AdWords users can use Customer Match to target a particular email address with advertising. Google will show your PPC ads to a list of email addresses you provide. When the users associated with those addresses log into Gmail, they will have your ads matched to them while using Google online properties. With this type of personalization in your arsenal, you can develop separate lists as the various audience you desire to reach. As an example, you can add email addresses of people who signed up for your automotive sales newsletter to your AdWords audience to which you want to market vehicles. When these users log into Gmail, they will see your vehicle ads in search, YouTube, and Gmail, giving you a chance to fine-tune your message with unprecedented precision.

Advantages of Customer Match

The Customer Match feature will help businesses reclaim old customers, exclude current customers from advertising campaigns, cross-sell to existing customers, and find similar customers. The power that Customer Match offers will inevitably attract business customers who need to get more results for their PPC budget.

Disadvantages of Customer Match

Despite the attractive features of Customer Match, Google has added some negative attributes to the program. A requirement for users to have email lists of at least one-thousand customers before they can use the new feature. Many smaller AdWords customers will not have the opportunity to use the feature because they do not have enough qualifying customers to target.

Motivating Decisions

Some reports suggest Google has taken the drastic step of allowing the targeting of particular people as a response to similar personalized targeting features enabled by Facebook’s Custom and Twitter’s Tailored Audiences. Although Google’s AdWords reach transcends most other PPC advertising programs, Google might not want to see customers leave AdWords to get personalization options.

Privacy Concerns

Now that Google has taken the bold step of selling it Gmail user base to the highest bidder, analysts wonder how the firm will preserve the privacy and security of its user base. Although queried on the topic, Google so far responds that the company will manage the customer match program in a way that preserves safety and privacy.