Google Ads advertisers can now upload IP addresses and interaction timestamps as matching signals in Customer Match, expanding the identifiers available for first-party audience targeting. Google's Customer Match Help Center page, updated as of late September 2026 and first reported on September 25, reflects the change in the platform's file upload documentation.
How the New Identifiers Work
On May 28, 2026, the Data Manager API's version 1.7 added IP address ingestion for Customer Match through a CompositeData structure that bundles UserData, holding hashed contact details, with IpData, holding the address. The Help Center update, which carries no revision date, now surfaces the same capability for manual file uploads.
Google's Help Center page for building a Customer Match list from an uploaded file now lists eight accepted column headers, and two of them are new: "User IP address" and "User Interaction timestamp." The page states that the IP address must be passed in as a plain, unhashed string, that IP matching is not supported for end users in the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, and that an IP uploaded without a timestamp is matched to the latest known user of that IP.
The IpData object contains a required IP address field and two optional timestamp fields, observeStartTime and observeEndTime, which record the window during which the IP address was observed for a given user. Google recommends including both timestamps to help improve match rates. Both IPv4 and IPv6 are supported.
One combination is rejected outright: sending only a timestamp without an IP address or PII will trigger an error.
The Unhashed Requirement
Unlike email addresses, the IP and timestamp fields must not be hashed or encoded, a notable contrast with the SHA-256 hashing pipeline that governs email handling. Column header names, meanwhile, must remain in English regardless of which field they label.
An export containing raw IP addresses must move through whatever customer data platform, cloud storage, agency workflow, or API connection prepares the audience. A campaign manager may never see the raw file, but the organization still needs controls around who can generate it, where it can be stored, whether it appears in debug logs, and how quickly temporary files are deleted.
Geographic Restrictions
Google Ads does not support IP and timestamp matching in the EEA, UK, or Switzerland. Advertisers must exclude IP sharing for users in those regions, ensure transparent data collection disclosures, and secure all legally required consent.
Display & Video 360 was also left out, with only Google Ads eligible at launch.
Expected Match Rate Impact
Beginning in Q3 2026, Google says including IP addresses with corresponding observation timestamps will help improve Customer Match rates, potentially increasing audience reach and match accuracy. Google's Data Manager API documentation says match-rate improvements from these signals are expected to begin in October 2026.
If an advertiser uploads an IP address without a timestamp, the system defaults to the "latest known" user of that IP, a fallback that may reduce precision relative to a timestamped record.
Updated File Format
For combined matching, Google's documentation specifies that files must contain these eight column headers: "Email," "Phone," "First Name," "Last Name," "Country," "Zip," "User IP address," and "User Interaction timestamp." Advertisers are not required to populate every column; per Google's help page, advertisers "only have to include data fields that you find relevant to your customers," and a row can carry an IP with or without personal data, or personal data with or without an IP.
Language Change in Help Documentation
Google has also adjusted help-page wording from describing customer data as being "shared" to being "collected", a language shift noted across several Customer Match pages. Google has not issued a formal explanation of the change.
Practical Implications for Advertisers
For paid search and display teams already using Customer Match, adding IP addresses and timestamps to upload files may expand audience size by enabling matches that contact data alone does not capture. However, the unhashed upload requirement means the IP data must be treated as sensitive throughout the data pipeline, from CRM export to upload, not only at the point of submission to Google. Advertisers with audiences that include users in the EEA, UK, or Switzerland will need to segment their Customer Match uploads to exclude those users from any files containing IP data before enabling the feature.
Google Ads does not support IP and timestamp matching in the EEA, UK, or Switzerland, and advertisers must exclude IP sharing for those regions, ensure transparent data collection disclosures, and secure all legally required consent. Customer Match lists carry a maximum membership duration of 540 days, and any list memberships added or refreshed more than 540 days ago are no longer eligible.
