User-ID view based audiences are ineligible for Google Ads

Change is in the air at Google

Recent announcements by Google note the re-branding of several products – including Google AdWords which is now Google Ads, and combing the Analytics 360 Suite and DoubleClick into the newly dubbed “Google Marketing Platform”.  (What’s missing from this new platform is Google Attribution, which hopefully will be introduced in mid-2019.)

With this change, getting your hands around how these products interact will be critical to your digital advertising efforts, especially when it comes to using Google Analytics (both free and paid 360 versions) to create audiences for targeting with Google advertising products.

User-ID feature impacts more than your GDPR plan

GDPR has made digital marketers worldwide re-think how they handle user data.  An important consideration to GDPR compliance is usage of Google Analytics’ User-ID feature.  Unless you have engaged the User-ID feature, a user is technically a unique Client ID, which anonymously identifies a browser instance.  However, if you have engaged the User-ID feature, you can track & report user activity across devices.

What you need to know is that when the User-ID feature is engaged for a view, there are Google Analytics feature limitations – as well as restrictions in using audiences defined using that view’s data.

Feature limitations

The following Analytics features are not compatible with User-ID:

• Real-Time reports
• Demographics and Interests reports
• Enhanced data freshness

Remarketing audiences based on User-ID data are ineligible for some destinations

If you create Remarketing audiences from data in User-ID views, those audiences are not eligible to activate in Google AdWords, DoubleClick Bid Manager, or DoubleClick for Publishers (see below the new names for these products in the Google Marketing Platform).