Google expands Data Manager and Meridian measurement tools

Google is rolling out a slate of measurement and data tools aimed at helping marketers better understand what’s driving growth — and where to spend next.

What’s new. Google is expanding Data Manager beyond Google Ads by integrating it into Google Analytics and Display & Video 360, giving marketers more places to manage and activate first-party data.

The company is also making the Data Manager API universal by adopting the IAB Tech Lab’s ECAPI standard.

And in Google Ads, a new Data Strength Uplift Metric will help advertisers quantify the value generated by their first-party data setup — potentially giving marketers a clearer business case for improving their data foundations.

Measurement gets an AI upgrade: Google is adding agentic capabilities to Meridian, its open-source marketing mix modeling platform.

The AI-powered features will help marketers audit data quality, troubleshoot errors and get guidance while building models, reducing some of the technical complexity associated with marketing mix modeling.

Going beyond immediate conversions: Meridian will also let marketers incorporate brand signals, such as Branded Google Query Volume, into their models.

That could help advertisers demonstrate how upper-funnel investments — including TV commercials and out-of-home advertising — influence brand demand and eventually contribute to sales.

Zoom out. Google is also launching Meridian GeoX globally, following a beta introduced earlier this year.

The open-source tool lets marketers run causal geo-experiments to measure incrementality and then feed those results into their marketing mix models.

That combination is important because MMM can identify relationships between marketing investment and business outcomes, while experiments can provide stronger evidence of whether the advertising actually caused the lift.

Why we care. To tackle fragmented tracking issues, Google is giving marketers more ways to connect first-party data, experimentation and modeling rather than relying solely on attribution.

The bigger opportunity is moving from asking which channel received credit for a conversion to understanding which investments actually created incremental growth.

The bottom line. Google is building a more connected measurement stack around Data Manager and Meridian — with AI helping marketers clean up their data, understand what’s driving results and make better decisions about where the next advertising dollar should go.