Google thrives on search and advertisements are where most of its money comes from. For marketers, the science behind search advertising is complicated and technical.
From thousands of niche that are added and with technologies that come and go, the basic way in which ads are delivered haven't changed much. But when speaking about how Google displays advertisement, things can be more exciting.
For marketers, Google has something that can come in handy in terms of the rise of people-based search. Google has "Customer Match" and "In-Store Conversion" which can dramatically expand the power of search marketing.
With the two, Google has become more powerful in how it targets individuals by closing the search loop. The results are compelling as marketers can double their return on ads spent for search by using the two programs. As a result, the boring part of advertisement technology is becoming the center of marketing revolution.
Customer Match
Customer Match is a tool that allows marketers to use first-party data to optimize their bids and creatives for search campaigns.
So for example, consider a search of the term "credit card". Before Customer Match, the same set of ads would be shown for everyone that made that search. After Customer Match, every bank can use their own CRM data to decide whether they should bit for a particular searcher, and how much they should bid.
Searchers will in turn receive an ad that should be more relevant to them. As a result, click-through rates will increase and conversion multiplies.
In many use-cases, people-based search is powerful enough to radically improve display search marketing. Marketers have been forced to run ads that contextually relevant (search advertising), or run ads that are targeted (display advertising). But with Customer Match, Google eliminates the need for those two.
In-Store Conversions
In-Store Conversion is a feature that closes the measurement loop. Using Google's In-Store Conversions program, retailers can close the loop to see if their ads do drive in-store purchases. So if someone seaches for If someone searches for "New TV," clicks an ad and visits a store to buy the TV in person, marketers can close the loop by tying search ads with loyalty card data.
For those companies that have large offline presence, this allows them to take more direct measurement of value inside search ads. They can also see which campaigns and devices drive the most visits to their business.
By having the insights, companies can understand their return of investment (ROI) to better create informed decision regarding their ad creatives, spending, bid strategies and others.