Google has introduced the ability for AdWords advertisers to target known customers by phone numbers and mailing addresses.
This is made possible through AdWords’ Customer Match targeting which, until now, only allowed advertisers to target customers by email address.
Customer Match will target customers based on information provided in their Google account, which means they will have to be logged in before being accurately targeted.
When a match is found, AdWords will add the Google account to an advertiser’s Customer Match audience. Customer Match audiences can be targeted with ads across all Google properties.
Google explains how the process works in Help Center article:
”After you’ve uploaded your list of email addresses and/or phone numbers, AdWords will compare each hashed string on your list with the hashed string or email address or phone number of Google accounts. If there’s a match, we add the corresponding Google account to your Customer Match audience.”
This new feature may prove to be particularly effective for businesses that have a large database of customer phone numbers and mailing addresses, but do not have access to customer email address information.
Lists of phone numbers and mailing addresses can be uploaded via the Audience Manager in the new AdWords experience. The Audience Manager can be found in the Shared Library.
When matched customers are added to an audience list, the information can also be used to target similar audiences.