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.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Ginny Marvin

Ginny Marvin was Third Door Media’s former Editor-in-Chief (October 2018 to December 2020), running the day to day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin writes about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.