Insights

Use Floodlight Goals in Google Ads with Default Conversion Goals

What are Floodlight goals?

According to Google, Floodlight is a system that Search Ads 360 and Campaign Manager use to track and report conversions across engines. A Floodlight activity, or goal, is a specific conversion that you track.

Enable Auction time bidding and reap the Floodlight benefits

Google recently announced Auction Time Bidding (ATB) for Search Ads 360 (SA360), which also requires Default Conversion Goals (DCG). DCG allows you to import your primary conversion goals (Floodlight goals) from SA360 into Google Ads. The most obvious benefit of ATB (it’s in the name, after all) is leveraging auction-time bidding for Google campaigns to supercharge automated bidding strategy performance.

Not so obviously, you can now view Floodlight goals at the search query level in Google Ads, to get an accurate understanding of search query performance.

When my SA360 account manager told me about DCG, my mind was blown.

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SA360 users, we can do better than this.

What does reporting look like?

When you view reports in Google Ads, Floodlight conversions will be reported along with Google Ads conversion actions in the All conversions and Conversions column. You can create a custom column for each to report on them separately.

Are there any other benefits in Google Ads?

Yeah!

Along with Google Ads reports unique to Google Ads including Floodlight conversions, Account Recommendations and Optimization Score will also use Floodlight conversions as the source of truth, making Google’s recommendations more accurate. Account management just got way easier!

Is SA360 the best 3rd party platform?

It depends on your needs! All else equal, SA360’s conversions can now integrate with your Google Ads account, so you can get an accurate picture of search query performance right in the engine.

This is a no-brainer! I want to use DCG!

Ask your SA360 account manager if you’re eligible and if they can help with implementation.

Still need help? We’re tight with our engine managers. Drop us a line and let’s work together to stop guessing.

Have you already started using Default Conversion Goals and Auction Time Bidding?

Let us know how this has affected your performance!

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Ali  Wilson
Ali Wilson
Lead (Channel), Paid Media