Google adds very helpful option to target ads based on email addresses

For a while now both Facebook and Twitter have offered the ability to upload a list of email addresses and then run ads on their networks targeted just at those people. The social networks look to see who has used on their profile an email address in your upload, and shows ads just to those who have.

It’s a very handy way of targeting the voters you really want, especially in areas with significant email lists.

Now Google has joined in, letting ads be targeted in a similar way for uploads of at least 1,000 email addresses. You can have your ads appear on search results pages, in Gmail and/or on YouTube.

There are two other handy features. First, it is very easy to remove email addresses from a list you have previously uploaded and are using. That’s useful when, for example, you get an email back from a voter saying how much they hate you, despise your party, revile democracy and hold humanity in contempt.

Second, you can ask Google to expand your advert targeting to include people ‘similar’ to those you have uploaded. That’s unlikely to work well for careful geo-targeting, say of voters just in a ward, but useful when you’re campaigning over a wider area and got a more thematic target in mind, e.g. people in Wales interested in civil liberties.

More details from Google about the new advertising option here.