Google Ads Expands Customer Match with Unhashed IP and Timestamp Signals

Google Ads has expanded its Customer Match feature to include IP addresses and interaction timestamps as additional first-party matching signals. This update allows advertisers to add more context about when an IP address was observed, making a volatile signal more useful for matching.

The new fields must be sent unhashed, which creates a more sensitive operating requirement for advertisers. Google requires that these two fields be uploaded in plain, unhashed strings, and excludes end users in the European Economic Area, UK, and Switzerland from IP matching.

This change raises new data-governance questions for advertisers, as they must now think carefully about what customer information leaves their own systems. The upload pipeline needs to distinguish records that are eligible from those that are not, and advertisers must confirm that Customer Match data was collected and shared in compliance with Google's policies.

Google expects match-rate improvements from these signals to begin in October 2026. However, the quality of the campaign increasingly depends on the quality of the advertiser's own data infrastructure, making customer data hygiene, consent status, timestamps, and regional eligibility crucial for media inventory.