TPE #101: 3 ways to beat your competitors with Customer Match

Read time: 4 minutes

GM, Miles here!

If you’ve followed me for a while, you know I believe your data input is crucial for success with Google Ads and sets you apart from competitors.

My motto is: “Whoever has the most high-quality, relevant data, wins.”

We all know how important conversion tracking is…

But data input goes way beyond that.

Today, I want to talk about another (first-party) data source that is often overlooked: your customer lists.

(Also known as Customer Match).

It’s criminally underused — so today I want to give you 3 ways to integrate your first-party data with Customer Match to take your performance to the next level.

Let’s dive right in!

3 ways to take your performance to the next level with Customer Match.

A quick refresher: what is Customer Match and why are customer lists important?

I’m glad you asked ;-).

Customer Match lets you use first-party customer data to share the unique insights you have about your customers beyond Google’s understanding.

Consider it a proactive nudge in the right direction, providing Google with datapoints about your customers that only you know.

Using information that you have about your customers, Customer Match will target ads to those customers and others like them.

Here are 3 ways you can leverage Customer Match to stand out from competitors and improve your performance:

1. Improve input for Smart Bidding.
2. Improve (future-proof) targeting options.
3. Improve reporting insights.

Let’s zoom in on each of these.

1: Improve input for Smart Bidding with Customer Match.

Customer Match lists are used in Smart Bidding and Optimized Targeting to feed the algorithm with additional (first-party) data points to help you find the right audiences.

By uploading (highly relevant!) customer data into Google Ads, you inform Smart Bidding and Optimized Targeting which audiences are valuable to your business.

This data will then be used as signals to improve the bidding and targeting effectiveness of your campaigns.

2: Improve (future-proof) targeting options with Customer Match.

As we move towards a cookie-less world, Customer Match lists will continue to enable you to reach your most valuable users without relying on traditional tag based website visitors.

You can do lots of different things using customer lists. You can reach:

• Existing customers (up- & cross-selling and special offers).
• Dormant customers (re-activation campaign).
• New customers similar to your most valuable customers (with OT & lookalikes).
• Last year’s (deplatformed) Black Friday audience with new, exclusive deals.
• Event/webinar attendees (online and offline).
• Loyalty program members.
• Free trial customers.
• Qualified leads.
• … And so much more (the sky is the limit 🥹).

3: Improve reporting insights with Customer Match.

By adding your customer list to your Google Ads campaigns, you can observe the performance of your customer segments.

You can use this data to understand which customer lists drive results, and which don’t.

They make for great talking points with clients!

So how do you put Customer Match into practice?

Every business is unique.

And every business needs a tailored Customer Match setup.

Start by asking yourself these questions:

• What types of data do I have about my customers?
• Can I identify frequent buyers, occasional shoppers, or one-time purchasers?
• Are there patterns in the purchasing behavior (frequency, categories, average spend)?
• Can I segment my audience based on their lifecycle stage (new, active, lapsed)?
• Are there patterns in the types of products or services they are interested in?

Here are some examples of first-party data segments you can create with Customer Match for Lead Gen and SaaS accounts:

And here are some examples of first-party data segments you can create with Customer Match for Ecom accounts:

Last tip: automate your customer list uploads.

Always try to automate your customer list synchronization with Google Ads.

Manually uploading customer match data is suboptimal, inefficient and privacy sensitive.

Use a too like Zapier for low to moderate data syncs. Use the Google Ads API when you have a lot of data to synchronize.

Over to you: implement Customer Match in your accounts.

And there you have it — 3 ways you can leverage Customer Match to stand out from competitors and improve your performance:

1. Improve input for Smart Bidding.
2. Improve (future-proof) targeting options.
3. Improve reporting insights.

If you implemented Customer Match, I'd love to hear about your success. Send me an email and tell me how it went.

And if you want to dive deeper into mastering the nitty gritty of Google Ads, check out The PPC Hub.

Inside, you’ll find everything you need to drive results, stay ahead of the competition, and become the best Google Ads Specialist you can possibly be.

Join 1.200+ experienced PPC Experts who are all learning, growing, and crushing it together.

That’s all for today — thanks for reading.

See you soon!

Cheers,

Miles (& Bob)