Send data to Google Ads

Google Ads is search-based advertising that can be run across the Google advertising network and is shown to web users. Use search-based advertising to promote your brand, help sell products or services, raise awareness, and increase traffic to your website or stores.

What is Google Customer Match?

Google Customer Match is a unified ad creation tool that you can use to create and publish search, display, and video ads across the Google-owned paid media ecosystem.

For example:

Use Amperity to build high-value and/or product affinity segments that are based on first-party data, and then configure Amperity to use the Google Customer Match destination to send those segments to Google Ads.

Once uploaded, Google Ads hashes each record, and then matches all records against hashed user accounts that already exist in Google Ads to identify segments that contain records that match the ones sent from Amperity.

Google Ads builds audience lists that are reachable across the Google-owned paid media ecosystem.

Use these audience lists for precision cross-selling, to reach and convert new customers, and to improve the retention rate for your most loyal customers.

Note

This destination uses the Google Audience Partner API .

Changes to audiences are not immediately available in Google Ads. Allow for up to 48 hours after the point at which Amperity has finished sending audience updates for them to be available.

This topic describes the steps that are required to send customer data to Google Ads from Amperity:

  1. Get details

  2. Authorize Amperity access to the customer’s account

  3. Add destination

  4. Add data template

Get details

Google Ads requires the following configuration details:

Detail one.

Configuration details for Google Ads.

The name of the product to which Amperity will send data: “Google Ads”.

The customer ID associated with your Google Customer Match account, along with the customer ID associated with the “Google Ads” account.

Note

The customer ID must be 10 digits and may not contain dashes.

A refresh token that is generated from the OAuth process that authorizes Amperity to send data to the selected product. This must be a Google account with permission to access the configured customer ID and product within Google.

Important

OAuth for “Google Ads” must be completed within Google prior to configuring OAuth in Amperity.

Detail two.

The name of an audience in Google Ads. The description is optional. If the audience does not exist, Amperity will create it.

The membership duration defines the length of time (in days) at which individual audience members will belong to the segment. The membership duration must be between 0-540 (inclusive) or 10000 for an unlimited duration.

Tip

Set this value to “0” to remove all audience members.

The Upload key type must be set to one of Contact Info, User ID, or Mobile ID.

If the Upload key type is set to “Mobile ID”, use the Mobile app ID setting to provide the ID for the iOS or Android app from which the mobile ID was collected.

Detail three.

Review the user consent policy for the European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA), and then add the required columns to your orchestration or campaign.

Configure OAuth

OAuth is an open standard for access delegation, commonly used to grant websites or applications access to information on other websites.

Use OAuth to configure Amperity to send customer data to Google Ads.

Important

OAuth for “Google Ads” must be completed within Google prior to configuring OAuth in Amperity.

To configure OAuth

Step 1.

Open the Destinations tab and click Add Destination. The Add Destination dialog box opens.

Select Google Ads from the Plugin drop-down, and then from the Credential drop-down, select Create a new credential.

This opens the Create New Credential dialog box.

Step 2.

In the Create New Credential dialog box, click “Generate authorization URL”.

Copy the URL, and then provide the URL to a user who has credentials that allow access to Google Ads. The user must log in and complete the steps required by the OAuth process for Google Ads.

After this is completed, you will be redirected to the Credentials page in Amperity.

Verify the credential is on the page, and then return to the Destinations tab.

Step 3.

Open the Destinations tab and click Add Destination. The Add Destination dialog box opens.

Select Google Ads from the Plugin drop-down, and then from the Credential drop-down, select the credential that is authorized to access Google Ads.

Note

The value for the Refresh Token setting is updated automatically after you select the credential.

Reauthorize Amperity

You may need to reauthorize access to Google Ads. This is necessary when an authorization token has expired or when it has been removed by someone with permission to manage access within Google Ads. To reauthorize access to Google Ads, follow the steps to configure OAuth and create a new credential.

Add destination

Configure Amperity to send customer data directly to Google Ads.

Warning

Amperity must be authorized to send data to your Google Ads account prior to configuring the destination.

To add a destination

Step 1.

Open the Destinations tab to configure a destination for Google Ads. Click the Add Destination button to open the Destination dialog box.

Name, description, choose plugin.

Enter a name for the destination and provide a description. For example: “Google Ads” and “This sends customer data to Google Ads”.

From the Plugin drop-down, start typing “google” to filter the list, and then select Google Ads.

Step 2.

Credentials allow Amperity to connect to Google Ads.

The credential type is set automatically. You may use an existing credential or you may add a new one.

Choose an existing credential or add credential.

Select an existing credential from the Credential drop-down.

