# Retargeting that follows each account’s stage

> Accounts move between stage lists as they engage, each list sees the ad and offer for its next step on LinkedIn, Google and Meta, and customers and accounts in sales are left out.

Demander keeps one list per funnel stage, fed by what accounts do on your site, in your e-mails and in your CRM. Each list syncs to LinkedIn, Google and Meta and is shown the ad for its next step. When an account moves on, it leaves the list and its ads change with it.

## The lists, and what each one sees

An account sits on at most one stage list at a time. The lifecycle decides which, from its score and the evidence behind it.

| Account state | List | What its ads show |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Aware | Visited, not engaged | Consideration messages: proof, comparisons and answers to objections. Your website-visitor audience on that platform can join this campaign. |
| Engaged | The nurture list for its next offer | That offer’s message, landing on its page when your site has one. Case study first; then the webinar for accounts that read your docs, the benchmark report for the rest. |
| High intent | High intent | Conversion messages: demo or trial, with proof. |
| In sales or opportunity | Opportunities (exclusion) | Excluded from every acquisition campaign. |
| Customer, expansion, advocate | Customers (exclusion) | Excluded from acquisition campaigns. Retention and expansion campaigns target them on purpose. |

Joining a stage list needs a fit score of 50 or more and retargeting in use (paid media running or a retarget campaign planned). Leaving always runs, including when an account is disqualified.

## How the loop closes

1. **Signals move the account.** Visits, pricing-page views, replies, form fills, blog reads and CRM stage changes update the account’s score and lifecycle state.
2. **The list follows the state.** The account goes onto the list for its new state and comes off the others. Below autonomy level 2 these moves are batched per list into one proposal you approve (“Add 34 accounts to …”).
3. **Lists sync every hour.** Only the difference goes to each platform: company domains to LinkedIn, SHA-256 hashed e-mails of consented contacts to Google Customer Match and Meta custom audiences.
4. **Campaigns point at the lists.** Each retarget campaign targets its list and excludes the opportunities and customers lists. Countries stay, interests and keywords are dropped so they cannot narrow a list to nothing, and LinkedIn keeps the personas’ seniority.
5. **Ads match the step.** The campaign uses existing ads for the segment’s messages and renders what is missing through the normal creative path. An offer that has no message yet gets one written from a consideration message.

## Pooled retarget lines

Lists are shared across the workspace, so retargeting budgets are pooled. Each persona’s retarget line on LinkedIn, Google or Meta joins a pool per stage and platform. When the pool reaches the platform’s minimum budget it becomes one campaign per segment, and the personas’ creatives share it, the persona with the largest budget first. When it does not, each persona’s share goes back to its other lines in that stage.

Segments are funded in order while each still gets the platform minimum: in consideration, “visited, not engaged” first, then one campaign per nurture offer; in conversion, high intent. A list with no approvable ad is skipped. A retarget line on a platform without list sync (Microsoft, TikTok, Reddit, X, Sklik) runs with the stage’s usual objective.

## When a list is too small to serve

| Platform | Serves from | Matched on |
| --- | --- | --- |
| LinkedIn | 300 matched companies | Company domains |
| Google Ads | 100 active matched members | Hashed e-mails of consented contacts |
| Meta | About 100 matched people | Hashed e-mails of consented contacts |

Below the minimum the campaign carries a “too small to serve yet” warning. In live mode it stays a draft and the launch is refused until the list fills, checked again after every sync. With a website-visitor audience attached, the warning is for information only.

## What reaches the platforms

- **Accounts identified lawfully.** Stage and exclusion lists hold only accounts identified under your legitimate interest assessment or with consent. See [website tracking](https://demander.to/features/website-tracking/).
- **Consented people on Google and Meta.** Only hashed e-mails of contacts who gave explicit marketing consent, are not suppressed and did not opt out of ads sharing.
- **Prospected people never.** Contacts found through prospecting are never uploaded to Customer Match, Meta custom audiences or LinkedIn contact lists. Prospect lists sync to LinkedIn as company lists only.
- **Pixel audiences by reference.** Website-visitor audiences are the platform’s own consent-gated tags. Demander refers to them by id and uploads nothing for them.

> **Rehearse it in sandbox.** The simulated market delivers list-targeted campaigns only to the list’s current members, minus the exclusion lists. An empty list spends nothing and a small one spends only part of its budget, so you see how list size limits delivery before you go live.

## Questions

**How is this different from pixel retargeting?**

A pixel audience holds everyone who visited. Stage lists come from the account’s state, which also uses e-mail replies, form fills and CRM stages, and they change as accounts move. You can still attach the platform’s website-visitor audience to the “visited, not engaged” campaign.

**Why only LinkedIn, Google and Meta?**

Those are the platforms where Demander syncs account lists: LinkedIn company lists, Google Customer Match and Meta custom audiences. Retarget lines planned on other platforms run with the stage’s usual objective.

**How quickly does an account change lists?**

The move is proposed when its state changes and reaches the platforms with the next hourly sync. Below autonomy level 2 the moves wait for your approval in batches, one decision per list.

**Do I need a CRM?**

It works without one, from site visits, e-mail and forms. With HubSpot, Pipedrive or Salesforce connected, opportunities and closed deals move accounts onto the exclusion lists, so sales conversations stop getting acquisition ads.

## Related

- [Paid campaigns](https://demander.to/features/paid-campaigns/)
- [Website tracking](https://demander.to/features/website-tracking/)
- [Attribution](https://demander.to/features/attribution/)
- [Account-based marketing](https://demander.to/use-cases/account-based-marketing/)
- [LinkedIn Ads](https://demander.to/platforms/linkedin/)

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Source: https://demander.to/features/retargeting/ · Demander · reviewed 2026-10-02