YouTube audiences

There are two types of first-party audiences that you can use for ads on YouTube:

• YouTube users lists: Create remarketing lists of viewers based on their past interactions with your videos, YouTube ads, or YouTube channel.
• Customer Match lists: Upload a data file of customers that are important to your business to use with Customer Match.

After you set up these lists, you can use them in your targeting settings for new or existing YouTube & partners line items. Learn more about targeting in YouTube & partners line items.

Third-party audience targeting and YouTube & partners line items

YouTube & partners line items only support first-party audiences that meet the Personalized advertising policy. Third-party audiences are not supported.

YouTube users lists

You can show personalized ads to millions of viewers across YouTube based on their past interactions with your videos or YouTube channel. Once you've linked a YouTube channel to your advertiser in Display & Video 360, you can create YouTube users lists for remarketing purposes.

You can generate YouTube users lists that include viewers who have done one of the following actions:

• Viewed any video from a channel
• Visited a channel page
• Viewed any video (as an ad) from a channel
• Liked any video from a channel
• Commented on any video from a channel
• Shared any video from a channel
• Subscribed to a channel
• Added any video from a channel to a playlist
• Viewed certain videos
• Viewed certain videos (as ads)

You cannot build YouTube users lists off of views to bumper ads or non-skippable ads. 

Create a YouTube user audience list

1. If you haven't already, link your YouTube channel to your Display & Video 360 advertiser.
2. From your Display & Video 360 advertiser, click Audiences in the left menu.
3. Select New Audience > YouTube users.
4. Enter a name for your audience.
5. Choose a list type and a channel.
6. Fill out the rest of the form.
7. Click Create list.

You’ll see your created list in the All Audiences menu. Once your YouTube users list has gained interactions from at least 100 viewers, you can use it for targeting.

Troubleshoot an empty or small YouTube users list

• Review the membership duration of your remarketing list
  • The membership duration determines how long a user remains on the remarketing list. A membership duration too short may remove some or all existing members on a list. 
• Check the video length
  • If the remarketing list is built from videos "viewed as ads", check the length of the videos. A video shorter than 11 seconds won't collect any remarketing users when viewed as an ad. This includes all Bumper ads, which won't increment any remarketing list users.
• Confirm the video audiences is not "Made for Kids"
  • We don’t serve personalized ads on kids content, as required by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and/or other applicable laws. Learn more
• Confirm the videos used in the remarketing list had views on YouTube
  • We are limited in the memberships we can build for YouTube user lists when your videos or video ads are shown in third party sites and apps.

Customer Match audience lists

Customer Match lets you show ads to your customers based on data about those customers that you share with Google. With Customer Match targeting, you can also reach new users on YouTube by targeting similar audiences to your most valuable customers.

Upload a Customer Match data file

1. From your Display & Video 360 advertiser, click Audiences on the left menu.
2. Select New Audience > Customer match.
3. Enter a Name for your list and an optional description.
4. Select a Data type from the drop-down list:
   1. Contact info
   2. Mobile Device IDs: Select the mobile app platform and browse for your specific app name. You can select only one app per list upload that matches with the type of IDs being uploaded.
   3. Connected TV (CTV): Select Mobile Device IDs from the drop-down list. Next, select the mobile app platform and browse for your specific app name. You can only select one app per list upload.
5. Upload a file by dropping a file or by clicking Browse.

    

   Basic formatting guidelines

   • Your data must be in a CSV file. Use a template or create your own file using a combination of the following header names in English: "Email", "Phone", "First Name", "Last Name", "Country", and "Zip".
   • If you’re uploading mobile device IDs, it must be a separate file with “Mobile Device ID” as the only header.
   • To keep your data secure, you can hash your customer data yourself using the SHA256 algorithm. 
   • Note that hashed mobile device IDs are not supported.

   • Minimum number of entries/rows: 1,000 30-day active users.
   • Maximum CSV file size: 20 MB.

   • Minimum user threshold: Display and Gmail = 100, Search and YouTube = 1,000

   Column formatting guidelines

   • Email address matching: Use “Email” as the column header name in your data file.
   • Phone matching: Use “Phone” as the column header name in your data file.
   • Mailing address matching: For mail address matching, your data file must contain these 4 column headers: “First Name,” “Last Name,” “Country,” and “Zip.” If any of the required column header names are missing, your upload will likely result in an error.
   • Combined email address, mailing address, and phone matching: Your file must contain these 6 column headers: “Email,” “Phone,” “First Name,” “Last Name,” “Country,” and “Zip." If you have multiple email addresses, mailing addresses, or phone numbers for a single customer, your file may include multiple “Email,” “Zip,” or “Phone” columns.
   • Mobile Device ID matching: Use "Mobile Device ID" as the only column header in your data file.

