Navigating Your Transition from Sizmek to Campaign Manager 360: Your Questions Answered
With the upcoming sunset of Amazon's Sizmek Ad Server by Q4 2024, the digital advertising landscape is poised for a significant shift. If you're currently leveraging Sizmek for your ad campaigns, the clock is ticking to find a robust, future-proof alternative. Waiting until the last quarter of 2024 might seem reasonable, but in the fast-evolving world of digital marketing, delaying could mean missing out on innovation and compromising on ad performance.
As Sizmek approaches its end-of-life, losing its Media Ratings Council (MRC) accreditation, it's crucial to ask: what's your next move? In this comprehensive Q&A, we'll explore why Google's Campaign Manager 360 isn't just a viable replacement but a strategic upgrade to enhance your advertising efficacy.
What Formats are Run on Campaign Manager 360?
Campaign Manager 360 is extremely robust, allowing all available formats and tracking third-party ad-served advertising, such as search or page takeovers. Users can run across all screens and formats, from desktop, mobile, mobile app, video, native, connected TV (CTV), audio, social, and other emerging formats.
How Hard Will It Be to Re-Traffic All My Campaigns?
It depends on many factors, such as how a site is tagged, how many campaigns a user has, and if there are custom needs. If currently using Google Tag Manager or another tag manager that isn’t Amazon, re-tagging a site will be easy. If using the Amazon/Sizmek tag manager, switch to a different one.
The easiest way to transfer your campaigns is to “export media plan” in Sizmek, and select “include placement tags.” The media plan will be exported in an Excel and CSV file. Users can then tweak category names and/or add/subtract categories to match Campaign Manager’s format.
Will Campaign Manager 360 Work with Prisma/Media Ocean?
Yes! Once API integration is set up, users can traffic media into Prisma, and then push over to Campaign Manager 360 with the click of a button.
What if I Had Managed Service While on Sizmek? What Should I Do Now?
Google doesn’t offer direct managed service for Campaign Manager 360, but Bounteous has a team of experts who can. The team can also provide consulting, merger assistance and ad hoc support.
How Hard is It to Learn Campaign Manager 360?
As part of the Google Marketing Platform stack, Campaign Manager 360 looks similar to other GMP products such as Google Analytics 4 or Search Ads 360. Reporting works in a similar fashion, although there are many more available options than what was in AAS.
Google offers a training path for Campaign Manager 360; most Bounteous contracts include training seats to Bounteous-led trainings to make sure clients are set up for success.
Is Campaign Manager More Expensive than Other Ad Servers?
Campaign Manager can be highly cost-effective. Unlike Sizmek, CM360 bills on the ad type instead of ad size, and can have low or no monthly minimums.
If using Amazon Ad Server/Sizmek, start the switch CM360. Trafficking new for 2024 is great timing, so it's time to jump on it to avoid the need to traffic twice.
