Written by George Crosby, Director - Paid Search

As the digital ecosystem grows even more privacy-centric, advertisers face an undeniable challenge of signal loss. With third-party data rapidly becoming obsolete, first-party data is becoming even more important in effective marketing. 

🎯 Unlocking the Power of First-Party Data Led by Google’s Marketing Specialist Christina Brauer, the webinar spotlighted why 1PD isn't just important, but essential. Campaigns leveraging AI with rich 1PD sources see up to 1.5x increase in performance. 90% of companies believe 1PD is important to their digital marketing, and a 2x revenue upshift has been achieved by advertisers able to link their 1P sources. But despite its potential, many still aren’t tapping into it fully, although with new AI based enhancements, there’s every reason why they should.

🔐 Confidential Computing & Consent Mode With browsers like Safari and Firefox already limiting data collection, confidential matching emerges as a game-changer in Google Ads. Housed within Data Manager, an area spotlighted as means to simplify how 1PD can be used, this technology encrypts 1PD in a closed cloud or “Trusted Execution Environment”, ensuring privacy while enhancing Customer Match capabilities. TEE memory is encrypted, even for Google, and is the default for any data connections made for Customer Match via Google Ads. This, paired with Enhanced Conversions and Consent Mode allows advertisers to collect anonymised data and most importantly, fill in the blanks without crossing ethical lines.

🧠 Feeding AI the Right Signals The phrase “trash in, trash out” was used to stress the importance of data quality when it comes to AI solutions. AI’s effectiveness hinges entirely on the quality of input signals. That’s why Google encourages advertisers to refresh data regularly, upload comprehensive customer lists, and let algorithms calibrate over time before making decisions on the data and/or changes to the setup. Auto inclusions of unapplied Customer Match lists will also enhance smart bidding models, by leveraging the most effective signals to maximise campaign performance.

📋 Customer Match & Lifecycle Goals Customer Match has improved significantly over the years. In 2015, segmentation was encouraged, implementation was manual and >1k users required. However now in 2025, data integration and hygiene is most important, with >100 users required, making the solutions more tangible for even smaller businesses. These lists are central to guiding lifecycle goals, from attracting high-value customers to re-engaging lapsed ones across multiple campaign types. When CM lists are applied to smart bidding campaigns, +20% in conversions per dollar is seen paired with -3.6% CPC and an avg. +5.3% in conversions. 

📉 Navigating Measurement Challenges The reality is that match rates aren’t perfect. You can only measure what active users do, and relying on cookies isn’t a long-term fix. But when first-party data is built into your campaign and account settings, marketers can better understand what’s working and build smarter, more focused strategies. Increase match rates by adding additional match keys, to encourage list freshness, hygiene and accuracy. These can include user IDs and mobile device IDs, in addition to email addresses and phone numbers. Customers who upload a second match key saw +28% in list size, and those who loaded a second and third saw +35% growth in size. There are a variety of privacy compliant upload methods, but using AI tools helps make the most of this data even when things aren’t crystal clear to advertisers.

🔍 Diagnostics & Best Practices By leveraging the latest UI tools, marketers can troubleshoot gaps and improve attribution. With EC features enabled, a spotlight was shone on Interoperability, a conversion-based list functionality where converting users can be automatically added to CM lists via a simple tick box. By adopting AI based solutions such as this, conversion value rules, optimised targeting signals and new customer acquisition goals to name some additional examples, alongside other CM best practices including customer lifecycle goals, your 1PD can be maximised extremely effectively. A bigger customer list generally equates to better results, so leveraging ways to scale lists should be a key focus of your 2025 strategy.

🎓 Final Word: Data is the Strategy In today’s AI-driven world, success hinges on how well advertisers feed their systems. Google’s suite of tools available in 2025 makes this achievable even with shrinking datasets. The webinar serves as an opportunity for all businesses to harness AI for measurable, meaningful growth.

If you missed the live session, the recording is available on the Accelerate with Google platform or you can watch here.