How Google Meridian Can Improve Your Digital Marketing

Google recently introduced a new tool called Meridian, specifically designed for businesses looking to use their advertising budgets more efficiently. In this blog post, we’ll explain what Meridian is and how it can help you make your Google Ads campaigns even more successful – without using complicated jargon.

What is Google Meridian?

Meridian is a free, transparent analysis tool that helps you understand the impact of your marketing efforts on revenue. It combines historical data (e.g., past advertising spend) with test results to provide precise answers to questions like these:

• Which advertising channels (e.g., YouTube, Google Search) contribute most to revenue?
• How do budget changes affect different channels?
• What role do external factors like holidays or competitor actions play?

Unlike older tools, Meridian can also address modern challenges such as privacy-friendly analytics (without cookies) and the complex interactions between online and offline advertising.

How Meridian Helps You with Google Ads Campaigns

If you’re already using Google Ads, Meridian offers concrete benefits:

1. More Accurate Budget Distribution

Meridian shows you how to optimally allocate your budget between YouTube, search ads, and other channels.

• Example: A fashion retailer discovers that YouTube advertising generates fewer direct clicks but boosts brand awareness in the long term – resulting in more revenue through Google Search later on.

2. Making Video Ad Impact Measurable

Traditionally, YouTube advertising is only measured by clicks. Instead, Meridian analyzes how often users actually see an ad and how this affects purchases.

• Example: A travel provider finds that users are most likely to book after seeing a YouTube spot for the third time – and strategically increases the frequency of ad placements.

3. Combining Paid and Organic Search

Meridian connects data from Google Ads with Google search queries to show you how paid ads indirectly influence organic search results.

• Example: A fintech company realizes that investments in Google Ads keywords like “credit card with cashback” also increase unprompted search queries – a sign of growing brand relevance.

4. Future-Proof Through Data Protection

Since Meridian works without cookies, it’s ideal for analysis in times of stricter data protection regulations (like GDPR).

How to Get Started with Meridian?

• Free Access: The code is available on GitHub.
• Support: Over 20 certified partners (like Analytic Edge) – or us! – help with setup.
• Integration: Meridian seamlessly connects with your existing Google Ads data.

Conclusion & next steps

Google Meridian isn’t a cure-all, but it’s a powerful tool to make the often opaque world of digital marketing more transparent. If you’re already investing in Google Ads, it offers you the chance to reallocate budgets based on data and make long-term effects (like brand growth) visible – without expensive external software.

Image source: Offizieller Google Blog