Google Customer Match

Every Google Ad campaign agency and marketer has felt the costs of the death of the third-party cookie: Google ad campaign prices have gone up and targeting accuracy has gone down. And it’s all not just down to how browsers and operating systems are blocking the use of third-party cookie data. Strict data protection policies and the general awareness of the need to protect your personal data play a part as well.

We have the answer and can promise you

a safe and GDPR compliant customer matching
the possibility to created targeted and personalised campaigns using customer data from all customer touch points
higher ads conversion with smaller budget

These promises are easy to make and keep, because the customer data that the Custobar Customer Data Platform (CDP) and Marketing Automation tool collects in real time into one 360-degree customer view is based on the use of first-party data. That is data controlled or owned by your company, not by Google! The identified customer data you have is the most valuable asset you have, and not the least because Google cannot access it on its own.

There are a host of other benefits in using the Google Customer Match that will keep your customers engaged and happy to be doing business with you.

Since the customer data can be automatically updated from Custobar to Google Customer Match, it is easy to remove customers who already made a purchase from retargeting. There are not many things so infuriating to a customer than getting ads about things they just bought. If nothing else, it’s dubious to your brand and reputation.
You may have customers who have not given permission to do email marketing, but have given consent to share their data with advertising platforms. The Google Customer Match is a great way to reach them in another way.
You can create lookalike audiences, audiences similar to your existing customer base, based on the data on your best customers or utilising your customers’ purchase behaviour.

Here are a few use case examples from our clientele:

Scandinavian Outdoor, a Finnish retail and online store chain, makes good use of the Google Customer Match integration to boost the sales during their recurring Outdoor Days. Here are only two examples of their playbook:

Retargeting dynamic Google ads that show products to customers who have browsed them on the website but not made any purchases either online or in physical stores.
Reaching their loyalty program members via targeted YouTube video ads. This offers them a way to target those loyal customers who don’t like emails or SMSes.

Of course there are many other use case examples as well. After all, the real competitive edge of the Custobar Customer Data Platform (CDP) and Marketing Automation tool - apart from the use of 1st party data - is the ability to have access to all customer data from all channels and all touch points, physical stores included, and always in real time. Google Customer Match is then perfect for also:

Removing those customers from your Google Ads who already respond to your other marketing channels to optimise your Google Ads budget.
Acquiring new customers using lookalike audiences.
Targeting customers at different stages of their customer journeys.
Targeting customers whose data is no longer stored by the Google conversion pixel.

Note! Google Ads Customer Match is not a feature that is automatically a part of your Custobar licence. The monthly price of the Google Ads Customer Match feature is based on the number of your customers. Facebook (Meta) Custom Audiences integration will be included in the price. Please contact sales for a quote.

Let’s get technical

One of the great things about Google Customer Match is that there is no more need for manual file import - export. Great news for both marketers and techies alike.

You can find more technical information on how to do the API integration and what the prerequisites are from the resources listed below, but here’s how it all works in a nutshell:

You can create customer segments using Custobar and send any number of those segments to Google using the seamless integration to Google Customer Match.
Use the Custobar CDP’s tools, such as the RFM matrix or audiences and audience search, to create data-based customer segments.
Google Ads audiences will be sent automatically from Custobar to Google. In other words, the data-based audiences (customer segments) you created will automatically be visible on your Google Ads Manager.
Emails and phone numbers are pushed to Google (data out) in a securely hashed format.
Customer data can be automatically updated in Google Customer Match whenever that data is enriched or new events occur in other channels that update the data in Custobar.
Google Customer Match is paired with Facebook (Meta) Custom Audiences integration. You get two integrations for the price of one.

Note! Any individual audience needs to have a minimum of several hundreds of contacts for utilising the Google Customer Match feature. Our estimate: a minimum of 500-100 contacts.