Cardinal Path POV: Google Analytics 360 + Salesforce

This week, Google & Salesforce announced turnkey integrations between Google Analytics 360 and Salesforce Sales Cloud and Salesforce Marketing Cloud, along with integrations with G Suite and the Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

The collaboration includes four new integrations:

Sales data from Sales Cloud will be available in Analytics 360 for use in attribution, bid optimization and audience creation
Data from Analytics 360 will be visible in the Marketing Cloud reporting UI for a more complete understanding of campaign performance
Audiences created in Analytics 360 will be available in Marketing Cloud for activation via direct marketing channels, including email and SMS
Customer interactions from Marketing Cloud will be available in Analytics 360 for use in creating audience lists

In a nutshell, here’s what is significant about this announcement:

Google Analytics 360 is more enterprise than ever
This integration deepens Google Analytics 360’s place in the enterprise and demonstrates a clear intent to compete for and win the business of the world’s leading brands.

It’s a 1st for 3rd party integrations
The demand for CRM and analytics data to be used in tandem for bigger business benefits is strong. Cardinal Path has been helping clients to combine their Salesforce and Google Analytics data for many years now, and this will likely bring a myriad of new benefits with its seamless integration.

An official third party integration is a first for Google Analytics, which historically, has not provided integrations with other marketing platform vendors. This partnership between two marketing behemoths seems like a great fit – augmenting each other’s solutions, not competing, in ways that will drive significant value for businesses that use these two platforms.

Opens the door for more opportunities
This partnership and product integration enables the ability to provide even more tailored and personalized experiences. Use your CRM data to help create more personalized experiences with your media and on your digital properties, providing a more complete digital experience. And continue that experience when prospects and customers engage with you offline with information available through the Salesforce CRM.

As we look down the road, this opens other exciting possibilities as well. Could we see audience data from Salesforce and Google Analytics 360 being pushed into the Salesforce DMP (formerly Krux, before Salesforce acquired them earlier this year) or vice versa? At Cardinal Path, we are super excited about what this partnership means for our clients and how they engage with their customers.

Closes the loop on acquisition and messaging
This partnership continues to narrow the gaps in Google’s offering to marketers, with content management being one of the few that remain. Salesforce has been wading into these waters more recently with Commerce Cloud and it will be great to watch as these two enterprises continue to expand their partnership.

While there’s no official launch date, features of this newly minted partnership should start to roll out in the first half of 2018 and are going to be provided at no additional cost. And like we’ve seen across the industry, this trend toward acquisitions, partnerships and consolidations in the digital sphere will continue. The winners are the enterprise clients who, with fewer choices and more robust platforms delivering on the promise of digital data, are getting more bang for their buck and the comfort of a slightly more simplified MarTech landscape.

For more information, check out the following resources:

Google’s official announcement on the Analytics blog
Salesforce’s Google partnership promotion page
Salesforce’s press release and keynote announcement (Google is at 57 minutes)

Google Analytics 360 Resources
If you’d like to learn more about Google Analytics 360 Suite, check out the webinar series co-produced by Cardinal Path and Google that drills down into each feature area of the platform.

Dave Eckman

Dave’s passion for all things technological has led him to forge a successful career in web performance optimization. A combination of education, and 15 years of technical experience allows Dave to oversee the design of efficient, and cost-effective solutions for clients, while establishing lasting relationships through exceptional customer service. Throughout his Career, Dave has kept the company apace with advances in the industry and with technology as a whole. He has been responsible for managing many projects with clients such as Electronic Arts, Trader, Visa, and YouTube. Dave has presented and delivered training for many organizations and events including Visa Canada, the Internet Marketing Conference 2009, 2010, Adobe’s Omniture Summit 2011, along with many webinars and client training events. Dave’s educational background includes a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Victoria’s School of Business and a Certificate in Multimedia Studies from the UBC Continuing Studies program. Being successful in our industry requires Dave to continually educate himself and attend industry conferences and seminars, so he can provide solutions using the most relevant technologies.