Retargeting

Retargeting means you go back to the people who already showed some interest. They opened your vacancy, watched your video, or started the application and didn't finish. You build an audience out of them (on Meta that's a custom audience, based on your pixel, your video viewers or your own list) and show them a different ad.

That's the important part, a different ad. Showing the exact same job ad again mostly reminds people why they didn't apply the first time. What works better is answering the doubt they probably had: show the salary, a colleague talking about the job, what the first week looks like, or just "it takes 2 minutes to apply".

For job ads on Meta, keep in mind that campaigns usually run under the employment Special Ad Category. Custom audiences are still allowed there according to Meta's documentation, but the other targeting limits still apply. Also, depending on where you are, you need proper cookie consent before you can add website visitors to an audience at all, which makes these audiences smaller than you'd expect.

Example

A transport company sees lots of people opening their truck driver vacancy but few finishing the form. They create an audience of people who visited the vacancy in the last couple of weeks but didn't reach the thank-you page. The retargeting ad is a short video of a driver explaining the schedule and the pay, with "apply in 2 minutes, no CV needed" as the button text.