns
• 47:10 Future Trends in Retargeting
• 52:10 Top Takeaways and Q&A