Tag Archives: Google Marketing Platform

New ways to reach your audiences with Programmatic Guaranteed

With uncertainty about what will come next and many teams still working from home, marketers tell us they are looking for ways to make every advertising dollar count while also increasing operational efficiency. Programmatic Guaranteed in Display & Video 360 helps you achieve both. First, it gives you a more productive way to engage with your audiences than traditional reservations by increasing reach for the same budget. Second, it reduces the manual work required to set up deals by automating many steps of the campaign management workflow. Today we’re improving Programmatic Guaranteed by adding support for Google Audiences so you can reach people with more precision, giving you more control over how you execute your media buy, and expanding access to premium inventory.

Support for Google Audiences

To make sure you’re only reaching the people who are likely to be interested in your products, Programmatic Guaranteed now supports Google Audiences. This means that you can drive higher ROI by reaching the specific groups of consumers who are most likely to respond to your message based on Google’s unique understanding of intent, in addition to improving reach and efficiency.

For example, if you’re an automotive company planning a campaign to launch a new all-wheel drive vehicle, you can create a deal with a top news publisher to only show ads to outdoor and winter sports enthusiasts. Support for Google Audiences works on all Programmatic Guaranteed deals with Google Ad Manager publishers. Access to affinity segments is available now and we will add support for in-market audiences in the coming months.

Programmatic Guaranteed with Google Audiences is an important step forward in how we enhance reservation buys and allows us to implement consistent audience strategies for our clients across display, video and audio Adam Coulter
Head of Platforms, Omnicom Media Group Australia

New reservation features

We’re also bringing some of the most requested advertiser features from traditional reservations to Programmatic Guaranteed. First, we’ve introduced makegoods, so if a campaign doesn’t go according to plans, publishers will be able to offer extra impressions to make up for delivery issues. Second, in addition to cost-per-thousand impression (CPM) and cost-per day (CPD) sponsorships, you’ll be able to set up the sponsorship by day part or percent of share of voice.

For example, let’s say that you’re a telco operator and have a special offer for Black Friday that starts at 6 PM on Thanksgiving day. With this new feature, you’re able to reserve all impressions available between 6 PM and midnight on Thanksgiving day for the publishers that you have negotiated deals with. You could also decide to run the same promotion on 20 percent of the impressions available throughout the entire day.

Expanded access to premium inventory

In addition to publishers using Google Ad Manager, Programmatic Guaranteed is also available for publisher inventory on several popular third-party exchanges. And we’ve recently added access to four new exchanges: FreeWheel, Kargo, Smartclip and Xandr. When planning for your next campaign, you’ll have access to even more premium reservation inventory that you can buy programmatically.

With these new features, Programmatic Guaranteed will help you reach more of the people who are most likely to be interested in your products while giving you the same controls of direct reservations. If you want to learn more, you can take our latest Skillshop training module on Programmatic Guaranteed, or speak with your account team.

Grow your brand with new Google Marketing Platform tools

In the past months, we’ve seen a breakthrough in searches for terms such as "online graduation," “staycation” and “virtual classroom.” As people form new consumption habits, a strong brand is more valuable than ever. It allows you to stand out in the marketplace at a time when customers are on the lookout for the products and services that will be part of their new routines.

Today, we’re introducing a series of tools in Display & Video 360 and Campaign Manager to help you grow your brand and navigate the connected TV and digital video boom—including improved reach forecasting and measurement capabilities, more TV and video ad placements, and a solution to reach new engaged audiences on connected TV.

Real time reach forecasting that takes your deals into account

With most TV production shut down for parts of the spring and summer months, and the upfronts heavily disrupted, you may be approaching show premieres seasons with less visibility into your media plans than in years’ past. While forecasting ad spend has been more difficult than ever, planning tools that are tightly connected to your media buying platform can help you assess your media plans on the go and quickly optimize your ad strategy.

We’re further improving Display & Video 360’s forecasting tool by adding support for programmatic deals. In a few weeks, you'll be able to include deals in your deduplicated reach estimate, which already includes open auction and YouTube. This is particularly helpful for media planners working with brands that want to connect with TV viewers because most connected TV ads are secured via deals. With this added functionality, planners will be able to more easily answer questions such as, “How much incremental reach could I get by combining a network CTV deal with YouTube reservation and open auction video ads?”

