Google Ads Enhanced Conversions - Which Properties Are Used in Matching? Google Ads API settings?

[ERTCZisty]

HubSpot now has the ability to use Google's Enhanced Conversions with the default integration - which is fantastic!

However, the documentation is sparse on the technical details - and some terms don't match up.... which is worrisome considering the amount of money being spent on PPC. For our conversions to just stop working would be a disaster!

Some of these questions may seem almost silly - but I've searched the documenation high and low to no avail.

So, I have two questions in particular:

1. Enhanced Conversions Data Sharing Setup:
Which HubSpot properties are used in matching? Do I need to create new properties instead?

The properties listed for data sharing here are mostly self-explanatory.

However, "region", "zip code", and "country" are not standard HubSpot properties. Instead we have country/region, state/region, and Postal Code.

So.... 

• Do I need to create new properties for this?
  
  • Assuming county/region and state/region are correct - what format should the data be? Should it be abbreviated? (United States vs US, Texas vs TX, etc.)
    
    
• Do I need to create a new Zip Code property, or do I still use Postal Code?

2. Enhanced Conversions Google Ads Setup:
What "method for managing user-provided data" should be used with the integration?

When you turn on Enhanced Conversions in your Google Ads account, there are multiple options for: "Choose a method for setting up and managing user-provided data."

• I'm assuming the HubSpot Google Ads integration uses the Google Ads API. Is this the correct setting?
  
  
• Other options are Google Tag and Google Tag Manager.
  
  
  

These questions are the only thing holding us back from switching over to the new conversions - so thank you very much in advance for any answers! 

[danmoyle · Accepted solution]

I agree with @PamCotton on this, @ERTCZisty. I'd ensure the properties and their data structure match between Google and HubSpot. If it's open text in Google, then it needs to be the same in HubSpot. That can be a bummer when other users input states like you show (TX from Google, but users type in Tex. or Texas or Tejas for example). But it's critical to keep the field type consistent. 

As for what API they're using, that's not something I can answer. I havent used it, and I'm not a HubSpot product person - just a fellow user. 

[danmoyle · Accepted solution]

I agree with @PamCotton on this, @ERTCZisty. I'd ensure the properties and their data structure match between Google and HubSpot. If it's open text in Google, then it needs to be the same in HubSpot. That can be a bummer when other users input states like you show (TX from Google, but users type in Tex. or Texas or Tejas for example). But it's critical to keep the field type consistent. 

As for what API they're using, that's not something I can answer. I havent used it, and I'm not a HubSpot product person - just a fellow user. 

[PamCotton]

Hey @ERTCZisty thank you for reaching out to our Community!

Regarding the properties used in matching, it's crucial to ensure compatibility between HubSpot and Google Ads. Since "region," "zip code," and "country" are not standard HubSpot properties, and you're currently using "country/region," "state/region," and "Postal Code," I would recommend If the properties listed in the Enhanced Conversions Data Sharing setup do not match your existing properties in HubSpot, it's advisable to create new ones for consistency and accurate data matching.

To our top experts, @danmoyle, @Jigar_Thakker and @Jnix284 do you have any recommendations for @ERTCZisty matter?

Thank you,

Pam

[ERTCZisty]

@PamCotton, @danmoyle,  Thank you for your replies!

Those were my thoughts exactly - but there's no mention of creating custom properties for the integration, or how the data should be formatted - hence why I reached out here...

I did some more digging - here's what I've found so far. Maybe it'll help someone in the future:

1. There are two types of Enhanced Conversions - one for "Web" - which seems to be form data, and one for "Leads" - which seems to be the more typical offline/lifecycle conversions.
   
   
2. If you view the Google Ads API information, there are indeed requirements for how to format the Google Ads Enhanced Conversion data. This leads me to believe any data sent from HubSpot should be formatted this way as well....
   I have no idea if the HS integration does any of this formatting by default other than hashing - so I assume it does not.
   

