The Ultimate Guide To Google Ads Customer Match

Have you always wanted to know how many of your current customers you can target using Google Ads? Have you been seeking assistance from various Digital Marketing Companies in Dubai to devise ways to get hold of the exact number of reliable customers you have?

Congratulations! Google got you. Well, everyone, literally. The search engine giant has taken the plunge and launched in the line of identity-based targeting- Customer Match.

What is Google Ads Customer Match?

The Customer Match of Google Ads allows you to use your customer data in your Ads targeting. So now, an advertiser can create and target or exclude their user list by uploading the prospective email addresses. This filtration can be applied to Search, Gmail, and Youtube campaigns. A more customized experience can be created based on the user’s attributes or stages of purchasing. Google will also tell you how many of your customers can find on the Search Network, the Display Network (as per the June 2020), YouTube, and Gmail. This feature is great news specifically for SEO-based agencies in Dubai, who were pondering on How To Drive Traffic To A Client’s Site With Google Ads.

Between the lines 

Google takes its customers seriously, very seriously. So in its bid to become notoriously and aggressively more customer-centric, it worked on the idea of identity-based targeting, and here we are. Now, as customer-centric as it is, this news was alarming for many of its users; thus, it made some ground rules for the positive experience of everyone on SERP.

For instance, Google has explicitly mandated that advertisers can only upload customer information that they must have obtained only from a ‘first-party’ context. It includes email addresses collected through website forms, applications, physical stores, phone numbers, and addresses (as per the update in Novemeber 2017) and in-person events or instances where the user has explicitly expressed interest in the advertiser’s business.

Now that you have understood what Customer Match is and all the hype is about, let’s head straight to setting it up and getting it running for you.

How to Set up Customer Match for Search?

Step 1. Go to your Google’ Ad homepage and select project (in case you have multiple projects running) and click on ‘Tools & Settings’

Step 2. Then under Shared Library, click on Audience Manager.

Step 3. Click on the (+) icon for Customer Match. It will show your eligibility for executing this feature.

Step 4. Click on Customer List.

Step 5. Here you can give the Audience segment name then upload the file by clicking on Choose File. You can upload your hashed data as well by selecting the below option.

Note:

To create a Customer Match segment, use a template or create your own CSV file with customer data using a combination of the required column headers below:-

1. Email
2. Phone
3. First Name
4. Last Name
5. Country
6. Zip

Do remember that these addresses need not necessarily be Gmail only. Google tries its best to match non-Gmail addresses to specific users, and it does match excellently.

Step 6. Click on this check box for acknowledgment of Google’s Customer Match policies Compliance. In membership duration, you can set a number of days during which you want to target the audience or you can set no expiry date.

Step 7. In the Final Step, click on the Upload and Create button.

Step 8. It would be best to remember that Customer Match must be layered on top of the keywords, similar to RLSAs (Remarketing Lists for Search Ads) since it operates on the Search Network. To do the same, navigate to the ad group in which you want to execute this, head to the audience tab, and select the remarketing button. Further, you must select the list you decide to target directly from the Interests and Remarketing dropdown.

Step 9. Alas! the final step is to set your targeting. Google Ads offers two targeting options. You may use ‘target and bid’ to show the ads exclusively to the people on the selected lists and bid on them. Or you may also select the ‘bid only’ options to show ads to people on these lists, along with others who fit in the criteria of additional targeting cities.

Road map for using Google Ads Customer Match 

Let us take a look into some strategies that can be adopted for leveraging the unique options Customer Match offers us for ad campaigns:-

(1) Selling only to your customers on Google Ads

Targeting existing customers is the most efficient form of PPC advertising proven. For example, you happen to promote a renewable product, it possibly incurs expensive ad costs. You can now run a campaign limited to your list of customers. This strategy reduces the cost and increases conversions.

(2) Excluding existing customers from your ad campaigns 

Let us assume that you have a product that people need to buy only once. Then excluding the customers from your ad campaigns will make your advertising more efficient. You will be to curtail the cost of serving ads to people that have absolutely no interest in buying your product because of its nature.

(3) Granular targeting is proportional to yield better results

The more granular you go with your ad targeting, the better chances you yield better results. If you have got your data in CRM up to date, then Customer match will yield more specific targeting.

(4) Information is power  

In the light of Google Ads, information truly is power. The more data you can build regarding your target audience, the more efficient your advertising is. PPC campaigns that incorporate granular data prove to be the most cost-effective.

(5) Limitations of Customer Match

You must know that your customer match list entirely depends on your data. Hence, if you stop growing your customer list and bringing new leads, your Customer List will grow stale and stagnant, laying no productivity since the campaigns targeting those lists will also grow ineffective.

Thus at no point can you discontinue running multiple campaigns, targeting new leads and your existing client base. Is that even a limitation, then?

You must be aware that any targeting you already set up for a given ad group will be layered inclusive of this list. You must be cautious that you abdicate from going overboard with your targeting, as it could significantly reduce the overall list size.

Customer Match is being considered the most exciting Google Ads update in the platform’s history. Conclusively speaking, then yes, it is true. Customer match enables you to target customers aware of the brand/product, which results in the best ROI. Hence with Customer Match, you can target current customers who have the potential to be even more efficient than remarketing. It provides a sea of opportunities to paid advertisers. With Google striving progressively and expanding this offering, there will be varied and dynamic ways digital marketers will leverage this feature to serve more customized and curated experiences or choices to their consumers.