Google Ads Customer Match Now Accepts IP Addresses: What Ecommerce Brands Must Do Before Q4

On September 25, 2026, Google Ads announced that Customer Match now accepts IP addresses and timestamps as new matching identifiers, expanding the data upload format from 6 to 8 columns. For ecommerce brands running Customer Match campaigns, this means improved match rates are expected to begin in October 2026, giving you larger addressable audiences ahead of the Q4 holiday season.

What Does Google's Customer Match IP Update Mean for Your Campaigns?

Customer Match match rates determine how many of your actual customers become targetable in Google Ads. A higher match rate means more of your customer file gets matched to active Google users, strengthening retargeting, suppression, and Smart Bidding signals across Shopping, Performance Max, and Search. Adding IP address and timestamp data gives Google an additional identifier to match customers who cannot be found by email or phone alone, expanding your effective audience from the same customer data you already own.

What Is IP Address Matching and How Does It Work in Google Ads?

Previously, Customer Match accepted hashed email addresses, phone numbers, and mailing addresses. The update adds two new data columns to the upload format:

• User IP address: The raw IPv4 or IPv6 address captured when a customer interacted with your site or app, uploaded unhashed.
• User Interaction timestamp: The date and time window when the IP address was observed for that user, with optional start and end times.

These fields are included in a new CompositeData structure in the Data Manager API, which bundles your existing user identifiers alongside the new IP data. You can send IP addresses with other identifiers or on their own. One important note: this update applies to Google Ads only. Display and Video 360 does not support IP address matching at this time.

There is a compliance requirement that applies regardless of your market. IP address and timestamp matching is not available for end users in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland. Any Customer Match upload that includes European users must exclude those individuals from IP data columns. Your data collection practices must include appropriate disclosures where IP addresses are used for matching purposes.

Why Does IP Matching Matter Most for Q4 Ecommerce?

Customer Match is one of the strongest first-party data tools in Google Ads, but its effectiveness depends entirely on match rate. When a large share of your customer list fails to match, those customers disappear from your retargeting audiences, lapsed buyer segments, and acquisition suppression lists. They get counted as unknown users, meaning your campaigns waste spend reaching existing buyers as if they were new prospects, while your win-back sequences miss them entirely.

For 7 to 9-figure ecommerce brands running hundreds of thousands or millions of customer records, even a 10 to 15 percentage point improvement in match rate can mean tens of thousands of additional identifiable customers in your audiences. That matters most in Q4, when precise audience segmentation separates efficient holiday spend from wasted acquisition budget.

Google has confirmed that match rate improvements from IP data are expected to begin in October 2026. Uploading updated Customer Match files now positions your campaigns to benefit before Black Friday and Cyber Monday traffic peaks. Track every first-party data update alongside this one in our full Google Ads 2026 update tracker.

What Should You Do Now with Google's Customer Match IP Update?

1. Audit your active Customer Match lists and match rates. Open Google Ads Data Manager and review the match rates on your current Customer Match audiences. Lists with match rates below 50% are most likely to see a meaningful improvement from IP address data. Prioritize updating the lists that power your highest-spend campaigns first.
2. Update your Customer Match upload format to include IP and timestamps. Add two new columns to your Customer Match CSV: User IP address and User Interaction timestamp. Pull IP addresses from your CRM, web analytics, or session data alongside the timestamp of the interaction where the IP was captured. Upload these values unhashed.
3. Exclude EEA, UK, and Swiss users from IP data before uploading. Before updating any Customer Match file, filter out users in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. Leave the IP address and timestamp columns blank for those users, or remove them from the upload entirely. This is a compliance requirement under the current policy.
4. Upload updated files by mid-October to capture Q4 match improvements. Google has stated that match rate improvements from IP data are expected to begin in October 2026. Getting your updated files into Data Manager in the next two weeks gives the system time to expand audience sizes before peak holiday traffic arrives.
5. Verify that updated audiences are connected across all key campaign types. After uploading, confirm your refreshed Customer Match lists are active in Shopping, Performance Max, Search, and Demand Gen campaigns for both targeting and suppression. Smart Bidding pulls from these audience signals in real time, and larger matched audiences improve bid decisions across your entire Google Ads account.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Reading

• Google Ads September 2026: New Data Strength Tools Give Ecommerce Brands 26% More ROAS
• Google Ads August 2026: The Customer Match Upgrade Ecommerce Brands Need Before Q4
• CTC's Google Ads Management for Ecommerce Brands

Ready to expand your Customer Match audiences before Q4? Talk to the CTC team about building a first-party data strategy that takes full advantage of every Google Ads update.