So far in this series we’ve looked at BigQuery and Display & Video 360, this time we’re focusing on Search Ads 360 and the benefits you can reap from linking it to your Google Analytics 4 account.

What is SA360?

Firstly, let’s zoom out. What is SA360? Search Ads 360 (SA360) allows marketers to scale and optimise how they manage search campaigns. SA360 users are able to manage search campaigns across several international search engines from a single platform.

Basically, if you choose not to utilise SA360, you’ll need to manage all your keywords and their performance from each separate search engine I.e. Google, Bing, Baidu. It’s certainly possible, but will be far more time-consuming and you’ll be missing out on management efficiencies and advanced bidding functionality.

The Benefits of Linking GA4 & SA360:

In addition to saving time, let’s take a look at some of the main reasons you might like to integrate your accounts.

Greater Conversion Insights

By integrating these two accounts, you are able to export your defined conversions in GA4 back to SA360. This means your different tools can be working harmoniously towards the same goal. You can easily view web-based conversion insights in GA4 and SA360, meaning you can easily check and improve SA360 campaigns quickly.

Improved Reporting

With the two platforms speaking to each other, you are able to view your user, session and cost data from Search Ads 360 in GA4. Data as a standalone doesn’t carry much meaning, but set within the context of GA4, alongside a broader set of analytics and against your overarching business goals, you’re able to quickly identify new trends and opportunities and act sooner to drive better results. The same goes for linking your engagement metrics. So now you can not only review the budget spend, but potential customer interactions and the quality of them too.

End-to-End Customer View

Linking your GA4 with your SA360 to get a look into your customers’ post-click behaviour. This allows you to see the full journey of user acquisition and engagement. Due to the deprecation of third-party cookies, it has become increasingly difficult to track the entire customer journey across different platforms. This improved customer view means that high-value journeys and audiences can be easily identified and then targeted through SA360. Get greater insights on how people have discovered and landed on your brand via SA360 ads, then overlay this with their online behaviour across other relevant platforms, from within your GA4 account. This makes for a very powerful picture of your target market; what captures their attention and ultimately, what gets them over the line.

Build Better Audiences

Connecting these products also allows you to leverage your Google Analytics 4 data to build audiences in Search Ads 360. By enabling Google signals in GA4 then turning on Personalised Advertising in link settings, you’ll have access to the audiences in the linked SA360 manager account.

This will mean you can incorporate the GA4 audiences into existing SearchAds audiences for targeting or have them operate on their own in SA360. Having this capability will help you to use your analytics data for more comprehensive audience creation, to better personalise ads, support remarketing, and bolster your overall campaign performance.

Available to both Standard and 360 Accounts

There’s more good news: this powerful integration between SA360 and GA4 is no longer exclusively available to GA360 level accounts – which was the case prior, in Universal Analytics. These capabilities are now available to both standard and 360 GA4 properties.

These new capabilities for GA4 and SA360 are very exciting and as time goes on more of these features are likely to be increased and improved upon.

For more information, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide on Google Analytics 4 and Privacy First Management, which provides an up-to-date overview of GA4’s key features.

Download the guide to GA4 & Privacy-First Measurement here. 

As a full-stack Google Marketing Platform & Google Cloud Partner, XPON Technologies can help to make the entire process of integration as smooth as possible. We also empower your team to make the most out of GA4 in this ever-changing privacy-first world. Get in touch with our team today if you have any questions or need support with your GA4 implementation, migration or integrations.

Other blogs in our GA4 series that may be of interest: