Google Customer Match connection
To adhere to the EU user consent policy and continue creating audience lists for users in the European Economic Area (EEA), advertisers and partners must ensure they are passing end-user consent when uploading audience data. As a Google Partner, Adobe provides you with the necessary tools to comply with these consent requirements under the DMA in the European Union.
Customers who have purchased Adobe Privacy & Security Shield and have configured a consent policy to filter out non-consented profiles do not need to take any action.
Customers who have not purchased Adobe Privacy & Security Shield must use the segment definition capabilities within Segment Builder to filter out non-consented profiles, in order to continue using the existing Real-Time CDP Google Destinations without interruption.
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, and YouTube.
Use cases use-cases
To help you better understand how and when to use the Google Customer Match destination, here are sample use cases that Adobe Experience Platform customers can solve by using this feature.
Use case #1
An athletic apparel brand wants to reach existing customers through Google Search and Google Shopping to personalize offers and items based on their past purchases and browsing history. The apparel brand can ingest email addresses from their own CRM to Experience Platform, and build audiences from their own offline data. Then, they can send these audiences to Google Customer Match to be used across Search and Shopping, optimizing their advertising spending.
Use case #2
A prominent technology company launched a new phone. To promote this new phone model, they are looking to drive awareness of the new features and functionality of the phone to customers who own previous models of their phones.
To promote the release, they upload email addresses from their CRM database into Experience Platform, using the email addresses as identifiers. Audiences are created based on customers who own older phone models. Then audiences get sent to Google Customer Match, so the company can target current customers, customers who own older phone models, and similar customers on YouTube.
Data governance for Google Customer Match destinations data-governance
Some destinations in Experience Platform have certain rules and obligations for data sent to, or received from, the destination platform. You are responsible for understanding the limitations and obligations of your data and how you use that data in Adobe Experience Platform and the destination platform. Adobe Experience Platform provides data governance tools to help you manage some of those data usage obligations. Learn more about data governance tools and policies.
Supported identities supported-identities
Google Customer Match supports the activation of identities described in the table below. Learn more about identities.
Supported audiences supported-audiences
This section describes which types of audiences you can export to this destination.
Export type and frequency export-type-frequency
Refer to the table below for information about the destination export type and frequency.
Google Customer Match account prerequisites google-account-prerequisites
Before setting up a Google Customer Match destination in Experience Platform, make sure you read and adhere to Google’s policy for using Customer Match, outlined in the Google support documentation.
Next, make sure that your Google account is configured for a Standard or higher permission level. See the Google Ads documentation for details.
Allow list allowlist
Before creating the Google Customer Match destination in Experience Platform, make sure that your Google Ads account complies with the Google Customer Match policy.
Customers with compliant accounts are automatically allowlisted by Google.
ID matching requirements id-matching-requirements
Google requires that no personally identifiable information (PII) is sent in clear. Therefore, the audiences activated to Google Customer Match can be keyed off hashed identifiers, such as email addresses or phone numbers.
Depending on the type of IDs that you ingest into Adobe Experience Platform, you must adhere to their corresponding requirements.
Phone number hashing requirements phone-number-hashing-requirements
There are two methods to activate phone numbers in Google Customer Match:
- Ingesting raw phone numbers: you can ingest raw phone numbers in the E.164 format into Platform, and they are automatically hashed upon activation. If you choose this option, make sure to always ingest your raw phone numbers into the
Phone_E.164
namespace. - Ingesting hashed phone numbers: you can pre-hash your phone numbers before ingestion into Platform. If you choose this option, make sure to always ingest your hashed phone numbers into the
PHONE_SHA256_E.164
namespace.
Phone
namespace cannot be activated in Google Customer Match.Email hashing requirements hashing-requirements
You can hash email addresses before ingesting them into Adobe Experience Platform, or use email addresses in clear in Experience Platform, and have Platform hash them on activation.
For more information about Google’s hashing requirements and other restrictions on activation, see the following sections in Google’s documentation:
To learn about ingesting email addresses in Experience Platform, see the batch ingestion overview and the streaming ingestion overview.
If you select to hash the email addresses yourself, make sure to comply with Google’s requirements, outlined in the links above.
