Run your first sync

Only a manager admin or sub-manager admin can change the status of a client account in the new Search Ads 360.

After a manager admin or sub-manager admin links to a search client account, any new Search Ads 360 user with edit permissions can synchronise (sync) the account. Syncing imports the campaigns that have already been created in the advertising platform to the new Search Ads 360.

You'll need to sync each client account that you create. Syncing is also used if you make changes directly on the advertising platform and need those changes to be reflected in the new Search Ads 360.

Synchronisation isn't supported for social accounts and engine track accounts.

Prepare for your first sync

• Check the current status of the campaigns, ad groups and other items in the advertising platform. The new Search Ads 360 will only import active or paused items.
• In your advertising platform, remove any unwanted campaigns, ad groups or other items.
• Make sure that the time zone and currency settings are correct. After the first sync, any time zone or currency changes you make in the advertising platform will be ignored by the new Search Ads 360.
• Ensure that each keyword has a landing page URL if the advertising platform requires it. Landing page URLs for individual keywords are optional for Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising and Yahoo! JAPAN Ads accounts but are required for all other advertising platforms.

Prepare URL templates

In advertising platforms that support shared templates, you don't need to remove tracking templates in the advertising platform before you sync with the new Search Ads 360, nor do you need to manually copy tracking templates into the new Search Ads 360. Existing advertising platform templates will be retained and mapped into the new Search Ads 360 URL templates automatically.

If you have created an account-level tracking template in the advertising platform, don't define an account-level URL template in Search Ads 360 before the first sync. During your first sync for an account, any account-level URL template in the new Search Ads 360 will overwrite your account-level tracking template in the advertising platform.

After the first sync

After your first sync, any changes that you make to your URL templates in Search Ads 360 will be automatically copied into the corresponding tracking template in the advertising platform. If instead you make changes to the tracking template in the advertising platform, the changes will be copied to the corresponding Search Ads 360 URL template when you sync the account with the new Search Ads 360. 

Sync an account

• Navigate to the client account that you want to sync.
• Click the Sync item in the navigation menu.
• If you want the new Search Ads 360 to remove any existing trafficking errors for the campaigns, ad groups, ads and keywords in this client account, select the box.
  If you leave the box deselected, you'll still be able to fix the errors after the sync.
• Click Apply.
  When the 'Sync' button is enabled again, the sync is complete.
• Click the Sync history item in the page menu to see:
  • When the sync occurred.
  • The number of objects (campaigns, groups, ads and keywords) on the advertising platform at the time of the sync.
  • The number of objects that were changed in the new Search Ads 360.
  • The number of errors during the sync.

In advertising platforms that support shared templates, Search Ads 360 generates and traffics a custom parameter for each new keyword and other trackable item. The custom parameter uniquely identifies the item so the new Search Ads 360 can attribute conversions and other activity to it. If this is the first sync for the client account, the new Search Ads 360 also traffics a custom parameter for each existing keyword and trackable item in the account. Note that even if a clickserver URL has already been trafficked to a tracking template in your account, Search Ads 360 does not start tracking activity until the custom parameters have been trafficked to the account.

For advertising platforms that don't support shared templates, the new Search Ads 360 does the following after the sync has been completed:

1. Generates a clickserver URL for each item.
2. Re-traffics the items and clickserver URLs back to the advertising platform. When you view the items in the advertising platform, you'll see the Search Ads 360 clickserver URL, instead of the landing page URL that you defined. Recall that the new Search Ads 360 keeps a copy of the original landing page URL in its 'Final URL' column.

This applies to any item that defines its own landing page URL, except ads. The new Search Ads 360 does not generate clickserver URLs for ads.

Additional custom parameters created in parallel tracking accounts

When you run the first sync for a Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising account, the new Search Ads 360 creates custom parameters for Search Ads 360 macros and traffics the custom parameters to the advertising platform. The new Search Ads 360 macros are not available in Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising accounts. Instead, use the custom parameters created by Search Ads 360.

The new custom parameters may mean that your account is placed under review.

Please bear the following in mind:

• Even if you schedule the syncs for multiple accounts to occur at the same time, the accounts may not be synced simultaneously.
• The sync won't start until all pending operations have been trafficked or received an error. For example, if you just modified a campaign, the new Search Ads 360 will need to traffic the change to the advertising platform or send an error before the sync can begin.
• The sync will skip:
  • Items or settings that the new Search Ads 360 doesn't support (such as image ads).
  • Removed campaigns, ad groups, ads, keywords and other items, including products that have been removed from Shopping campaign feeds.
• Syncing a large account can last anywhere from several minutes to several hours, depending on the amount of data that was changed in the external account.
• Syncing imports some types of data more quickly than others. It may take several hours before metrics reported in the new Search Ads 360 accurately reflect those reported in the advertising platform.
• Depending on the advertising platform, syncing attempts to import data from the past 60 days, 1 year or 2 years.
• Closing the browser window won't affect the sync.
• If you sync an account that has some ad copy under editorial review, the new Search Ads 360 will import the updated ad copy that hasn't yet been approved.
• You can't select specific parts of the client account to sync.
• If you sign in to an advertising platform and enter a URL in a tracking template, when you sync the change, the new Search Ads 360 automatically changes the URL to start with HTTPS. This change is to ensure compatibility with parallel tracking.
  Note that the new Search Ads 360 only updates the first URL in your tracking template to specify HTTPS. If your tracking template contains multiple tracking URLs, make sure that they all specify HTTPS. Parallel tracking requires all tracking URLs to specify HTTPS.
  After the sync is completed, the new Search Ads 360 adds its clickserver URL to the beginning of the tracking URL and traffics the updated tracking URL to the advertising platform.

In addition:

• If you create keywords directly in the advertising platform without specifying landing page URLs, during the sync the new Search Ads 360 does the following, depending on the advertising platform:
  • Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising and Yahoo! JAPAN Ads: Nothing. Landing page URLs for keywords are optional in these advertising platforms.
  • Baidu: If you didn't specify a landing page URL for mobile devices, the new Search Ads 360 uses the keyword's non-mobile URL. If you didn't specify a non-mobile URL for the keyword, the new Search Ads 360 copies a random landing page URL from an active ad in the ad group and adds it to the keyword.
• If you want specific landing pages for your keywords, specify the landing page URLs before running a sync.