Depending on the size of the business you work for, you might have an email list of hundreds, thousands or millions. You already know your email list is valuable because email marketing is one of the most effective channels in terms of ROI. But an email list isn't just for emailing. You can use it for all kinds of clever targeting techniques, to advertise to your customers at the exact moment they may be considering a purchase. Here are some of the options for utilising your email list for targeting ad placement:
Marketers can match their email addresses with those of Facebook and display ads in the main feed and right rail. This is by far the most mature offering, and many companies are doing it already. Facebook will also generate 'look-a-like' audiences for you based on the characteristics of the people in your email address list, so you can target the exact right kind of people for your business.
Similar to the above, you can match email address and get ad placement within a person’s Twitter feed. Twitter calls them 'tailored audiences'.
LiveIntent allows you to match hashed email addresses with their network of email ad inventory. When a person that you match to both opens an email, you can display your ad in another email program’s message to drive the person to your website or to sign up for the email program again. Rather a smart way to get the most out of your email list.
Email addresses can be used to match to cookies and device IDs and stored in a DMP. Once defined, this group can be targeted for addressable display buys across the web.
The most recent offering to tie an email address to other channels allows marketers to match their email address with Google’s primary email address for a user (which means that it doesn’t have to be a Gmail address) and connect with that person in Gmail, search and YouTube for inclusion and exclusion.
Don't sit on your email list thinking all you can do with it is send out the odd promotional campaign and newsletter. Customer data is extremely valuable, and the reason why it's so valuable is because it can be utilised for targeting. The average value of an email address is £84.50 according to a study by the Drum. So even if you've only managed to build a list of a few thousand emails, that's still an impressive amount of value. Make sure you make the most of it.
By Robert Allen
Rob Allen is Marketing Manager for Numiko, a digital agency that design and build websites for purpose driven organisations, such as the Science Museum Group, Cancer Research UK, University of London and the Electoral Commission. Rob was blog editor at Smart Insights from 2015-2017. You can follow Rob on LinkedIn.
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