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Forecasting the combined reach of a connected TV deal, a YouTube lineup and in-stream video ads in Display & Video 360.

New streaming opportunities to reach your audiences where they are

Brands that can connect with their audiences as their interests and needs evolve have a head start on driving brand awareness for the long term. Buying media with a platform that gives you access to a large and varied portfolio of streaming content helps you reach these audiences in a more flexible way.

Today, Display & Video 360 provides access to the top 50 most watched ad supported connected TV apps in the US, according to Comscore. And to give you even more options to find your audience, we’re making more popular YouTube inventory available in Display & Video 360. For example, we integrated YouTube TV into the list of YouTube content you can reserve and manage - accessible via the streaming TV lineup. We’ve also just opened up access to Masthead ads, the prominent space in YouTube’s Home feed. This beta feature includes the YouTube Masthead on TV screens.

Lastly, we’re exploring other innovative canvases for brands to increase awareness. For instance, media and entertainment marketers in the US are currently testing a new cinematic teaser format that fits the look and feel of Android TV’s home screen.

Find new engaged connected TV audiences

Life in the new normal includes more connected TV watch time than before. To help marketers make the most of this extra reach opportunity, we’ve recently extended our similar audience functionality to connected TV devices in Display & Video 360. This feature allows you to find new connected TV viewers who share similarities with the audiences you already know.

For example, if you're an auto brand who has seen success in reaching “Truck & SUV Enthusiasts” with Google affinity audiences, you will now be able to easily reach additional connected TV viewers who have similar attributes to this group. Or if you know that people who use your mobile app are more likely to schedule a test drive, you can show your ads to connected TV viewers who have similarities with your app users.

Similar audiences can be used to extend your reach across connected TV inventory sources in Display & Video 360.

Durable reach measurement in Display & Video 360 and Campaign Manager

Marketers are on the hook to connect marketing spend with tangible results. This includes being able to provide a clear picture of any ad campaign’s reach and frequency performance. To give marketers an accurate and durable view of how they reach people across Display & Video 360 and Campaign Manager, we’re increasing our investment in Unique Reach solutions.

First, we’ve launched Unique Reach Audience reporting. This report further extends unique reach measurement to include demographic insights. So while you could already answer the question ‘How many unique users did my ad reach?’, you can now also answer the question ‘How many unique users within a particular demographic did my ad reach?’

Second, using the IAB’s Identifier for Advertising (IFA) standard, we’ve added Unique Reach support for connected TV devices. This capability gives brands a more precise understanding of the impact of ads on connected TVs and better articulates their contribution to the overall reach and frequency performance of digital advertising.

Building for the future, we’re continuing to replace cookie-based reach with Unique Reach across our products. Next up, frequency distribution and viewable reach measurement will soon be based off of Unique Reach. This will help you report on these metrics even when cookies aren't available.

To learn more ways to build your brand in this new world, check out this new collection of resources on our Advertising Solutions Center.

New ways to support multicultural publishers in Display & Video 360

Recently, marketers have asked us how they can support multicultural publishers, including those owned by members of the Black and Latino communities.

For example, the team at GroupM shared that they’re eager to drive change in this area. “We’ve seen a lot of interest from marketers who want to be more inclusive with their advertising budgets,” said Gonzalo del Fa, president of GroupM Multicultural. “But it’s difficult to discover and engage with multicultural publishers. At GroupM, we’ve made it a priority to support the content created by these communities, and we’re always looking for new ways to foster that support.”

As part of Google’s commitment to support Black and Latino-owned publishers, we're introducing new ways for marketers to discover and support a more diverse set of publishers in Display & Video 360's Marketplace.

First, when accessing Marketplace you will soon find auction packages with a clear indicator that they feature inventory from multicultural publishers. Working in coordination with our Display & Video 360 exchange partners, these publishers have self-identified as being owned by members of multicultural communities and have opted to participate in this program. Second, we’ll use the same indicators to make it easier to discover properties in Marketplace owned by members of multicultural communities so you can easily select and add such properties to your media plans.

