In Google, the only constant is change and this month is no exception. Recently, Google has introduced a new way to match ads to potential customers.
The name of this feature is called Customer Match. The way that this feature works is that it allows you to create an audience based on people within your e-mail contacts list. Like everything else in life, there are a few catches. Google will not match all of the e-mail addresses, just the ones with Gmail addresses and they will only target the ads when these users are logged in to their account.
This appears to be a game changer, just not to the extent that we initially thought. The tricky thing with this feature is that even though the creation of these audiences is similar to remarketing, it does not have the same arsenal of capabilities.
To set up a Customer Match Audience, you would do the following:
-Go to Shared Library
–Click on Audiences
–On the Remarketing List button, select the dropdown menu and select Customer Emails and follow the directions to fill out the Audience Target.
While this option has potential in the long-term, expectations will need to be tempered for a few reasons. The biggest reason is that unlike Remarketing ads where Image ads can be used throughout the entire display network, the Customer Match ads can only be used on Google owned properties such as YouTube Ads, Gmail Ads and Standard Search Results. The early tests that we have seen indicate that Google’s system will retain about half of the email addresses within mail lists in most cases.
Warning this is an additional selection meaning that the keyword has to match and they have to be in the audience.
Another difference within Customer Match is that the maximum capacity for Membership Duration is at 180 days (compared to 540 for Remarketing).
Despite some of the limitations of Customer Match compared to Remarketing, the Customer Match feature allows you to show customized messages to people who have expressed interest in your product or service at some point in the past and gives us additional arsenal in our toolbox to help us meet the needs of our clients.