After covering four posts about ways to get data into Adobe Experience Platform (AEP), we can now look at activating the audiences created in the platform via the application service called Real-time CDP (RTCDP).
Recap on the previous data ingestion blog posts:
- Link to Part A: Data Collection: Google Tag Manager
- Link to Part B: Google Cloud Platform
- Link to Part C: Google Analytics and Google Ads Enhanced Conversions
- Link to Part D: Ingesting Google Data
What is a RTCDP Destination?
Destinations are pre-built integrations with external platforms that allow for the seamless activation of data from Adobe Experience Platform. You can use destinations to activate your known and unknown data for cross-channel marketing campaigns, email campaigns, targeted advertising, and many other use cases.
In practice, a Destination allows marketers to export and sync of audiences and/or customer attributes using a user friendly UI. The key steps to use a Destination:
| Step | Recurrence | Comment |
| Check Prerequisites | One-off | – Collaborate with the activation partners. – Check if the credentials are available for the linking process. – Check if the identities supported match what is available in AEP. |
| Create Destination | One-off | – Create the Destination in the RTCDP UI. – Configure or link the solutions via an account ID, API credentials or user login. |
| Validate Destination | One-off | – Share a test Audience, check if integration is working then also check volume is in line with expected audience size from AEP. |
| Map Audiences to the Destinations | Once per Audience | – Share new or existing Audiences to Destinations in the UI. – Some Destinations require some additional configuration such as attribute selection and scheduling. |
Google Destinations
We will define the use cases and best practices for the following out-of-the-box Google Destinations:
Google Display & Video 360
Google Display & Video 360 (ex-DBM – Doubleclick Bid Manager) is a demand side platform application used by advertising operation teams across agencies or in-house marketing teams to buy and run online ads. A quick breakdown of the available channels are:
- Display: Static, dynamic, native type ads.
- Video: This includes of course YouTube and partner sites. Video ads before, during, after videos embed on non-Google websites or mobile apps.
- Audio: Ads on radio, podcast app inventory.
- TV: Catch-up, on-demand video streaming services.
- More Premium (private inventory): specific deal with publishers.
Use case
As a marketer, I want to
- Retarget users across the Google-exclusive properties and programmatic inventory to get them back to the website or mobile app.
- Suppress existing customers or convertors to increase advertising spend efficiency.
- Upsell or nurture leads into the next stage of the lifecycle.
So what?
- Manage relevant advertising campaigns, creative & budgets in a centralised place.
- Access to premium or private programmatic inventory.
Best Practices
- Work closely with users of this application to define Audiences in Real-Time CDP.
Google Customer Match
Google Customer Match lets you use your online and offline data to reach and re-engage with your customers across Google’s owned and operated properties, such as:
- Search
- Shopping
- Gmail
- YouTube
Use case
As a marketer, I want to
- Retarget users across exclusive Google properties and other ad inventory to get them back to the website or mobile app.
- Suppress existing customers or convertors to increase advertising spend efficiency.
- Upsell or nurture leads into the next stage of the lifecycle.
- Target or suppress offline only leads or customers that have never been to the website or authenticated online.
So what?
- With the deprecation of third-party cookies, this integration supports more durable identifiers such as hashed email, hashed mobile number, IDFA and GAID.
- There is potentially a higher chance to reach the user as Google can reach the user across logged-in devices and Google properties such as search ads, shopping ads, YouTube and Gmail.
- Although there might be internal teams that manually upload lists to Google Customer Match directly, using this Destination in RTCDP has the following benefits:
- Real-time: streaming segments sync up the audiences in near-real time.
- Efficiency: automates tedious task.
- Governance: Adobe Experience Platform features helps organisation comply with increase data governance and consent requirements. e.g. consent filtering, restrict access to customer data fields.
- Maintenance: in-house process or tooling requires constant monitoring and updates.
Avoid if
- you are not collecting the supported durable identities.
- you have not collected the consent from the end-users to target them.
Best Practices
- Check the supported identities on the Destination documentation page.
- Ensure and validate the correct values are allocated to the matching Identity Namespace definitions.
Google Ads (Legacy)
Google Ads, formerly known as Google AdWords is an online advertising service that allows businesses to buy pay-per-click advertising across paid search, display, video and mobile app install campaigns.
This integration is considered legacy as only the previously whitelisted accounts were integrated with Adobe Audience Manager. However, please consult with your Google rep to confirm.
This reach of this integration is a subset of all the usual Google Ads targeted properties which are referred to as the “Google Display Network“.
Use case
As a marketer, I want to
- Retarget users across the Google Display Network to get them back to the website or mobile app.
- Suppress existing customers or convertors to increase advertising spend efficiency.
- Upsell or nurture leads into the next stage of the lifecycle.
So what?
In some team structures, utilising Google Ads to purchase display ads on Google Display Network inventory might be more convenient or access inventory that performs better. Google Ads (mainly text search) and display channels may be managed by different teams or agencies.
It is recommended to transition to Google Customer Match in order to maximise targeting with durable identifiers such as hashed email and hashed mobile.
Avoid If
- you have not previously used this integration with Adobe Audience Manager – again consult with your Google rep.
- you have not consulted with your display advertising team about this mode of buying ads.
Conclusion
In summary, AEP’s activation service: Real-Time CDP supports the most relevant Google Destinations ranging from the old-world of cookies and device IDs to more durable ID such hashed email and hashed mobile numbers.
As this is an ever evolving space, Real-Time CDP supports the ingestion of any Partner IDs that may become the new standard(s). The Destinations SDK Framework also enables partners or other vendors to create and maintain activation to their platform with less friction and downtime for marketers.
Photo by Daniel Olah on Unsplash