08 February 2022

Google Marketing Platform’s Search Platform, SA360, gets a major update.

Search Ads 360, the Google Marketing Platform search management product will be getting a substantial update, rolling out over the next five weeks. This Wednesday 9th of February 2022, Google announced on its SA360 blog that the platform would be getting a new UI with a set of new features deployed throughout the year.”

Image source: Google Marketing Platform Blog

Executive Summary

SA360 is getting a new user interface (UI) which more closely resembles the now familiar Google Ads UI. It also adds new features and capabilities to manage the new Google Ads campaign types and automated formats. The objectives of these changes are:

1. To provide marketers with a more familiar experience, closer to Google Ads, to improve marketers’ efficiencies

2. Provide better support for the newer search engine’s features

3. Improvements to agency level workflows, used by enterprise scale users.

What you can expect.

• There is no immediate action required for the moment and there is no expected impact on campaigns’ performance.

• The support portal has already been updated with screenshots and details on the new UI changes. (Read here for more information).

Timeline

• Marketers will start seeing the option to switch to the new UI as soon as Wednesday, February 9th 2022. Initially, expect only 20 to 30% of advertisers to have access to the new UI at first.

• The new UI is expected to be available to all SA360 clients by the end of March 2022.

• Marketers will have the possibility to toggle back and forth between the new and the old UI on an advertiser by advertiser basis.

Migration

• It is not mandatory to migrate yet. No date has been provided at this stage.

• A migration centre dashboard will be created to facilitate the transition [Available at launch]

• Migration will happen at the advertiser level.

• The migration should be seamless for around 80% of advertisers.

• Some Bid Strategies and more advanced features such as Inventory Management will require more pre-work to safely migrate.

• Similarly, weighted formula columns and Complex attribution models will likely require pre-work.

Features

• All existing features will be available in the new UI (some however will be added post-launch).

• New platform connections will be made available (Example: Amazon) [Not available at launch]

• SA360 will be compatible with Youtube and GDN campaigns [Not available at launch]

• Note that Floodlight conversions in SA360 will remain post-click only.

Roadmap

On the roadmap for the coming year are:

• Insights and top signals across advertisers and engines to help marketers make sense of performance evolutions.

• Inventory Management will get a rework to simplify its deployment and management.

• New agency-level workflows will facilitate management at the agency level.

• Support for additional engines.

Why should you care.

Consolidation of workflows

SA360 has had limited updates in the past year(s) whilst Google Ads has been changing on a monthly basis with new campaign types (Discovery, Smart Shopping, etc.), bid strategies updates, deprecation of Expanded Text Ads and many more updates. The role of SA360 as a paid search management platform has consequently changed, with the roll out of these new features debuting in Google Ads. SA360 users will now have the ability to manage all of the new Google Ads functionality within the SA360 management platform.

With the budgets shifting to more automated campaigns, this new UI should help agencies and marketers consolidate their paid search management once again from the SA360 platform.

New considerations around the platform of choice for your activations

Large scale and mid-tier advertisers who invest in YouTube through DV360 will largely be unaffected by these changes.

Advertisers who are spending on YouTube advertising through Google Ads, now have the opportunity to consolidate their whole of campaign management and measurement in SA360.

The role of SA360 and DV360 will be a consideration for advertisers who are not currently using a search management platform. It presents an opportunity to adopt a full-stack Google Marketing Platform measurement and automation approach to extend the reach of their Display and Video campaigns that historically may only have run on Google Display Ads (GDA) or Youtube.

For further information

Please contact your Louder representative for further information on this topic.