Despite the importance of determining when it is appropriate to recontact digital customers, considering both retargeting effectiveness and privacy concerns, this issue has been underexplored in previous research. Unlike previous retargeting studies that infer decision stages from fragmented actions, we uncover consumers’ purchase concerns from a series of actions in their purchase journey. A randomized field experiment reveals that personalized retargeting, compared to non-personalized retargeting, improves purchase conversion for consumers with product-related concerns (e.g., product fit or price). However, for consumers with privacy concern dominance, it can backfire, decreasing purchase conversion. These findings highlight the importance of integrating retargeting audience and content research by identifying and addressing dominant purchase concerns. Insights from the studies help firms make better choices about whom to retarget and what messages to convey when developing retargeting strategies, resolving the trade-off between retargeting effectiveness and privacy concerns.

尽管确定何时适合重新联系数字客户很重要，但考虑到再营销的有效性和隐私问题，这个问题在以前的研究中并未得到充分探讨。与之前从碎片化行为推断决策阶段的再营销研究不同，我们从消费者购买过程中的一系列行为中揭示了消费者的购买担忧。一项随机现场实验显示，与非个性化重定向相比，个性化重定向可以提高有产品相关问题（例如，产品适合度或价格）的消费者的购买转化率。然而，对于隐私问题占主导地位的消费者来说，这可能会适得其反，降低购买转化率。这些发现强调了通过识别和解决主要购买问题来整合访客找回受众和内容研究的重要性。研究中的见解有助于公司在制定再营销策略时更好地选择再营销对象和传达哪些信息，解决再营销效果和隐私问题之间的权衡。