the lowdown on google customer match audiences by andy taylor

#SMX #22B3 @PronouncedAhndy

The Lowdown on Google Customer

Match Audiences


About Me

You should tell more jokes. My boss loved you. But he’s like 90.

SMX East Attendee


Customer Match: What is it?

AdWords remarketing lists made up of email

addresses loaded through the AdWords UI, API, or third party

Customer Match Uploader


Advertiser privacy policy must disclose that customer information is shared with third parties

Customer Match: What is it?

Customer Match audiences must only contain emails obtained 1st hand by the advertiser

Customer Match audiences must be made up of at least 1,000 identifiable emails

Requirements


Customer Match Now for Google Shopping Too

Source: Merkle Digital Marketing Report, Q4 2016


Customer Match vs RLSA

Customer Match for search is similar to

Google Remarketing Lists for Search Ads, which

target past visitors to an advertiser’s site

RLSA

Customer

Match



RLSA

Customer

Match

RLSA can only target users who have visited a site in the last 540 days – Customer Match has

no limit



Customer Match

RLSA

RLSA relies on remarketing tags rather than emails to identify

searchers



RLSA

Customer

Match

Customer Match and RLSA audiences often overlap in who

they target


RLSA audience with +20% modifier

How Stacked Audiences Work

Customer Match audience with +15% modifier

Ad Group XYZ123

Any searchers who fall into both the RLSA audience as well as the Customer Match audience will be attributed to the RLSA

audience, since it has a higher bid modifier


How to Corral All Customer Match Traffic

Customer Match

Campaigns

Non-Customer Match

CampaignsCreate specific campaigns to ‘target and bid’ Customer

Match audiences

Exclude those Customer Match audiences from other

campaigns


Customer Match Reaches High-Value Searchers


Customer Match Reaches High-Value Searchers

CTR CR CPO0%

50%

100%

150%

200%

250%

300%

Baseline Shopping Campaigns CM IR Top 100 Retailer #1 CM IR Top 100 Retailer #2

On Average, Customer Match Sees Double the CR at One Third of the Cost for Google PLA


But…Customer Match Reaches Only a Small Share of Searchers

<5% Across Merkle accounts, we find the vast majority

of brands can expect Customer Match to

account for <5% of search spend


Match Rates Vary by Email Domain

.edu Yahoo AOL Gmail0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

17%

46% 48%

90%

Match Rate by Email DomainMerkle Advertiser

Some advertisers’ email lists skew

towards domains that are less likely to get matched by Google


Differences in User Demographics by Email Domain

Source: http://www.statista.com/statistics/547531/e-mail-provider-ranking-consumer-usa-age/


Age of Email Impacts Match Rate

2013 20140%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

55%

90%

Gmail Match Rate by Order YearMerkle Advertiser

While Customer Match does allow advertisers to reach customers who haven’t

interacted for a longer time period than with RLSA, the likelihood of emails being matched is lower for older

emails


New Feature! CMU Data Append


Data Append Impact

Before Data Append After Data Append

Emails Matched in Google Customer Match

Merkle Advertiser+35%


Customer Match Strategies


Customer Match for GSP


Target Email List Unsubscribers

Very likely to click through to the website after clicking

on a GSP ad

Conversion rate is pretty ‘meh,’ but not awful compared to

other audiences


GSP Customer Match Spend Share

21% Among Merkle Customer Match advertisers that use

CM for GSP, 21% of CM spend goes to Gmail

advertising for the median brand


Expand Keyword Lists

Advertisers may want to try to expand keywords lists to include more general terms targeting only Customer Match lists

However, the more general the keywords and further away from the core function of your business you get, the more

expensive it can become.


Adjust Ad Messaging

Advertisers can target ad copy to Customer Match audiences in order to:

–Upsell – Latest model!–Cross-sell – Get an extra battery for that phone!–Call out product attributes relevant to specific audiences• Be careful not to assume too much

Advertisers can’t know if differences in messaging will impact performance until they test


Ad Messaging Restrictions

Ads cannot mention specific types of

personal information, such as knowledge of

race, political affiliation, or negative

financial status


Customer Match is great for testing

– Easy to create randomized test and control groups

– Emails can be used with backend order information to determine how likely users are to convert with/without the presence of paid ads

Brands Should Test the Real Value of Their Ads

Email List

Test CMTurn Ads Off

Control CMKeep Ads Running

Estimate the Impact of Paid Ads on Order Volume from the

Customers


Brands Should Test the Real Value of Their Ads


Match Rates Should be Factored Into Test Setups

41%Share of orders from a test campaign excluding all past

online converters with Customer Match lists that were attributed to existing

customers


A Complete List of All of the Universally-Applicable Customer Match Case Studies


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