3 Brilliant Uses of Google's New Customer Match

In true PPC geek fashion, Loud Mouth Media were excited to learn about the release of Google's new AdWords feature, Customer Match.

 

In true PPC geek fashion, we at Loud Mouth Media were extremely excited to learn about the release of Google's brand new AdWords feature, Customer Match a few weeks back. Professing to be one of the most important AdWords updates of 2015, we've been taking a closer look at the new tool and finding out what it means to be able to combine CRM data with AdWords for the first time EVER.

 

In a nutshell

 

Customer Match allows advertisers to upload customer email lists and target these users across Search, YouTube and Gmail. This means you can more effectively reach that loyal customer base, tailoring your marketing messages to segmented customer groups - what's not to love!

 

There is no doubt that this innovative new feature (although very similar to Custom Audiences on Facebook & Twitter) will serve great benefits for businesses who want to reach the right customers and boost conversions online. So whether you're an Ecommerce, B2B or not-for-profit business, we wanted to share these practical uses of Customer Match to improve your PPC performance.

 

 

 

#1 Increase Loyalty

 

It goes without saying that loyalty is one of the most important factors in businesses - driving repeat custom and generating more exposure via positive word of mouth. Customer Match can be instrumental in building loyalty, giving the advertiser the opportunity to present tailored ads to their current customers and draw them back to their website.

 

For example, an insurance provider might target their own customer base to make sure their ads are displayed when they come to renew their car insurance by searching on Google, or a charity may target previous donors on Gmail to encourage repeat donations.  You may even wish to offer a special discount for repeat customers, or cross-sell with other products or services you know these users are likely to want.

 

Why not add value by providing dedicated after-care service - a travel company could offer a uniquely personalised service by following up a holiday booking with targeted YouTube videos showing their customers the best things to do in that holiday location. The possibilities here are endless!

 

 

 

#2 Make Exclusions

 

One of our favourite aspects of Customer Match is the ability to exclude certain users from seeing your ads. Just as you can upload and target customer email lists in your campaigns, the new feature also allows you to omit these users from your targeting - helping you to drive down costs and increase the relevance factor in your ads.

 

Why waste money targeting unprofitable customers? For many businesses, if a user has already bought or subscribed to your product or service then they are no longer relevant to receive your marketing messages. Now with Customer Match, you can reduce spend by excluding those users and focusing solely on those who are most likely to generate results for your business.

 

By eliminating any current customers from your targeting, this feature also gives you the chance to promote offers or introductory deals which are solely aimed at new customers, such as 20%off your first purchase'. Again, this is all about personalising your ads to connect with those high value prospects.

 

 

 

#3 Targeted Awareness

 

Another way to take advantage of Google's newest feature is to use it to generate awareness amongst a very specialist audience, i.e. those who have previously shown interest in or purchased from your business!

 

Previous to the release of Customer Match, there was no way of using AdWords to connect with those valuable users who had interacted with your business offline (an in store purchase, phone enquiry etc.).  Now if you have a new product, new job opportunity or a new business development you want to promote, you can raise awareness by displaying video ads to these users, or by popping up with a high impact image ad in their Gmail inbox.

 

Particularly for B2B businesses, where interest is very niche, you can raise awareness by targeting these users you know will be most attentive to your message. When advertising on the Search network you can also target much more generic keywords than in a typical Search campaign, because we already know these users are relevant to your business.

 

 

 

To finish

 

Ultimately, the introduction of Customer Match represents a huge step forward in intelligent targeting in PPC, allowing advertisers to utilise their own email data to become incredibly targeted in their online advertising activity. (We should also point out for privacy reasons all email addresses shared with Google will be deleted seven days after list is uploaded).

 

Customer Match is being rolled out gradually across accounts, and we're already launching campaigns with some of our clients. Why not get in touch to have a chat about using Customer Match for your business.