# Google Ads integration

<Aside type="caution" icon="setting" title="Developer assistance needed">
 You'll need help from your development team to set up the integration. Please share this guide with them.
</Aside>

[Google Ads](https://ads.google.com/) integration lets you sync Pushwoosh audiences to a Google Ads account as Customer Match audiences. Use it to target or exclude users in ad campaigns and add paid ads as another channel in your customer journey.

## Use cases

Use this integration to:

* target high-value users in multiple channels to increase purchases or engagement
* retarget users who are less responsive in other channels
* build suppression audiences so loyal customers do not receive unnecessary ads

## Prerequisites

Before you connect Google Ads, make sure:

* You have the **Admin** role in your Pushwoosh account. See [Manage user access and permissions](/product/account-management-and-security/multi-login-accounts/#creating-and-managing-roles-formerly-known-as-groups) for how roles and permissions work.
* You have a [**Google Ads account**](https://ads.google.com/) with access to a Customer Match audience source.
* Your Google Ads account has [Customer Match](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6379332) enabled — Google enables it per account after a manual review, so a newly created account may not have it yet.

<Aside type="caution">
Google has approved Pushwoosh for Test Access to the Google Ads API only — production access has not been granted yet. Connecting an account starts the same OAuth flow a production integration would use, but syncing audiences to a live Google Ads account does not work yet. Treat this page as a preview of the setup flow, not a working integration.
</Aside>

## Set up Google Ads in Pushwoosh

1. In Pushwoosh, go to **Settings** > **3rd party integrations**.

2. In the Google Ads card, click **Connect**.

3. Sign in to your Google account, then grant Pushwoosh access to your Google Ads accounts.

4. Select the ad accounts you want to connect.

<Aside type="note">
This list only shows ad accounts the Google user you signed in with has **direct** access to. An account managed only through a Google Ads manager account (MCC) does not appear here, even if that user administers the MCC — sign in with a user who has direct access to that account instead, or connect the MCC account itself (see below).
</Aside>

You can connect either a client ad account or the manager (MCC) account itself. Connecting the MCC account does not give you a Google Ads audience to sync to — Google does not support Customer Match audiences on manager accounts. Connect the client account that will hold the audience instead.

After setup, you will be redirected to the **Google Ads** page in Pushwoosh. The connected ad accounts table lists each account with its name and ID.

Open the three dots at the end of a row and choose **Remove ad account** to delete that ad account from the list in Pushwoosh.

### Manage connected ad accounts

On the **Google Ads** page, click **Manage accounts** to open the dialog. Use the toggle on each row to include or exclude that ad account from the integration.
Click **Apply** to save changes or **Cancel** to close without saving.

<Aside type="note">
Google Ads has no separate field-mapping step. Pushwoosh always sends **hashed email**, **hashed phone number**, and **MADID** for each user, whichever exist on the profile — the same identifiers Google's Customer Match requires, already hashed to the format Google expects.
</Aside>

## Sync audiences in journeys

The **Audience sync** point in **Journey Builder** links your journey to a Google Ads Customer Match audience. Every time a user reaches that point, Pushwoosh asks Google to either add them to the audience or remove them from it.

To configure audience sync:

1. Open [**Journey Builder**](/product/customer-journey/pushwoosh-journey-overview/).

2. Add an [**Audience-based entry**](/product/customer-journey/journey-elements/entry-elements/audience-based-entry/). In **Audience source**, choose a Pushwoosh segment or list that defines who enters this journey.

3. Add the **Audience sync** point.

4. Under **How to sync users info to the ad audience**, pick one option:
   * **Add users to audience**
   * **Remove users from audience**

5. In **AD PLATFORM**, choose **Google Ads**.

6. In **Google Ads account**, select the connected ad account.

7. In **Audience**, select the Google Ads audience.

8. Click **Apply** to save the point or **Cancel** to close without saving.

9. Finish configuring the journey, then launch it.

## Behavior and error handling

* Google matches a user only by hashed email, hashed phone, or MADID — there is no tag-based fallback. A user with none of these identifiers on their profile is skipped and continues the journey.
* Sync to Google is asynchronous: the **Audience sync** point accepts the user and moves them to the next step immediately, then applies the add or remove in the background. A delay between reaching the step and the change appearing in Google Ads is expected.
* If the selected ad account is disconnected when a profile reaches **Audience sync**, the journey stops for that profile and Pushwoosh sends system and email notifications.
* Google does not use an audience for targeting until it has about 1,000 matched users. A smaller audience keeps accepting syncs and reports success, but Google will not show ads to it until it crosses that threshold.

## Audience sync statistics

After launch, open statistics for the **Audience sync** step to see entry volume, adds and removals, and skipped profiles. For metric details, see [**Audience sync**](/product/statistics-and-analytics/journey-statistics/journey-element-statistics/#audience-sync) in **Customer Journey statistics**.