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Custom audiences formatting guidelines
Custom audiences formatting guidelines

How to format customer list with Google Sheet

Alla avatar
Written by Alla
Updated over 2 years ago

Before you begin

Before you add your list in the beginning of the audience creation process, you need to make sure the column formatting matches the identifier type that Meta accepts. This helps Meta process your hashed columns to find matches later on. You’ll also need to make sure your customer information is entered using the correct format types.

For example, if you had a column header that’s for first names, you would rename the column header to fn so it can be mapped properly.

Formatting customer information

The following list shows the information types that Meta accepts:

MAIN IDENTIFIERS

Identifier type

Column header

Description and formatting guidelines

Examples

Email

email

We accept email address in one column. Only one email can go in each cell. US and international formats are accepted.

Phone

phone

Phone numbers must include a country code to be used for matching. For example, the number 1 must precede a phone number in the United States. We accept phone number in separate column, with or without punctuation.

Important: Always include the country code as part of your customers' phone numbers, even if all of your data is from the same country.

  • 1-234-567-8910

  • 12345678910

  • +44 844 412 4653

Mobile Advertiser ID

madid

We accept 2 types of mobile advertiser IDs: Android's Advertising ID (AAID), which Google provides as part of Android advertising, and Apple's Advertising Identifier (IDFA), which Apple provides as part of iOS in its ads framework.

  • AECE52E7-03EE-455A-B3C4-E57283966239

  • BEBE52E7-03EE-455A-B3C4-E57283966239

First Name

fn

We accept first name and first name initial, with or without accents. Initials can be provided with or without a period.

  • John

  • F.

  • Émilie

Last Name

ln

We accept full last names with or without accents.

  • Smith

  • Sørensen

  • Jacobs-Anderson


ADDITIONAL IDENTIFIERS

Identifier type

Column header

Description and formatting guidelines

Examples

City

ct

We accept full city names as they normally appear.

  • Paris

  • London

  • New York

State/Province

st

We accept full names of US and international states and provinces, as well as the abbreviated versions of US states.

  • AZ

  • California

  • Normandy

Country

country

Country must be provided as an ISO two-letter country code.

Important: Always include your customers' countries in their own column in your list, even if all of your country codes are from the same country. Because we match on a global scale, this simple step helps us match as many people as possible from your list.

  • FR

  • US

  • GB

Year of Birth

doby

We accept year of birth as a 4-digit number, YYYY.

  • 1986

Month of Birth

dobm

We accept month of birth as a 2-digit number, MM.

  • 01

  • 12

Day of Birth

dobd

We accept day of birth as a 2-digit number, DD.

  • 23

  • 05

Age

age

We accept age as a numerical value.

  • 65

  • 42

  • 21

Zip/Postal Code

zip

We accept US and international ZIP and postal codes. US ZIP codes may include a 4-digit extension as long as they are separated by a hyphen. The extension is not required and will not further improve match rate.

  • W11 2BQ

  • 94104-1207

  • 94104

Gender

gen

We accept gender in the form of an initial, such as F for female and M for male.

  • M

  • F

External ID

extern_id

You can match people for an audience with your own identifiers. This can be any unique ID from the advertiser, such as loyalty membership IDs, user IDs, and external cookie IDs.

  • sha256

  • At312yX

  • 15559876543

We’ve also created a handy Google Sheet template. Feel free to copy it and use it as a basis for your own spreadsheet.

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