Adwords Customer Match-How Effective

[Kingalan1]

Google Adword cost more than $30 per click in my niche (Manhattan commercial real estate). I would need to invest $5,000-10,000 for significant traffic, which we are not prepared to do.

Does any have experience with Google Adwords Customer Match? I have heard this feature allows you to target potential customers by their email address. It would allow me to avoid paying $30 per click for visits by competitors, tire kickers and unqualified prospects which constitute about 80% of clicks.

We have an email list of about 2,000 corporate real estate decision makers. Hopefully this targeted approach would reduce the cost per qualified lead. Does anyone have experience with Customer Match? If so, is it in fact much more cost effective than Adwords that uses the usual targeting (geography, income, business title, etcetera)?

We are considering advertising to decision makers using LinkedIn and Facebook (by providing email addresses), plus targeted email to these individuals. Does anyone have an idea as to how effective this would be? I am hoping that advertising thru multiple channels would reinforce the effect. 
Thanks, Alan

[BCutrer]

I would recommend using it as a bid modifier in the same way you would use retargeting for search. The drawback is though you have a list of 2,000 historically only 30-40% of those will be discoverable by the system. Also with that you have to hit them logged into that account while searching for your specific keywords. So they may use their name@company.com in the list you have but you will lose them if they are logged into their personal gmail (and Google can't associate the two) and are searching for your services.

I would suggest using it in tandem with retargeting lists- especially when you can identify internal pages on your site that are very specific to your client base. I would also be very vigilant to negative keywords, writing high quality adcopy, and landing pages when you are in such a competitive CPC environment.

[Kingalan1]

Hi Bill:

Thanks for this most informative response!!!

The list we uploaded to Googel contained 830 email addresses, yet Adwords is showing <100 as available; so only about 10% are discoverable. Obtaining Gmail addresses would increase the response rate? But even if it did, I don't see how we could obtain these email addresses. Using retargeting lists is a good idea, however, a large percentage (probably about 75%) of web site visitors are not quality prospects. The idea behind researching a targeted list is that we would be reaching decision makers of companies occupying atleast 2,500 SF of office space in Class A buildings in Manhattan. I don't see how I could target this specifically using Google Adwords. And spending advertising dollars on retargeting when many/most visitors are weak prospects may not be a productive use of resources considering that clicks cost $20-$35.

I really wonder of there is some way to use social media adverting to target a specific list of customer. To advertise to the same decision makers using various platforms (Adwords, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) and even email them and perhaps send direct mail. The idea being to build brand recognition relatively inexpensively to a very narrow list (4-5,000 decision makers of 2,300 companies).

I guess for Adwords if we compiled a list of 20,000 decision makers we would be able to advertise to a few thousand prospects. But developing a list of that size would be an enormous endeavor.

The commissions earned are such that we only need about 20 transactions per year and probably about 150 inquiries to achieve those transactions.

Maybe the best way to move forward is to email and send postal service mail. But it would be great if there is some efficient alternative.

[BCutrer]

So yes it would be easier if you had Gmail- those would be 100% available because Google can identify right away the user's behaviour when logged in. The issue is all the other emails, Google has to be able to associate those emails though Google accounts (Google Apps, possibly by using an email as a recovery email- though don't quote me on the second one, ect)

So narrow down your retargeting, don't just use visitors that come to the site, try to identify ones that meet specific metrics- visits to certain pages on the site, time on site as an example and keep your geographical modifier tight. I would also look at Youtube for your retargeting. It has a low CPV and will get your content with rich media and Branding in front of prospective clients.

So also as an overview I would look at what do I want to accomplish, am I trying to get branding in front of the decision makers or am I trying to reach them when they are looking to make that change. If it is Branding I would say YouTube and Linkedin. You aren't going to be able to get granular enough on Facebook and my hunch is your target audience isn't there behaviorally.

If your goal is to get the right people when they are looking for Real Estate, stick with the Search Based Ads, but really look at two things. First find the right keywords. The $30 dollar keywords might not be the right ones, look for very specific searches that your target would be looking for. Don't waste your money on "commercial real estate" as an example. And the second part is make your landing page really tight. Look and experiment at Lead Capture for PPC. From my experiment with Real Estate the Funnel is very long- you need to be able to nurture them, so if they are coming in on an Awareness stage search, lead capture their so you can quantify if they are your target  early on. Just some off the cuff thoughts.