   Formatting guidelines for uploading unhashed data

   If you upload a list of contact information in plain text, Display & Video 360 will hash them using the industry-standard SHA256 algorithm. Hashing takes into account capitalization and spaces, so you'll need to make all characters in each entry lowercase and remove any extra spaces before or after each entry.

   Email	Include a domain name for all email addresses (for example, gmail.com or hotmail.co.jp) Remove any spaces in between the email address For example: [e-mail] [e-mail]
   Phone	Include the country code For example: 1 [phone] 81-12-3456-7891 02 1234 5678
   First name	Don’t include prefixes (ex: Mrs.) Accents are allowed For example: john zoë
   Last name	Don’t include suffixes (ex: Jr.) Accents are allowed For example: smith smith-jones pérez
   Country	Use ISO two-letter country codes Include the country code even if all of your customer data is from the same country For example: US for United States SG for Singapore
   Zip	Both US and international zip and postal codes are allowed For United States: 5 digit codes are allowed 5 digits followed by 4-digit extension are also allowed and may improve your match rate For all other countries: Leave out postal code extensions For example: 94303 94303-5300 WC2H 8LG
   Mobile Device ID	Use a single column labeled "Mobile Device ID" Your file should only contain Mobile Device ID data, no other data types are accepted with Mobile Device ID data 540-day maximum membership duration

   Formatting guidelines for uploading hashed data

   If you prefer to upload hashed entries, you must use the SHA256 algorithm. Learn more. Note that hashed mobile device IDs are not supported.

   Email	Include a domain name for all email addresses (for example, gmail.com or hotmail.co.jp) Lowercase all characters Remove any extra spaces before, after, or in between the email address For example: [e-mail] [e-mail]
   Phone	Format phone numbers using the E.164 format Include the country code For example: 1 [phone] 81-12-3456-7891 02 1234 5678
   First name	Don’t include prefixes (ex: Mrs.) Accents are allowed Lowercase all characters Remove any extra spaces before, after, and in between For example: john zoë
   Last name	Don’t include suffixes (ex: Jr.) Accents are allowed Lowercase all characters Remove any extra spaces before, after, and in between For example: smith smith-jones pérez
   Country	​Don’t hash Country data Use ISO two-letter country codes Include the country code even if all of your customer data is from the same country For example: US for United States SG for Singapore
   Zip	Don’t hash Zip data Both US and international zip and postal codes are allowed For United States:  5 digit codes are allowed 5 digits followed by 4-digit extension are also allowed and may improve your match rate For all other countries:  Leave out postal code extensions For example: 94303 94303-5300 WC2H 8LG

    

6. Click Edit data use settings to modify data use across Google services. By default, all Google services will receive the lists of consented users you upload. You can update this setting to select specific Google services at any time. Any changes made will be applied to all data sources and are not limited to Customer Match data uploads.
7. Review that your upload complies with the Platform program policies and Customer Match policies. You must obtain consent for such sharing where required by law or any applicable Google policies governing personalized ads and/or user consent including Google’s EU User Consent Policy.

   If you agree, check the box “Company certifies that it has complied with data use in personalized ads on Google Search, Gmail, and YouTube”.

   • Note: You must upload only consented data via this manual upload.
8. Optional: Choose an Expiration date for the contact information in the list. The default membership duration is unlimited.
9. Review that your upload complies with the Platform program policies and Customer Match policies.
10. Click Save. Your list will start processing after it’s uploaded. This may take up to three hours to complete. 

Limitations

• YouTube user lists are only available for use on Google-owned sites (e.g. YouTube, Gmail, Google search, etc.) and are not available for use on Google Display Network and Google Video Partners
• For skippable ads running on YouTube, paid advertising views are counted as public views on the video and added to remarketing lists when one of the following happens: someone watches a complete ad that’s 12-30 seconds long, someone watches at least 30 seconds of an ad that’s more than 30 seconds long, or someone interacts with the ad.