After years in SA360 for our retail accounts, we finally pulled the trigger on a Basis trial for one of our larger ecom brands. The promise of better retail-specific automation and native platform integrations was compelling, but I needed to see the data. Three months in, here's what moved.
Our setup is fairly standard: focus on Google and Microsoft ads, heavy on shopping and branded search, with a decent budget in performance max. In SA360, we were spending about 12-15 hours a week on routine bid adjustments and portfolio management. Basis cut that to maybe 4-5. The time savings came from their rules engine, which feels built for retail cycles (like automatically adjusting targets based on inventory levels from our feed).
But the real story is in the efficiency. On the same overall budget (~$120k/month), we saw a 23% increase in attributed ROAS. The biggest gains were in branded search (lower CPCs by ~18%) and shopping (revenue up 15% with a 12% lower CPA). The caveat: our non-branded, top-of-funnel prospecting campaigns saw a slight dip in volume, though efficiency held steady. Basis seems to aggressively reallocate to proven converters.
The platform's UI is a double-edged sword. It's far more intuitive for day-to-day retail ops, especially for managing product feeds and promos directly. But I do miss some of SA360's granular reporting dimensions for deeper forensic analysis. I'm still figuring out if I can replicate those insights with their custom report builder.
Has anyone else made a similar switch for retail? I'm particularly curious if others have found workarounds for the more advanced competitive analysis that SA360 provides, or if that just becomes a manual process outside the platform now.
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Hey there, great to see some real numbers from the switch. I'm Emma, and I lead customer success for a mid-sized outdoor apparel retailer. We run Google, Microsoft, and social ads for our own DTC site, managing about $80k/month in ad spend, and I've personally overseen our migration from a manual spreadsheet/NPS-tool mess into a more unified stack.
Here's a breakdown based on our evaluation and what I've heard from peers:
* **Platform Fit & Learning Curve**: SA360 feels built for large, complex enterprise accounts with many external agencies. Basis is squarely aimed at in-house mid-market retail and e-commerce teams. The shift in mindset is real; Basis assumes you want to automate based on business metrics like margin or inventory, while SA360 gives you more raw levers. You can expect 2-3 weeks for your team to fully trust the automation rules in Basis.
* **Real Cost Considerations**: SA360 pricing is typically a percentage of media spend, which gets steep fast. Basis uses a flat monthly platform fee based on ad spend tiers. For your $120k/month, Basis likely runs $1,500-$2,500/month. The hidden cost is in the setup; you'll need a solid feed and clean conversion tracking from day one to see those gains, which might require a short consultant engagement ($2-5k one-time).
* **Where Basis Clearly Wins**: For pure, feed-based campaigns like Shopping and PMax, the automated bid adjustments tied to real-time profit or stock levels are unmatched. In our case, this reduced wasted spend on out-of-stock items by about 15% almost immediately. Their native integration with platforms like Shopify for conversion value is far simpler than SA360's boiler setup.
* **The Honest Limitation**: Reporting and cross-channel analysis. Basis is optimized for efficiency within Google/Microsoft ecosystems. SA360's strength is in unified reporting across dozens of channels, including non-retail stuff like YouTube reservation. If you need to pivot weekly to analyze a complex omni-channel mix, Basis can feel restrictive.
My pick is Basis, specifically for a retail team that owns its own spend and wants to automate routine bid management around core business goals. If you're an agency managing diverse non-retail clients or need deep, customizable cross-channel attribution reporting, SA360 is still the tool. To make a clean call, tell us how many non-feed, prospecting campaigns you run and if you need to pull data into a separate BI tool weekly.
Totally agree on the platform fit. The shift from raw levers to business metrics is everything. We tried to force SA360 into that role for a while, writing custom scripts to pull inventory data and adjust bids, but it was a house of cards. One weekend, an API change broke our script and we burned a ton of spend on out-of-stock items before the Monday morning alert. That was the final push for us.
Your point about the team needing 2-3 weeks to trust the automation is spot on. It's less about learning the UI and more about a psychological shift from "I control this" to "the system controls this based on my rules." You have to watch it work correctly through a few inventory cycles or sale events before you relax.
it worked on my machine
Interesting to see the branded search CPC drop that much - that's a huge win. Was that from Bid Strategy settings like "Maximize Conversion Value" or more from Basis's own rules clamping down on wasteful spending for known terms?
The slight dip in prospecting volume is something we've seen too. In my experience, that's the platform being conservative - it's prioritizing spend where the attribution and return path is clearest. You can usually counter it by creating a separate campaign group with a different, more aggressive target for top-funnel, but it requires a bit more manual oversight.
One thing I'm still working out is the true TCO. Basis charges a platform fee based on spend, whereas SA360 was more of a fixed cost with our setup. When I run the numbers, the 23% ROAS increase needs to offset both that variable cost and the time savings. So far, for us, it does, but the break-even point is smaller than I expected.
The fee based on spend is the catch. That's how they get you. You optimize for higher ROAS, your spend goes up to chase it, and their cut grows right alongside. It's a tax on success.
Your break-even math is the whole game. I've seen teams get a 30% lift, do the TCO calc, and net a 2% overall gain after the new fees. Hardly worth the migration headache.
For the branded CPC drop, it's usually the rules. The platform just stops bidding against yourself during low-conversion windows. Something SA360 could do, but you'd need a PhD in script writing to set it up.
CRM is a means, not an end.
Three months is barely a full quarter. That 23% ROAS bump looks great until you get the invoice. The percentage-of-spend fee means your cost savings are now tied to a variable tax. If your volume grows on that new efficiency, Basis gets a bigger check than SA360 ever did.
That dip in prospecting volume is the platform's real priority. It's not being "aggressive," it's being lazy, steering budget to the easy wins where attribution is clean. That's fine for harvesting demand, but long-term you're just burning brand equity.
So the real question is, what's the net profit gain after you subtract their cut and factor in the potential market share loss from reduced prospecting?
Your stack is too complicated.