Today Google announced the combination of its Google Analytics 360 and DoubleClick product suites into a uniformly branded entity called the Google Marketing Platform.
It’s been said by some who are intimate with Google’s Analytics and Advertising (DoubleClick & AdWords) businesses that it feels like we are 10 years into a 20 year project. Indeed Google’s 2005 purchase of Urchin, which became Google Analytics, was seen as a move to help marketers better understand their website behavior and traffic, thus helping them better allocate their marketing dollars (i.e. spend more with Google!). The product merger announced today can be seen as a powerful continuation of the process started years ago when Google first brought GA to market.
What was announced?
The combination of Google’s Analytics and Advertising products under one, unified umbrella called the Google Marketing Platform. With an increase in the number of technical integrations between these products in the past few years (being able to share audiences and reporting data), this is the type of high-level product and brand integration that has been a long time coming, and just makes sense.
Do I (the GA 360 customer) need to do anything? Will anything change right now?
Right now, no. There are no changes in service on the product support/consulting side of things at this point. There will be no impact on data collection or existing product integrations.
Do I (the DoubleClick customer) need to do anything? Will anything change right now?
The short answer is, no. Advertisers do not need to do anything right now but should look to partners to keep them apprised of any additional updates.
Ask your Google Analytics and/or DoubleClick Certified Partner if you are taking full advantage of available platform integrations.
What is happening on the advertising side of things?
Here some significant things have been announced. This includes the renaming of DoubleClick Search to Search Ads 360, as well as the launch of Display & Video 360 and the renaming of Google AdWords to simply Google Ads. But regardless of the names, the theme remains the simplification and integration of Google’s vast network of advertising services, with Analytics remaining at the heart of it all — enabling you make informed decisions about all of the tools you use to drive traffic.
How does E-Nor feel about this?
In our opinion, this is a necessary, positive, and much anticipated product strategy evolution from Google. We feel that this merger of platforms needed to happen. It’s no secret that taking the difficulty out of integrating advertising systems and analytics makes for more agile and cost effective marketing. The combination of these platforms will only increase cross-product integration, and our bet is, the associated ROI. We’re excited to support our clients with best-in-class analytics and optimization, and leverage our relationships with best-in-breed media partners to maximize client success.
Additionally, this merger of Google’s systems also continues to position the “Google Stack” well for integrations with other major Enterprise players, as illustrated by the Salesforce integration announced late last year.
What’s to come?
If history is any guide, there will still be some waiting until the ultimate vision announced comes to fruition, but we are very excited about this new unified product strategy. We’re looking forward to working with our customers and industry partners to leverage the new combined platform to even greater benefit for marketers.
With this announcement, and other recent product updates/upgrades, Google is doing the following:
- bringing even more behavioral and marketing data together more seamlessly
- moving their analytics products towards a more cloud-service-integrated approach
- building more data analysis capabilities and import/export services with their Google Cloud Platform products
…and through E-Nor’s partnership with both Google Marketing Platform and Google Cloud Platform we are uniquely positioned to assist our clients with business-driving data integrations the likes of which were previously only dreamt of and wondered about.
E-Nor will be attending the Google Marketing Live conference in July and we’d love to connect. Reach out to us, or leave a comment, if you have any questions, we’d love to hear your thoughts.
