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Use this template to format a customer profile segment for upload to Google Ads as a Customer Match audience. Name the file using the customer profile naming conventions.
This isn’t legal advice. Confirm data rights, consent, and current policy requirements with your legal or privacy team before uploading customer data to any ad platform.

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File format

  • CSV file, encoded in ASCII or UTF-8. UTF-16 isn’t supported.
  • One row per person, separated by a standard line break.
  • At least 100 records to upload a file. The number of matched users an audience needs before it can actually serve varies by campaign type and has changed before (Search campaigns currently need fewer matched users than Display, YouTube, or Gmail campaigns), so confirm the current minimum for your campaign type rather than assuming a fixed number.

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Column template

For combined email, phone, and mailing-address matching, use these six exact column headers, in English: You don’t have to fill every column. A file with only an Email column is valid; add Phone, First Name, Last Name, Country, and Zip only for the customers you have that data for, keeping each row’s values matched to the same person.
Google also accepts Customer Match lists keyed on a mobile device ID or a Google Ads user ID, uploaded through the Google Ads API. Those formats aren’t covered here since they don’t apply to a hand-built customer list CSV.

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Format rules

If you pre-hash email or phone yourself, use SHA-256 and verify the hash matches Google’s normalization before uploading. If you upload raw values instead, Google Ads hashes them for you.

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Data and compliance rules

  • Your account needs a clean policy-compliance history to use Customer Match at all. Google can restrict access for accounts that don’t meet its eligibility criteria.
  • Don’t upload data tied to sensitive categories: health conditions, negative financial status, religion, or adult or dating-related interests, or anything else covered by Google’s personalized advertising policy.
  • Don’t upload data about anyone under 13, or data collected from a site or app directed at children.
  • For lists that include EEA residents, Google’s EU User Consent Policy applies. Uploads through the Google Ads API must set both required consent fields to GRANTED; uploads through the Google Ads UI require you to confirm consent has been obtained before the list can be created.

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Official documentation

The finished file is a data file, not a document. Save it to the audience list store, behind access control, and record who supplied it, on what criteria, as of when, and when it expires. Never paste rows from it into a brief, a ticket, or a chat message.
Last modified on August 11, 2026