---
name: google-retargeting-ads
description: "Replace a single catch-all retargeting audience with tiers sized to real list volume, sequenced messaging, and proper suppression. Use when relaunching or refreshing retargeting on Meta or Google."
license: MIT
compatibility: "Works with any Agent-Skills-compatible AI (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Codex, and more). Ad-account actions run through Adspirer."
metadata:
  author: "Adspirer"
  version: "1.0.0"
  adspirer_category: "campaign-launch"
  adspirer_source: "https://www.adspirer.com/skills/google-retargeting-ads"
  adspirer_trigger: "build a proper retargeting setup instead of one catch-all audience"
  adspirer_connection_url: "https://adspirer.ai/sign-up"
  adspirer_primary_keyword: "google retargeting ads"
  adspirer_secondary_keywords: "remarketing campaign, retargeting strategy"
  adspirer_launch_wave: "2"
  adspirer_kind: "skill"
  adspirer_level: "operator"
  adspirer_platforms: "meta,google"
  adspirer_supported_clients: "claude,claude-code,claude-cowork,chatgpt,codex,cursor,gemini,windsurf"
  adspirer_summary: "Tier retargeting audiences against real list sizes, sequence the message per tier, and suppress converters deliberately."
  adspirer_connections_required: "adspirer"
  adspirer_connections_optional: "ga4"
---

# The Retargeting Stack

## Use this when

Retargeting is one ad set pointed at everyone who visited the site in the last thirty days, running the same ad to someone who bounced off the homepage and someone who abandoned a full cart. Frequency is climbing, results are flattening, and existing customers keep reporting that they are still being chased by ads for the thing they already bought.

Use this skill to rebuild it as a proper stack. It works out:

- which funnel stages have enough people in them to justify their own audience;
- what each tier should actually be told, since a homepage bouncer and a cart abandoner need different arguments;
- how long converters should be suppressed, which differs enormously by what is being sold;
- where the real drop-off is, so budget goes to the leak rather than spread evenly; and
- which tiers are too thin to serve and should be merged rather than launched.

This is for launching or refreshing a retargeting program. It audits and tiers audiences that already have data behind them; it does not install a pixel or tag, and it does not create new creative concepts.

## What you need

- Adspirer connected to the Meta or Google account, with the pixel or tag already firing on the site. This skill builds on existing tracking; it cannot install it.
- Enough site traffic history behind that tracking for audiences to have accumulated. Thin lists do not serve, and a tier below the platform's minimum simply will not spend.
- A view of the on-site funnel — at minimum a page view, an intent action like starting a form or adding to a cart, and a completion. Tiers are built on these, not on undifferentiated "visited the site".
- Creative for several distinct messaging angles, since the stack sequences messages across tiers rather than generating new concepts.
- A decision on how long converters stay suppressed. The right answer differs sharply between a repeat-purchase category and a long-consideration B2B sale, so this gets confirmed rather than assumed.
- Optional GA4 access, used to sanity-check where the funnel actually leaks so tier weighting follows the evidence. Without it the stack is built on platform audience sizes alone.

## Procedure

**Connect Adspirer before any live ad-account step.** Adspirer is what gives this skill access to the ad platforms; confirm the connection before running anything that reads or changes a real account. In Claude Code: `/plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-plugins-community`, then `/plugin install adspirer-ads-agent@claude-community`, then `/reload-plugins`, then complete the OAuth sign-in. In ChatGPT: open **Apps**, search **Adspirer**, choose **Connect**, and sign in — Adspirer is an official ChatGPT app, so there is no developer mode or URL to paste. In claude.ai or Claude Desktop: Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → `https://mcp.adspirer.com/mcp`. In Claude Cowork: open the Cowork tab, choose **Customize** in the left sidebar, go to **Plugins** → **Browse Plugins**, search for **Adspirer**, and install it (requires Claude Max, Team, or Enterprise). Any other client: https://www.adspirer.com/docs/ai-clients. Sign-in link for the user: https://adspirer.ai/sign-up. Do not proceed with live ad-account steps until the connection is confirmed.

1. **Audit what audiences already exist and how big they really are.** Read the current audience inventory and the actual size of each list, along with which events are genuinely firing. This is the step that decides how many tiers are possible: an ambitious five-tier design on a site with modest traffic produces four audiences too small to serve. Report the real numbers before proposing a structure, and name any funnel event that is not firing, since a tier cannot be built on an event that does not exist.
2. **Design tiers against those numbers, not against a template.** Separate people by what they actually did — viewed, showed intent, nearly completed — and only give a stage its own tier where the list can sustain delivery. Where two stages are individually too thin, merge them and say why. Where GA4 is connected, compare drop-off between stages so the tier that gets the most budget is the one where people are actually being lost, rather than the one that is simply largest.
3. **Sequence the message and set exclusions so tiers do not fight each other.** Give each tier a distinct argument: a reminder for the top, an objection answered in the middle, urgency only where it is earned. Then make the tiers mutually exclusive, so someone who abandoned a cart is not also being served the generic reminder — overlapping audiences bid against themselves and inflate frequency, which is usually what made the old setup feel broken.
4. **Decide suppression deliberately.** Confirm how long converters are excluded, and set it from what is being sold rather than from a default. Suppressing a repeat-purchase customer for six months wastes the easiest revenue available; failing to suppress a long-cycle B2B buyer irritates someone who has already signed. State the window chosen and the reasoning, and confirm it with the user rather than applying a house number.
5. **Build paused, verify, and hand over.** Create the audiences and campaign structure with everything paused, then re-read what the platform saved — audience definitions, exclusions, budgets — and check it against the design. Present the tiers with their real sizes, the messaging assigned to each, the suppression window, and any tier that came out too thin to serve. Enable only on explicit approval.

## Fixed checks

- Read actual audience sizes from the platform before designing tiers, and report any tier that falls below what the platform will serve.
- Confirm each funnel event is genuinely firing rather than assuming it exists because it is configured.
- Verify tier exclusions are applied so audiences are mutually exclusive, read back from the saved configuration.
- Confirm the converter suppression window with the user rather than applying a default silently.
- Confirm everything is paused before approval is requested, read from the live account.
- Where GA4 is used, compare the same date range as the platform data and name any material disagreement rather than averaging them.
- State list recency windows explicitly, since an audience defined over a different window is not comparable to the one it replaced.

## Stop conditions

- **Success:** tiers built and verified paused with sizes, messaging, and suppression agreed, then enabled on approval.
- **Built and parked:** the stack is assembled and verified, and the user wants to review before launching.
- **No change needed:** the existing structure is already properly tiered and suppressed, and only needs a refresh of creative.
- **Blocked — volume:** no funnel stage has enough people to sustain even a single serving audience. Report it rather than launching tiers that cannot deliver.
- **Blocked — tracking:** the pixel or tag is not firing the events the tiers depend on, which is a fix that comes first.
- **Needs approval:** the build is complete and verified, waiting on an explicit go.
- **Needs a handoff:** pixel or tag installation, event configuration, or new creative belongs to someone else.

## Approval boundaries

Building the audiences and campaign structure happens paused and involves no spend; enabling is a separate step requiring explicit approval after the design has been reviewed. This skill cannot install or repair a pixel, tag, or server-side event, change the website, alter analytics configuration, or produce creative — where one of those blocks the stack it is named with its owner. Suppression windows and budgets are confirmed with the user rather than defaulted silently, because both quietly decide who gets chased and for how long.

## What you get

A retargeting structure built on what the audiences actually contain rather than on a template — with any tier too thin to serve named as such instead of launched to sit unspent. Each tier carries a distinct argument, so the person who abandoned a cart is not receiving the same reminder as someone who glanced at the homepage. Tiers are made mutually exclusive, which usually resolves the climbing frequency and self-competition that made the old catch-all feel broken. Converter suppression is a deliberate, stated decision matched to what is being sold, not a house default silently applied. Where analytics was connected, budget weighting follows where people are genuinely being lost rather than where the list is biggest. You also get the honest constraints: events that are not firing, stages that had to be merged, and anything the tracking cannot yet support — with the owner named. Nothing goes live until you say so.