Google Ad Manager 360, have you heard of that?

What is GAM 360?

Google Ad Manager 360 is a paid version of GAM access for publishers who have crossed the monthly impressions limit*. Because of its high impressions requirement, GAM 360 is mostly used by enterprise publishers with elaborated teams to manage ad ops, ad sales, and inventory.

• The monthly impression limit depends on the geography. Here is how it looks:

• 90M monthly impressions from non-video ad units for the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
• 200M monthly impressions from non-video ad units for countries supported by Google in Europe and Asia.
• 150M monthly impressions from non-video ad units + 800K monthly impressions from video ad units for all countries supported by Google to use Ad Manager.

In addition to the free version, the paid version offers several additional features including more detailed audience segmentation, integration with Google Data Studio, and a new reporting dashboard.

The pricing must be negotiated with the Google Sales representative who is available on contact. The final price may depend on the monthly impressions number, additional features, and type of Google support opted by the publisher.

Google Ad Manager vs. Google Ad Manager 360

AdManager integrates with Google Analytics, AdSense, and Ad Exchange to provide better end-to-end management. Here is how GAM 360 levels up:

When a publisher is about to reach the threshold number, a Google Account Manager contacts to share the details related to GAM 360, along with a rate card. Publishers can choose to use Google Ad Manager until they reach the threshold.

Benefits of Having GAM 360

Link GAM to Google Data Studio for more visual reporting

Reporting becomes tricky as the impression number increases. With complex sell-cycles and ever-increasing line items, publishers try to find better reporting methods. This is where GAM 360 helps publishers by allowing linking to Data Studio. It turns your data into informative reports and dashboards that are easy to read and share.

Here is how you can link them:

Step 1: Enable Data Studio reporting for GAM

• In the Ad Manager dashboard, click Admin > Global Settings > Check the Ad Manager Reporting in Google Data Studio checkbox and Save it.

Step 2: Add user permissions to roles

• The built-in “Administrator” and “Executive” roles already have the permission to add/use Data Studio.
• Other than that, if you wish to allow Data Studio access to other users, then add it to their profiles.
• Click Admin > Access & authorization > Roles. Select users and add a Data Studio reporting option.

Step 3: Add Ad Manager as a data source to Data Studio

• In the Data Studio account, click Create + > Google Ad Manager 360.

• Authorize to grant Data Studio access to your account.
• Click Available networks > choose Ad Manager account > choose types of report (Historical). Click CONNECT on the upper right corner.

The most used dimension and metrics from Ad Manager historical reports will start appearing in report type. These reports can be further updated and shared with the team.

Audience Solution feature for better audience segmentation

Using Audience Solution, publishers can segment audiences based on various demographics. Suppose, a magazine publisher has a bunch of visitors who frequently consume travelling content. This group can be categorized as ‘travel enthusiasts’. Later, this group can be targeted by advertisers looking for people interested in travelling. 

This is how it works:

• Audience data is aggregated into a list using identifiers (cookies and online IDs).
• Data from pages with GAM tag is segmented based on the frequency of visits, interests through ad units or key-value targeting, and membership details.
• These segmented lists can be names such as “sports enthusiasts” for sporting goods ads or “travellers” for vacation advertisements for advertisers to easily understand the audience.
• A publisher can further discuss more detailed segmentation filters with advertisers especially in the case of direct deals.

Segment types supported by Audience Solution

Create Team for streamlined user management

The team is a feature that helps restrict/allow a user access to certain items such as order, line items, ad units, and more. Basically, enterprise publishers are expected to have large teams of in-house employees and freelancers. In such a case, instead of customizing user access for each user, the publisher can simply create teams and add users to them. All the access rights allowed to the team will be allowed to users in it. Moreover, users can be added to multiple teams.

Example: Add team to the orders:

• When creating or editing line items, click Teams to select and add users. And Save.

One or more users can be added with access to line items within the order along with reporting capabilities.

Advanced Video Ad Options

With GAM 360, publishers also get access to advanced solutions for video ads. However, the availability of these options may depend on the type of your GAM 360 account. Publishers who have advanced GAM 360 have access to more video ad features than publishers using GAM 360. 

Some key features that publishers get access to with GAM 360 are:

• As mentioned above, audience measurement tools.
• Publishers can create video ad rules for defining how their ads are being displayed within the video content. 
• Through dynamic insertion, publishers get access to server-side insertion of video ads.