PII guidelines


The preferred and highly recommended way to provide PII (personally identifiable information) data for a campaign is by having the client or your agency directly upload it into the platform. If you're able to go this route, the next step would be to communicate to your Account Team the name of the customer list, as well as any other important details.

In the case that this is impossible, we have provided a template that will automatically create a copy for your agency. Using this template, you can automatically hash any information you need. Then, paste that information using the appropriate accepted format and information indicated in the platform section within this article.

In each channel's section, you can expect to find the following:

  • A link to the customer template for that specific channel

  • The file and hashing formats accepted

  • Any important additional information

Let's get into it.

Format accepted

  • CSV

  • If providing hashed emails, the data must be provided in SHA256 format.

Link to template
Additional information

  • Only advertisers with 90 days of Google Ads history and more than USD $50,000 total lifetime spend are eligible. 

  • Your account must also have both a history of policy compliance and a good payment history.

  • A minimum of 1,000 matched active visitors or users is required to run. 

  • The process of uploading customer data can take up to 48 hours to complete.

  • If you prefer to upload User IDs, here is a separate template: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12i7zc1-XJKuzul6hLP7l11k1NlaiA9sy/view 

The preferred and highly recommended way to provide PII (personally identifiable information) data for a campaign is by having the client or your agency directly upload it into the platform. Once it’s uploaded, please communicate to your Account Team the name of the customer list and any other important details. 



Microsoft Ads

Format accepted

  • CSV

  • If providing hashed emails, the data must be provided in SHA256 format.

Link to template
Additional information

  • The list should have at least 300 active email users if being used for targeting across both the Microsoft Search Network and Microsoft Audience Network.

  • Customer match is not allowed for sensitive content categories, products, or services. Additional information about our remarketing policy can be found on the remarketing policy page: https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en-us/policies/legal-privacy-and-security

  • Customer match lists are ready to be associated with campaigns and ad groups 48 hours after upload. 



Programmatic & Custom Display, Video, OTT, and Audio

Format accepted

  • CSV

  • If providing ONLY email addresses, submit as SHA256 format. 

  • If providing emails, phone numbers, and zips, hashing must be SHA1.

Link to template
Additional information

  • At least 1,000 unique CRM records per file recommended

  • Use the template provided and don't delete any columns that you don't have data for. Keep them blank and leave the headers.

  • To execute a lookalike audience expansion, there must be at least 1,000 unique CRM records matched.

  • The file must be UTF-8 encoded.

  • Fields must have single spacing only and all lowercase.

  • Phone numbers should be digits only - no special characters

  • Hyphens are permitted, except in phone numbers.

  • Remove all periods "." from the name and phone number fields. Don't remove them from email addresses.



Spotify

  • Spotify Ad Studio does not offer the ability to leverage customer lists.


Meta

Format accepted

  • CSV or TXT

  • If providing hashed emails, the data must be provided in SHA256 format.

Link to template
Additional information

  • Minimum 100 unique CRM records per file required

  • At least 1,000 unique CRM records per file recommended

  • Changes related to Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) in iOS 14 may affect your match rate when matching by mobile advertiser ID. You may improve your match rate if you add one or more of the following identifiers to supplement mobile advertiser ID: Email, phone number, Facebook app user ID, Facebook Page user ID, first name, last name.



Snapchat

Format accepted

  • CSV or TXT

  • If providing hashed emails, the data must be provided in SHA256 format.

Link to template
Additional information

  • Minimum 1,000 unique CRM records per file required.

  • At least 8,000 unique CRM records per file recommended.

  • Use a single column of emails OR mobile advertising IDs OR phone numbers. Mixing emails, mobile advertising IDs, or phone numbers in the same file is not supported.

  • Always include the country code in your customers’ phone numbers, such as 1 for the United States, 44 for United Kingdom, and 33 for France. As a best practice, we also recommend removing any non-numeric characters such as whitespace, parentheses, +, or - from phone numbers.




TikTok

Format accepted

  • CSV or TXT

  • If providing hashed emails, the data must be provided in SHA256 format.

  • Mobile Advertiser IDs must be in MD5.

Link to template
Additional information

  • Minimum 1,000 unique CRM records per file required.

  • If your file contains a single type of ID, please prepare your file with one line per ID.

  • When uploading the raw emails in the INPUT tab of the template, the contents of your file need to contain consistent capitalization – either all uppercase or all lowercase.

  • Your Customer File custom audience will be available for use within 24-48 hours.



LinkedIn 

Format accepted

  • CSV

  • If providing hashed emails, the data must be provided in SHA256 format.

Link to Customer List template
Link to Company List template
Additional information

  • Minimum 300 matched CRM records per file required.

  • Company lists do not require hashing because they don’t contain PII.

  • Don’t change or remove the headers. When populating a template, add your own list below the headers provided. Changing or removing template headers will cause an error when the audience is uploaded.

  • It may take up to 48 hours (on rare occasions, longer) to generate the audience.



Pinterest

Format accepted

  • CSV or TXT

  • If hashing, emails are accepted in SHA256 or MD5 format

  • If hashing, MAIDs are accepted as SHA1, SHA256, or MD5 format. 

Link to template
Additional information

  • Pinterest lists can be created by uploading existing customers' emails or mobile ad IDs (MAIDs) through a single-column CSV file. Leave out any additional information like names, phone numbers, or physical addresses.

  • A minimum of 100 unique records is required

  • Once the audience is created based on the customer list, the audience size will update within 24-48 hours on the Audiences page in Ads Manager. 



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