The perfect match for more targeted search
Google launched Customer Match two years ago, but there are still many who are not capitalizing on this feature as another layer of campaign optimization. Much like RSLA (retargeted lists for search ads), Customer Match can take your remarketing campaigns to the next level by offering additional audience insights for bid changes and segmented ad messaging.
Customer Match lets you target ads specifically to people in your email database by matching your email records with searchers who are logged in to their Google accounts, such as YouTube or Gmail. A highly targeted form of remarketing, this lets you market to people who have already engaged with your business, which can lead to traffic at lower CPCs at a much higher conversion rate.
Before you get too excited, a couple of caveats. The email lists that you submit for Customer Match must contain at least 1,000 matched email records. And, according to a recent article in Search Engine Watch, to really see an impact to volume and performance, you should have an email list of 50,000 records or more.
Secondly, you can only upload email lists that you’ve collected directly (such as people giving you their contact information via a form on your site). You can’t buy a third-party list and upload it.
Assuming you do have a nice big happy list of emails, your first step is to segment those lists for precise targeting. Ecommerce companies can segment based on such factors as the person’s last purchase, previous purchases, categories of interest, average amount of orders or spend.
B2B companies can segment based on where the customer is in the sales funnel, areas of interest (i.e. they signed up for a white paper on a specific topic or service), or what their most recent action was on the site. For example, you may want to market your next webinar to someone who attended your last webinar.
Once your lists are segmented, you can create retargeting ads that specifically speak to those audiences and promote topics, products or services that will be of most interest.
From a search perspective, you can use your Customer Match lists as a new bid layer. You can choose to bid up slightly on segmented lists (since they are likely to perform better than your generic search traffic) or wait to adjust based on performance. Going forward, you may wish to do additional layering, focusing on specific lists or campaigns that are generating the most value.
Customer Match gives you the power to better understand your users, and cater your advertising specifically to their needs. Remarketing does this already, but Customer Match takes it to the next level.
Interested in Customer Match or other ways to get more from your PPC campaigns? Let’s Talk.
Diane Callihan
With more than 20 years of experience writing for some of the country’s top brands, Diane helped to shape Roger West’s content strategy, lead generation, and PR efforts as Director of Marketing. She currently serves as President of Callihan Content Creation.