Customer Match Formatter for Microsoft Advertising

How to prepare a Microsoft Advertising customer match list

Microsoft Advertising customer match reads one thing: email addresses, cleaned with Microsoft's own steps and usually hashed. Those steps are stricter than Google's. Microsoft's customer match help page asks you to strip periods and “+tags” before the @ for every email provider. This tool applies each step in Microsoft's order, then hashes the result on your device.

1. Load your list. A Shopify customer export, a Mailchimp audience, a CRM report or a plain list of emails. Excel files work too.
2. Pick the email columns. If your file has a personal and a work email, select both: each address becomes its own row.
3. Choose hashed or plain. Hashed (SHA-256) is the default and the safer choice.
4. Check the results. The chart shows how many addresses lost dots, +tags, capitals or accents. Rejected emails are listed with the reason.
5. Download the CSV. One column, headed Email, ready for the upload screen.

Why the same person can appear twice

Under Microsoft's rules, [email protected] and [email protected] become the same string. It happens when a customer signs up for a newsletter with a +tag and later buys with the plain address. The tool formats first, then removes these duplicates, so your count is honest.

Upload the list in Microsoft Advertising

1. Go to Tools › Audiences and click Create.
2. Give the audience a unique name and choose Customer match list as the type. Click Next.
3. Choose Hashed file or Plain text to match your download, and upload the CSV.
4. Tick the box confirming you comply with Microsoft's customer match policies and terms. Set the membership duration and sharing (all accounts or one account).
5. Click Next, check the preview, then Apply changes to start the upload.

Wait 48 hours before you attach the list to a campaign or ad group. Keep your own copy of the file: Microsoft does not let you download an audience list again.

Microsoft Ads customer match problems and fixes

Customer match is not available in the account

Microsoft says the feature is not rolled out to everyone. Only direct advertisers and authorized representatives may upload customer emails, and Microsoft will not upload your data for you. If the option is missing, contact Microsoft support.

Terms not accepted

The upload stops if the policy checkbox is not ticked. Advanced users of the Bulk API can accept the terms inside the file with the Accept Customer Match Term field set to True; without it the API returns error 8003.

Hashed the Google way, uploaded to Microsoft

Google's customer match rules remove dots only for gmail.com and googlemail.com addresses. Microsoft removes them for every domain. A list hashed for Google often produces different hashes for Microsoft, so fewer people match. Hash from the plain list with this tool instead of reusing the Google file.

Phone numbers in the file

Extra columns are not part of Microsoft's format. A file with Email and Phone columns does not follow the “Email header, emails below” layout. The download here has the single column only.

Bought or partner lists

Third-party data is not allowed in customer match. Upload only customers who gave you their email directly. Data from a supported data partner goes through custom audiences instead.

Using Zapier

Microsoft's help says not to hash data you send through its Zapier connection, because Microsoft hashes it there. Use the plain export for Zapier and this tool for manual CSV uploads.