In today’s ever-evolving digital world, businesses are always looking for new and innovative ways to reach their target audience. One tool that has become increasingly popular in recent years is Google Customer Match. In this article, we will explore the benefits, requirements, strategies, and best practices for using Google Customer Match to enhance your digital marketing efforts.
What is Customer Match for Google Ads?
Google Customer Match is a tool that allows businesses to target their existing customers and prospects with tailored ads across Google Search, YouTube, and the Google Display Network. By uploading customer data such as email addresses, phone numbers, and mailing addresses, businesses can create a custom audience to target with their ads.
How Does Customer Match Work?
Google uses the customer data uploaded by the advertiser to match the data to Google accounts and create a custom audience. Advertisers can then target their ads to this matched audience across Google’s platforms. This allows businesses to create personalised and targeted ads for their customers, leading to a higher conversion rate and a better return on investment (ROI) for their ad spend.
The process of using Google Customer Match is straightforward and involves the following steps:
1. Choose the Matching Option:
Google Customer Match offers several matching options, including email address, phone number, mailing address, or combined matching. Select the matching option that best suits your campaign objectives and the type of contact information you have available.
2. Upload Contact Information:
Once you’ve determined the matching option, upload the customer or prospect contact information to Google Ads. This data should align with the chosen matching option. For example, if you selected the email address option, upload a list of email addresses for your customers or prospects.
3. Google Matches the Profiles:
Google Ads then searches its extensive database to find users who match the contact information you provided. This process involves matching the uploaded information with the user profiles registered on Google’s platforms.
4. Create a New Audience:
After Google has successfully identified the matching profiles, it creates a new audience comprising all the matched individuals. This audience becomes a valuable asset for your marketing campaigns, as it allows you to specifically target those users with tailored messaging.
5. Utilise the New Audience:
With the new audience created, you can incorporate it into your advertising campaigns across various Google platforms, such as Google Search, YouTube, and Gmail. By targeting this audience directly, you can deliver personalised ads that resonate with their interests and preferences, increasing the chances of driving engagement and conversions.
In conclusion, Google Customer Match simplifies the process of targeting your existing customers or specific audience segments by leveraging their contact information. By creating a new audience and utilising it in your campaigns, you can deliver personalised messages and increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. .
Benefits of Using Google Customer Match
1. Increased ROI:
By targeting existing customers, businesses can see a higher conversion rate and better ROI for their ad spend.
2. Personalisation:
By tailoring ads to specific audiences, businesses can create a more personalised and relevant experience for their customers.
3. Better targeting:
Customer Match allows businesses to target their ads to a specific audience, reducing wasteful spending on irrelevant ads. With Google Customer Match, you’re utilizing first-party data that customers have willingly provided, in compliance with local privacy regulations. This means the data used for targeting is more accurate and reliable. By leveraging first-party data, you can avoid potential issues caused by updates such as iOS14, which limit the availability of third-party data. The accuracy of the data ensures that your ads are reaching the right audience with precision.
4. Improved customer retention:
By staying top-of-mind with their existing customers, businesses can improve customer retention and loyalty.
5. Improved ad performance:
By targeting ads to a custom audience, businesses can see improved ad performance and a higher click-through rate.
6. Improved Conversion Rate:
Google Customer Match offers a significant advantage when it comes to conversion rates. By targeting people who have already purchased from you or individuals that Google identifies as similar to your existing customers, you can expect a higher conversion rate compared to targeting cold audiences. The familiarity and relevance of your ads to these audiences increase the likelihood of driving conversions and repeat purchases.
7. Cross-Device Targeting:
Remarketing typically relies on cookies to identify users and deliver targeted ads. However, relying solely on cookies has its limitations. For example, if a user visits your website on their phone’s Chrome browser and later visits it on their computer’s Safari browser, cookies would treat it as two separate sessions. In contrast, Google Customer Match’s cross-device targeting capabilities overcome this challenge. By associating users with their email addresses or phone numbers, you can deliver consistent and personalized ads across different devices and web browsers. This ensures a seamless experience for your audience and maximizes your reach.
In conclusion, Google Customer Match offers tangible benefits for marketers. It leads to increased conversion rates due to targeting warm audiences and provides more accurate targeting through first-party data. The cross-device targeting feature ensures consistent messaging across devices and browsers, enhancing the user experience. However, it’s crucial to understand the limitations of identifiable users and devise strategies to capture customer data effectively to fully leverage the potential of Google Customer Match.
What are the Requirements for Customer Match?
To utilize the powerful features of Google Customer Match, businesses must meet certain requirements and adhere to policies:
1. Active Google Ads Account:
Having an active Google Ads account is the foundation for leveraging Google Customer Match. If you don’t already have an account, you need to create one to access this feature.
2. Compliance with Data Policies:
Complying with Google’s policies regarding data collection and usage is crucial. You must ensure that you have obtained the necessary consent from your customers and that you handle their data in a secure and compliant manner. Following data protection regulations and best practices is essential to maintain user trust and meet legal requirements.
