Google is pushing Data Manager into Google Analytics and Display & Video 360, and adding a new metric that estimates how many conversions you are recovering by improving your first-party data setup. The metric is called Data Strength Uplift. It is useful, but it measures volume and not value, and that distinction is going to matter in your reporting.
What Changed In Data Manager
Search Engine Journal covered the announcement on September 10, 2026. There are three moving pieces.
- Data Manager is expanding. It is being integrated directly into Google Analytics and Display & Video 360, which puts your first-party data connections in one place across platforms instead of one per product. Enhanced conversions are expanding into those products as well.
- The API is standardizing. Google adopted the IAB Tech Lab's Event and Conversions API standard, known as ECAPI, for the Data Manager API. The point is one consistent way to connect data across multiple ad platforms instead of building a separate integration for each one.
- Diagnostics are built in. New diagnostic tools flag data problems before they reach your campaigns, covering offline conversions, CRM data, app events, and first-party signals.
The ECAPI piece is the one worth paying attention to long term. An industry standard means the work you do connecting your data is less likely to be thrown away the next time you change platforms.
The Data Strength Uplift Metric
The new metric in Google Ads estimates how many additional conversions you recovered through a better first-party data setup. That includes things like improved tagging or connecting another data source.
Google published two numbers alongside it. Google says advertisers who improve data strength through Google tag gateway see an average 14% conversion uplift. Google also says advertisers connecting offline and app data through Data Manager see an average 26% increase in incremental ROAS.
Those are Google's own numbers, measured across Google's own advertisers. Treat them as a direction, not as a forecast for your account.
Google has not given a specific launch date for these updates. The announcement went out on September 10 without clarifying what is available immediately and what is rolling out later, so check your own account rather than assuming.
The Catch With The Metric
Data Strength Uplift tells you how many conversions came back. It does not tell you whether those conversions were worth anything.
That is not a small caveat. A recovered conversion could be a qualified buyer you were previously blind to, or it could be a duplicate form fill from somebody who was never going to close. The metric counts both the same way.
One of the biggest mistakes I see is treating a platform's own uplift number as proof the work paid off. Recovered conversion volume is an input. Revenue, lead quality, and profit are the outputs. You still have to connect the two yourself.
My Take
I think the diagnostics are the quietly valuable part of this. Most accounts I look at have a measurement problem nobody knows about, and it usually took months to notice. A tool that surfaces a broken offline conversion feed before it corrupts your bidding data is worth more than a new metric.
The uplift metric itself I would use as a nudge and nothing more. If it tells you connecting your CRM recovered 400 conversions, that is your signal to go check what those 400 conversions were actually worth. Not to put the number in a client report as a win.
Keep in mind, none of this matters if your basic tracking is shaky. Everything here sits on top of the tagging layer in your Google Ads account, and if that is broken then so is every number above it.
What To Do Now
- Open the diagnostics first. Before you look at any uplift number, see what Data Manager says is broken.
- Audit your existing connections. Check which data sources are actually connected and which ones stopped sending months ago.
- Tie recovered conversions to revenue. Pull the conversions the metric credits and check what they were worth. If you cannot, that is the project.
- Review your audience data. If you are connecting CRM data, get your Customer Match setup clean before you scale it.
- Pick your reporting metrics deliberately. Decide which Google Ads metrics go in the report and do not let a new one in just because it looks good.
Question to Answer:
If your conversion count went up 20% next month, could you tell whether revenue went up with it?
In Summary
Data Manager is expanding into Google Analytics and Display & Video 360, the API is moving to an industry standard, and a new Data Strength Uplift metric estimates the conversions you recover by improving your data setup. Google's own figures are a 14% average conversion uplift and a 26% average increase in incremental ROAS.
Use the diagnostics, fix what they surface, and treat the uplift metric as a prompt to go check conversion quality rather than as a result on its own.
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