Leveraging Email Audiences Across Channels
When it comes to e-commerce, your email audience is a great marketing asset. You can send retargeting emails based on which products your customers are interested in, share loyalty program rewards and offers, and even convert shoppers who previously abandoned their carts.
You can benefit from your email audience on other channels, too. With the option to export your email list from your email service provider (ESP) and upload it to other marketing platforms and services, there are more opportunities than ever to reach your current contacts (and similar ones) across online channels. Another key opportunity is to use other channels to reactivate unengaged or unsubscribed email contacts. If we can’t get them to respond via email, we can try to reactivate them elsewhere.
In this post, we’ll cover how you can leverage your email audience across two vital marketing channels:
How to leverage your email list across Google’s advertising network
Google offers a feature called Google Customer Match that allows you to upload your contacts from your CRM, then use that contact information to reach and re-engage with your contacts, customers (and prospects) across the web.
Customer Match helps you get your ads in front of highly qualified leads and existing customers who have already purchased from or engaged with your brand, such as newsletter subscribers or loyalty program members.
Here’s how Customer Match works:
- You upload a file of your email audience’s contact information. You can export this information from most CRM platforms or ESPs.
- You set one or more campaigns to target customers from your uploaded data file who are Google users. This is your Customer Match audience.
- When the users in your Customer Match audience are signed in to their Google account, they see your ads across Gmail, Google Search, Google Shopping, YouTube, and the Google Display Network.
You can also create lookalike audiences based on what Google knows about the users in your Customer Match audience. This can help you reach new audiences with similarities to your existing customers.
“Your email list can be a powerful tool for prospecting and new customer acquisition. Test out different email segments when creating lookalike audiences – VIPs, repeat purchasers, high AOV customers – to find the sweet spot between reach and return on ad spend.”
– Mandi Moshay, Director, CRM & Email at Tinuiti
Google Customer Match works across Google’s advertising network:
- Search Network and Google Shopping: Adjust your bid based on what you know about your customers’ online activity
- Gmail: Reach current contacts or similar audiences at the top of their inbox with personalized ads
- YouTube: Target audiences similar to your contact list with to reach new audiences through YouTube ads
- Google Display Network: Serve personalized ads to your contacts or similar audiences across Google Display Network
Google allows advertisers to track how their email list and lookalike audiences perform within each campaign so you can adjust your bids accordingly. Users included in your Customer Match audience are already familiar with your brand, so you likely want to adjust your bids to make sure those warmed-up leads and customers see your ads.
For more targeted advertising opportunities, segment your email list before uploading it to Google Ads. You can upload and target different lists for loyalty program members, shoppers who abandoned their carts, new subscribers, seasonal customers, first-time buyers… the possibilities are nearly endless to target the right audience with the most relevant ads.
How to leverage your email audiences for social media ads
Google’s ad network isn’t the only channel that lets you use your email list to target specific audiences. Facebook and Twitter also allow advertisers to upload CRM contact lists to create targeted custom audiences.
CRM Retargeting on Facebook can typically match 60-75% of an email list to Facebook users. (The more information you provide, the more likely it is that Facebook can match your entire list.) This lets you serve Facebook ads to people who have already engaged with your brand. You can:
- Use dynamic ads to show users the specific products they’ve expressed interest in
- Advertise to people who have already visited your e-commerce store, app, website, or Facebook page
- Show new products to loyal repeat customers
- Create lookalike audiences to target more qualified prospects
Twitter offers similar capabilities with Tailored Audiences. You can upload your email list to Twitter and choose whether to include or exclude them from your campaign audience. (You can also import specific Twitter handles to target influencers on the platform.)
Like Google, we recommend segmenting your contact lists to serve the most relevant content to your audience. Make sure that the content of your social ads matches your email marketing; coordinating messaging across channels can result in customers being 22% more likely to purchase than those who only received email messaging.
What ads should you show your email audiences?
When you create campaigns to target your existing contacts through Google or paid social, your audience is already familiar with your brand. With that in mind, you don’t have to put your brand name front and center; instead, focus on your CTA or a special offer.
Typically, (at Tinuiti) we’re retargeting for key product launches or major sales:
- Segment VIPs and give them exclusive early access to sales or new arrivals across channels.
- Allow existing customers an opportunity to shop for new products or collections before anyone else.
- Utilize ads to thank new customers for their recent purchase and provide a bounceback offer to secure that coveted second conversion.
- Utilize social to reactivate unengaged or lapsed contacts, segmenting past purchasers who have not repurchased in the typical timeframe.
- Utilize these channels to cross-sell or upsell products that might be complementary to what was purchased in the past, or to promote hero products that a customer doesn’t yet own.
“Most businesses have a large segment of unengaged or unsubscribed contacts they spent good money acquiring but can no longer email. Social retargeting ads are a great way to reactivate lapsed customers without violating spam laws or introducing deliverability risks to your program,” Moshay says.
You can also segment your email list into two parts: customers and leads. The leads on your list should be contacts who subscribed to your emails and recently engaged with your content and site but haven’t yet purchased from you.
You can create ads on Facebook, Twitter, and Google that target these shoppers with content relevant to their interests and how familiar they are with your brand. Don’t just show them generic ad creative; instead, offer a discount for first-time shoppers, or use dynamic content to show them the product they were just looking at on your site.
If you’re not already leveraging email audience lists across various channels – it’s not too late to start! For more information on our program or expert tips, drop us a line.
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