Set up a cross-channel remarketing segment

Cross-channel remarketing allows you to display ads in multiple channels to people who have engaged with your brand. For example, it lets you display social ads to customers who have clicked on one of your search ads, or show search ads to a customer who has clicked on one of your display ads.

This helps you stay in the minds of people who have engaged with your ads, eventually converting them into customers. This guide will show you how to set up your accounts and begin cross-channel remarketing in Search Ads 360.

Create labels for organization

Labels allow you to organize your campaigns, ad groups, ads, and keywords into groups. They're customizable, and you can change them at any time. This allows you to create custom categories which are needed to remarket cross-channel in Search Ads 360.

To create a label:

Sign in to your Search Ads 360 experience .
Navigate to a sub-manager or a client account.
In the left page menu, select Campaigns, Ad groups, Ads, or Keywords.
Select the checkbox for the campaign, ad group, ad, or keyword that you want to apply a label to. In the bar above the table, select Label.
Select Create labelfrom the drop-down.
(Optional) Enter a name, choose a color, choose an owner, and add a description.
Select Create, and then Apply.

Learn to Create, use, and manage labels in the new Search Ads 360 .

When customers click on labeled ads, Search Ads 360 adds a URL parameter to the landing page URL. The parameter uniquely identifies the remarketing segment, and other social or search platforms can use that ID to add customers to a remarketing list it maintains.

Label all campaigns, ad groups, keywords, or ads that are relevant to your remarketing efforts.

Note:

You can use a label in more than one remarketing segment, and you can add multiple labels to a remarketing segment.
For Google Ads accounts in the same sub-manager account, there is no need to create a remarketing list. Generate the remarketing tag and then add it to your site.

Learn more about how to set up rule-based remarketing lists in Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising .

Ensure compliance with policy

To enable sharing the remarketing segment, you must comply with the applicable advertising policies. To share the remarketing segment with a Google Ads account, the account needs to comply with the Google Ads policy for advertising based on interests and location .

Prepare landing page URLs for a new parameter

When you create a cross-channel remarketing segment in Search Ads 360, the &ads_rl= URL-parameter will appear in the URLs that are sent to your landing pages a few hours later. Search Ads 360 always precedes this parameter with the & character.

If your landing page URLs don't include other URL parameters, follow these steps to add the ? character to the end of the URLs:

In a search account, specify the following account-level URL template: {unescapedlpurl}?
- With this URL template, the landing page URL from the example above would be https://www.example.com?ads_rl=123456 .
- Alternatively, instead of using a URL template, you can add the " ? " character directly to the end of your landing page URLs.
In a social account, sign into the social engine and add the ? character to the end of all URLs.

Note: If your landing page URLs already include the “ ? ” character, don't add it again. Your URLs need exactly one “ ? ” character to work with cross-channel remarketing.

URLs with fragments

If your landing page URLs include a fragment, add the ads_rl parameter right before the # character. If your landing page URLs don't include URL parameters, add the ? character just before the fragment.

Fragments should always be added to the last part of the URL. For example: https://www.example.com?#page

In a search account, you can use a URL template or Final URL Suffix to do this, but be careful using URL templates with URLs that include fragments, especially in Google Ads accounts. Learn more about using URL templates and URL fragments .

Create a cross-channel remarketing segment

In the new Search Ads 360, you can create remarketing segments for both Google Ads and other platforms.

In Search Ads 360

If you create a Google Ads remarketing segment in Search Ads 360, a corresponding remarketing list will be created in Google Ads for that sub-manager account. You don't need to create one manually.

For platforms other than Google Ads:

From the page menu, under “Tools & settings”, click Shared library.
Click Audience manager.
On the "Your data segments" page, click the plus button, and then click Cross-channel remarketing.
Name the remarketing segment.
We recommend you use the same name for both the Search Ads 360 remarketing segment and the corresponding list you create in the other engine. You may want to prefix the name with "SA360" or the platform name to help find and sort your lists. For example, name the segment "SA360: Safety-conscious cars" or "Facebook: Safety-conscious cars ".
In the "Labels" area, select the labels you want to use to create your remarketing segment. People who have interacted with campaigns, ad groups, ads, or keywords with the selected labels will be added to your new segment.
Specify a membership duration.
(Optional) Add a description for your remarketing segment.
Click Create segment.
On the next screen, under Next steps, Search Ads 360 displays the unique parameter for your new remarketing segment. You'll use this value to set up a corresponding rule in the search or social platform. Click Copyto copy the URL parameter now, or you can find it later in your list of remarketing segments.

After you save the remarketing segment, it may take a few hours before Search Ads 360 starts appending &ads_rl= URL-parameter to landing page URLs. Similarly, if you remove the remarketing segment from Search Ads 360, it may be a few hours before Search Ads 360 stops appending the ads_rl parameter.

For Google Ads

For Google Ads accounts in the same sub-manager account, you can build a remarketing segment in Search Ads 360. You can also create the remarketing segment in Google Ads and then sync the list into Search Ads 360. The steps in the next section show how to build a Search Ads 360-generated and managed remarketing segment for search ads that will be trafficked to Google Ads.

On client platforms

First, make sure you've added remarketing tags generated by the other platform you use to advertise. Learn more in Microsoft Advertising Help or Google Ads Help .

Check Google Ads Help to learn how to Create an audience segment . This will help you build a remarketing segment for search ads in Google Ads. Remarketing lists for search ads created in Google Ads can't be managed in Search Ads 360.

If you don't want to generate a Google Ads remarketing segment in Search Ads 360, or if you want to to use the Search Ads 360-generated remarketing segment in a Google Ads account with a different advertiser, complete the steps below.

Create a remarketing list to track customers who clicked ads in the Search Ads 360 remarketing segment. Giving this list the same name as the Search Ads 360 remarketing segment can help avoid confusion.
Create a rule that adds customers to the client account's remarketing list when the landing page URL contains the Search Ads 360 remarketing parameter (named ads_rl ) with a value that identifies the corresponding Search Ads 360 remarketing segment.

Use the following syntax for the rule URL contains:" ads_rl= DS-parameter "
- In this case, DS-parameter is the value of the URL parameter Search Ads 360 generated at the start of this step.
- For example, if the URL parameter for the remarketing segment you generated at the start of this step contains something like 1234 , set up a rule in the other engine that adds customers to the remarketing list with the landing page URL contains the ads_rl=1234 parameter.
In some platforms, this may be called a “URL CONTAINS” rule. Refer to the platform's help center for information on how to set this up.

Search Ads 360 passes a maximum of 3 remarketing URL-parameter values per entity level to the landing page URL. If an ad's label is included in more than 3 Search Ads 360 remarketing lists, the engine only views the first 3 remarketing lists identified by Search Ads 360, and will add users only to those 3 lists.
Use the platform's remarketing list to target interested customers.
- If the remarketing list was created in Google Ads, sync the Google Ads remarketing lists into Search Ads 360. If you've scheduled platform changes to sync regularly, make sure to wait until the next sync occurs. You'll only view your Google Ads remarketing lists after they've been synced into Search Ads 360.

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