About Partner Match

Partner Match is an ad targeting solution available in Google Ads and Display & Video 360 that allows advertisers to use audience data provided by eligible third-party data partners such as advertising agency partners to target audiences on YouTube.

This article explains how Partner Match works and the benefits of using it.

On this page

• Benefits
• How it works
• Availability and limitations
• Considerations

Benefits

• Leverage partner data for audience targeting on YouTube: Partner Match allows advertisers to use audience data provided by eligible third-party data partners to target audiences on YouTube.
• Boost brand awareness and drive considerations: With Partner Match, advertisers can reach specific audience segments on YouTube that they may not have reached already.

How it works

Partner Match is Google's solution that allows eligible third party partners to upload audience data and match against Google accounts to create Agency / Provider audiences for ads targeting. Agency / Provider audiences are the audience lists created by Partner Match to be used for ads targeting.

Let's say you want to advertise a new product and want to target audiences on YouTube with Google Ads. Here's how it works:

• Your eligible third-party data partner creates an audience list and securely uploads it to your Google Ads account.
• Google matches the uploaded audience list to Google accounts. This creates a targetable audience segment that you can then use in your Google Ads campaigns on YouTube. The targetable audience segment will be available in your Google Ads account under “Agency / Provider audiences”.
• When those audiences are signed in to their Google account, they come across your ads when they use YouTube.

Third-party data must contain a combination of the following: Country, Email, First name, Last name, Phone, and Zip codes.

How to authorize third-party data partners

1. Go to Data manager within the Tools menu.
2. In the "Data manager" page, click the Connect Product tab.
3. In the slider panel, search and select your third-party data partner in the “Data source” card.
4. Select Authorize to allow your third-party data partner to access your Google Ads data.
5. In the “Use case” card, select Audiences to create audience segments from your data source.
6. Select Done to finish setting up the integration on your data partner's site.

How to accept Partner Match Terms of Service

1. Go to Data manager within the Tools menu.
2. Select the Consent settings tab, then click Partner Match under the “Imported and uploaded data” section.
3. In the “Partner Match” card, check the box next to “Use data partner for advertising” to accept the Partner Match Terms of Service.

How to select Partner list as Agency / Provider audiences

Follow the steps below to select “Partner list” as Agency / Provider Audiences during campaign creation:

1. In the section menu on the left, select an Ad group and then select the Audience drop down.
2. Select Add an audience, then select +New Audience in the “Select an audience” pop-up window.
3. In the “New audience” slider panel, search and select the Partner list in the “Data segments” card.
4. When done, select Save.

Reporting

To view the performance of your Agency / Provider Audiences, follow these steps:

1. Go to Audiences in the Audiences, keywords, and content drop down section menu within the Campaigns menu.
2. In the “Audience performance” card, click Select an audience or Edit audience.
3. In the “Select an ad group” window that opens, select your campaign and ad group.
4. In the “Select an audience” window that opens, select your Agency / Provider audience, then select Save.

Learn more About Audience reporting.

Availability and limitations

Partner Match is supported in all available countries except the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and those in the European Economic Area (EEA). Note that advertisers from the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and EEA may use Partner Match but may not target audiences based in the same countries.

The following campaigns support Agency / Provider Audiences created by Partner Match:

• Video reach campaign (VRC)
• Video view campaign (VVC)
• Demand Gen (YouTube channel only)

Campaigns	Google Ads	Display & Video 360
Ad sequence
Audio reach		N/A
Demand Gen (YouTube channel only)
Video Reach: Efficient reach
Video Reach: Non-skippable reach		(Bumpers, 15 seconds, and 30 seconds)
Video Reach: Target frequency
Video views
YouTube Select		(Non-guaranteed deals only)

Considerations

• Eligible third-party data partners such as advertising agencies need to adhere to the Partner Match policy to use Partner Match and Agency / Provider audiences.
• Advertisers must adhere to our personalized ads policies, Partner Match policy and Data use in personalized ads outside of the European Economic Area, Switzerland and United Kingdom policies when targeting Agency / Provider audiences. Sensitive categories are not eligible to use Agency / Provider Audiences.
• Advertisers have to accept the Partner Match Terms of Service (ToS).
  • Note: Advertisers will need to work with approved third-party data partners to upload audience data to respective Google Ads and Display & Video 360 accounts.
• Agency / Provider audiences are only supported on one cross-channel campaign, Demand Gen on YouTube inventory outside of the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom, and Switzerland. Learn more about Google’s unified, cross-channel advertising solutions.
• If a Demand Gen campaign positively targets Agency / Provider audiences and any other user-list based audiences, such as Customer Match lists or Remarketing lists, then the Agency / Provider audience targeting criteria only applies to YouTube inventory outside of EEA, United Kingdom, and Switzerland.
  • Note: For Search, Display, and YouTube inventory within EEA, United Kingdom, and Switzerland, other user-list based audiences targeting criteria will continue to apply.
• If a Demand Gen campaign negatively targets Agency / Provider audiences, the Agency / Provider audience targeting criteria only applies to YouTube inventory outside of EEA, United Kingdom, and Switzerland.
  • Note: For Search, Display, and YouTube inventory within EEA, United Kingdom, and Switzerland, the Demand Gen campaign will not match regardless of other user-list based audiences on the campaign.

Related links

• Personalized advertising
• Understanding PII in Google's contracts and policies
• About Audience reporting