You might have missed it, but in late September, Google announced a potentially revolutionary new Adwords marketing channel that they’ve named Customer Match. Google is giving dealers the ability to sell and service more cars by getting more value out of an asset they already own – their existing customer lists.
Historically, Google’s business model has been serving ads to their users, based on their goals and specific intentions (the keywords they type in their Google Search). Google also gave companies the ability to remarket to customers who had visited their site, using 1st party cookies via Google Analytics. Until the rollout of Customer Match a few weeks ago, businesses were not able to deliver customized ads and offers targeted to their existing clients.
How does Customer Match work?
Dealers can export a list of customer emails (from their DMS, CRM, or any other internal database), encrypt the file (this is required by Google to make sure there are no security problems), and then send the file to Google. Google is not the first advertising platform to offer this type of targeting – both Facebook and Twitter have already rolled out something similar. However, since Google is more focused on consumer intention “in the moment”, there is much more potential.
DealerOn has begun beta-testing Customer Match with some of our more progressive dealers. There are some security concerns, since we’re sharing actual customer email addresses with Google – but Google’s encryption requirements are pretty stringent. Once dealers are familiar with the security protocols, I don’t think this will keep them from trying Customer Match.
You can also target similar audiences
Google released an additional tool with Customer Match that further extends the value of the offering. Based on the demographic, psychographic, and geographic information of your customer list, Google will scour its databases to find similar consumers in your area. You can target these anonymous consumers with ads, just as you can with your original list.
Want to join the Customer Match pilot?
Interested in participating in our pilot of Google’s new Customer Match offering? Contact us at ppc@dealeron.com and we can discuss whether your dealership would be a good fit for our beta test of this service.