   
   ""For privacy concerns, email addresses and phone numbers must be hashed using the SHA-256 algorithm before being uploaded. In order to standardize the hash results, prior to hashing one of these values you must:

   • Remove leading/trailing whitespaces.

   • Convert the text to lowercase.

   • Format phone numbers according to the E164 standard.

   • Remove all periods (.) that precede the domain name in gmail.com and googlemail.com email addresses.""
     
     

3. The developer documentation also states that each piece of matching information needs to be in it's own separate identifier, and there is a limit of 5 identifiers:
   
   ""Populate user_identifiers with the normalized and hashed lead data... If you have multiple user identifiers available, create a separate UserIdentifier for each one, up to five identifiers.""
   
   
   • The limit of 5 identifiers, and their need to be separate stood out to me, because in the HubSpot conversion it lists: Email, Phone, and Address.
     Then, under Address, the properties I asked about are grouped:
     Fname, Lname, Address, City, Region, Zip Code, Country... that's a total of 11 identifiers no?
     
     
     • This leads me to believe that everyhing next to "Address" must be bunched together into one identifier - which is not what Google recommends - but who knows? I'm not that kind of developer.
       • Here are more specific requirements for the address information as detailed by the Google Ads API.

HubSpot Dialog For Google Ads Enhanced Conversions

So, after digging deeper - it seems even more likely additional effort is needed for the Enhanced Conversions to work properly. 

For now, I plan to:

1. Reach out to HubSpot Support & my Google Ads Reps to see if they have answers. If not...
2. Format the various properties as required above.
3. Add in the additional duplicitive custom properties 
4. Standardize value conventions among those properties (TX will become Texas, Postal codes with plus four codes will be reformatted as Zip only, etc. )
5. Cross my fingers and hope all that work was actually necessary! 😭

@PamCotton @danmoyle, please do feel free to chime in if you have any advice. If not - I'll keep this thread updated as I learn more! 

[Jnix284 · Accepted solution]

@ERTCZisty 

I'm not sure if you already created custom properties, but the HubSpot standard properties would work for the address properties in Google.

This was the same with Facebook and other integrations.

HubSpot adopted global language (country/region) and (region/state) and has always used postal code, but after hundreds of integrations I've never had an issue with these properties connecting to standard U.S. properties.

In fact, if you search "zip" in properties or records, you'll see "postal code" returns because "zip" is included in the internal name for the property.

As far as standardization, this has always been a pain point and for that I can't recommend Ops Hub enough - if you want to improve your data quality, you can run workflows to standardize information and fix formatting issues with data coming from multiple sources (such as Texas vs TX or JENNIFER vs jennifer)

I haven't configured the new Enhanced Conversion Data Sharing yet, but I don't think the address is counting the individual properties, it looks like a nested identifier.

Hopefully this helps a little, I would definitely reach out to your Google Ads Rep as a starting point. Since you've scoured the documentation, I'm not sure you'll get a better answer than you have here if you reach out to HubSpot Support since this is very technical and very new, it's hard to know whether they have the internal documentation needed to answer these questions.

[ERTCZisty]

Hello Jnix,

I think you're correct about the nested identifiers for the address - I think you're also correct about the custom properties not being necessary. 

But, I do think all the values need to be revamped. For instance, the Enhanced Conversion documentation states that all of the values should be lowercase.... this will cause issues with properties like First Name that are often used in marketing material personalization and whatnot...

My Google Ads reps are going to send me some debugging information for the Enhanced Conversions. Once I can see what was actually recieved by Google Ads, I'll be able to cross check. I'll update the info here as well!

[Jnix284]

Thank you @ERTCZisty I'm very interested in what they say, appreciate you keeping us updated with what you learn!

Regarding the lowercase, once the values are passed to HubSpot (e.g. "jennifer nixon") you could use the Data Quality tools in Ops Hub pro to fix the formatting to have the correct capitalization ("Jennifer Nixon).

If you don't have Ops Hub pro, there used to be third-party integrations that would clean this up for you - I haven't used one in quite a while now that it's native with Ops Hub although I imagine they still exist.