As always, Display & Video 360 doesn’t permit advertisers to personalize ads based on categories such as race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, per our policies, and this program does not change anything in that regard. Rather, these new features simply help marketers who would like to support businesses owned by self-identified members of multicultural communities find such inventory.

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Discover auction packages and inventory from Black-owned publishers in the Featured tab of Marketplace in Display & Video 360

We’re rolling out these changes in the coming weeks for U.S. advertisers, starting by highlighting Black-owned publishers, and we'll soon expand to additional groups. For publishers that are Black-owned, we’re working with the following exchanges to highlight this inventory in Display & Video 360: Google Ad Manager, GumGum, Kargo, Magnite, TripleLift, Verizon Media, Xandr and YieldMo.

As we expand this effort to highlight other multicultural groups, we’ll continue to explore new ways to allow marketers to support content from a diverse set of publishers.

Measure conversions while respecting user consent choices

With so many people around the world turning to online shopping this year, advertisers need to measure how effective their digital campaigns are at driving online sales. What’s more, data-protection authorities in Europe may now require many businesses to obtain consent from users on their digital properties for activities related to advertising and/or analytics—impacting advertisers’ understanding of how users are converting on their sites.

Last month, we shared that we’ve integrated our ads systems with the IAB Europe’s Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) v2.0. For businesses that choose to use this method to gather user consent, Google’s ad systems will read and respect the Transparency and Consent String, so businesses can comply with applicable regulations.

For advertisers who choose not to use TCF v2.0, we’re introducing a new solution to offer more flexibility in how they use Google tags alongside their user consent tools. Consent Mode introduces two new tag settings that manage cookies for advertising and analytics purposes for advertisers using the global site tag or Google Tag Manager. These two settings can be used to customize how Google tags behave before and after users make their consent decisions – helping advertisers more effectively measure conversions, while respecting user consent choices for ads cookies and analytics cookies.

Using Consent Mode with Google’s ad platforms

Attributing conversions to the campaign that drove them is a key priority for advertisers. It helps them better optimize campaign bids and reallocate budget towards the best performers. With Consent Mode, advertisers can achieve greater insight into conversion data while also making sure that the Google tags helping them measure conversions are reflecting users' consent choices for ads cookies.

Once Consent Mode is implemented, advertisers will have access to a new tag setting, “ad_storage,” which controls cookie behavior for advertising purposes, including conversion measurement. If a user does not provide consent for ads cookies, Google tags will not use cookies for advertising purposes.

Let’s say someone visits your website and makes their consent selection for the use of ads cookies on your cookie consent banner. With Consent Mode, your Google tags will be able to determine whether or not permission has been given for your site to use cookies for advertising purposes for that user. If a user consents, conversion measurement reporting continues normally. If a user does not consent, the relevant Google tags will adjust accordingly and not use ads cookies, instead measuring conversions at a more aggregate level.

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With Consent Mode, you can update Google tag behavior based on the user consent selection.

With Consent Mode, campaigns running on Google Ads, Campaign Manager, Display & Video 360, and Search Ads 360 will be able to continue reporting conversions – while respecting users’ consent choices for ads cookies. And because you’re able to retain conversion measurement in your campaign reporting, you’ll be able to continue attributing conversions to the right campaign and optimize your campaign bidding efficiently.

Using Consent Mode with Google Analytics

Consent Mode also works with Google Analytics. This means that Analytics will be able to understand and respect user consent for ads cookies. For example, when the “ad_storage” tag setting is disabled for unconsented users, Analytics will not read or write ads cookies, meaning that optional features that rely on Google signals, like remarketing, will be disabled.

In addition to the “ad_storage” tag setting, Consent Mode provides advertisers with a new tag setting, “analytics_storage,” which controls analytics cookie usage. Let’s say you would like to request consent for both analytics and ads cookies from users on your website. You can use Consent Mode to update Google tag behavior based on the user selection for each type of cookie. Analytics will adjust data collection based on user consent for each of the “ad_storage” and “analytics_storage” settings. For example, if a user does not provide consent for ads cookies (and therefore advertising purposes are disabled), but does provide consent for analytics cookies, advertisers will still be able to measure site behavior and conversions in Analytics as the “analytics_storage” setting will be enabled.

