Customer data is akin to GOLD for advertisers. Today, when the competition for attention is fierce, the effective use of this data can make or break your online marketing campaigns. Smart businesses have started to adopt and implement advertising tools like Google Ads Customer Match List (GACML). This new type of Google Pay-Per-Click Campaign transforms their current and past customers’ data into precisely targeted advertising opportunities. This tool lets you serve targeted, relevant and persuasive ads seemingly everywhere since Google’s digital properties are…well everywhere.

Let’s understand this better with an example. 

• You set up a GACML campaign. 
• The list of customer emails you loaded to the campaign includes Lisa, a regular customer of your online or offline bookstore.
• While Lisa may sometimes see your social media, or read your monthly newsletter, those interactions are sporadic and spotty at best.
• Tonight, Lisa is on YouTube watching videos. Suddenly, she sees the ad for your latest bestseller. That by itself might be enough to win a conversion/ sale.  
• However, Google also knows many more metric data points about Lisa’s online behavior that they maintain and protect fiercely. That data is used by their AI to ascertain that the book perfectly aligns with her reading preference.
• Now your chance of conversion to a sale is amplified! That’s Google’s Customer Match List (GACML) in action.  

HELPFUL COMPARISON: You can also think of customer match lists as a more specific version of remarketing, with advertisers having more data to curate tailored ads. Remarketing, in a nutshell, is a technique to re-engage individuals who have interacted with you previously, either by visiting your website, filling out a contact form, etc.

Before You Begin…

Not everyone is eligible to use customer match lists. To get started, your account must meet the following conditions -

• The account should have a history of at least 90 days in Google Ads.
• You must have spent $50,000 on Google Ads historically. If your account is managed in some other currency than USD, then it will be converted based on the monthly average conversion rate of that currency. 
• A clean account history of policy compliance is also mandatory. This means that your account must not be repeatedly reported for violating Google’s ad policies. 
• To get the campaign underway, your customer match list must have 1,000 users.   

HELPFUL HINT: Although Google’s policy states that you must have spent $50,000 on Google Ads previously, our research team here at Consult PR has observed leniency in their approach. We have seen businesses successfully use customer match lists even without spending this amount on their previous ad campaigns. 

Things to Avoid and Best Practices 

There exists a fine line between targeting users based on their data and violating their privacy. So, you need to be careful and Google’s AI and privacy policies are what you will mostly rely on. Remember, the goal is to create the most relevant ads while following Google’s policies. Here are some helpful tips for leveraging the full potential of customer match lists.

• Never upload the data of a customer who is younger than 13 years old. 
• Avoid targeting your audience too narrowly. For example - you should not combine a customer list with other targeting criteria like location, age, gender, etc. if the result is too specific. 
• Remember, Google wants a match list of 1000 users, not a list of 1000 names and emails. So, we always recommend uploading a list of at least 2000 contacts. This will increase your probability of hitting the minimum criteria for a campaign.
• Google doesn’t permit running targeted ads using third-party data, making it crucial for you to create your customer match list from your own data. For instance - You are a sports equipment retailer looking to target fitness enthusiasts. To make things easier, you reach out to a third-party, let’s say a famous gym website or a fitness app and ask for their customer’s data to run targeted ads on Google. It’s not allowed! Instead, you must rely on the first-party data that you collect yourself. Google is a private firm and an 800 lb gorilla in the industry…which means if they deem you are violating their policies they can simply shut your campaigns down, leaving you little to no recourse.

AVOID THIS: Purchasing data may look lucrative at the start, but it may eventually lead to a permanent ban on your Google ad account.     

All things considered, the customer match list campaign offers a great way to let Google know who your customers are and speak to them all over the digital landscape. Reach out to us here at Consult PR, AKA The Digital WOW and let us help you open the gates for endless conversion and sales opportunities via Google Ads.