Jordan Gutierrez of Wishpond Cracked the Code on YouTube Retargeting
After extensive A/B testing, Jordan Gutierrez and the team at Wishpond discovered a powerful insight:
YouTube video viewers convert better than any other retargeted audience.
In fact, YouTube video ads turned out to be the most effective retargeting channel they tested—outperforming traditional display ads, Facebook retargeting, and email-based remarketing.
There was just one problem:
YouTube doesn’t allow traditional remarketing pixels like Facebook or Google Display Network do.
But all was not lost.
The Workaround: Build Retargeting Audiences from Video Views
Although you can’t drop a tracking pixel directly, YouTube and Google Ads do let you build remarketing audiences based on user behavior on your videos—such as:
- People who watched a specific video
- Viewers who subscribed to your channel
- Those who liked, commented on, or shared a video
- Or even just people who visited your YouTube channel
So Jordan and his team got creative.
They created short, custom videos related to each of their most popular blog articles. Then they embedded those videos directly into the articles, knowing that even a few seconds of watch time would trigger YouTube’s audience-building features.
The result?
A scalable, zero-pixel way to retarget warm visitors via YouTube ads.
Taking It Further: The 1-Second White-Screen Hack
Now here’s where it gets really clever.
Someone (perhaps you!) thought:
“What if we don’t even need a full video production setup? What if we just need the video view to fire?”
So came this idea:
Create a 1-second, silent, white-screen video.
Upload it to YouTube. Then embed it invisibly on your site so that anyone who visits your page “watches” it—triggering a YouTube remarketing event.
Here’s the HTML embed code:
html
<iframe style="position: absolute; left: -500px;" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PLACE_VIDEO_ID_HERE?autoplay=1&mute=1&controls=0&showinfo=0&autohide=1&rel=0&version=3&vq=hd1080&loop=1&modestbranding=1&playlist=PLACE_VIDEO_ID_HERE" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0"><span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span></iframe>
This iframe:
- Autoplays the video silently (so it doesn’t annoy visitors)
- Hides all controls and branding
- Loops the video
- And renders it off-screen (so it’s invisible to users)
Result: The video plays without interrupting the user experience, and you can now retarget these viewers using YouTube Ads.
⚠️ A Word of Caution: Use Ethically and Strategically
While this is a smart technical workaround, use it responsibly.
- Only embed this video on pages where you intend to later retarget users with relevant offers.
- Consider letting users know that you use YouTube video embeds for personalized ad experiences (depending on your region’s privacy regulations).
- Avoid deceptive tactics—transparency builds long-term trust.
Why This Works
By using YouTube’s native engagement-based audience system, you’re not relying on third-party cookies or traditional tracking pixels. That makes this strategy privacy-forward, cookie-light, and future-proof in a world that’s phasing out third-party data.
Final Takeaway:
If you want high-converting retargeting ads—and don’t mind getting a little clever—YouTube video view audiences are an untapped goldmine.
Embed short videos (even silent ones) across your top-performing content, then build remarketing campaigns that follow up with highly engaged users.