Format your customer data file

In order to target ads to your customers, the Customer Match data that you upload must be formatted correctly. 

The most important formatting guideline is to ensure that your column headers in your customer data file use the exact names specified in English. The rest of your data may be in any language, but the column headers must be in English.

This article provides guidelines to follow when formatting your customer data file.

Basic formatting guidelines

Your data must be in a CSV file, encoded in either ASCII or UTF-8 (UTF-16 is not supported). 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'. You can upload your mobile device ID using this template.

To keep your data secure, you can hash your customer data yourself using the SHA256 algorithm, or Google Ads will hash it for you using the same SHA256 algorithm, which is the industry standard for one-way hashing.

Customer data must be collected in compliance with Customer Match policies.

If you run into any issues with the upload process, learn how to fix Customer Match issues.

 

Column header formatting guidelines (Use English only)

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”, “Surname”, “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”, “Surname”, “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. You only have to include data fields that you find relevant to your customers.You may upload one data field, such as email addresses, or multiple data fields, such as mailing addresses and phone numbers.

 

Mobile Device ID matching: Use “Mobile Device ID” as the only column header in your data file. 

 

Each column header in your data file must be included in English only.

Formatting guidelines for uploading unhashed data

The column header names in your customer data file must be in English. To complete an API upload, your data must be hashed. Follow the steps to format hashed data.

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
  • Note that the plus sign (+) before your country code is optional.

For example:

• 1 [phone]
• 81-12-3456-7891
• 02 1234 5678

First Name

• Don’t include prefixes (e.g. Mrs.)
• Accents are allowed

For example:

• john
• zoë

name

• Don’t include suffixes (e.g. Jr.)
• Accents are allowed

For example:

• smith
• smith-jones
• pérez

Country

• Use ISO 2-letter or 3-letter country codes
• Include the country code even if all of your customer data is from the same country

For example:

• U.S. or USA for United States
• SG or SGP for Singapore

Zip

• Both U.S. and international postcodes 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 postcode extensions

For example:

• 94303
• 94303-5300
• WC2H 8LG

Mobile Device ID

• Use a single column labelled '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

The column headers names in your customer data file must be in English.

To keep your data secure, you can hash your customer data yourself using the SHA256 algorithm.

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 and 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 and "+" sign

For example:

• [phone]
• [phone]
• +0212345678

First Name

• Don’t include prefixes (e.g. Mrs.)
• Accents are allowed
• Lowercase all characters
• Remove any extra spaces before and after.

For example:

• john
• zoë

name

• Don’t include suffixes (e.g. Jr.)
• Accents are allowed
• Lowercase all characters
• Remove any extra spaces before and after.

For example:

• smith
• smith-jones
• pérez

Country

​Don’t hash country data

• Use ISO 2-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

Postcode

• Don’t hash postcode data
• Both US and international postcodes 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 postcode extensions

For example:

• 94303
• 94303-5300
• WC2H 8LG

 

Related links

• Create a customer list
• Update your customer list
• About Customer Match