Getting started

Consent Mode is available in beta to a limited number of advertisers that operate in Europe and already use the global site tag or Tag Manager. To learn more about the feature, visit our Help Center here.

If you’re interested in getting started with Consent Mode, please reach out to your Google account team. Implementing Consent Mode requires adding a few lines of code above your global site tag or Tag Manager container. To help with this process, we have partnered closely with several Consent Management Platforms. A few are already integrated with Consent Mode and are ready to help.

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Consent Management Platforms that are already integrated with Consent Mode.

Changes designed to improve user privacy are continuing to impact the digital advertising ecosystem, and we’re committed to helping your business navigate this new environment. To learn more about steps you can take, download our privacy playbook. And stay tuned for more new capabilities to help you manage and respect user consent choices for ads and analytics cookies across platforms.

Improve performance and security with Server-Side Tagging

To measure the effectiveness of digital campaigns and understand the customer journey, businesses often work with a variety of technology partners. Doing so typically requires businesses to add JavaScript code written by these partners, also known as third-party tags, directly to their websites. But when too many tags load on a site, it can negatively affect the customer experience--and conversion rates. Plus, since third-party tags running directly on a site could have broad access to information entered on that page, it’s important for businesses to have control over what information those tags can access.

To help address these challenges, we’re introducing Server-Side Tagging to Google Tag Manager and Tag Manager 360. You’ll now be able to move many third-party tags off your site and into a new server container hosted in your Google Cloud account. That means when customers interact with a page on your site, third-party tags are loaded directly in the server container rather than the site. This provides you with faster page load times, greater security for your customer data, and additional data controls.

Deliver faster site experiences to your customers

When you move third-party tags off your site, fewer tags must load when your customers visit – leading to faster page load times. A recent research study showed that a decrease in page load times for mobile sites improved progression rates for every step of the purchase funnel for all brands surveyed. In fact, for retail sites every 0.1 second reduction in mobile site speed on average increases average order value by nearly 10 percent.

Consider an ecommerce retailer that works with many technology partners to execute marketing campaigns and measure customer behavior. Whenever this retailer wants to work with a new partner, for example to run email marketing campaigns, it needs to add a new third-party tag to its site to measure success. Instead of doing that, the retailer can now place the new tag into its server container in Tag Manager. And when a customer loads the retailer’s site, this tag will run in the server container after the page loads. This allows businesses to measure the success of their campaign without impacting the customer experience.

Secure your customer data

When customers engage with your business online, they share information with you. You want to ensure that information is safe and only authorized partners are able to access it.

When third-party tags are implemented directly on your site, these tags are able to access and interact with other information customers are entering into your site. With Server-Side Tagging, you place third-party tags in a secure server container in your Google Cloud project. This means tags in your server container only have access to information sent to the server and no longer have access to the information entered on your site. And because these tags are placed into your server container, you gain visibility into what data the tags are collecting and where that information is being sent.

Control the behavior of third-party tags

Tag Manager already allows you to control third-party tag behavior through a sandboxed version of JavaScript, ready-to-go tag templates fromthe Community Template Gallery, and a permissions model for all third-party tags. All of these capabilities continue to be available with Server-Side Tagging.

Each tag that you add to your server container will have to declare how it will behave, for example which cookies can be accessed or where data can be sent. And you can also set policies to automatically control what tags are allowed to do. This helps you ensure that any new tags added to your container follow the same permissions so you do not need to continuously check tag behaviors in the future.

Get started with Server-Side Tagging

Server-Side Tagging is now available to all Tag Manager and Tag Manager 360 accounts. When you log into your Tag Manager account, you can create a new server container and connect it with a new or existing Cloud account. You can learn more about setting up Server-Side Tagging for your business with this guide. And if you don’t have a Tag Manager account, you can create one for free.

Google integrates into IAB Europe TCF v2.0

Providing people with transparency and control over how their data is used—and ensuring their choices are respected—are key pillars of Google’s approach to developing advertising products. In a complex digital advertising ecosystem, we’re committed to supporting efforts to manage user consent and compliance through a standardized framework. That’s why by August 15, 2020, we’ll integrate our ads systems with the IAB Europe’s Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) v2.0, in line with the switchover date from v1.0 set by the IAB Europe.


