Google Changes to Customer Lists: What You Need to Know

If you're already using Google customer lists, you'll know they can be a goldmine to help target prospective residents for your multifamily property.

In the past, Google customer lists relied on similar audiences (also called similar segments) for targeting and reporting purposes.

There are some pros and cons to the changes, and with some planning, you can make your Google ads more effective than ever before.

You Can Still Use Your Active Campaigns with Similar Audiences (for a while)

If you have active campaigns, you can still use them until August 1, 2023, before similar segments are removed from all ad groups and campaigns.

We get it. If you have already mastered Google ads, you really don't want to mess with a good thing. Why retire the similar audience feature?

The good news is you can still get on top of the changes with some of Google's new and refined features. Google recommends turning on optimized targets to reach additional relevant and expanded audiences to reach your conversion goals.

Tip💡: Google also recommends including your first-party data segments in your ad groups and turning on audience expansion to reach similar people to that data.

Tip💡: Turn on Smart Bidding to take advantage of Performance Max campaigns to automatically leverage your first-party data.

You'll Still Have Access to Historical Data

If you're concerned about losing your historical data–don't be.

You'll still have access to historical reports for similar segments from previous multifamily marketing campaigns.

Keep in mind that Google expects you to use its automation features and smart bidding, making your historical data mainly irrelevant to their ads.

But your historical ad data can still provide valuable insights. Here are a few ways you can continue to leverage it for online marketing success:

Look to see which types of seasonal ads from the previous year performed best
Check your data against your ad spend to update your budget and refine your marketing goals
Use the historical information to help shape other online and offline marketing campaigns (for example, you may realize a specific demographic is more likely to convert to a resident than others)

You Can Share Data Across Ad Channels

Are you running ads across displays, maps, YouTube, and other Google products?

Customer Match allows you to share audience segments across multiple managed accounts. There are a few criteria to be able to sue data sharing:

You have an existing Customer Match segment or similar segment in your manager account

(or)

A client account shares its Customer Match Segment or similar segment with your manager account.
Your Customer Match segments comply with Google's policy. For example, Google doesn't allow data sharing outside your managed account.

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Customer Match Will Enhance Your First-Party Data

Customer Match allows you to use first-party data to share insights with Google.

The idea is Google's sophisticated AI and algorithm can only go so far and needs your own data to help refine your results for success.

As more consumers are concerned with privacy, Customer Match is a way to phase out cookie-based remarketing to keep up with privacy and regulation issues.

Even if you're slow to make the full switch to Customer Match and like the way things are going, it's an inevitable change marketer will need to make. Regulations will continue to phase out traditional tag-based website visitors.

One of Customer Match's goals is to help you build deeper relationships with prospective candidates by connecting your existing customers with other products and services they'll like.

Like similar audiences, you can use Customer Match to find new customers based on your most loyal and high-converting customers.

Tip💡: Your Customer Match lists will automatically be included in Google's Smart Bidding. With the help of optimized targeting, you should see improved (or at least steady) performance.

Truth 💣: Customer Match can only do so much; it’s also up to the quality of your first-party data.

You Can Automate the Process of Moving Your CRM Data Into Google Ads

How much time do you spend on your CRM and cross-referencing all the data with your Google ads manager?

Instead of doing it manually, Google allows you to integrate your CRM system data with Zapier as the integration partner.

Zapier works to automatically upload new contact details from your CRM system or marketing automation tool to simplify collecting potential resident information to your Google Ads customer lists.

The integration saves your marketing team time and resources. You don't have to:

Upload new contacts into your Google Ads manager
Sort them into your correct ads lists
Remove all CRM data

Instead, Zapier automatically helps keep your customer lists refreshed and in sync with your CRM.

Google Customer Lists aren't exactly a thing of the past; they're just evolving to incorporate more automation. Making the switch to Customer Match may come with an adjustment period but should ultimately help refine your data and maximize its benefits.