As cookie-based advertising continues to be phased out due to privacy, browser, and regulatory changes, there is an increased sense of urgency for businesses to find alternative ways to reach, target and manage their valuable users and audiences. Google Customer Match tool helps bridge the gap, by enabling advertisers to better leverage their first-party data for advertising campaigns.
What is Google Customer Match?
In line with growing privacy demands Google developed Customer Match – a targeting tool that helps advertisers and marketers to utilise their own first-party data to target known audiences across search, display, video, shopping and Gmail campaigns. Google does this by matching the first-party user data that you provide against its own user profiles (whilst protecting and disassociating all user information once an audience is created).
How does Customer Match benefit my Audience Targeting efforts?
Customer Match brings together the unique insights you already have about your customers and, matched against Google users, allows you to deliver highly tailored messages across all of Google’s properties. Leveraging first-party data matching to Google user profiles delivers a number of key benefits to advertisers:
- The ability to develop more insightful relationships with your current customers, and increased opportunity to find new ones through the ability to:
- Create custom audience segments for highly targeted remarketing
- Increase your prospective customer base with ‘Similar Audiences’ – a cohort generated by Google based on having characteristics and interests similar to your current users
- Improve your retention marketing efforts to increase/maintain customer loyalty
- A broader reach across Google properties.
- A scalable and privacy first solution to enable ongoing reach to valuable customers without the use of third-party Cookies
No longer reliant on traditional site-based tagging - The use of email addresses, rather than pixels, allows for greater reach to mobile users
- The use of email also helps prevent email campaigns ending up in Spam folders
- Opportunity for improved campaign performance by using Customer Match lists in Smart Bidding and optimised targeting.
What do I need to do to get started with Customer Match?
To start using Customer Match you need to segment your customers and upload your relevant audience first-party data to Google Ads using one of Google’s provided templates. Google Ads then processes and matches your customer data to Google Accounts to then create a Customer Match Audience. From there you can start to create your campaigns and ads targeting that audience (or alternatively, exclude them from campaigns).
Consider a Customer Data Platform
As mentioned above, the initial step when using Customer Match involves manually uploading lists, however many may find this inefficient, and often roadblocked by data governance issues. This is where the value of having a Customer Data Platform (CDP) comes into play, especially for larger organisations who have a high volume of first-party data across siloed data sources. XPON’s Wondaris is a third-party integrator approved by Google to upload Customer Match Segments within the Google Ads platform.
The Wondaris CDP uses a simple native integration through Google’s Customer Matching Uploader (CMU) program to rapidly upload high-value audiences securely through simple and clickable workflows
As we march towards a cookie-less world, harnessing the benefits of your first-party data will be the difference-maker when creating effective, targeted campaigns. Whether the aim is a new sell, upsell or cross-sell, Customer Match is a tool that advertisers and marketers should be utilising to make sure they’re reaching the right user at the right time in their customer journey. And at the end of the day, better targeting equals a better experience for customers and, ultimately, ROI for businesses.
As a full-stack Google Marketing Platform & Google Cloud Partner, XPON Technologies can help to make the entire process of integration as smooth as possible. We also empower your team to make the most out of GA4 in this ever-changing privacy-first world. Get in touch with our team today if you have any questions or need support with your GA4 implementation, migration or integrations.