Google Announces Customer Match: Upload Email Lists For Search, Gmail, YouTube Ad Targeting

Google is on the cusp of rolling out an anticipated and in-demand product feature in AdWords: the ability to upload and target audiences built from advertiser email lists.

Customer Match will let advertisers bid and create ads tailored to customer segments in search as well as with YouTube Trueview ads and Gmail ads.

Advertisers will be able to upload email lists manually or through the API to AdWords. Emails are matched against Google sign-in emails and anonymized.

The ability to set bids and create ad copy based on advertiser data on their customers can be much more powerful than doing so based on site visitor behavior. As George Michie, Chief Marketing Scientist for Merkle RKG, told Search Engine Land this spring when rumors about such a move were first published, “Browser behavioral targeting is a pretty crude tool – better than nothing, certainly – but pretty crude. The ability to fold in real customer insight, understanding all the brand’s interactions with a person online and offline going as far back in history as you want is a gigantic leap forward. Understanding which customers prefer to buy online or off, which physical location they prefer allows for a level of personalization we just haven’t had in the walled-garden of Google.”

The company is announcing the new capability during Advertising Week in New York City in a presentation on Monday. For more details about Customer Match and the additional Similar Audience targeting rolling out along with it, see our full coverage on Marketing Land.