How is retargeting related to purchase incidence, channel choice, and purchase quantity?

We investigate the relationship between retargeting and other marketing activities on buying behaviors in a multichannel environment. By modeling three stages of the buying decision process, we find that retargeting influences customers to make a purchase; it drives purchases through the web and telephone channels more than the store but does not impact how much they spend. A key finding of our research is that when retargeting is used without other tactics, customers are more likely to buy from the web channel; however, when retargeting is combined with email, the effect on the web channel is reversed. A possible explanation for our finding is that retargeting ads are perceived in a similar way as obtrusive ads, and when combined with an email that links to a firm’s website content, retargeting negatively impacts buying behaviors.