Set up Google Ads

Introduction 

Marketing organizations require insight into the performance of their campaigns, measured as cost-per-outcome (CPO) or ideally return on investment (ROI). Planful for Marketing integrates with Google to automate tracking.

Planful for Marketing connects to Google Ads API in a read-only integration, pulling summary data. It automatically creates campaigns based on the configured Google Ads campaigns. Additionally, it maps Google metrics (impressions, clicks, and conversions) to Planful for Marketing metrics, associated with each newly created campaign.

Once the connection is established, Planful for Marketing updates current metrics and cost data from Google on a daily basis.

Integration Process 

To integrate Google Ads with Planful for Marketing, follow these steps assuming you have the role of Planful for Marketing Admin and access to a Google Ads account:

• Connect Planful for Marketing to Google Ads.
• Assign Planful for Marketing segments to synchronized campaigns.
• Optionally, organize campaigns in a hierarchy.

Once integrated, your Google Ads metrics and cost data will automatically sync with Planful for Marketing. This provides valuable insights into campaign performance, target tracking, and future projections.

In Practice: To Setup a Google Ads

1. Click on the Settings icon and select Integrations > Enable Google Ads.
   
2. Enter a name for your integration.
3. Select a Parent campaign or segment to sync your Google campaigns.
4. Select whether you want to sync data from the Beginning of this Month or the Beginning of my fiscal year.
5. Optionally, you can toggle the Set budget based on daily limit option.
6. Select the required time for Download data daily at.
7. Click Sign in with Google.
   
8. Select your email id.
   
9. Select the required checkboxes and click Continue.
   

Map Google metrics to Planful for Marketing metrics (Optional) 

Once the integration is successful, a screen will appear where you can choose the metrics from Google Ads that you want to use in Planful for Marketing. These include impressions, clicks, and conversions. On the right side, you can specify whether you want to map each Google metric to Planful for Marketing, and if so, select the corresponding Planful for Marketing metric to map it to.

The default mapping of metrics is impressions, clicks, and conversions. However, you can change this mapping on this screen. For example, if you want conversions from Google to appear as Leads and don't want integrations or clicks to be included, you can adjust the settings accordingly.

You can return to this screen later to change your Google to Planful for Marketing metrics mapping by going to the admin menu, and selecting Integrations > Google Ads Mapping. 

In Practice: Assigning a Segment 

Once your Google Ads campaigns are synchronized with Planful for Marketing, they will be initially assigned to a default segment. However, we recommend reassigning these campaigns to the appropriate segment within your budget.

To make this update, go to the homepage and locate the Assign segments to imported campaigns widget. You can easily reassign campaigns by selecting a segment from the dropdown menu for each campaign individually or by selecting multiple campaigns and assigning them to the same segment. Once all your Google Ads campaigns are assigned to a segment, the widget will no longer appear.

Once a campaign from Google is created in Planful for Marketing, it behaves differently from other Planful for Marketing campaigns in two ways:

• The name and type can not be changed. 
• Expenses are automatically generated every month within the campaign. When an expense is created, it will have a Planned amount calculated by multiplying your daily spending limit (as set in Google) by the number of days in the month. This expense is updated daily to reflect your actual spending, known as the "committed" amount. At the end of the month, the expense is closed with the total spend for that campaign (obtained from Google) as the "closed" amount. For the following month, a new expense will be created to track expenses.

In Practice: Assigning Campaigns to a Hierarchy 

In Planful for Marketing, you have the ability to establish a hierarchy of goals and campaigns to monitor your team's progress effectively. This hierarchy is created through a parent/child relationship, where you can designate a campaign or goal as the parent of another campaign. By doing so, all cost and metric data from the child campaigns are rolled up and displayed at the parent level, providing aggregated information.

This feature is particularly beneficial when tracking Google Ads campaigns in a centralized manner. For instance, you can create a campaign named "Demand Gen" or simply "Google Ads" and designate it as the parent campaign for all campaigns resulting from your new integration. By viewing the parent campaign, you can access the allocation, spending, and metrics of all your Google Ads campaigns combined. To establish the hierarchy and assign a campaign to a parent campaign (or goal), simply drag and drop a campaign card onto the desired parent campaign.

Or you can simply use the Parent field on the campaign detail page: