What's happened?
Google has made updates to the design and features in its Search Ads 360 platform, in an effort to increase productivity and scale for advertisers. The changes should help advertisers streamline campaign management and measure performance more accurately.
The new SA360 has been built on the same platform as Google Ads and, at first glance, the interfaces look almost identical making the platform super easy to use for those familiar with Google Ads. This alignment also means that Search Ads 360 can process and manage more data, it better scales the enterprise workloads, includes the newest bid strategies and can process and manage more data.
Google has also added the functionality to manage its newest ad types – Discovery Ads and Performance Max. As well as its own ad products, Google has improved the support SA360 has on Microsoft Advertising products – namely Dynamic Ads for Search, Sitelink extension scheduling and Customer Match.
To streamline campaign change that would typically be carried out across multiple buying platforms, Google has added features to perform the task once from SA360. Users can now add labels to keywords, ad groups and campaigns across Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising and other platforms, and then create automated rules to schedule changes at a set time.
A new addition a templates section for inventory management and building ads. This feature allows advertisers to create and update ads at scale.
Finally, Google has brought its Performance Planner feature from Google Ads and created a “Performance Center” in Search Ads 360 to give advertisers the ability to plan and forecast spend and performance across multiple search platforms.
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How does this impact advertisers?
Improvements to SA360 are good for advertisers. The more intuitive interface, improved scale, and additional features drive efficiency and performance for advertisers. The improved functionality with third-party platforms, such as Microsoft Advertising, is particularly powerful and has long been a gripe for advertisers until now.
Precision's thoughts
Overall, very good news and welcomed improvements! The changes will drive campaign performance and drive efficiency for advertisers. The only negative is that, in a market already dominated by Google Search Ads 360, these improvements make other campaign management tools less competitive. That said, perhaps these improvements can prompt the other players to improve their offerings, which will be good for advertisers.