3. Secure Data Upload:
When uploading customer data to Google Customer Match, it’s vital to prioritize security and privacy. Utilize encrypted connections and trusted methods for data transfer to protect the sensitive information you’re providing.
4. Minimum List Size:
Google Customer Match requires a minimum list size of at least 1,000 email addresses. This ensures that the audience you create is sizable enough to reach a significant number of users and yield effective results.
5. Policy Compliance and Payment Record:
Maintaining a good track record of policy compliance with Google is essential. Adhere to their guidelines, terms of service, and advertising policies to create a safe and trusted advertising environment. Additionally, ensure that you have a good payment record by fulfilling your financial obligations to Google Ads.
Meeting these requirements allows you to unlock the full potential of Google Customer Match. It enables you to reach your matched audience effectively, deliver personalized messaging, and tailor your marketing efforts based on valuable customer data.
It’s important to stay updated with Google’s policies and any changes or updates related to Google Customer Match. Regularly review their guidelines to ensure compliance and take advantage of new features and enhancements as they become available.
By meeting the necessary criteria, you can leverage Google Customer Match to its fullest extent, driving better audience targeting, improved conversion rates, and ultimately enhancing your advertising campaigns on Google Ads.
10 Strategies to Leverage Customer Match
To get the most out of Google Customer Match, businesses can use a variety of strategies, including:
1. Targeting existing customers on Google Ads:
By targeting existing customers with upsell or cross-sell ads, businesses can increase customer lifetime value. Targeting your existing customers is an effective strategy to grow your business. With Customer Match, you can specifically target your customer list across Google placements. For instance, you can bid higher for users who are on your customer list and searching for relevant keywords, increasing the visibility of your ads and the likelihood of generating sales.
2. Re-engaging inactive customers:
By targeting customers who haven’t made a purchase in a while, businesses can re-engage them and encourage them to return.
3. Targeting offline customers:
By uploading mailing addresses or phone numbers, businesses can target customers who may not have interacted with their online ads.
4. Re-engaging seasonal shoppers:
By targeting customers who have made seasonal purchases in the past, businesses can encourage them to make another purchase during that season. Customer Match is an excellent tool for re-engaging customers during specific seasons or promotions. For example, if you have a jewelry business and customers purchased Christmas gifts from you last year, you can use Customer Match to target them with ads for this year’s seasonal purchases. This strategy reminds them of your brand and increases the likelihood of repeat sales.
5. Customising ad copy to a specific audience:
By tailoring ad copy to specific audiences, businesses can create a more personalised and relevant experience for their customers
6. Audience Exclusions:
Customer Match allows you to exclude your existing customers from certain campaigns. While it may not be suitable for Search or Shopping campaigns, excluding your customer match audience in Display or YouTube campaigns can provide more control over your marketing funnel.
7. Get the most out of AI like improved bidding
Take advantage of Customer Match to enhance your Smart Bidding campaigns. By uploading high-quality customer lists, you provide Google with valuable signals for bid optimization. While this feature is still being rolled out to all Smart Bidding campaigns, it’s a powerful way to leverage your customer data effectively.
8. Convert Prospects into Customers:
Customer Match isn’t limited to existing customers. You can also upload the email addresses of prospects who haven’t made a purchase yet. Use this data to target them through Search, Shopping, or dedicated Display and YouTube campaigns. The familiarity they have with your brand increases the chances of conversion compared to cold audiences.
9. Cross-Selling:
Take advantage of Customer Match to promote complementary or related products to your existing customers. If a customer has purchased earrings from you, they might be interested in matching bracelets as well. Although cross-selling is commonly done through email marketing, incorporating Display or YouTube Ads can be another effective option in your marketing toolbox.
10. Reaching Similar Audiences:
When you upload a customer list, Google Ads automatically creates a “Similar Audience.” This audience comprises users who share similar characteristics to your existing customers. Similar Audiences can significantly expand your reach and serve as a valuable targeting option in your campaigns. They resemble the concept of lookalike audiences in Facebook Ads.
By implementing these strategies, you can optimize your marketing efforts with Google Customer Match. Whether it’s targeting existing customers, converting prospects, or expanding your reach, Customer Match provides a powerful toolset to deliver more personalized and effective advertising campaigns.
What is a Good Customer Match Rate?
A good Customer Match rate is around 50-60%. This means that for every 100 customer records uploaded, around 50-60% of them will be matched to Google accounts. To improve your Customer Match rate, it’s important to ensure that the customer data is accurate and up-to-date.
How to Improve Customer Match Rate
To improve your Customer Match rate, you can:
1. Ensure that the customer data is accurate and up-to-date
2. Use a double opt-in process to verify email addresses
3. Encourage customers to update their information
4. Remove inactive users from your list
5. Use additional identifiers, such as phone numbers or mailing addresses, to increase the chances of matching to Google accounts
Keeping Customer Match Lists Up to Date
To keep your Customer Match list up to date, you can:
1. Encourage customers to update their information
2. Remove inactive users from your lis
3. Regularly check and update your list with new customer data
4. Use Google Ads’ automatic updates feature to keep your list up to date
How Does Google Use Customer Match Data?
