Google Simplifies First-Party Data Management

Google announced a new product designed to help marketers improve their campaigns using first party data. Google Ads Data Manager will allow users to better measure conversion and reach people with relevant ads.

First-party data is the data businesses gather directly from their customers through their interactions and is often more valuable than third party data gathered from cookies or other sources. Google estimates that “less than a third of marketers consistently and effectively access and integrate first-party data across channels.”

Businesses must acquire this data securely and with consent, adhering to rapidly changing privacy regulations. Once acquired, deriving insights to improve marketing campaigns requires engineers and data analysts, sometimes creating custom queries to access the relevant data.

Google Ads Data Manager aims to simplify this process. It will be rolling out progressively in 2024 within Google Ads and will first focus on the enhanced conversion for leads and Customer Match features.

This tool will facilitate the way businesses integrate their first party data with Google’s ads solutions by centralizing data management with little or no need for code. Analysts will be able to generate new insights that will allow marketers to “more easily measure conversions, reach people with relevant ads and get insights from data to drive better outcomes.”

From there, Google intends to bring additional benefits to other ads products through the continued streamlining and accessibility of first-party data. It will also be building connectors to allow users to integrate a variety of data sources, including ActiveCampaign, Pipedrive and Shopify. It will also include connectors for common cloud-based enterprise data storage systems such as Lytics and Zapier.

Sansiri was one of the first businesses to test the Google Ads Data Manager. The real estate developer measured a 43% increase in qualified leads. “The simplified and direct import was not only efficient but also showed that it can leverage our first-party data to help improve quality leads,” said Maneerat Sriprachan, digital marketing analytic team lead at Sansiri.

Kamal Janardhan, Google’s Senior Director of Product Management, Measurement asserts that this first-party data strategy “is a unique advantage that you can create by investing now and developing a deeper understanding of your customers. Google Ads Data Manager simplifies the process of bringing those relationships to your marketing to drive effective and durable measurement.”