Key takeaways
- Data Manager is now available inside Google Analytics and Display and Video 360, without leaving those interfaces.
- The API adopts the IAB Tech Lab Event and Conversions API (ECAPI) standard, so one connection can serve several ad platforms.
- The Data Strength Uplift metric estimates how many extra conversions an account recovers thanks to its first-party data setup.
- Google reports a 26% average lift in incremental ROAS when store and app data are connected, and 14% more conversions with Google tag gateway.
What is Data Manager and what is it for?
Data Manager is the panel where an advertiser connects first-party data sources to Google’s advertising products. It gathers store conversions, app conversions and customer files in one place. Previously each source had to be configured separately inside each product.
The reasoning is straightforward. Browser signals have degraded as cookie restrictions tightened, and what a company knows about its own customers is worth more than it used to be. That is the raw material Data Manager sets out to administer.
What changed on 10 September 2026
Google announced three moves at once, with the fourth quarter around the corner. The first concerns access. Data Manager now appears inside Google Analytics and Display and Video 360, so connections are built without switching interface.
The second is about standards. The Data Manager API adopts the IAB Tech Lab Event and Conversions API (ECAPI), a shared industry specification. For anyone maintaining their own integrations, the promise is to write a connection once and reuse it across several ad platforms.
The third is a metric, and it deserves its own section.
What is Data Strength Uplift?
Data Strength Uplift is an estimate shown in Google Ads of how many extra conversions the account recovers thanks to its first-party data setup. Put differently, it tries to put a figure on what would go unmeasured without those connections. It is Google’s own estimate, not an independent measurement.
Google pairs the launch with two numbers. Advertisers connecting store and app data through Data Manager see, according to the company, a 26% average lift in incremental ROAS. Those improving data strength with Google tag gateway see 14% more conversions.
Those figures deserve a cool head. They are averages declared by the vendor of the tool, with no published methodology and no known sample. They show which way Google is pushing, not what a given account should expect.
What to review before the fourth quarter
The integration changes nothing on its own in an account whose connections were already in place. What it does is expose gaps that used to go unnoticed. This is the order we follow when reviewing an account:
- Check which sources are connected and which were left half-finished in an earlier migration.
- Review the quality of the data being sent, starting with normalised email addresses and phone numbers.
- Read the Data Strength Uplift metric as a diagnosis before treating it as a target.
- Compare imported conversions against actual sales for the period, in the business system.
That final comparison prevents the most trouble. An account can raise its data strength and still count badly, if the import duplicates orders or carries returns.
Where Data Manager does not help
Data Manager administers connections. It does not fix a badly framed attribution model or a business with the wrong margins. If campaigns are buying sales that would have happened anyway, a better signal only means those same sales get measured sooner.
Nor does it replace a real incrementality test. An experiment with a control group answers a question no in-platform metric can settle alone: what would have happened without the campaign. In campaign management that comparison is what separates a tidy report from an investment decision.
Where to start
The sensible move is to spend a session taking stock of what the account sends today and comparing it with what the business invoices. If those two numbers disagree, the priority is offline conversion imports rather than switching anything new on. Once they agree, the Analytics integration saves maintenance work and the new metric acts as an early warning. Measuring the effect on the business, rather than inside the platform, belongs to analytics and CRO.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to switch Data Manager on inside Analytics?
The integration appears in the interface without the advertiser enabling anything. What does need checking is which sources were connected before, and whether any were left half-finished, because the new view shows them all together.
What is the IAB Tech Lab ECAPI standard?
Event and Conversions API is a shared industry specification for sending events and conversions. By adopting it, Google lets one integration serve several advertising platforms instead of maintaining a separate connection for each.
Is the 26% incremental ROAS figure reliable?
It is an average declared by Google, with no published methodology or sample. It shows the direction of the product, not the result a given account should expect. Establishing what the spend adds requires a control-group experiment.
Does Data Strength Uplift measure real incrementality?
No. It estimates how many conversions the data setup recovers, which is a measurement problem. Incrementality answers a different question: how many sales would not have happened without the campaign. They are measured differently.