– or –

Select Create a new credential from the Credential drop-down. This opens the Credential dialog box.

Set the following credentials for Google Ads.

Enter the name for the credential, and then add a description.

Steps to configure OAuth

  1. Generate an authorization link, and then visit the URL that was generated to complete the authorization process.

  2. Log in to Google Ads at the generated URL using credentials that allow access to your instance of Google Ads.

    Note

    Send the URL to an individual who can provide these credentials, and then ask them to log into Google Ads on your behalf.

  3. When complete, you will be redirected to the Credentials page in Amperity.

  4. Verify the credential is on the page, and then return to the Destinations tab. From the Plugin drop-down, select the Google Ads, and then use the credential that was just created.

    Note

    The value for the Refresh Token setting will be updated automatically after you select the credential.

Step 3.

Each destination has settings that define how Amperity will deliver data to Google Ads. These settings are listed under the Settings section of the Destination dialog box.

Settings for Google Ads: advertiser or partner?

Choose “Google Ads”.

Settings for Google Ads.
Step 4.

Business users are assigned to the Amp360 User and/or AmpIQ User policies. (Amp360 User allows access to queries and orchestrations and AmpIQ User allows access to segments and campaigns.) A business user cannot select a destination that is not visible to them.

Business users – including users assigned to the DataGrid Operator policy – may have restricted access to PII.

What is restricted access to PII?

Restricted PII access is enabled when the Restrict PII access policy option that prevents users who are assigned to that option from viewing data that is marked as PII anywhere in Amperity and from sending that data to any downstream workflow.

You can make this destination visible to orchestrations and allow users with restricted access to PII to use this destination by enabling one (or both) of the following options:

Allow business users access to this destination.

Note

To allow business users to use this destination with campaigns, you must enable the Available to campaigns option within the data template. This allows users to send campaign results from Amperity to Google Ads.

The other two settings may be configured within the data template instead of the destination.

Step 5.

Review all settings, and then click Save.

Save the destination.

Important

You must configure a data template for this destination before you can send data to Google Ads.

Add data template

A data template defines how columns in Amperity data structures are sent to downstream workflows. A data template is part of the configuration for sending query and segment results from Amperity to an external location.

About paid media campaigns

Amperity provides the right set of data to support your brand’s paid media advertising with Google Ads.

  1. Merged Customers vs. Unified Paid Media

    The Merged Customers table contains each of your customers’ best profiles.

    The Unified Paid Media table contains all your customer’s known profile data.

    Your brand will require additional data templates to use the Unified Paid Media table alongside the Merged Customers table to support paid media campaigns.

  2. Enable dedicated data templates for each table.

    Use a consistent naming pattern to label data templates that use data from the Merged Customers table. For example: “Best profile”.

    Use a consistent naming pattern to label data templates that use data from the Unified Paid Media table. For example: “Full profile”.

  3. After data templates are configured for both tables, use the default attributes component on the Campaigns page to configure which attributes will be associated with the destination, including the table from which those attributes will be pulled.

    The selected table will affect your brand’s downstream match rates and overall customer matches within your paid media campaigns. The decision behind which table to use depends on your brand’s downstream use case and the type and amount of customer profile data your brand wants to use to match customers.

    You brand should expect to see higher match rates when sending audiences from the Merged Customers table, but a higher number of matched customer profiles when sending audiences from the Unified Paid Media table. Use A/B testing to compare the results from each table, after which your brand can use the audience that works best for your campaigns.

To add a data template

Step 1.

From the Destinations tab, open the menu for a destination that is configured for Google Ads, and then select Add data template.

This opens the Add Data Template dialog box.

Step 1

Enter the name of the data template and a description. For example: “Google Ads” and “Send customer data to Google Ads.”.

Step 2.

Verify business user access to queries and orchestrations and access to segments and campaigns.

A business user may also have restricted access to PII, which prevents them from viewing and sending customer profile data.

Step 2.

If business user access was not configured as part of the destination, you may configure access from the data template.

Important

To allow business users to use this destination with campaigns, you must enable the Available to campaigns option. This allows users to send campaign results from Amperity to Google Ads.

If you enable this option, the data extension settings require using campaign name and group name template variables to associate the name of the data extension to your campaign.

Step 3.

Verify all configuration settings.

Verify settings for the data template.

Note

When the customer ID setting was are not configured as part of the destination, you must configure it as part of the data template before making this destination available to campaigns.

Step 4.

Review all settings, and then click Save.

Save the data template.

After you have saved the data template, and depending on how you configured it, business users can send query results and/or send campaigns to Google Ads.

Workflow actions

A workflow will occasionally show an error that describes what prevented a workflow from completing successfully. These first appear as alerts in the notifications pane. The alert describes the error, and then links to the Workflows tab.

