In the early days of search engine marketing, the keyword was the only way advertisers targeted ads to users.
The idea was simple (and powerful): if someone was searching for flat screen tv and you sold flat-screen TVs, then getting that person to your website via a search ad was a no-brainer. But, wouldn’t it be great if you could not just target someone searching for flat-screen TVs but also tailor the bid and the ad to the type of person searching for that term?
What if someone searching for a flat-screen tv has already been to your website multiple times. Do you want to pay for them to get to your site again?
Maybe you would or would not based on the specific products they’ve looked at while visiting your site?
Or perhaps you want to bid even higher on someone who put one of your hottest-selling TVs in a cart last week but left without checking out?
Or even better, the person searching has bought from you before and tends to spend a lot with you when they check out? You might be willing to bid extremely aggressively to get that loyal customer back to your store?
While the keyword is still one of the most valuable types of consumer targeting data for advertisers, the industry has evolved. For example, Skai now supports two Microsoft Advertising audiences beyond just the keyword: customer match and dynamic remarketing.
On top of the tremendous individual benefits listed for these two powerful audience types you’ll read about below, Skai Paid Search customers have an additional benefit. They can now manage these audiences from Google and Microsoft Advertising side-by-side in one place for a holistic search marketing workflow.
What Are Microsoft Advertising Customer Match Audiences
Microsoft Advertising’s Customer Match audiences enables advertisers to upload a list of customer email addresses to re-engage with them across the Microsoft Search Network and Microsoft Audience Network. Then, Microsoft Advertising matches those email addresses behind the scenes with known users to power this solution.
Not only can advertisers bid differently to known customers than unknown internet individuals, but the true power of Customer Match is how marketers can create various lists of their customers based on attributes that would influence their bidding strategies.
For example, you could create a Customer Match list of your most loyal shoppers who often spend (i.e. monthly) with you versus a list of people who just put things in your shopping cart and never actually purchase. Then, you could create different Customer Match lists based on the types of products they tend to buy from you and create highly relevant campaigns and ads to target those preferences: i.e., people who buy electronics, people who buy furniture, people who buy clothing, etc.
Microsoft Advertising lists other benefits of Customer Match:
- “Boosted performance. Use your complete user understanding, including offline data, to retarget customers who are more likely to convert.
- Flexible control over your data. You decide how to use your first-party data — build and modify any number of lists to help you reach your business goals.
- Streamlined management. Use your existing segmentation and Customer Match lists by uploading them to your Microsoft Advertising account.”
What Is Microsoft Advertising Dynamic Remarketing
Microsoft Advertising Dynamic Remarketing lists target searchers’ ads with specific products based on the products they have already viewed, considered, or purchased on your website.
As with Customer Match audiences, the benefit here is that search marketers can split different audiences into bespoke campaigns and manage them individually. Just like there’s a difference in the type of customers who buy from you all of the time versus ones who never have, there’s a different approach marketers can take based on the type of Dynamic Remarketing audiences they build.
According to Microsoft Advertising, there are five types of Dynamic Remarketing audiences:
- “General visitors. Reach a broader base of your potential customers. These people have visited your website, showing interest in your brand or offerings.
- Product searchers. Reach users who have shown intent. These people have visited your website and searched for products on your site, showing even more interest in your offerings.
- Product viewers. Reach users who have shown clear intent. These people have visited your website and viewed your products, showing a clear interest in your offerings.
- Shopping cart abandoners. Reach users who have shown very strong intent. These people added items to their cart, and while they didn’t make a purchase, this shows a very strong interest in your offerings.
- Past buyers. Reach users who have purchased from you in the past. These people could purchase again, be it the same product or a related product (via a cross-sell or upsell).”
The implications of how you might market and bid differently to searchers based on which Dynamic Remarketing list they are on. For example, General visitors who have visited your site know who you are so they may not need a heavy brand-focused ad to build credibility but rather a solid incentive to get them to return to your website. Product searchers, product viewers, and shopping cart abandoners might best be served with ads and promotions related to the products they already showed interest in. Past buyers might need ads to remind them that they’ve done business with you before.
Dynamic remarketing lists are an advantageous data layer to add to your keyword-fueled marketing.
Manage all of your search audiences holistically & side-by-side, regardless of the publisher
Skai Paid Search is a three-time winner of the Microsoft Advertising Global Technology Partner of the Year award and has cutting-edge features and functionality that help search marketers save time, reduce errors, and drive the best performance of their Microsoft Advertising campaigns.
For more information or to see for yourself how Skai’s innovation can help take your Microsoft Advertising campaigns to the next level, reach out today to schedule a quick demo.
