New tools from Google play on an important factor in web advertising today: Being the loudest out there isn’t the most important, but talking to the right people is.
Search engines have changed everything about the way we interact with companies. Consumers now expect a degree of connectivity and speed that was unthinkable before Google AdWords came on the scene. Thanks to the spread of smartphones, this is even truer now than it was just a few years ago.
Statistically, people now spend more time consuming media on our phones than we do on our desktops. If companies are to engage consumers successfully, they need to find ways to connect with them via mobile technology. It seems that the best way to do this is still through search engines: When people conduct research on their phones, they usually start via a search engine (as opposed to branded apps or websites), and they usually plan to buy something within an hour. Two new Google products, Customer Match and Universal App Campaigns, help companies reach these consumers quickly and effectively.
Customer Match Highlights and Utilizes Existing Connections
Customer Match is all about relevancy. With the web at their fingertips, consumers tend to compare products before buying, and move quickly from site to site. Sometimes, this can mean a deluge of information that isn’t relevant to their specific needs. And, on the other side of the coin, companies can find it difficult to reach their highest-value customers from the multitude of users.
Customer Match helps companies and customers find each other: To begin, companies may upload email addresses to be matched to Google accounts (while maintaining privacy). They can then build campaigns specifically targeted at those users they need to reach through Google Search, YouTube and Gmail while those users are signed in. This feedback system is called first-party data, and it’s crucial to finding new customers. For example, if your company sells vintage clothing, you can target consumers who are searching intent-rich terms like “vintage flapper dress,” or who are watching YouTube videos like “Flapper Makeover.” Customers won’t be bothered by the white noise of products they aren’t interested in, and can filter out which ads they see as necessary.
Customer Match can also help companies find customers they may not have discovered through a feature called Similar Audiences. With those tools, ads can be targeted not only at people who have searched directly-relevant terms, but also at people who have shared interests with those people. For example, perhaps consumers who search for “vintage flapper dress” also tend to search for things like “flapper makeup tutorial” or “1920’s cocktails.” Those consumers are searching for vintage cocktails, but they simply haven’t thought about the possibility of wearing a vintage dress to the cocktail party!
So, if a company can attract the right kind of attention at the right moment, through a relevant connection, they may have a new customer. According to Econsultancy:
"As Google’s announcement demonstrates, the opportunities to use first-party data are only going to grow. The advertisers who make the necessary investments in first-party data collection will be in a position to see their investments compound while those that don't invest will increasingly find themselves left behind."
Customer Match and Similar Audiences will be rolling out to all advertisers over the next few weeks. The easiest way to check if it's already available on your AdWords account follow those easy steps:
- Login to your Google Adwords account
- Click Shared Library in left column
- Click View under Audiences
- Click red button + REMARKETING LIST.
- If you see Customer emails as one of the options on the dropdown list customer match and similar audiences are on and you're ready to go. Good luck!
Universal App Automatically Optimizes App Ads
App usage dominates our time spent on smartphones: research reveals that apps account for over 80 percent of our mobile media-consumption time. Of that, users spend the most minutes on game apps, followed by social networks and web browsers. Users also spend significant time on utility and entertainment apps. Consumers find their favorite apps through web-based ads, intent-rich search terms, in-app suggestions, and more.
Clearly, companies who want customers to download and use their apps must compete with a whole host of other choices. However, it’s not simply about having the best app out there: It’s about promoting it to the people who will actually find it relevant.
With Universal App, companies can reach potential customers across every Google ad platform: Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, and the Google Display Network. All a company needs to do is tell Google its desired cost-per-install, and Google will essentially create an automatic app campaign. Images get pulled from the app, and text gets pulled from the description to create visually appealing ads. They are then formatted to fit every different ad platform.
The Universal App tool is dynamic: Once the ads are up, the tool then determines where to place the ads in order to maximize downloads at the stated cost-per-install. Customers will only see the best-placed ads. These new tools from Google play on an important factor in web advertising today: Being the loudest out there isn’t the most important, but talking to the right people is.
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