Open the Workflows page to review a list of workflow actions, choose an action to resolve the workflow error, and then follow the steps that are shown.

Step one.

You may receive a notifications error for a configured Google Ads destination. This appears as an alert in the notifications pane on the Destinations tab.

Review a notifications error.

If you receive a notification error, review the details, and then click the View Workflow link to open this notification error in the Workflows page.

Step two.

On the Workflows page, review the individual steps to determine which step(s) have errors that require your attention, and then click Show Resolutions to review the list of workflow actions that were generated for this error.

The Workflow page, showing a workflow with errors.
Step three.

A list of individual workflow actions are shown. Review the list to identify which action you should take.

Choose a workflow action from the list of actions.

Some workflow actions are common across workflows and will often be available, such as retrying a specific task within a workflow or restarting a workflow. These types of actions can often resolve an error.

In certain cases, actions are specific and are shown when certain conditions exist in your tenant. These types of actions typically must be resolved and may require steps that must be done upstream or downstream from your Amperity workflow.

Amperity provides a series of workflow actions that can help resolve specific issues that may arise with Google Ads, including:

Step four.

Select a workflow action from the list of actions, and then review the steps for resolving that error.

Choose a workflow action from the list of actions.

After you have completed the steps in the workflow action, click Continue to rerun the workflow.

Cannot update audience

Amperity uses a refresh token that is generated from your Google Ads user account to access audiences that are associated with your Google Ads customer ID. The user for whom the refresh token is created must have permission to update audiences in the Google Ads account that is associated with the customer ID.

To resolve this error, verify that the user account can update audiences.

  1. Open the Google Ads management console , and then sign in to your Google Ads account.

  2. Verify that the user has permission to update audiences that are associated with the customer ID.

  3. Return to the workflow action, and then click Resolve to retry this workflow.

Expired token

The token used with Google Ads has expired.

To resolve this error, refresh the token that is used with Google Ads.

  1. Open the Google Ads management console , and then sign in to your Google Ads account.

  2. Refresh the token that is associated with your Google Ads account.

  3. Return to the workflow action, and then click Resolve to retry this workflow.

Incomplete account setup

Amperity cannot send data to an account in Google Ads that is not set up completely. For example, this error can occur when an account is an a “DRAFT” state in Google Ads.

To resolve this error, verify that your Google Ads account is set up correctly.

  1. Open the Google Ads management console , and then sign in to your Google Ads account.

  2. Verify the current state of your account. Complete any steps that are required to set up your Google Ads account.

  3. Return to the workflow action, and then click Resolve to retry this workflow.

Invalid credentials

The credentials that are defined in Amperity are invalid.

To resolve this error, verify that the credentials required by this workflow are valid.

  1. Open the Credentials page.

  2. Review the details for the credentials used with this workflow. Update the credentials for Google Ads if required.

  3. Return to the workflow action, and then click Resolve to retry this workflow.

Missing required field(s)

One (or more) required attributes are missing. Google Ads requires the following attributes for contact matching: firstname, lastname, email, phone, country, and zip.

For campaigns

To resolve this error, update the list of attributes to include all required fields.

  1. Open the Campaigns page, and then open the segment used with this workflow.

  2. Verify that all required attributes are associated with each treatment group that is being sent to Google Ads. Update the list of attributes if required.

  3. Return to the workflow action, and then click Resolve to retry this workflow.

For orchestrations

To resolve this error, update the results of the query to include all required fields.

  1. Open the Queries page, and then open the query used with this workflow.

  2. Verify that all required attributes are included in the query results. Update the query if required.

  3. Return to the workflow action, and then click Resolve to retry this workflow.

Two-factor authentication required

Google Ads requires two-factor authentication to be enabled.

To resolve this error, ensure that two-factor authentication is enabled for your Google Ads account.

  1. Open the Google Ads management console , and then sign in to your Google Ads account.

  2. Verify that two-factor authentication is enabled for your account.

    Click on your username.

    Click on Manage Account. Under Security enable the option for two-step verification.

  3. Return to the workflow action, and then click Resolve to retry this workflow.

User cannot access audience

When the Google Ads user account that is associated with the Amperity workflow does not have permission to view, edit, and manage the linked client account, Amperity will be unable to complete the workflow.

To resolve this error, verify the permissions associated with the user account in Google Ads.

  1. Open the Google Ads management console , and then sign in to your Google Ads account.

  2. Verify that Google Ads user account that is associated with the Amperity workflow has permission to view, edit, and manage the linked client account.

  3. Return to the workflow action, and then click Resolve to retry this workflow.