Target Ads by email addresses ?
For the first time ever, Google has introduced “Customer Match“, where you can upload your customers and promotional email list to Adwords and target those in list in the Adwords. Targeting custom audiences by uploading email marketing list is a powerful tool used by Twitter and Facebook advertisers. The new Customer Match feature of Google is its answer to Facebook’s “Custom Audience” ad targeting feature. Facebook lets brand target people based on their email id, phone numbers, user id’s and mobile ad id’s whereas Google let’s brand target people based on their email addresses only.
Customer Match feature of Google Adwords will help you to reach highest value customer on Google Search, YouTube and Gmail. Through customer match you can build campaigns which are specifically designed to reach your audience.
For example, Let’s say you are a travel agent and you have a list of people who have already joined your loyalty program and now you can reach these people in your list as they plan for their next trip through Customer Match. If these loyalty members search for any information related to travelling you can show them all relevant ads at the top of their search results. You can also show ads to them in YouTube when they are watching their favourite video or catch them up in Gmail.
Customer Match will you help to reach new customers on YouTube and Gmail who are more likely to be interested in your business through Similar Audiences.
Similar Audiences
Similar Audiences list based on your customer list are available for YouTube and Gmail. This list will be created automatically if your customer lists meets certain criteria. You can target the similar audience in the same way you target a remarketing list by adding it to an ad group in your campaign.
Google’s Customer Match helps you to
- Create awareness among the customer who are more likely to be interested in your product
- Make tailor made marketing campaigns targeting specific audiences
- Improve purchase through upsell and cross sell strategies
- Promotes repeated purchase and increases loyalty
Collecting customer information
Google is doing a few things to ensure that you are not going beyond their bounds. So Google lets you to target email addresses that people have directly handed over to you. You may upload customer information that is collected only through first party text, that is, from your websites, apps or stores. Google has a developed a way to verify the first party relationship but it is kept as a secret to prevent hacking. You should also ensure that your privacy policy tells customers that the information collected will be shared with third parties. You should use only Google’s approved API to upload customer information. You should comply with all the applicable laws and regulations.
Creating Customer emails list
You can create customer list by signing into Google Adwords account. Go to Shared library à Audiences à Remarketing List à Customer Emails. Give a name and Select “Upload Customer email addresses” option. Give an email opt out link for the customer and set membership duration. Save the list and finally add your list to your campaign.
How it works
Let’s say you want to advertise a new loyalty program to your customer using ads on Google search then here is how it goes
- Create a list of the email addresses of your customers
- Create a “Search Network Only” campaign that targets your customer list
- Customers who sign in to their Google account can now see your ads
Customer Match Requirements
There are few requirement that you should fulfil before uploading the customer email id’s.
- The file should be in .csv format and should not be more than 17MB.
- The email addresses in the file should be “hashed” or separated by comma
- The membership duration should not be more than 180 days
- Ensure that your campaign reaches 1000 or more active visitors
- You should not run ads that collect personally identifiable information from the customer
- Ads that does not comply with the Adwords policies should not be run
- You should not upload information for customers who are under the age of 13
Restrictions
Google is also restricting this targeting to search ads only. So you cannot use this method of targeting for banner ads. You cannot use customer match campaigns or ads to identify sensitive information about your customers. Sensitive information includes adult activities, racial information, political affiliation, religious belief, medical information, marital information and status as a child under 13.
Google uses information that is voluntarily handed over by the customers to their brand. Sometimes people may not like you using their information to target them with ads. If people don’t like your ads then they can opt out of targeted advertising by using Google Ad Settings and you will also receive a notification of the same.
Get ready for ads to start addressing your targeted customer by their name and get their most attention.
