8 Retargeting Strategies to Boost Digital Ad Performance

There’s still potential to convert them, but they shouldn’t be your top priority, because they’ll never be your most valuable customers. The more specific the search, the more likely the shopper is ready to purchase. A top tier, high-intent customer may either search for brand-specific terms like “Itch flea treatment” or similar terms focused around competitors’ products. Most of your resources should go towards attracting these kind of customers based on this intent, as they’re likely to lead to the highest long-term returns, bring in the most revenue and the most value – and as such, become your leading customers over time.

• Both teams must understand how to interpret and act on intent data for maximum impact.
• There’s still potential to convert them, but they shouldn’t be your top priority, because they’ll never be your most valuable customers.
• Use intent insights to customize messaging, content recommendations, and offers.
• “In my experience, targeting high-intent users is the most cost-effective way to maximize return on ad spend (ROAS),” says Rodrigo Cesar, founder and CEO of SSInvent.

Use the Conversions API to track and target users who’ve already shown buying intent. You won’t find high-intent users by guessing. That can work for big brands with mass-market appeal and deep pockets. These users are much more likely to convert — and Meta can see that. A high-intent audience includes people who’ve already shown real interest in your offer. These users are more likely to click, engage, and convert.

According to Sprout’s survey data, 9% of consumers plan to use Pinterest more in 2026. And they mainly use Pinterest to find information about products or brands. Sprout’s Q Pulse Survey shows Pinterest reaches 33% of US consumers, 32% of Australian consumers and 30% of UK consumers. Regardless of where they’re located, most Pinners come ready to plan and buy, which translates into a higher conversion potential than most other networks. Saves are one of the highest-intent signals on social media, and Pinterest’s internal data shows users save over 1.5 billion Pins each week.

In closing, the step-by-step approach outlined here is not a one-time project but an ongoing cycle of improvement. High-intent audiences are a moving target – intent can flare up and fade quickly – so having an agentic AI continuously scouting for signals and updating your audience in real time is a competitive advantage. By enriching CDP profiles with live data, delivering look-alike audiences, and integrating seamlessly with your CRM and outreach tools, Landbase ensures you’re always working with the most complete and current picture of your market.

Leading advertisers and agencies trust Bombora

When a Custom Intent Audience is structured with strong thematic clarity, Google automatically reshapes it toward users with rising forecasted value, effectively turning the audience into a living, self-optimizing cohort. Actions like multi-step browsing, scroll intensity, cross-device continuity, and interaction pacing feed into probability models that determine how likely someone is to convert within a defined time window. The system assigns disproportionately higher value to users whose behavior spikes within short time windows, effectively prioritizing those who are in an active, escalating buying phase. To work effectively with this model, you need to understand the mechanics beneath it — the “why” behind Google’s decisions, not just the “how” of audience setup. Before you can truly master Custom Intent Audiences, it’s essential to understand how radically the underlying signal framework has evolved by 2025. That’s why building audiences with clarity, purpose, and tight thematic focus is more important than ever.

Step 2: Cast the Intent Net

Buyer intent signals show that a person or account is researching or considering a purchase. Instead of broadcasting a single message to a broad audience, it reads behavioral cues (i.e., searches, content views, downloads, and repeat visits) and focuses its efforts on accounts showing real purchase intent. Intent-based marketing (IBM) is a strategy that uses buyer intent signals to target prospects who are more likely to buy. In this blog post, I’ll break down what intent-based marketing is, how it differs from other marketing types, and how to turn buyer intent into campaigns that convert. In fact, HubSpot’s 2026 State of Marketing Report found that 58% of marketers say AI referral traffic carries much higher intent, meaning the visitors who reach your site are already further along in their buying journey.

Why LinkedIn Still Dominates B2B Marketing

B2B sales cycles typically run 3 to 6 months, so you need enough time for high-intent leads to convert and for your team to iterate on messaging and targeting. Pinterest users are the most purchase-ready audience on social media, making this segment incredibly lucrative for the brands that show up. For brands, targeted Pinterest ads can drive results without the creative fatigue common to other platforms. Strong creative paired with low CPCs is a recipe many brands are using to scale efficiently. These advertising and revenue stats show how Pinterest performs for brands paying to play and where its growth is headed.

A High-intent Audience is a subset defined by behaviors that strongly indicate readiness to convert. Always exclude recent purchasers, closed-won opportunities, or leads who already converted to the next stage. In practice, many winning Paid Marketing strategies use Retargeting high intent audiences / Remarketing to ensure high-intent users see consistent messaging across channels and devices, reducing drop-off between research and purchase.