Using custom namespaces custom-namespaces
Before you can use the User_ID
namespace to send data to Google, make sure you synchronize your own identifiers using gTag. Refer to the Google official documentation for detailed information.
Video overview video-overview
Watch the video below for an explanation of benefits and how to activate data to Google Customer Match.
Connect to the destination connect
To connect to this destination, follow the steps described in the destination configuration tutorial.
Connection parameters parameters
While setting up this destination, you must provide the following information:
- Name: provide a name for this destination connection
- Description: provide a description for this destination connection
- Account ID: your Google Ads customer ID. The format of the ID is xxx-xxx-xxxx. If you are using the Google Ads Manager Account (My Client Center), do not use your Manager Account ID. Use the Google Ads customer ID instead.
- The Combine with PII marketing action is selected by default for the Google Customer Match destination and cannot be removed.
Enable alerts enable-alerts
You can enable alerts to receive notifications on the status of the dataflow to your destination. Select an alert from the list to subscribe to receive notifications on the status of your dataflow. For more information on alerts, see the guide on subscribing to destinations alerts using the UI.
When you are finished providing details for your destination connection, select Next.
Activate audiences to this destination activate
-
To activate data, you need the View Destinations, Activate Destinations, View Profiles, and View Segments access control permissions. Read the access control overview or contact your product administrator to obtain the required permissions.
-
To export identities to destinations, you need the View Identity Graph access control permission.
img-md w-100 modal-image
See Activate audience data to streaming audience export destinations for instructions on activating audiences to this destination.
In the Segment schedule step, you must provide the App ID when sending IDFA or GAID audiences to Google Customer Match.
For details on how to find the App ID, refer to the Google official documentation or ask your Google representative.
Mapping example: activating audience data in Google Customer Match example-gcm
This is an example of correct identity mapping when activating audience data in Google Customer Match.
Selecting source fields:
- Select the
Email
namespace as source identity if the email addresses you are using are not hashed. - Select the
Email_LC_SHA256
namespace as source identity if you hashed customer email addresses on data ingestion into Platform, according to Google Customer Match email hashing requirements. - Select the
PHONE_E.164
namespace as source identity if your data consists of non-hashed phone numbers. Platform will hash the phone numbers to comply with Google Customer Match requirements. - Select the
Phone_SHA256_E.164
namespace as source identity if you hashed phone numbers on data ingestion into Platform, according to Facebook phone number hashing requirements. - Select the
IDFA
namespace as source identity if your data consists of Apple device IDs. - Select the
GAID
namespace as source identity if your data consists of Android device IDs. - Select the
Custom
namespace as source identity if your data consists of other type of identifiers.
Selecting target fields:
- Select the
Email_LC_SHA256
namespace as target identity when your source namespaces are eitherEmail
orEmail_LC_SHA256
. - Select the
Phone_SHA256_E.164
namespace as target identity when your source namespaces are eitherPHONE_E.164
orPhone_SHA256_E.164
. - Select the
IDFA
orGAID
namespaces as target identity when your source namespaces areIDFA
orGAID
. - Select the
User_ID
namespace as target identity when your source namespace is a custom one.
Data from unhashed namespaces is automatically hashed by Platform upon activation.
Attribute source data is not automatically hashed. When your source field contains unhashed attributes, check the Apply transformation option, to have Platform automatically hash the data on activation.
Verify that audience activation was successful verify-activation
After completing the activation flow, switch to your Google Ads account. The activated audiences are shown in your Google account as customer lists. Depending on your audience size, some audiences do not populate unless there are over 100 active users to serve.
When mapping an audience to both IDFA and GAID mobile IDs, Google Customer Match creates a separate audience for each ID mapping. Your Google Ads account shows two different segments, one for the IDFA, and one for the GAID mapping.
Troubleshooting troubleshooting
400 Bad Request error message bad-request
When configuring this destination, you may receive the following error:
{"message":"Google Customer Match Error: OperationAccessDenied.ACTION_NOT_PERMITTED","code":"400 BAD_REQUEST"}
This error occurs when customer accounts do not comply with the prerequisites. To fix this issue, contact Google and make sure that your account is allow-listed and is configured for a Standard or higher permission level. See the Google Ads documentation for details.