Google uses Customer Match data to match customer records to Google accounts and create custom audiences for advertisers. This allows advertisers to target their ads to specific audiences and improve their ad performance.
Google also uses Customer Match data to improve its ad targeting algorithms, providing better and more relevant ads to users.
It’s important to note that cross-device targeting through Google Customer Match is limited to users that you can identify with an email address or phone number. While this provides a valuable opportunity to target specific individuals, it may not cover all users who have interacted with your brand. It’s essential to have a robust strategy in place to capture and leverage customer contact information effectively.
Best Practices for Using Google Customer Match
To get the most out of Google Customer Match, it’s important to follow best practices for collecting and using customer data. These include:
1. Obtaining proper consent from customers:
Advertisers must obtain proper consent from customers to collect and use their data for advertising purposes.
2. Ensuring the security and privacy of customer data:
Advertisers must ensure the security and privacy of customer data to comply with data protection regulations.
3. Following local laws and regulations:
Advertisers must comply with local laws and regulations related to data protection and privacy.
4. Providing transparency and control:
Advertisers must provide transparency and control to customers over their data usage and give them the option to opt-out of ad targeting.
Google Customer Match Policy of Use
To use Google Customer Match, businesses must comply with Google’s policies for collecting and using customer data. This includes obtaining proper customer consent, ensuring customer data security and privacy, and following local laws and regulations.
If a business violates Google’s policies, it may be suspended or terminated from using Google’s platforms.
How to Setup Google Customer Match
To set up a Customer Match, follow these steps: How to Set Up Customer Match
- Create a new Customer Match audience in your Google Ads account
- Upload your customer data, either as a CSV file or through an API integration
- Review and accept Google’s policies for collecting and using customer data
- Wait for your audience to be created and matched to Google accounts
- Create and target ads to your custom audience
Create Customer Match Lists from within Zapier
You can either upload your customer lists to Google Ads manually, or you can do it automatically using an integrated data platform.
You can setup the Zaps(Workflows) inside Zapier, or you can initiate this when logged into Google Ads.
Use Zapier to integrate a data platform with Google Ads using Zapier as the workflow. In the above example we are using HubSpot CRM to integrate with Google Ads using Zapier’s connection.
Select from a range of premade integration template that integrate Google Ads using Zapier with your CRM or data platform.
Create Google Customer Match Lists from within Zapier
Using Zapier with Google Customer Match can provide automation and streamline your marketing processes. Zapier is a platform that allows you to connect different apps and automate workflows between them.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to use Zapier with Google Customer Match:
1. Set up your Zapier account:
If you haven’t already, sign up for a Zapier account at zapier.com. Zapier offers different pricing plans, including a free tier with limited features.
2. Create a new Zap:
Once you’re logged in, click on the “Make a Zap!” button to start creating a new automation workflow.
3. Choose a Trigger app:
In this case, you’ll need to select the app that triggers the automation. Depending on your specific use case, this could be an app like Gmail, Google Sheets, or a CRM platform where you collect customer data.
4. Set up the Trigger:
Follow the prompts to connect your chosen app and configure the specific trigger event. For example, if you’re using Gmail, you can set up the trigger to activate when a new email arrives from a specific sender or with a particular subject line.
5. Connect to Google Customer Match:
After setting up the Trigger, it’s time to connect to Google Customer Match. Search for and select the Google Customer Match app within Zapier.
6. Authenticate Google Customer Match:
To connect Zapier with Google Customer Match, you’ll need to authenticate your Google Ads account. Follow the instructions provided by Zapier to grant the necessary permissions and access.
7. Configure the Action:
Once you’ve authenticated, you can set up the specific action you want to perform with Google Customer Match. For example, you can add a new customer to your Google Customer Match audience when the trigger event occurs. Select the desired action from the available options and configure it accordingly.
8. Map the data:
Depending on the trigger app you selected, you may need to map the data fields from the Trigger to the corresponding fields in Google Customer Match. This step ensures that the customer information is correctly transferred.
9. Test and Activate the Zap:
After setting up the action and mapping the data, it’s essential to test the Zap to ensure everything is working as expected. Zapier provides a testing feature to simulate the trigger event and check if the data is successfully transferred to Google Customer Match. Once you’re satisfied with the test results, activate the Zap to start the automation process.
10. Monitor and refine:
After activating the Zap, monitor the automation process and check for any issues or discrepancies. Zapier provides a dashboard where you can review the activity and troubleshoot if needed. Make adjustments as necessary to optimize the workflow.
With Zapier and Google Customer Match integrated, you can automate the process of adding customers to your Google Customer Match audience, ensuring that your marketing campaigns are always up to date with the latest customer data. Explore Zapier’s extensive library of supported apps to further enhance your marketing automation efforts and streamline your workflows.
Conclusion
Google Customer Match is a powerful tool for businesses to reach their existing customers and prospects with targeted ads across Google’s platforms. By following best practices for collecting and using customer data, businesses can see improved ad performance, increased ROI, and better customer retention. With the right strategies and best practices in place, Google Customer Match can be an invaluable tool for enhancing your digital marketing efforts.
