Written by George Crosby, Director - Paid Search
Search Ads 360 (SA360) gives enterprise advertisers bidding tools that go far beyond what’s possible in Google Ads alone. For brands operating in competitive, high-volume categories, these features offer new ways to capture more demand, improve efficiency and ensure visibility throughout the day.
This article builds on my previous piece on why targets (rather than caps) unlock more reliable performance. Here, we explore the extra levers available in SA360, including Consolidated Portfolios, Multi-Target Portfolios and Budget Bid Strategies, and how they work together to support a truly demand-led approach to growth.
1. Consolidated Bid Portfolios: More data, more flexibility, more growth
One of SA360’s most powerful capabilities is Consolidated Portfolios: a feature that allows advertisers to group a wider range of campaign types into a single bid strategy.
In Google Ads, you can group “like-for-like” campaigns, but there are significant restrictions (for example, Search and PMAX cannot sit together, even when aiming for the same target). SA360 removes many of these constraints, meaning you can combine campaign types that represent the same product or intent signal.
Case Study: PMAX + Search together in one SA360 bid strategy
When restructuring activity for a retail client, we grouped PMAX and Search campaigns for the same product range into a single portfolio.
Result:
+129% to +465% ROAS uplift. While performance varied by product, overall spend increased, with revenue growing proportionally more.
In simple terms:
By giving SA360 a broader pool of data, the bid strategy could make smarter decisions about where each marginal pound should go.
Extending portfolios across engines: Google + Microsoft
SA360 also enables advertisers to group Microsoft Ads campaigns alongside Google campaigns in the same strategy; something impossible in Google Ads.
This becomes far more valuable with the recent introduction of Auction-Time Bidding (ATB) for Microsoft Ads, now available in SA360 sub-manager settings. Historically, Microsoft was tied to intra-day bidding, limiting optimisation speed and granularity. ATB changes this dramatically.
Case Study: Microsoft ATB with SA360
Across one advertiser:
- +102% ROAS
- +116% CVR
- Cost increased significantly in some campaigns but fell in others, which is an expected outcome of ATB as it has more information about which auctions to push CPCs harder or weaker, to capture demand most effectively. However, in both test cases we saw higher revenue.
In simple terms:
Running auction-time bidding across Google + Microsoft gives SA360 a much richer understanding of where demand is most valuable.
Important note:
Microsoft ATB requires at least 30 conversions per campaign in the last 30 days. Google’s thresholds are softer because it considers data more broadly across the portfolio.
Google itself cites around +5% uplift when advertisers consolidate across engines or channels. We believe this is conservative compared to the results we’ve already seen.
2. When one target doesn’t fit all: Multi-Target Portfolios (MTP)
A long-standing barrier to consolidation is that different campaigns often require different efficiency targets. Brand and Generic Search rarely sit comfortably under one ROAS number. The same applies across product categories with varied margins.
Multi-Target Portfolios (MTP), an SA360-exclusive feature currently in Open Beta, finally solves this.
MTP allows advertisers to:
- Group multiple campaigns in one portfolio
- Assign different targets to each group (e.g. Brand vs Generic, or high- vs low-margin product lines)
- Still benefit from the shared data and cross-campaign optimisation
Currently, MTP supports tCPA and tROAS.
Case Study: Generic Search + PMAX, consolidated but targeted separately
For one retail client, we grouped generic campaigns and PMAX within an MTP structure.
Result:
+9% revenue, while ROAS decreased by only 9% - aligned to the advertiser’s growth priority.
In simple terms:
MTP lets advertisers get the benefits of consolidation without forcing every campaign to share the same performance expectations.
3. How all this supports a Demand-Led Approach
Demand-Led Growth requires campaigns to:
- Stay live when consumers are actively searching
- Pace budgets to demand
- Allocate investment to the most valuable auctions
- React dynamically throughout the day
SA360’s broader data pooling makes this easier.
A consolidated portfolio allows the system to:
- Compare conversion likelihood across more campaigns
- Optimise based on where demand is emerging
- Spend more intelligently throughout the day
- Use assumed collective budget to drive the strongest overall result
In simple terms:
Uncapped budgets + Consolidated Portfolios + Multi-Target Portfolios = the closest you can get to managing Search investment like a single, intelligent system.
4. But what if you have strict budget caps? Enter: Budget Bid Strategies (BBS)
Not every advertiser can run uncapped budgets or blend lines of investment. Many have:
- Hard-coded budgets per category
- Funding coming from different sources
- Strict fiscal controls
- Limited willingness to allow cross-campaign movement
This is where Budget Bid Strategies (BBS) - an SA360-only feature - becomes essential.
BBS has existed for years but has recently surfaced more prominently in SA360’s in-platform AI recommendations, particularly where many campaigns appear “limited by budget.” It’s a hint that you need to be adopting more of a Demand-Led approach, and if you can do this without a BBS you should. But if not, it presents a unique solution.
How BBS works
- You group campaigns into a portfolio
- You specify the exact budget amount the group must spend together
- You can set optional efficiency targets (tROAS / tCPA)
- The system then optimises within the fixed spend limit, prioritising higher-value auctions
It maintains performance while preventing campaigns from going dark.
Case Study: Maintaining revenue under heavy cost reduction
For a retail client facing a significant budget cut:
- Spend: –75%
- Revenue: –3%
This would not have been possible using rigid caps across multiple campaigns. BBS allowed the system to pace spend toward demand while still respecting strict upper limits.
In simple terms:
If you can’t give flexibility on spend, BBS gives flexibility on where within that spending limit demand is captured.
5. Summary: When to use what
| Situation | Most suitable tool | Why |
| You want maximum performance and flexibility | Consolidated Portfolios | Largest data pool → strongest optimisation |
| You want consolidation but need different efficiency targets | Multi-Target Portfolios | Flexibility + control |
| You have hard budget caps that cannot move | Budget Bid Strategy (BBS) | Optimisation within strict boundaries |
| You want to unify Google + Microsoft strategy | SA360 Consolidated Portfolios with ATB | Cross-engine auction-time optimisation |
6. Key takeaways for marketing leaders
- SA360 offers enterprise-level optimisation that Google Ads alone cannot replicate.
- Consolidated Portfolios create more stable pacing and higher revenue potential by pooling more intent data.
- Multi-Target Portfolios solve the long-standing challenge of differing ROI expectations across categories.
- Budget Bid Strategies allow for demand-led optimisation even when budgets are fixed and inflexible.
- These tools collectively support a more modern, demand-led way of managing paid search investment.
Closing thoughts
SA360 gives large advertisers a unique and more nuanced way to optimise Search budgets, unlocking scale, improving efficiency and helping campaigns stay aligned to real-world demand. Consolidated Portfolios, MTPs and BBS aren’t just operational features: they’re strategic enablers of growth.
If you’re interested in exploring how these could support your search maturity, we’d love to talk. Contact Us
