How to sync contacts

Hi there
Just got a new i pad mini and have tried transferring my contacts from my i Mac and i Phone but no joy. I followed the instructions using i Tunes and only some of my contacts are on the i Pad. I gather several people have had this kind of trouble using i Tunes, is there another way of doing it?? a simpler way hopefully.
Sesame

Which version of OSX do you have?

Are these contacts just in your Address book on your Mac? Are they synced with your email account? If so, which provider?

MAC OSX Version 10.7.5
I have some contacts on my Address Book on i Mac but the majority are on my gmail account.
Cannot get these synced to i Pad

This is what you do on your iPad:
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/2753077?hl=en&ref_topic=1669027

And on your Mac go to Address Book - Preferences - Accounts and select to sync with Google.

No iTunes sync required, it's all done 'over-the-air'

Thank you very much for your information. It worked perfectly all contacts now on i Pad.
So much easier than the i Tunes method.
Thanks again.
Sesame

Good stuff. I use that for contacts and calDav for google calendars. Always worked flawlessly.