Customer Match Guide

What is Customer Match?  #

Customer Match is when Google uses your customer data to enhance your visibility and reach to customers who have previously interacted with your business. For example, you may have a customer list containing names, email addresses and locations. 

If those customers gave their data in first party context (either online or offline), Google can then use ‘Customer Match’ to target those same customers with relevant products/services from your business. This can also be expanded to reach other potential customers who have demonstrated the same interests and demographic profiles as the profiles of the customers on your customer list.

Because Google puts relevance at the forefront of all search/display/shopping campaigns, it uses informed machine learning to target only relevant customers with relevant products. Customer Match therefore allows you to increase your reach and visibility to a highly relevant audience within your target market.

Collecting Customer Data #

Google is very strict regarding privacy policies and very clearly states specific requirements for using Customer Match. To use Customer Match, your Google Ads account must have:

• A good history of policy compliance.
• A good payment history.
• At least 90 days’ history in Google Ads.
• More than 50,000 USD total lifetime spend (or equivalent currency).

If your account does not meet the above criteria, then your account is ineligible to use Customer Match.

When using Customer Match, you may only upload customer information that you collected in the first-party context, such as information that you collected from your website, app, physical shop or other situations where customers shared their information directly with you.

Examples:

• You collected information from a customer who had purchased an item from your website.
• You collected information from a customer who registered to receive marketing messages through your apps.
• You collected information from a customer who signed up for your loyalty programme in your physical shop.

You must also:

• Ensure that your privacy policy discloses that you share customer data with third parties to perform services on your behalf, and that you obtain consent for such sharing where legally required.
• Only use Google’s approved API or interface to upload customer data.
• Comply with all applicable laws and regulations, including any self-regulatory or industry codes that may apply.

Trust is a big factor for Google and it is very strict about how Customer Match data is used. If you meet the eligibility criteria above, you may upload customer data directly to Google Ads through their authorised interface. This ensures no handling of the data by third party management teams.

Additional Requirements #

You are prohibited from:

• Running ads that collect personally identifiable information, except for Gmail ads with HTML forms that comply with the Gmail ads policy.
• Uploading information for any customer who’s under the age of 13 or that was collected from any site or app directed at children under the age of 13.
• Creating ad content which implies knowledge of personally identifiable information or sensitive information about your customers (see below for more information).
• Using a customer list that targets an overly narrow or specific audience. For example, you can’t combine a customer list with other targeting criteria (such as geographic limitations) if it results in an ad targeted to a relatively small number of users.
• Advertising for products related to sensitive information, such as pharmaceutical products (see below for more information)
• Running any ads that are prohibited by Google Ads policies.

Restrictions on Sensitive Categories #

As defined under the Personalised Advertising Policy principles applicable to remarketing, advertisers can’t use sensitive interest categories to target ads to users or to promote advertisers’ products or services. These policies also apply to remarketing with Customer Match.

Additionally, you can’t use data from your Customer Match campaigns to identify sensitive interest categories related to your customers.

For comprehensive information about what’s considered a sensitive interest category under Personalized ads and Customer match policies, see the Personalised advertising policies.

How to Upload Data for Customer Match #

To maintain privacy of data, Google uses a method called hashing to keep your customer file secure. A hashed data file is a one-way encrypted file. For uploading your data, you can select to use a plain text file (also known as CSV file) or you can create your own hashed data file.  

If you elect to use a plain text file (the simplest option), Google Ads will hash it for you using the SHA256 algorithm, which is the industry standard for one-way hashing.

If you elect to create your own hashed file prior to upload, it must meet the requirements described in the Google Support Page here.

Either way, confidentiality of your customer data is ensured prior to it arriving on Google’s servers.

To create a plain text (CSV) file that contains all the customer data from your websites, apps, physical shops or other situations where customers shared their information directly with you, please follow the instructions below:

1. Files must be in CSV format.
2. All identifiers for one user record must be comma-separated. Different user records must be separated by the standard unix newline character \n or a line break. They can’t be separated with a space or semicolon.
3. Headers must only be: Email, Phone, First name, Last name, Country, Postcode and Mobile device ID. (If you have multiple email addresses, postal addresses or phone numbers for a single customer, your file may include multiple ‘Email’, ‘Postcode’ or ‘Phone’ columns).
4. Include a domain name for all email addresses like gmail.com or hotmail.co.uk.
5. Names cannot have a prefix (for example, Mr.).
6. For postal address matching, make sure that your data file contains all of the following four column headers: ‘First name’, ‘Last name’, ‘Country’ and ‘Postcode’.
7. Include the country code for phone numbers.

For specific formatting instructions to apply to plain text files (non-hashed) and formatting instructions for hashed files, please refer to the Google Support Page: Format Your Customer Data File. 

Here is an example of the correct file formatting using rows and columns where the first row must be headers:

Here’s an example of the correct file formatting using a CSV file:

In both examples, multiple email and postcode columns/values may be added and headers must be in English.

If you have elected to create a hashed list, you must also ensure the following:

1. Don’t hash Country or Postcode columns.
2. Lowercase all characters and remove all extra spaces before, after or in between email addresses and names.
3. Emails with accents won’t be matched to Google Accounts (for example, è, é, ê and ë). However, accents are OK for use in ‘First name’ and ‘Last name’ fields.
4. Format phone numbers using the E.164 format.

Performing the Upload #

Follow the steps below to upload your customer data file (either in plain text CSV or hashed form) via the Google interface: 

1. Login to Google Ads.
2. Click the Tools & Settings icon in the top right-hand corner of your screen.
3. Under the section labelled ‘Shared library’, click Audience manager.
4. Click Audience lists from the page menu on the left.
5. Click the + button.
6. Choose ‘Customer list‘.
7. Choose your new file.
8. If you agree, tick the box ‘This data was collected and is being shared with Google in compliance with Google’s policies’.
9. Set a membership duration. The default membership duration is unlimited, but you can set a custom time limit.
10. Click upload and create the list.
11. You can view the progress of uploading your data file under ‘Audiences lists’. This process may take up to 48 hours to complete.

If you experience problems during upload, it could be due to incorrect formatting of your customer data file. For troubleshooting formatting issues, please refer to the Google Support Page: Format Your Customer Data File. 

GDPR #

Please note that PPC Geeks cannot give legal advice in this matter and we instead lay out the policies of Google as referenced above. For legal advice, terms and conditions please consult your legal department.  

Further Information #

For further information on customer data policies, please refer to the Google Support Page: Customer Data Policies.

For further information on first-party and third-party data use policies, please refer to the Google Support Page: Data Use in Personalised Ads. 

For further information on Google Customer Match Policy please refer to the Google Support Page: Google Customer Match Policy.