{"id":108816,"date":"2023-09-18T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-18T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/campaign-manager-360-in-2023-2\/"},"modified":"2024-12-20T09:25:11","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T14:25:11","slug":"campaign-manager-360-in-2023-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/en-gb\/insights\/blog\/local-search\/campaign-manager-360-in-2023-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Campaign Manager 360"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google Marketing Platform\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

The Google Marketing Platform (GMP) is a full stack of applications that can be used together for every level of internet advertising, from building creatives to analyzing performance. Campaign manager 360 (CM360) is an important part of the stack for a few reasons. It is first and foremost an ad-server, which means it can be used to host and serve ads across many different platforms all from one central location.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At DAC we typically use CM360 in another way; that is for its extensive reporting capabilities. CM360 is the part of the Google Marketing Platform that hosts \u201cfloodlights\u201d, the bits of code that fire whenever a user completes a conversion on your website. The floodlights attribute the conversion to your ad, whether it was a search ad, display ad, video, or other. These floodlights can be used across the whole Google Marketing Platform, from connected TV ads on Display & Video 360 to SEM ads on Search Ads 360, and can even work on platforms outside the stack.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lately, the effectiveness of floodlights has been impacted by the phasing out of cookies by various browsers, raising questions about the continued use of CM360. In this blog, we will explore exactly what CM360 is, how we are using it at DAC, its alternatives, and how it will exist in the future. Let\u2019s get started.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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CM360 at DAC<\/h2>\n

We love CM360 at DAC (especially me), but we don\u2019t always use it as an ad-server. The biggest reason you\u2019ll see CM360 across many of our accounts here is for its ad-tracking capabilities. CM360 can be used to build trackers that can be placed on ads. Any time an ad is clicked, CM360 will record it. That in itself is nothing special, but the benefit comes from <\/span>measuring conversions across many different platforms at once<\/span><\/i>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Say a user <\/span>sees my ad on TikTok<\/span><\/a> but doesn\u2019t do anything with it. Then later they see a different one of my ads on Facebook, and they click it but don\u2019t purchase anything. Then after a few days they decide they do want to buy my product after all, so they search it on Google and convert through my search ad. I might find that three different platforms are trying to tell me that they were the one responsible for the purchase. Only one conversion happened, but TikTok is reporting one, Facebook is reporting one, and Google is reporting one. If we combine these results directly into a dashboard, we\u2019ll find that we\u2019re over-reporting the number of purchases.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Having a centralized platform that can measure all touchpoints and decide where the single purchase should be attributed is very valuable. CM360 can de-duplicate conversions across all platforms and make reporting more reliable. Better data leads to better insights; that\u2019s what I always say.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

CM360 and cookies<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

This system worked very well for many years, but lately it has been less effective. The problem? CM360 relies on cookies to track a user\u2019s journey across platforms. <\/span>Cookies<\/span><\/i>, the things that everyone is trying to get rid of. Many internet browsers have completely eliminated the usage of cookies, including Safari and Firefox in 2018. Google Chrome is currently <\/span>the preferred browser of about 64% of internet users<\/span><\/a>, and it plans to get rid of cookies by the end of 2024. On top of this, Apple\u2019s iOS 14 update came with a switch from the standard opting-out of cookies to a requirement for users to opt-in. A study by Weinlich in November 2022 showed that <\/span>the average amount of conversions their campaigns recorded decreased by 12% directly as a result of this change<\/span><\/a> from opting-out to opting-in. With the removal of the fundamental building blocks of how CM360 does reporting, one must ask the question: Is it a good idea to keep using CM360?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The short answer is <\/span>yes<\/span><\/i>. If you\u2019re already bought-in to the Google Marketing Platform products such as CM360, SA360, and DV360, it makes sense to continue using these products. Cookies on Chrome aren\u2019t going anywhere until at least 2024, and it makes sense that Google keeps pushing the timeline back. Unless they had a viable solution to replace the current system, it is unlikely that they would ever dismantle it. In fact, changes are already happening to the way event tracking works on CM360. The <\/span>Google Support page for DV360<\/span><\/a> explicitly states:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDue to differences in cookie and device ID settings, advertisers may see fluctuations in delivery and performance when cookies or device ID are unavailable. In some situations Campaign Manager 360 and Display & Video 360 use machine learning and historical data to model conversions.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is basically saying that because some tracking is already not working, Google is predicting who converted through your ads, even though there isn\u2019t direct evidence of that happening. This may sound a little sketchy, but let\u2019s remember that Google is REALLY good at gathering and interpreting data. There is a big difference between fabricating numbers and making highly educated extrapolations from a LOT of data points. That being said, extrapolated data will not be enough model conversions once cookies go away. So, what does the future of CM360 look like?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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