As a member of IAB Europe's TCF Working Group, we contributed to the development of TCF v2.0. This new framework standardizes the process of gathering, managing and communicating user permissions for how their information may be used in the advertising supply chain. Most significantly, it means that people can make choices on a per vendor and per purpose basis, and this choice will be respected in the ads that are served by all participating platforms. With improved interoperability, publishers and marketers using TCF v2.0 have more control and flexibility about how they integrate and collaborate with their technology partners, including Google. 


To support our partners with the transition, we will give them a 90-day grace period from August 15 to ensure their implementation is working properly and meeting our policy requirements. 


Our integration with the TCF v2.0 applies to ads we serve on publisher inventory and not Google owned and operated inventory, for which consent is obtained through our own consent flows. The integration also doesn’t change any of our policies for publishers or marketers, including our EU User Consent Policy, which helps ensure users have transparency into and control over how their data is being collected and used to serve personalized ads.


It is up to our partners whether they choose to use TCF v2.0. Publishers can still continue to work with Google independently by using the Ad Technology Provider controls we launched in 2018 across Ad Manager, AdSense and AdMob. Marketers can still continue to work with Google independently by using the features launched in 2018 across Google Ads and Display & Video 360. These controls will continue to function outside of the TCF v2.0. 


This integration marks the successful collaboration across our industry for a standardized framework that combines both ease of use and interoperability, and will give people greater control over how their data is used.

Run audio ads easily with new tools in Display & Video 360

In 2020, U.S. adults are projected to listen to digital audio more than radio for the first time ever. As the audio landscape continues to shift more heavily to digital, marketers have more opportunities to reach their audiences and get their attention using a long-proven format. Google continues to help marketers embrace this shift with new and improved audio product offerings.

We’re introducing new audio capabilities in Display & Video 360 to simplify the ad creation process, make it easier to find the right audio inventory for your brand, and improve measurement.

Easily create compelling audio ads at scale

Audio ads are a unique way to reach customers when they aren't looking at their devices, but are still engaged with content and receptive to brand messages. Whether listening to a podcast on a drive, streaming music while out for a walk, or using voice with a smart speaker, there are multiple times a day to reach users through audio. But creating professional grade audio ads can be difficult and costly. Our new audio ad creation tool, Audio Mixer, is a one-stop-shop for advertisers and agencies looking to easily create audio ads at scale.

With Audio Mixer, marketers are able to upload multiple tracks including music, sound effects and voice, while also having full edit control to create a high quality audio ad. Audio Mixer also allows brands and agencies to add the companion display creative that will be shown with the audio tracks. The preview gives marketers a better sense of their customers’ full audio ad experience. Marketers can then share the complete audio ad and companion asset for brand approvals through a link that does not require Display & Video 360 access.

One of our Audio Mixer beta users, Joystick Interactive, has found the product to be both simple to use and impactful. Andrew Henry, Head of Client Services at Joystick, says that “the Display & Video 360 Audio Mixer platform is an ideal solution to create custom audio ads quickly. The user-friendly interface provides the tools to create professional, high quality ads no matter the level of technical expertise.”

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 A demo of Audio Mixer’s track setup and editing ability

Audio Mixer is now available globally in Display & Video 360. For information on how to get started, please visit the help center.

Discover audio inventory in Marketplace

To help advertisers connect with audio publishers and view available inventory for their campaigns, audio will soon have its own section in Marketplace. Marketplace will showcase inventory from top audio partners including AdsWizz, iHeart, Pandora, SoundCloud (global), Spotify, Triton Digital and TuneIn, among others. It will also provide marketers with more audio-specific information, such as content type to distinguish between music, radio and podcasts.

Audio inventory in Marketplace is now fully available. You can find additional details here.

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A view of Audio in Marketplace

In addition to highlighting audio in Marketplace, we're working to increase access to new audio inventory. For example, advertisers can now access digital audio inventory through Programmatic Guaranteed deals and other programmatic transaction types on Google Ad Manager. As a part of this, Ad Manager is also introducing new audio monetization features that help publishers sell their audio inventory programmatically to marketers.

