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Remarketing to Your Email Subscribers

 In Paid Search, PPC

Introduction to Google’s Customer Match

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Would you like to advertise to your email subscribers even if they did not open an email or visit your site? Or how about showing your email subscribers unique banner or text ads that are not seen by anyone else? With Google’s new Customer Match offering, advertisers can now take their list of opted-in email addresses and import them into Google AdWords, allowing advertisers to show ads to these specific customers when they perform keyword searches on Google or YouTube.

You may be asking how this is different than Remarketing, which we’ve previous written about.  PPC Remarketing refers to establishing a list of users who previously visited your site, then showing them either banner or text ads as they browse Google or its affiliated sites. These users could be segmented by certain criteria, such as:

  • All Users
  • New Users
  • Returning Users
  • Users who visited a specific section of site
  • Users who completed a transaction

By comparison, Customer Match take the Remarketing concept to a new level. Instead of separating previous visitors into separate categories, or “buckets,” as per the list above, you can now target your opted-in email marketing subscribers and show them specific and relevant ads. These matched users will see your search ads only when they are logged into Google Search, YouTube, or Gmail.

Format and Upload List into Google AdWords

OK, so you see the value in testing this new Customer Match email audience campaign and you are ready to test it. Here are the mechanics:

Format and Upload List into Google AdWords

Figure 1: This chart from Google AdWords outlines the basic structure of this new campaign. Note: The emails you upload will only be used to match to Google IDs. It won’t be shared with anyone and Google will delete it 7 days after matcdownloadhing is complete.

In between steps 1 and 2 is where the “magic” comes into play. Google takes your list of email addresses and combs through it to match individual emails with linked Google accounts. So, for example, every single Gmail address is, by default, accepted. Additionally, other non-Gmail addresses that have been established as Google logins are also targeted. This usually translates into roughly 40-50% of the original list. These users then become eligible to see your ads when they perform keyword searches.

OK, I Created the List. Now What?

Now that you have a list of matched customers, you can create a search campaign with keyword phrases that will trigger your ads when these specific customers search Google. If the light bulb is going on over your head, that’s because this presents excellent marketing opportunities! For example, you can:

  1. Promote generic messaging about your company to these customers.
  2. Create a custom offer that you only promote to these customers, including a free gift, a percentage discount, a buy one, get one offer, etc.
  3. Promote new product or service offerings.
  4. Upsell existing customers additional services or new add-on products.

OK, I Created the List. Now What?

Figure 1: This sample ad promotes a 5% coupon code, which will only be seen by the matched customer list uploaded to Google. In this manner, you can entice users to come back to your site and make a purchase with the coupon code. You could, of course, be more targeted with your offer by promoting a coupon on specific products, or testing different promotional offers.

Tracking PerformanceGoogle-AdWords-Customer-Match-Customer-Targeting-640x400

Now that the campaign has been launched, you can track performance in 2 ways. First, in AdWords, you can monitor how many conversions your campaign produces, including direct web orders or leads and phone calls made from your ad (if you include a Google forwarding number). Second, you can monitor your shopping cart admin to identify how often the coupon code has been redeemed.

The best part about this campaign is that you already know the list of customers is of high value because these customers made previous purchases. So, when you combine this activity with other efforts, including remarketing and dynamic remarketing in AdWords, email blasts, and social media efforts, you can really maximize business from existing customers.

OpenMoves manages several custom email campaigns in Google AdWords for our clients. We invite you to contact us about this service if you prefer not to have “do it yourself!”

Want to learn more about PPC? Click on the links below:

How To Boost Google Shopping Performance

Creating Segmented Remarketing Lists – Fun with Lists!

Reaching “Similar Audiences” with Remarketing

How to Track Phone Call Leads with Google AdWords

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