Search marketing has begun to evolve beyond just the keyword. That’s not to say that the keyword triggered doesn’t tell us anything ‒ it reveals a lot about the intent of the user. Along the way, there are so many additional signals (location, demographics, device types and more) that provide insight into our audience, so we can better target and tailor messages to these individuals.
One-to-one messaging has become a hot topic within the marketing sphere over the past two years. Mechanisms to target specific customers have emerged to aid marketers in this quest (think Facebook Custom Audiences), with one of the most recent being Google Customer Match.
Customer Match allows an advertiser to upload lists of email addresses, which can be safely matched to Google users, then leverage those segments across campaigns and ads to reach specific users. Think of it as a new layer for targeting consumers and a way to add value on top of the keyword bid.
Unlike Remarketing List Ads for Search (RLSA), Customer Match doesn’t rely on a cookie window from website activity. Put simply, this means you can reach offline or dormant customers in a new way via Customer Match.
Customer Match is much more than connecting to your CRM and targeting your consumers. To really see success with Customer Match, marketers should spend time thinking about how to setup and segment their different audiences. For example, you’ll want to message and bid differently to customers who buy frequently or have higher order values versus those customers who haven’t purchased in several months or have lapsed memberships.
Solutions like Google Customer Match and Facebook Custom Audiences can help you home in on particular segments, but when used in conjunction with something like Similar Audiences or Lookalikes, can also provide extended reach into new audiences who will likely show similar, high interest.
For today’s agile marketer, now is the time to expand your thinking beyond just keywords or likes and interests and begin to explore an audience-based approach to targeting and optimization.
Customer Match and all Google Audience types are now available within in Skai. To learn more how you can begin leveraging them, reach out to your Client Success team today or contact us today.