03 November 2025

The real value of SA360: Unlocking smarter, exclusive bidding strategies

In summary

• SA360 has evolved far beyond what advertisers remember, with new bidding logic, cross-channel automation, and first-party data integrations that redefine its role in the Google Marketing Platform stack.
• Exclusive bidding types and portfolio strategies now let marketers align campaigns more precisely to business goals.
• When combined with CM360 and Data Manager Solutions, SA360 delivers end-to-end performance insight, smarter optimisation, and greater control than ever before.

Why SA360 still matters

There’s a common assumption that as Google Ads gets smarter, SA360 becomes less relevant. But in reality, SA360 is still the more powerful engine for teams managing scale, complexity, or multiple accounts across brands and regions.

The difference comes down to control. SA360 lets you define how automation works for your business, not just accept how Google Ads defines it. When managing at scale, small adjustments in logic, weighting, and signal priority can make a huge difference to outcomes.

Advertisers have long questioned the value of SA360 compared to Google Ads. But over the past year, that’s all changed. With a wave of new capabilities, SA360 now delivers measurable value across three clear pillars: Reach, Performance, and Productivity.

• Reach focuses on campaign management beyond Search, unifying across multiple channels.
• Performance is about maximising return on investment through advanced bidding and cross-channel optimisation.
• Productivity improves efficiency, helping teams automate workflows and make smarter use of resources.

Together, these pillars redefine SA360 as a true enterprise-grade performance hub, built for scale, integration, and results.

What sets SA360 apart

There are multiple bidding types within SA360, some overlap with Google Ads, but several remain exclusive. These exclusive features are where the platform truly shines:

Custom Bidding lets you design your own algorithm, incorporating unique data sources like offline sales or margin data to drive optimisation that matches your commercial priorities.

Portfolio Bidding allows you to group campaigns together under shared business goals, ensuring budget and bids are optimised holistically, not in isolation.

Auction-time bidding layers on real-time adjustments across devices, audiences, and locations at a much more granular level than what’s available through Google Ads alone.

When you combine these capabilities with cross-channel management, across Google, Microsoft, and other engines, SA360 becomes a true performance hub. It’s not just automating, it’s orchestrating.

On Reach

SA360’s biggest step forward is its Retail Media capabilities, now in beta. Advertisers can seamlessly scale campaigns across Criteo’s premium retail media inventory, driving both retailer demand and measurable growth, all from within SA360.

Beyond retail, SA360 connects to social platforms like Meta and X (formerly Twitter), and search engines including Microsoft, Baidu, and Yahoo, giving marketers true cross-channel reach.

It also allows Performance Max campaigns to sit under the same bid strategy as Search, improving data sharing and optimisation when configured correctly.

On Performance

SA360 doesn’t just rely on Google’s auction-time bidding, it layers on its own proprietary algorithm, unlocking an additional average 5% performance uplift, according to Google.

Recent releases have added even more flexibility and control, including:

Multiple Portfolio Bid Strategy (Q3 2025): Combine different portfolio strategies to share learnings and data.

Ad Group-Level Targeting: Set KPIs at the ad group level for finer optimisation.

Budget Bid Strategy: Manage campaigns across large and small budgets while keeping performance aligned to your goals.

On Productivity

SA360 is designed to make marketers faster, smarter, and more effective.

Templates let you create or update large-scale campaigns and ad copy using product or non-retail feeds, faster and more efficiently than Google Ads Editor.

Custom Dimensions provide reporting that reflects your unique business logic and KPIs.

AI Spotlight automatically surfaces configuration issues or anomalies that could affect performance, helping teams troubleshoot before it impacts results.

The next evolution: Data Manager Solutions

Google’s new Data Manager Solutions (currently in beta across CM360 and SA360) represent the next phase of this evolution. They enable advertisers to bring structured first-party data directly into the Google Marketing Platform ecosystem, securely, and without dependence on cookies.

Once this is fully rolled out, the connection between Data Manager and SA360 Custom Bidding will give marketers an even stronger feedback loop between owned data and automated optimisation. It’s a clear step towards more intelligent, privacy-safe performance management.

How Louder approaches it

At Louder, we’re already preparing clients for this shift by rethinking how bidding logic, data architecture, and measurement frameworks align. That means using quarterly business reviews (QBRs) and roadshow sessions not just to report on performance, but to evolve the models that drive it.

The future of paid search isn’t about replacing human judgement, it’s about scaling it through smarter systems. SA360 gives us the flexibility and precision to do that today, while setting the stage for a data-driven future that’s both compliant and competitive.

Louder’s recommendations

• Audit your automation stack. Identify where Google Ads bidding limits your ability to scale or customise for business goals.
• Speak with our specialists to explore how SA360’s advanced solutions, integrated with the Google Marketing Platform stack
• Get ready for Data Manager Solutions. Start structuring and tagging your first-party data now to unlock its value when the feature becomes generally available.

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