Glossary: Customer Match

Definition

Customer Match refers to the ability inside the Adwords platform to upload a list of user details (eg. Email Addresses, Phone Numbers) and have Google ‘match’ them to real users (actually, their browser cookies).

It must be noted that 1) all matching data is hashed, and 2) there is a minimum matched list size of 1,000 users (typically with Google around 50% of user details cannot be matched, so to reach the minimum list size, you will likely need a list of at least 2,000 users). Both of these measures are put in place so that at no point in time can Advertisers ever see what action any one particular user is taking – we can only ever see behaviour in aggregate and optimise accordingly.

Intentional Tips

• Customer Match audiences typically represents the very bottom of the Display Network funnel – however, it may make more sense to either exclude Customer Match audiences from targeting (as they are usually already customers) or upsell/cross-sell to such audiences.
• Customer Match audiences of recent (even better, high Lifetime Customer Value purchasers) also make excellent seed audiences for Similar Audience targeting