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Google Ads vs Google Campaign Manager: What are the differences?
Google Ads and Google Campaign Manager are two advertising platforms offered by Google. Let's explore the key differences between them.
Google Ads: Google Ads is an online advertising platform that allows businesses to create and manage their online ads. It provides various advertising options, including search ads, display ads, video ads, and app ads. With Google Ads, businesses can target specific keywords, demographics, and locations to reach their desired audience. It also provides detailed analytics and tracking tools to measure the effectiveness of the ads.
Google Campaign Manager: Google Campaign Manager, previously known as DoubleClick Campaign Manager, is a platform specifically designed for managing and tracking digital advertising campaigns. It focuses on tracking and attributing the success of advertising campaigns across different channels and devices, including display ads, video ads, and rich media ads. Campaign Manager provides advanced features like cross-device tracking, ad tag management, and centralized reporting.
Integration with Other Platforms: Google Ads has integrations with various Google products and services, such as Google Analytics, Google Merchant Center, and YouTube. These integrations allow businesses to utilize their data across different platforms, optimize campaigns, and track conversions effectively. On the other hand, Google Campaign Manager integrates with other DoubleClick solutions, such as DoubleClick Studio for ad creative production and DoubleClick Bid Manager for programmatic media buying.
Campaign Tracking and Attribution: While both Google Ads and Google Campaign Manager offer tracking and reporting capabilities, they differ in terms of their primary focus. Google Ads primarily focuses on tracking conversions and attributing them to specific keywords and campaigns. It provides conversion tracking and conversion actions to measure the success of advertising campaigns. In contrast, Google Campaign Manager focuses on tracking campaign reach, frequency, and engagement across multiple channels and devices. It provides advanced attribution modeling options to understand the impact of different touchpoints in the customer journey.
Ad Inventory and Buying Options: Google Ads allows businesses to directly buy ad inventory on Google's search results pages, display network, YouTube, and partner websites through options like cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-impression (CPM). It provides real-time bidding and targeting options to optimize campaign performance. Google Campaign Manager, on the other hand, focuses on managing and tracking ad campaigns, not directly buying ad inventory. It supports buying options through other DoubleClick solutions like DoubleClick Bid Manager for programmatic buying.
Ad Creative Management: Google Ads provides tools for creating and managing ad creative assets, including text ads, image ads, video ads, and responsive ads. It offers various ad extensions and customization options to optimize ad performance. Google Campaign Manager, although primarily focused on campaign management and tracking, provides advanced ad creative management capabilities like dynamic creative optimization and ad tag management.
In summary, Google Ads is a comprehensive online advertising platform for creating, managing, and optimizing ads across multiple channels, while Google Campaign Manager is specifically designed for managing and tracking digital advertising campaigns across channels and devices. Google Ads offers integration with various Google products and services, focusing on conversions and targeting options, while Google Campaign Manager integrates with other DoubleClick solutions, focusing on campaign tracking and advanced attribution modeling.
