Documentation Experience Platform Destinations Guide

Google Customer Match connection

Last update: April 2, 2025

Topics:
Destinations

CREATED FOR:

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IMPORTANT

Google is releasing changes to the Google Ads API, Customer Match, and the Display & Video 360 API in order to support the compliance and consent-related requirements defined under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in the European Union (EU User Consent Policy). Enforcement of these changes to consent requirements is live as of March 6, 2024.

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, and Gmail.

TIP

To reach customers on YouTube inventory, use the Google Customer Match + DV360 destination, which uses the Google Audience Partner API.

Google Customer Match destination in the Adobe Experience Platform UI.

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

TIP

To execute this use case on YouTube inventory, use the new Google Customer Match + DV360 destination, which uses the Google Audience Partner API.

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

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

Google Customer Match supports the activation of identities described in the table below. Learn more about identities.

Target Identity

Description

Considerations

GAID

Google Advertising ID

Select this target identity when your source identity is a GAID namespace.

IDFA

Apple ID for Advertisers

Select this target identity when your source identity is an IDFA namespace.

phone_sha256_e.164

Phone numbers in E164 format, hashed with the SHA256 algorithm

Both plain text and SHA256 hashed phone numbers are supported by Adobe Experience Platform. Follow the instructions in the ID matching requirements section and use the appropriate namespaces for plain text and hashed phone numbers, respectively. When your source field contains unhashed attributes, check the Apply transformation option, to have Experience Platform automatically hash the data on activation.

email_lc_sha256

Email addresses hashed with the SHA256 algorithm

Both plain text and SHA256 hashed email addresses are supported by Adobe Experience Platform. Follow the instructions in the ID matching requirements section and use the appropriate namespaces for plain text and hashed email addresses, respectively. When your source field contains unhashed attributes, check the Apply transformation option, to have Experience Platform automatically hash the data on activation.

user_id

Custom user IDs

Select this target identity when your source identity is a custom namespace.

Supported audiences

This section describes which types of audiences you can export to this destination.

Audience origin

Supported

Description

Segmentation Service

✓

Audiences generated through the Experience Platform Segmentation Service.

Custom uploads

✓

Audiences imported into Experience Platform from CSV files.

Export type and frequency

Refer to the table below for information about the destination export type and frequency.

Item

Type

Notes

Export type

Audience export

You are exporting all members of an audience with the identifiers (name, phone number, and others) used in the Google Customer Match destination.

Export frequency

Streaming

Streaming destinations are “always on” API-based connections. As soon as a profile is updated in Experience Platform based on audience evaluation, the connector sends the update downstream to the destination platform. Read more about streaming destinations.

Google Customer Match 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

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

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

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 Experience 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 Experience Platform. If you choose this option, make sure to always ingest your hashed phone numbers into the PHONE_SHA256_E.164 namespace.

NOTE

Phone numbers ingested into the Phone namespace cannot be activated in Google Customer Match.

Email 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 Experience 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

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

Watch the video below for an explanation of benefits and how to activate data to Google Customer Match.

video poster

https://video.tv.adobe.com/v/38180/

Transcript

Hi, everyone. In this video, we will be showing you how to combine Adobe’s Real Time CDP and Google’s customer match capabilities to help brands engage with their customers on Google’s own and operated properties with the business objective to increase their outreach campaigns. We will be using Luma, an athletic apparel company.

Luma has recently launched a new line of athletic gear and aims to promote it to its audiences. To capture their attention during the early phases of the customer buying journey, Luma wants to activate their most loyal audiences across Google’s own and operated properties to maximize its awareness campaigns. So let’s see how Adobe’s Real Time CDP can help. Here we are in Adobe Experience Platform. One of its core capabilities is the ability to create rich business segments using online, offline, real time Adobe and non-Adobe generated data. This screen shows Luma’s active segments.

The one we’re focusing on today is the tier one customers, which includes loyal customers who bought any of Luma’s products in the past through online or offline channels and who have recently engaged with the brand and looked at any of its products. Through Adobe’s Real Time CDP, this segment can be activated using one of its several out-of-the-box destinations. As Luma wants to maximize its outreach campaign through Google’s properties, such as YouTube, search and Gmail, we will be using the Google customer match destination. During this process, and after selecting the tier one segment, practitioners can then determine how to match its customers with Google’s, define the start and end date of this activation, and publish it for immediate use in Google. Now, as practitioners pivot to Google’s advertising products, they can see their activated segment learning in Google’s ad console under Audience Manager and can use them as part of any of their awareness campaigns. From a consumer perspective, Sarah Rose, a loyal Luma customer who is part of the tier one segment is targeted and will see Luma’s awareness campaign. This campaign will be seen on Google’s properties, and in this case, on YouTube.

With Adobe’s Real Time CDP support for Google’s customer match, brands can now combine rich historical online, offline and real time behavioral data and reach out to their potential customers when they’re at a critical moment of their journeys. -

Connect to the destination

IMPORTANT

To connect to the destination, you need the View Destinations and Manage Destinations access control permissions. Read the access control overview or contact your product administrator to obtain the required permissions.

To connect to this destination, follow the steps described in the destination configuration tutorial.

Connection 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.

IMPORTANT

The Combine with PII marketing action is selected by default for the Google Customer Match destination and cannot be removed.

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

IMPORTANT

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.

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.

Google Customer Match App ID field highlighted in the Segment schedule step of the activation workflow.

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

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 Experience 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. Experience 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 Experience 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 either Email or Email_LC_SHA256.
Select the Phone_SHA256_E.164 namespace as target identity when your source namespaces are either PHONE_E.164 or Phone_SHA256_E.164.
Select the IDFA or GAID namespaces as target identity when your source namespaces are IDFA or GAID.
Select the User_ID namespace as target identity when your source namespace is a custom one.

Identity mapping between source and target fields shown in the Mapping step of the activation workflow.

Data from unhashed namespaces is automatically hashed by Experience Platform upon activation.

Attribute source data is not automatically hashed. When your source field contains unhashed attributes, check the Apply transformation option, to have Experience Platform automatically hash the data on activation.

Apply transformation control highlighted in the Mapping step of the activation workflow.

Monitor destination

After connecting to the destination and establishing a destination dataflow, you can use the monitoring functionality in Real-Time CDP to get extensive information about the profile records activated to your destination in each dataflow run.

Verify that audience activation was successful

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

400 Bad Request error message

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.

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