Building stronger brand measurement in audio

Google’s Brand Liftoffering is an ad measurement solution that evaluates the impact of ad campaigns on brand perception. As one of the most requested product features for audio, we look forward to expanding Brand Lift measurement to audio inventory later this year.

With Brand Lift, advertisers will have the ability to understand if their audio campaigns are impacting brand favorability metrics, such as awareness, ad recall, consideration and purchase intent. The offering will also provide programmatic buyers with actionable insights for in-flight optimizations as early as seven days into the campaign, with reporting slices across areas like creative and line item. Additionally, the tool will provide marketers with unified measurement across audio, video and YouTube campaigns.

As the ability to reach people through audio continues to grow, we are working on building additional features to help advertisers take full advantage of the growing audience opportunity. This includes solutions for dynamic audio creation, contextual targeting, podcasts and more. We are excited for what the future of audio will bring.

Updates on our work to improve user privacy in digital advertising

Privacy is core to our work at Google, and to our vision for a thriving internet where people around the world can continue to access ad-supported content, while also feeling confident that their data is protected. But in order to get there, we must increase transparency into how digital advertising works, offer users additional controls, and ensure that people’s choices about the use of their data are respected—not worked around or ignored. 

Today we’re sharing updates on our work in these areas, including new tools that provide people more information about the ads they see. We’re also introducing new resources for marketers and publishers that offer guidance on how to navigate today’s privacy environment, along with real-world examples from brands and media companies who are delivering effective, privacy-forward ad experiences that use data responsibly.


Greater transparency, more control

For many years Google has offered a feature called Why this ad, where from an icon in a digital ad, users can get more information on some of the factors that were used to select the ad for them, or choose to stop seeing that ad. There are over 15 million user interactions per day with Why this ad as people seek to learn more about and control the ads they see, and we recently extended this feature to ads on connected TVs. 

Over the next few months, we’ll be making improvements to the experience with a new feature called About this ad, which will also show users the verified name of the advertiser behind each ad. About this ad will initially be available for display ads purchased through Google Ads and Display & Video 360, and we’ll bring it to other ad surfaces throughout 2021.

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Our commitment to increase transparency and offer users more control goes beyond the ads Google shows. Due to the complexity of the digital ads ecosystem and the large number of entities involved, it’s typically not clear to users which companies are even involved in showing them an ad. To provide people with detailed information about all the ads they see on the web, we’re releasing a new tool called Ads Transparency Spotlight, now available to try out as an alpha extension from the Chrome Web Store. We’ll continue to improve this extension based on feedback from users, and over time we expect to offer additional disclosures about ads, as well as introduce controls. Our hope is that other technology providers will build similar transparency and control capabilities into the experiences they offer as well.


Evolving the ad-supported internet

Chrome continues to explore more privacy-forward ways for the web browser to support digital ads with the Privacy Sandbox open standards initiative. As part of the Privacy Sandbox, several proposals have been published for new APIs that would solve for use cases like ad selection, conversion measurement, and fraud protection in a way that doesn’t reveal identifying information about individual users. One of the proposed APIs, for trust tokens that could combat ad fraud by distinguishing between bots and real users, is now available for testing by developers, and more will move to live testing soon.

Once these approaches have addressed the needs of users, publishers and advertisers, Chrome plans to phase out support for third-party cookies. These proposals are being actively discussed in forums like the W3C. Our ads team is actively contributing to this dialog—as we encourage any interested party to do—and we expect to incorporate the new solutions into our products in the years ahead.

We’re also exploring a range of other approaches to improve user privacy while ensuring publishers can earn what they need to fund great content and advertisers can reach the right people for their products. For example, we support the use of advertiser and publisher first-party data (based on direct interactions with customers they have relationships with) to deliver more relevant and helpful experiences—as long as users have transparency and control over the use of that data. What is not acceptable is the use of opaque or hidden techniques that transfer data about individual users and allow them to be tracked in a covert manner, such as fingerprinting. We believe that any attempts to track people or obtain information that could identify them, without their knowledge and permission, should be blocked. We’ll continue to take a strong position against these practices.

