How does this work?
Upload your email list to AdWords and this will verify if your email addresses are associated with Gmail accounts. It is then possible to create customised experiences based on the user themselves.
Although this sounds slightly creepy and a new way to spy on us, the user will receive highly targeted and relevant advertising based on information gathered when signed into their Gmail account.
This new form of advertising won’t rely on a soon to expire cookie pool as remarketing advertising does. Customer Match will not have the immediate effect as with remarketing, and less of the desperate ‘come back to our site please’ feel.
What does it mean for marketers?
This new wave of targeting will enable marketers to see a better return on their AdWords spend. By increasing the relevance of advertising to the customer, should mean a higher conversion rate. And of course the extra impressions your adverts will have on a relevant audience.
Think of all the potential there is for segmentation, using this new tool we can now segment customer databases even more! You can target lapsed customers, returning customers, even email unsubscribes (even though this is ethically dubious in our opinion).
How effective is it?
Because of this more evolved form of targeting, the likelihood of results being positive is higher. These adverts are targeted based on a collective search history, rather than how remarketing works, which is based on a single visit that may or may not have been relevant or successful for the user. Adding to this of course statistically, returning customers are better converters.
What are the requirements for using Customer Match?
The fun bit! There are some requirements that need to be filled in order to use this tool:
- You must have a list of +1000 matched email addresses, not an easy feat for a smaller business unfortunately.
- Only Gmail accounts are targetable (other emails may be linked to a Gmail account so the email does not have to actually be a Gmail address).
- Emails must only be collected on a first party basis, from your website, app or store. Customers registering to a loyalty program or opting into marketing emails from you.
- A link must be provided on all emails from you where a user can manage their preferences.
- There is no limit to the amount of lists you can add.
- Each list can only be a maximum of 17MB (which is about 500k email addresses).
For more information on the set up of the tool visit the AdWords Help Centre.