Clarification on Customer Match Audience Segment Eligibility via API

[Amit Tomar]

Dear Team,

While editing an ad group in a Sales Display campaign, I navigated to:
Targeting > Audience Segments > Your data segments, and I noticed the following message:

“5 lists (including 4 customer list related segments) can't be shown due to eligibility issues.”

Please see the attached screenshot for reference.

However, when I fetch the user_list (Your data segments) using the API, I am receiving all segments, including those that are not visible in the UI due to eligibility or policy restrictions.

Could you please guide me on the following:

1. Is there a way via the API to validate whether a Customer Match list is eligible for targeting?

2. How can I determine if a list is restricted from being used based on Customer Match policy, list size, or account eligibility — before using it in targeting via the API?

This is important to ensure we avoid policy violations or API errors during campaign or ad group setup.

Looking forward to your guidance.

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hi,

Thank you for contacting the Google Ads API support team. 

1.  Yes, you can validate whether a Customer Match list is eligible for targeting by querying a user_list.membership_status field from the user_list service which indicates whether a user list is open or active. And only open user lists can accumulate more users and can be targeted to.

2. Note that Google imposes a minimum size before the list becomes targetable. I would recommend you to query the below using user_list service to check whether the list is targetable based on list size.

SELECT user_list.name, user_list.resource_name, user_list.size_for_display, user_list.size_for_search, user_list.eligible_for_display, user_list.eligible_for_search FROM user_list WHERE user_list.resource_name = customers/{customer_id}/userLists/{user_list_id}

The fields user_list.eligible_for_display and user_list.eligible_for_search returns a boolean value (true or false) which indicates whether the list is eligible for Google Display Network or Google Search Network.

Thanks,
 

Google Ads API Team

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[2025-05-13 18:40:59Z GMT] This message is in relation to case "ref:!00D1U01174p.!500Ht01qWoWI:ref" (ADR-00305441)

[Amit Tomar]

Dear Team,

Thank you for your helpful response.

I have a follow-up question regarding user list visibility in the Audience Segments section.

I have a CRM-based user list (Customer_list_10_Oct) with the following details:

• membership_status: OPEN

• eligible_for_display: true

• size_for_display: 300

Despite meeting these criteria, this list is not visible under Targeting > Audience Segments > Your data segments in the UI.

At the same time, I created another list named "Validation Segment (Test)", which is visible in the UI — even though its size_for_display is 0. This one is a rule-based list with similar status fields set to eligible and open.

Could you please help clarify why the first list is not showing up for targeting, while the second one with zero size is visible?

Appreciate your support.

[Amit Tomar]

Hi Team,

I hope you're doing well.

I wanted to kindly follow up on my previous query regarding the clarification on audience segment eligibility via API. I understand that responses can take time, and I truly appreciate the effort your team puts into reviewing each case carefully.

If there’s any update or further clarification needed from my end to help move things forward, please feel free to let me know. I’d be happy to assist.

Looking forward to your response whenever possible.

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hi,

Based on the provided information, I understand that the CRM-based user list ‘Customer_list_10_Oct’ is not visible in the Google Ads UI while the other list ‘Validation Segment (Test)’ is visible in the Google Ads account. To assist you further, please provide us with the Google Ads customer ID so that we can investigate your issue further.

You can send the details via Reply privately to the author option, or direct private reply to this email.

Thanks,
 

Google Ads API Team

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[2025-05-14 15:06:51Z GMT] This message is in relation to case "ref:!00D1U01174p.!500Ht01qWoWI:ref" (ADR-00305441)

[Amit Tomar]

I've shared the customer ID by replying to the author. Please let me know if you need anything else from my end.

[Amit Tomar]

Dear Team,

Thank you for checking and confirming that the user list "Customer_list_10_Oct" is visible in Audience Manager under Tools > Shared Library > Audience Manager > Your data segments.

However, the issue I’m facing is a bit different.

The list is not visible when setting up targeting in a Sales Display campaign, specifically under:
Campaign > Ad Group > Targeting > Audience Segments > Your data segments.

Meanwhile, another test list named "Validation Segment (Test)", with size_for_display = 0, does appear in the same targeting section — which makes the behaviour inconsistent and confusing.

Could you please help me understand:

• Why the "Customer_list_10_Oct" list is not appearing in the campaign targeting view, even though it's eligible and meets the minimum size?

• Are there any additional conditions or delays that affect when a segment becomes available for targeting?

Appreciate your continued support.

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hi,

Please note that your concern (the list is not visible in the Google Ads UI) is out of the scope of our team, as our team specializes in Google Ads API-related concerns and technical implementations only. Since your concern does not fall under any technical implementation of the API, I'm adding another support team for their expertise in troubleshooting your issue. You should receive an email to assist you shortly.

Thanks,
 

Google Ads API Team

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[2025-05-15 20:48:06Z GMT] This message is in relation to case "ref:!00D1U01174p.!500Ht01qWoWI:ref" (ADR-00305441)

[Google Ads API and AdWords API Forum]

Hello,

Please be informed that I have removed your response from the forums as it contained the PII information.

I understand that you are getting "Targeting is not allowed for Customer Match lists as per Customer Match policy". To further investigate the issue, kindly provide complete API logs (request and response logs with request-id and request header) generated on your end without redacting any information in order to investigate the issue further.

If you are using a client library and haven't enabled the logging yet, I would request that you enable logging for the specific client library that you are using. You can refer to the guides Java, .Net, PHP, Python, Ruby or Perl to enable logging at your end. For REST interface requests, you can enable logging via the curl command by using the -i flag.

You can send the details via Reply privately to the author option, or direct private reply to this email. 

On Friday, May 16, 2025 at 1:36:33 PM UTC+5:30 amittomar...@gmail.com wrote:

Dear Team,

Thank you for taking this up.

I’d like to clarify that my concern is not limited to the UI — I am also facing an issue at the Google Ads API level while trying to use a Customer Match list for targeting.

I have created an ad group and am attempting to add an AdGroupCriterion using a CRM-based UserList. However, when I call the mutate_ad_group_criteria method, I receive the following error:

"Targeting is not allowed for Customer Match lists as per Customer Match policy. See https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6299717"

For your reference, I have attached a screenshot showing the code implementation and the error. Please note that I have redacted the Customer ID in the screenshot, but it has already been shared with the team.

Could you please help me understand:

• Why this Customer Match list is being rejected by the API, despite being OPEN, eligible_for_display: true, and having size_for_display: 300?

• Is there any account-level restriction or policy requirement that might be blocking targeting?

I’d really appreciate your guidance on how to resolve this.

Thank you for your support.