Connecting Exponea CDP Customer Lists to Google Ads Customer Match

Importing Customer lists from a CRM/CDP

I use a CDP – Exponea – for my customer data and want to import my customer lists into my Google Ads account from Exponea. I have set up the API integration in Exponea, but I cant’ see how to connect from Google Ads. Has anyone used a third party to manage customer lists? And in particular, Exponea?

How do I link it form the google Ads end?

Thanks!

The short answer is:

The long answer is:

Your confusion is completely understandable.

The connection you’ve set up in Exponea is likely the first part of a two-way street, but it can’t be completed in the standard Google Ads interface because you’re using a specific CDP that isn’t one of Google’s designated ‘integrated partners’ like Zeotap or LiveRamp.

Even when a partner is integrated, the actual audience list management happens on the partner’s platform and then automatically syncs to Google Ads.

Since you’re using Exponea, you need a custom server-side solution to act as the intermediary between Exponea and the Google Ads API.

This is where the combination of Exponea’s API/webhooks, Google Tag Manager Server Container, and a platform like Stape or Google Cloud Platform (GCP) comes in as an excellent and often cheaper alternative to a full enterprise integration.

Here is the breakdown of why this architecture is highly effective:

The core problem is automating the continuous updates to your Google Ads Customer Match lists, which is best done using the Google Ads API.

Since Exponea can’t connect directly to the API, you use its automation capabilities to send the data elsewhere.

Exponea Engagement API or Webhooks: Instead of waiting for a manual list upload or relying on a dashboard link, you can configure Exponea to send a real-time (or near-real-time) feed of customer data to a specific endpoint whenever a user enters or leaves a segment you’ve defined (e.g., users who completed the Purchase event, or users who haven’t logged in for 90 days).

Google Tag Manager Server Container: This acts as the server-side proxy.

Instead of having a developer build a costly, custom API client from scratch, you deploy a GTM Server Container.

This container receives the data sent from Exponea’s webhook.

It’s a lightweight, easy-to-manage environment for all your server-side data processing.

The Google Ads API (via a GTM Tag): Once the data is in the GTM Server Container, you use a custom Google Ads Customer Match tag (often available in the GTM Template Gallery, and many hosting providers like Stape offer a pre-built one).

This tag takes the customer information (emails, phone numbers, etc.) that Exponea sent, automatically hashes it using the required SHA-256 algorithm for privacy, and then transmits it directly to Google’s server via the Google Ads API.

This process programmatically adds or removes users from the specified Customer Match list in your Google Ads account.

Stape or Google Cloud Platform (GCP): These platforms provide the actual server infrastructure to host your GTM Server Container.

Stape is generally considered the most accessible and affordable option, as it simplifies the complex setup and maintenance of the server, making it a very low-cost bridge compared to hiring developers to maintain a custom API integration.

This setup gives you a powerful, privacy-compliant, and self-managed way to keep your valuable Exponea-driven audiences automatically updated in Google Ads for both targeting and exclusion.

You would check the “Audience Manager” section in Google Ads to verify the lists are updating, but the linking process is entirely server-side, bypassing the need for a connection point in the Google Ads UI itself.

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