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🎯 Part 2: Bottom-Funnel Addiction

When Retargeting Becomes a Crutch, Not a Strategy

There’s a hard truth most performance marketers don’t want to hear:
The algorithm doesn’t care about your brand.
It cares about conversions—and only the ones it can take credit for, even if it didn’t do the work.

Platforms like Meta, Google, TikTok, and every retargeting vendor in between are optimized for one thing: short-term outcomes. They identify the users most likely to convert now, not the ones who could become loyal customers, long-term advocates, or brand evangelists. The result? Campaigns that increasingly serve ads to people already deep in the funnel—or already in the checkout line.

🧠 The Myth of Smart Efficiency

At first glance, it looks efficient. Your ROAS dashboard glows. Retargeting delivers high clickthroughs. Costs seem manageable. But zoom out, and you start to see the real problem: you're spending more and more to win over the already-won.

Retargeting doesn’t create value. It cannibalizes discovery.

You're not building demand—you’re just scooping up the last few drops from a shrinking pool of intent. That person who saw your ad after abandoning their cart? They were probably coming back anyway. That "conversion" you paid for? It was on its way—with or without the ad.

🔍 The Hidden Cost of Over-Targeting

The longer you rely on bottom-funnel tactics, the worse the economics get. Here's how the feedback loop works:

• CPCs Inflate: As everyone targets the same “likely to buy” users, the auction intensifies. You’re not just bidding for attention—you’re bidding against yourself.

• Margins Erode: You’re paying platform tax for conversions that aren’t incremental. In some cases, 30–50% of retargeted sales would’ve happened organically.

• Growth Stalls: With most of your budget stuck in the bottom of the funnel, you stop acquiring new customers. Top-of-funnel dries up. CAC creeps higher.

What began as smart targeting becomes a hamster wheel of self-reinforcing spend. And the platforms? They’ll happily keep charging you to chase the same users over and over again.

📉 The Data Doesn’t Lie

• CPCs: Retargeting campaigns show +180% higher CPCs vs. prospecting.

• Conversion Quality: Often skews toward lower LTV, impulse-buy customers.

• Market Expansion: Effectively zero. These ads don’t grow your audience—they just milk the one you already have.

Criteo’s own simulations have shown diminishing ROI as multiple advertisers retarget the same user, driving bid collisions and spiraling costs. And studies suggest as many as 40% of cart abandoners would have returned without a retargeting nudge.

All of this undercuts the central promise of digital efficiency. You’re not scaling—you’re spending.

🔁 The Vicious Cycle

Let’s be honest: the algorithm is rigged to reward short-termism.
It spots a quick win, delivers a conversion, and earns a gold star.
You see a nice-looking ROAS.
So you pour in more budget.
Which leads to more inflated CPCs.
And fewer new customers.
And more budget dumped into retargeting.
Until the funnel starts to close in on itself.

This isn’t marketing. It’s cannibalism dressed up as performance.