When the DoubleClick Digital Marketing Platform debuted in 1996, and Google AdWords in 2000 (now rebranded to “Google Ads”), the world of digital marketing wasn’t nearly what it is now. As today’s complex digital reality has shifted the way we think about marketing, and how we measure it, Google’s product offerings have evolved to keep up with the times.
In this post, find out what a Marketing Platform consists of and how the holistic rebrand of all Google marketing products can help you maximize the impact of your marketing efforts.
Official Announcements
Google’s Senior Vice President of Ads & Commerce, Sridhar Ramaswamy, broke the news on June 27, 2018, that Google’s saying goodbye to “Google AdWords”, “DoubleClick” Platform, and a slew of other brand names, in addition to introducing a new unified solution: the Google Marketing Platform.
- "We’re unifying our DoubleClick advertiser products and the Google Analytics 360 Suite under a single brand: Google Marketing Platform;
- The new Google Marketing Platform brand - including new product names and logos - will be reflected in product interfaces, help centers, trainings, and more;
- As part of the launch of Google Marketing Platform on July 24, Google Analytics 360 Suite Home will become Platform Home"
So what is the impact to your business? What does the announcement of Google Marketing Platform mean for better marketing integration and reporting? Here’s what digital marketers need to know:
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DoubleClick Search is now being replaced with Search Ads 360
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DoubleClick Bid Manager, Campaign Manager, Studio and Audience Center are being integrated into Google Display & Video 360 (DV360)
Google Adwords is now Google Ads
While Google Ads is more of a branding decision than major platform news. Google is focused on providing value to anyone using Ads whether you're a small business or large enterprise company.
This new ability to run campaigns across all of Google’s advertising networks opens up the full range of online capabilities offered by Google and their partners.
Before it was pretty exhausting to keep track of your online advertising if your spend was spread across multiple properties and platforms offered by Google. But even more valuable, you now have unlimited access to more niche platforms in addition to standard Google Search. Some you may not have even considered viable in the past -- such as YouTube, Google Maps, Play Store, Waze, and more.
Programmatic Ad Management is now through Google Ad Manager
In an effort to streamline the way publishers monetize their content, Google is unifying DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange into a new programmatic platform, simply named, “Google Ad Manager”.
"Ad Manager gives you a single platform for delivering, measuring and optimizing ads wherever your audience is engaging—including connected TVs, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), mobile games and other apps, and platforms like YouTube and Apple News,"
- Jonathan Bellack, Director of Product Management, Google.
With Google Ad Manager, you get a complete digital advertising platform that helps you earn more and grow revenue, no matter how or what you sell. Google’s move away from traditional Sell-Side Platforms (SSPs) and into the space of programmatic means that machine learning will be at the forefront of digital marketing campaigns curated in Ad Manager.
Leveraging this programmatic framework means you have new opportunities for monetization across different screens, SDKs, and content distribution platforms.
Ad Manager will offer sophisticated features like Optimized Competition, Dynamic TV Ad Insertion, and on-demand video in a range of formats (native, 6-sec bumpers, etc.) to provide the most value to your audiences.
New Google Marketing Platform
A MARKETING PLATFORM is a suite of standardized services, products, and tools coming together under one central location for Adminstrative management.
Google's Marketing Platform brings together DoubleClick Digital Marketing and the Google Analytics 360 Suite to help you plan, buy, measure and optimize digital media and customer experiences in one place.
Google Marketing Platform helps you deliver more relevant and effective marketing, while ensuring that you respect your customers’ privacy and give them control over their data.
Integration Center
Your upgrade to Google Analytics 360 (GA 360) just got better. Built upon existing integrations between Google Analytics 360 and DoubleClick products, the new Google Marketing Platform brings the great results marketers have seen from using ads and analytics technology together to certified Google 360 Agency Partners and Product Resellers — just like us.
This means you benefit from greater visibility into your marketing efforts and how they’re being leveraged holistically across platforms and properties from within the Integration Center.
Organization Settings
As a Google Marketing Platform customer, some of the best tools in your Platform Home can be found within the Administration tab under Organization Settings. Here, you'll be able to manage users across Google properties, access billing hit volume per product as well as manage your linked products within your Organization.
User Management
Here is where you'll manage, facilitate, and delegate access rights to users across the Organization.
There are a variety of access levels available for Users and User Groups, and just 3 distinct roles for Organization Users.
The level of access for Users and User Groups are Edit, Collaborate, Read & Analyze, as well as Manage Users. These can be across specific products, and furthermore, across specific properties and views within those products.
Organization Users on the other hand, have the highest level of access to all products within a Google Marketing Platform organization. This user role should be reserved for company stakeholders, as well as your GA 360 Reseller who manages billing for you.
Another key benefit of the new User Management tool within Organization Settings is that you can create and manage users as part of a "group". Organizing the users you provide access to can be highly useful if you have multiple agencies, partners, and vendors accessing your data on a frequent basis.
Billing
Billing in the GMP has 3 modes: Usage, Orders, and Accounts. Orders and Accounts are dedicated to managing how you are paying for your premium services. These should be handled carefully by your Organization Admins and GMP Reseller.
Billing > Usage is perhaps the most important to be familiar with in order to ensure your 360 properties and non-360 properties are within the billable monthly hit rate you are expecting.
This tool enables reporting on how many hits each GA 360 property is receiving in relation to your monthly limit and cumulative YTD total volume. You can also toggle the option for receiving notifcations when you might be approaching your monthly hit limit.
In Conclusion
Google is continuing to implement marketing solutions that stimulate a collaborative environment for digital marketers.
If you happen to be looking for a GA 360 Partner, whether now or in the future, reach out to the Seer Analytics team or just fill out the interest form below for more information.
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