If you are among the crowd of PPC-ers who have begun to embrace AdWords Customer Match, you might already be seeing results from the advanced targeting options in your Search, Gmail, and YouTube ads. According to a recent post from Google, this opportunity will soon be expanded to AdWords Shopping campaigns as well. It is certainly an exciting innovation for ecommerce marketers.
Though similar to the Shopping remarketing lists announced last year, Customer Match for Shopping is designed for even more specific segmentation. Instead of looking at site behavior and remarketing tags, the Customer Match process utilizes first-party email lists, securely uploaded and matched to Google account IDs, to generate an audience comprised of your most valuable users, including:
- Previous converters
- Subscribers
- Loyalty members
Bids and targeting can then be manipulated to ensure that you are putting the right products in front of the most profitable eyes.
While the Customer Match principle has been in play since late 2015 and its luxury may have faded for some, the upcoming expansion into Shopping is indeed exciting news. Customer Match for Search brought with it unprecedented ease for tracking cross-device behavior, with an added layer of in-store purchase history also available. This data can be exceptionally useful to ecommerce brands, whether for remarketing, cross-selling, or seasonally-adjusted targeting (for example, users who purchased a new swim suit or winter coat last year may be in the market for another one this year). Furthermore, given that Customer Match is already in place for Search, Gmail, and YouTube, this update will allow for increased consistency in targeting strategy across campaign types.
Customer Match for Shopping is not yet available to all accounts, though you can request inclusion in the beta here.
What are your reactions to this recent announcement? Tweet @ppchero or myself and let us know what you think!
