Google launches ad measurement tool for brands in the post-cookie era

Google revealed a new ad measurement tool today, one that connects with marketers’ first-party data and is designed to work in the digital ad ecosystem that will soon lose cookies and other data tools. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs On Wednesday, Google announced what it called the Google Ads Data Manager, not to be confused with Google Ads Data Hub. The new tool is designed for marketers to measure ad campaigns that run across Google properties, according to Kamal Janardhan, lead of product and measurement at Google Ads. “This is really about first-party data,” Janardhan said in a call with Ad Age. The ads data manager was designed with the “evolution of data constraints and “cookie deprecation,” in mind, Janardhan said. With the new measurement platform, marketers can import their own data—first-party data such as sales information—and match that with Google’s data to understand the outcome of campaigns. The marketers can connect data from the customer relationship management platforms, the kind they run through marketing tech providers such as Salesforce. “Our customers can unlock more value from their unified data and insights in Salesforce Data Cloud by activating audiences with ease across Google's Ads ecosystem,” said Gabe Joynt, senior director, product management at Salesforce. First-party data has become a currency of necessity under new internet advertising rules that have limited the use of third-party cookies and other online trackers. Next year, Google’s Chrome team plans to phase out the use of third-party cookies on the web browser, and that follows Apple’s crackdown on internet tracking on its devices. Marketers are in a position where they can only use consumer data collected with consent. Under the new privacy regime, it has become more difficult for companies such as Google and Meta to prove the value of their ads through simple measurement tactics. Marketers have lost some visibility into which ad formats and campaigns work. Google’s new ads data manager allows marketers to take various sources of data, such as that coming from Salesforce and Google Ads Data Hub. The data hub is a measurement and ad analytics platform run by Google, but the ads manager is open to marketers that use other measurement services. Also read: X turns to Google to sell programmatic ads Google did not name all the partners available to the new measurement program. Google said the service would be open to large and small advertisers. Smaller advertisers might be the ones most affected by the data changes online that make it harder to track the effectiveness of media. “This is making sure that the first-party data, that our customers have always had,” Janardhan said, “that they can get value and the insight form it, which is core to their businesses.” “They have data in multiple systems they have to stitch together, and here is this tool to do that,” Janardhan said. Announcing the ads data manager, Google said “It will simplify what sometimes took months of work into only a few clicks and make existing integrations easier to use as well.”

Google launches ad measurement tool for brands in the post-cookie era

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