Much of the recent conversation about improving the privacy of digital ads has been focused on the web, but there are a range of environments in which people engage with digital ads. Our technical approach and the implementation details may vary based on the unique characteristics of each, but our vision to uplevel user privacy while preserving access to free content is consistent across web, mobile app, connected TV, digital audio—and whatever the next area to emerge may be.


Guidance for advertisers and publishers

The future state of digital advertising promises new technologies, new standards, and better, more sustainable approaches, but it will take some time to get there. We recognize the unease that many in the industry feel during this period of transition. While there is certainly more change on the horizon, it’s critical that marketers and publishers do not wait to take action. 

To help you prepare, we’ve assembled a number of recommendations for marketers and publishers to consider today. From best practices for building direct relationships with your customers and managing data, to tips for evaluating your partner and vendor relationships, to actionable examples for using machine learning and the cloud, these playbooks offer practical guidance and numerous real-world examples of companies that are successfully navigating today’s changing privacy landscape. 

We’ll continue our work to move the digital ads industry towards a more privacy-forward future. In the meantime, make sure your organization is having an active discussion about privacy and that you are taking steps now to plan for what lies ahead.

Take control of how data is used in Google Analytics

Rising consumer expectations and changing industry regulations have set higher standards for user privacy and data protection. This has led many businesses to revisit how they are managing data in their Google Analytics accounts. To help, Analytics provides businesses with a variety of features to control how their data is used. Here is an updated overview of controls in Analytics that govern how data is collected, stored, and used–all of which can be adjusted at any time.

Three ways businesses can manage data in Google Analytics:

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Control the data settings in your account

You can access various settings in your Analytics account to control how you collect, retain, and share data.

Decide if you need to accept the Data Processing Terms.

The optional Data Processing Terms are meant for businesses affected by the European Economic Area General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and other similar regulations. You can review and accept the terms if needed in your Analytics account, under Account Settings.

Anonymize IP addresses for your Web property.

When you enable IP anonymization in your Web property, Analytics will anonymize the addresses as soon as technically feasible. This may be useful for you to comply with your company’s privacy policies or government regulations. For Apps properties and App + Web properties, IP anonymization is enabled by default.

Disable some or all data collection.

You also have the ability to partially or completely disable data collection for any of your Analytics properties. Chrome users have the ability to opt out from data collection using the Analytics opt-out Add-on.

Set the data retention period.

You can select how long user-level and event-level data is stored by Analytics, and whether new events can reset that time period. Once that amount of time has passed, the data will be scheduled for automatic deletion from your account and Google’s servers.

Select what data you share with your support team and Google.

The data sharing settings allow you to customize whether to share Analytics data with Google, including whether to allow Google technical support representatives and Google marketing specialists to access your account when you want support using the product or performance recommendations.

Review your Google signals setting.

The Google signals setting allows you to enable additional features in Analytics like remarketing, demographics and interests reports, and Cross Device reports. You can also further customize this setting to keep Google signals enabled for reporting while limiting or disabling advertising personalization.

Choose whether your data is used for ads personalization

Digital advertising helps you reach people online and drive conversions on your app and website. When you enable ads personalization in Analytics, for example by activating Google signals, you gain the ability to use your Analytics audiences to personalize your digital ads which can improve the performance of your campaigns. You can customize how your Analytics data is used for ads personalization.

Control ads personalization for your entire Analytics property.

You can choose to disable ads personalization for an entire property, which will cause all incoming events for that property to be marked as not for use in ads personalization. You can manage this in the property settings of your account.

Control ads personalization by geography.

If you need to set the ads personalization setting for your property at the geographic level, you now have the ability to enable or disable this setting by country. And in the United States, you can adjust the setting at the state level.

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Allow or disallow ads personalization by state in the United States

Control ads personalization by event type or user property.

In App + Web properties, you can adjust the ads personalization setting for a specific event type or user property. For example you can exclude specific events or user properties from being used to personalize ads and only use that data for measurement purposes.

Control ads personalization for an individual event or session.

You can also manage whether an individual event or session is used for ads personalization. For example, if you need to obtain consent before enabling the setting you can dynamically disable ads personalization at the beginning of the session and on each subsequent event until consent is obtained.

Independent of these ads personalization controls that Analytics offers to advertisers, users can control their own ads personalization setting for their Google account. Once they've turned off this setting, Google will no longer use information about them for ads personalization.

Remove data from Analytics

You can remove your data from Analytics for any reason and at any time. You can request the data to be deleted from the Analytics servers or delete information for a single user.

Request data to be deleted.

If you need to delete data from the Analytics servers, you can submit a request for its removal. There is a seven-day grace period starting from the time you make the request before Analytics will begin the deletion process. All administrators and users with edit permission for your account will be informed of your request and have the ability to cancel the request during the grace period. Similar functionality will be available in App + Web properties soon.

Delete data for individual users.

You are able to delete a single user’s data from your Analytics account. If you have edit permission for the account, you can do this through the User Explorer report in Web properties or the User Explorer technique in the Analysis module in App + Web properties. Data associated with this user will be removed from the report within 72 hours and then deleted from the Analytics servers in the next deletion process. Your reports based on previously aggregated data, for example user counts in the Audience Overview report, won’t be affected. If you need to delete data for multiple users, you can use the Analytics User Deletion API.

Delete a property.

If you have edit permission, you can delete a property from your Analytics account. Your property and all the reporting views in the property will be permanently deleted 35 days after being moved to the Trash Can. Once deleted, you are not able to retrieve any historical data or reinstate reports.

All of the above features are available to use right now. For more information, please visit the Help Center.

We hope that you found this overview of current controls helpful. Google Analytics is continuously investing in capabilities to ensure businesses can access durable, privacy-centric, and easy to use analytics that work with and without cookies or identifiers. Please stay tuned for more in the coming months.

New predictive capabilities in Google Analytics

Google Analytics helps you measure the actions people take across your app and website. By applying Google’s machine learning models, Analytics can analyze your data and predict future actions people may take. Today we are introducing two new predictive metrics to App + Web properties. The first is Purchase Probability, which predicts the likelihood that users who have visited your app or site will purchase in the next seven days. And the second, Churn Probability, predicts how likely it is that recently active users will not visit your app or site in the next seven days. You can use these metrics to help drive growth for your business by reaching the people most likely to purchase and retaining the people who might not return to your app or site via Google Ads.

Reach predictive audiences in Google Ads

Analytics will now suggest new predictive audiences that you can create in the Audience Builder. For example, using Purchase Probability, we will suggest the audience “Likely 7-day purchasers” which includes users who are most likely to purchase in the next seven days. Or using Churn Probability, we will suggest the audience “Likely 7-day churning users” which includes active users who are not likely to visit your site or app in the next seven days.

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In the Audience Builder, you can select from a set of suggested predictive audiences.

In the past, if you wanted to reach people most likely to purchase, you’d probably build an audience of people who had added products to their shopping carts but didn’t purchase. However, with this approach you might miss reaching people who never selected an item but are likely to purchase in the future. Predictive audiences automatically determine which customer actions on your app or site might lead to a purchase—helping you find more people who are likely to convert at scale.

Imagine you run a home improvement store and are trying to drive more digital sales this month. Analytics will now suggest an audience that includes everyone who is likely to purchase in the next seven days—on either your app or your site—and then you can reach them with a personalized message using Google Ads.

Or let’s say you’re an online publisher and want to maintain your average number of daily users. You can build an audience of users who are likely to not visit your app or site in the next seven days and then create a Google Ads campaign to encourage them to read one of your popular articles.

Analyze customer activity with predictive metrics

In addition to building audiences, you can also use predictive metrics to analyze your data with the Analysis module. For example, you can use the User Lifetime technique to identify which marketing campaign helped you acquire users with the highest Purchase Probability. With that information you may decide to reallocate more of your marketing budget towards that high potential campaign.

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View the Purchase Probability of users from various marketing campaigns.

You will soon be able to use predictive metrics in the App + Web properties beta to build audiences and help you determine how to optimize your marketing budget. In the coming weeks these metrics will become available in properties that have purchase events implemented or are automatically measuring in-app purchases once certain thresholds are met.

If you haven't yet created an App + Web property, you can get started here. We recommend continuing to  use your existing Analytics properties alongside an App + Web property.