Connect Google Ads with MailBlue

You can connect Google Ads with MailBlue and use the integration to effortlessly create new target audiences and synchronise customer lists with Google Ads. You can also start personalised follow-up campaigns directly and effectively nurture leads once they submit a sign-up form.

This integration is available from a Marketing Plus or Sales Professional subscription.

Please note: 

• You need to have a Google Ads account to use this integration. If you are not a Google Ads user, you can create a new account directly from your MailBlue account.
• Only Google Ads admin users can set up this integration. When connecting your Google Ads accounts, only the accounts for which you have administrative rights will be displayed.

What will be discussed in this article: 

•  Information about the integration with Google Ads
  - Lead Sync
  - Customer Match
• Incoming action: Lead Sync
  - Testing the connection
• Outgoing action: Customer Match
• Adding contacts to a Google Ads customer list
• Removing contacts from a Google Ads customer list

Information about the integration with Google Ads

This integration offers two different synchronisation options: Lead Sync and Customer Match.

Lead Sync

Lead Sync includes incoming updates that come from Google Ads lead form submissions to MailBlue. This setting is configured on the Google Ads App Listing page in your MailBlue account.

With this option, contacts are synchronised with MailBlue as soon as they submit your live Google Ads lead forms. Lead Sync also provides the following capabilities:

• Google Ads custom objects are displayed on a contact record and show the form they submitted, when they submitted it, and the details they provided to your form.
• Three new automation triggers are available when setting up an automation. These are:
  -"New Google Lead form submitted"
  -"New Google Lead form updated"
  - "Google Ads tag is added"
• Contacts synchronised with MailBlue will receive the following two tags that you can view on their contact records: google-ads-integration and google-ads-integration-YOUR_FORM_NAME

Customer Match

Customer Match helps you build and deepen relationships with existing customers, re-engage these customers, and find new customers who are similar to them on Google.

With this integration, you can use Customer Match and MailBlue in your automation workflows to perform outbound updates and re-engage with your customers using Google Ads.

Please note: This integration feature does not add tags to the contact record.

With this option, you can connect your Google Ads account with MailBlue for the following automation actions:

• "Google Ads - Add contact to list" - This allows you to create a new customer list in Google Ads or add contacts to an existing customer list.
•  "Google Ads - Remove contact from list" - This allows you to remove contacts from customer lists in Google Ads.

You must qualify and comply with the Google Ads Customer Match policy.

Incoming action: Lead Sync

Follow the steps below to synchronise contacts from Google Ads Lead forms to MailBlue:

1. From your MailBlue account, click on "Apps" and search for Google Ads. If you have already connected Google Ads to MailBlue through automation actions, go to "Apps" > "Connected apps".
2. Click on the "Google Ads" option to open it and then click on the "Add an account" button.
3. A modal window will appear. If you have already connected your Google Ads account to MailBlue, click on the "Select" button to set up incoming actions with the connected account. If you have not yet connected an account or want to connect a new one, click instead on the "Connect" button and follow the authentication steps.
4. After following the authentication steps, click on the "Continue" button.
5. Select the account and the lead form you want to synchronise to MailBlue.
6. Click on the "Continue" button.
7. On the next screen, link your Google Ads fields to your desired MailBlue fields. To link additional fields, click on the "Add Field Mapping" button and then on the "Finish" button.

Please note: The email address field is mandatory in MailBlue. Only forms where the email address field is available and linked to the email field of MailBlue will successfully synchronise contacts from Google Ads to MailBlue.

Testing the connection

Follow the steps below to test the connection:

1. After linking your lead forms to MailBlue with the above steps, log in to your Google Ads account and go to "Campaigns" > "Assets".
2. Select Lead Forms and find the enabled lead form you want to test.
3. At the bottom of the lead form, the webhook URL and key will be filled in. To test the connection, click on "Send Test Data".
4. A test contact will be created in MailBlue with the email address test@example.com. Here, you should see the contact, tags, and custom objects being successfully created. If you send test data multiple times, you will see the custom object field "Form Receipt Date" with an updated date and time.

Outgoing action: Customer Match

Using automation actions in MailBlue, you can now create new customer lists in Google Ads, find new customers similar to yours, exclude profiles from ad campaigns to acquire new customers, reactivate inactive customers, and more.

To add and remove contacts from your Ads customer lists, use the automation actions "Google Ads - Add contact to list" and "Google Ads - Remove contact from list". To use this functionality, connect your Google Ads account with MailBlue in the automation section of your account.

Adding contacts to a Google Ads customer list

1. From your MailBlue account, click on Automations.
2. Edit an existing automation or create a new one.
3. Drag the action "Google Ads - Add contact to list" to your automation. This action is located in the "CX Apps" section of the action sidebar.
4. A modal window will appear. Select one of the following options:
   - If you have already connected Google Ads to MailBlue, click on the "Select" button for the displayed account.
   - If you want to connect a different Google Ads account, click on the "Add a new account" button.
   - If you have not connected an account yet, click on the "Connect" button and follow the steps to connect your account.
5. On the next screen, fill in the following fields:
   - Use Google Ads as. This is your Manager account.
   - Manager account. If you have client accounts, select the account you want to use.
   - Select customer list. Note that you can create a new customer list or select an existing one.
   - Name your new customer list. Use this option if you choose to create a new customer list. Once the new list is created, the name will appear in the "Create a new customer list" field. It will not be automatically filled in the "Select customer list" field. Instead, it will appear in the list of choices.
6. Click on the 'close' button

Please note: Do not use special characters (such as '!?') when naming your new list. If you do not give a name to your new customer list, the name will default to "DefaultAudienceList_ActiveCampaign".

Contacts will be added to the list when they reach this step in your automation. To immediately add existing contacts in bulk to your newly created or existing audience lists:

1. Ensure your automation is set to "Active".
2. Go to Contacts.
3. Segment your contacts accordingly and then select "Edit all".
4. Select "Add to an automation" and choose the active automation that includes the automation action "Add contact to list".
5. Click Apply.

Please note: If you select this option, clicking "Finish" will not create your new customer list in MailBlue. This customer list will appear in your "Google Ads Audience Manager > Your data" segments once contacts are synchronised from ActiveCampaign to Google Ads.

Removing Contacts from Google Ads Customer List

1. From your MailBlue account, click on Automations.
2. Edit an existing automation or create a new automation.
3. Drag the action "Google Ads - Remove contact from list" to your automation. This action is located in the "CX Apps" section of the action sidebar.
4. A modal window will appear. If you have already linked Google Ads to ActiveCampaign, click on the "Select" button for the displayed account. If you want to link a different Google Ads account, click on the "Add a new account" button.
5. On the next screen, fill in the following fields:
   - Use Google Ads as. This is your manager account.
   - Managed account. If you have client accounts, select the account you want to use.
   - Select customer list. Note that you can create a new customer list or select an existing one.
6. Click on the "close" button.