Customer Match Lists (Audiences)
Maintain audience lists in Google Ads to retarget and re-engage your users.
Connect your Google Ads Account
Follow the set-up instructions here!
Sync a Customer Match List with Census
1. Create your Google Ads Customer Match Model
Navigate to the Models page.
Here you can write SQL queries or select dbt models that contain the data you want to send to Google Ads.
Right now, we're going to send data to an existing Customer Match list, which requires a specific set of properties. We'll create a model that has:
The email of the Customer
Any other properties about the Customer that can assist in the match.
Once you have created your model, click save.
2. Create your first Sync
Now head to the Sync page and click the Add Sync button
In the " What data do you want to sync?" section
For the Connection, select the data warehouse you connected in the Prerequisites Step 2
For the Source, select the model you created in step 1 of this section
Next up is the "Where do you want to sync data to?" section
Pick Google Ads as the Connection
For Object, pick Customer
For the " How should we identify customer list members?" section
Pick the right mapping key, in this case, we'll use Email
You will have the option of picking an existing list to sync or creating a new list to sync
Finally, select the fields you want to update in the Mapper in the "Which Properties should be updated?" section. Here simply map the field from your model to the properties of the Customer Match List.
The end result should look something like this
Click the Next button to see the final preview which will have a recap of what will happen when you start the sync.
3. Confirm the data is in your Customer Match List
Now go back to your Google Ads account and view the list. If everything went well, you should see that the list has been updated with your data. Because this is an Audience Matching mechanism, Google will not tell you the exact number of matches it found, but should tell you that it was updated.
That's it! In 3 steps, you connected your data warehouse to Google Ads and built live Customer Match audiences Google Ads 🎉
Best Practices and Notes
Google Customer Match, as its name implies, is a matching service rather than the usual direct upload. In order to protect user data, we do not upload the data you provide directly. Instead, records are "matched" against Google's existing user base. To do this, both sides perform a "hash" -- or consistent, but irreversible conversion -- of data so users can be compared without revealing the actual personally identifiable information. Census automatically takes care of this hashing step for you.
We recommend you do not use Google's Customer Match expiration setting. Census-synced records are subject to the same expiration and will not be re-uploaded unless they are changed in your source data.
Supported Sync Behaviors
Behaviors | Supported? |
Update or Create | ✅ |
Mirror | ✅ |
Sync Keys: User ID, Mobile ID, Email, Phone Number
Please note that the above behaviors will map to what you select in the, "When a record is removed from source data" dropdown in the Customer List sync section. Selecting "Do Nothing" will map to Update or Create(Upsert) while "Remove matching record from customer list" will map to Mirror.
Contact us if you're looking for additional Sync Behaviors!
Note: If you're reusing an existing Customer Match List, Census will not remove any users already added to those lists through other means.
Digital Markets Act (DMA)
When syncing Customer Match Lists to Google Ads, you can include consent information to ensure compatibility with Google's EU User Consent Policy. Google Ads objects now support two additional fields: Consent for ad user data and Consent for ad personalization, which can be set to one of the following values: UNKNOWN, UNSPECIFIED, GRANTED, DENIED. See Google's documentation for more information on the behavior of different options.
⚠️Common Issues
Did my sync work? It says completed but it isn't showing the updated timestamp I expect.
The standard place where bulk files uploading update status doesn't actually update when using Census. Instead, you've gotta hover on a specific card.
Steps to get there:
Open your google ads account
Navigate to Tools & Settings > Audience Manager
Hover over the name of your desired audience in the list.
Expand the section labeled
Customers based on email, phone, and/or mailing address uploadsWithin that, you'll see a
Last uploadlabel.
If that date isn't the same time as the most recent sync completed, please reach out via our in-app chat and we will investigate it with you.
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