Deja vu, anyone? Even Olympics tennis can’t rival the back-and-forth Google Chrome is doing on third-party cookies. And AI, have you heard of it? See how platforms continue to respond to the opportunities & threats of AI. Our update covers digital marketing happenings over the month of July 2024.
Paid Media
Updates from Casey Anderson, Paid Media Director
Third-Party Cookies Are Sticking Around
For years we’ve been preparing for the deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome, only to find out, Google will be keeping them after all! Fine by us! But that doesn’t mean we’ll change our recommendations of leaning into first-party data to help our clients build their consumer relationships and ensure privacy in their data collection.
As we wait for Google to figure out how they will balance privacy concerns with the ever-growing needs of the ad industry, we’ll continue to keep you updated so you can make informed choices on how to move forward.
Our Head of Analytics Nico Brooks dives into this topic a bit more over on our Analytics Roundup for July.
Google’s New PMax Reporting Tools and AI Capabilities
In the past it’s been difficult to glean much insight to Performance Max campaign assets other than basic indicators of good or best performers. Google is finally making it easier for advertisers to better understand these ads and create more effective campaigns.
The primary reporting tool updates are conversion metrics in asset-level reporting, YouTube placement reporting and third-party verification for suitability on YouTube and Display.
In terms of AI, users will have more image editing capabilities, improved asset generation for more campaign types, and easier access to creative tools in the “Create” menu.
On top of this, advertisers who link Merchant Center feeds to Performance Max campaigns can enhance their Merchant Center product assets with AI.
Google’s fast-moving approach to AI offers several ways for advertisers to create high-quality, relevant ads while also providing greater transparency to assess the outcome.
Meta Expands Ad Placements and CTAs
As Meta continues to produce updated dynamic capabilities to improve ads, including the latest Instagram Story feature which allows advertisers to add offers to their story’s CTA button. Up to 20 offers can be entered and using predictive display, Meta will determine which offer will be shown.
Along with this update, Meta is also expanding ad reach with a new overlay banner-display placement on Instagram Reels. While such a placement already exists on Facebook Reels, this version will reach users on another highly-engaged content type as both a single image and carousel format.
SEO
Updates from Randy McFadden, Sr. SEO
Reddit Blocked Bing Search
Reddit updated its robots.txt file to prevent most search engines and AI tools, including Bing, from crawling its site. Google, however, continues to be able to crawl Reddit following their recent licensing partnership. This change was noticed when Reddit content began disappearing from Bing’s search index. Microsoft confirmed that Bing respects the robots.txt standard and stopped crawling Reddit following the update.
Reddit’s decision is partly because some search engines cannot or will not make enforceable commitments regarding their use of Reddit content, particularly for AI purposes. As a result, new Reddit content is unlikely to appear on Bing in the near future.
OpenAI Is Launching SearchGPT To Compete In the Search Engine Market
OpenAI has introduced a new search engine called SearchGPT, which is currently in an alpha phase with a limited user base. Key features of this new search engine product include:
- An ad-free search experience
- Citations attached to the results
- Local search results that utilize IP addresses and manual location settings for accurate local results
- Follow-up question capabilities
The initial response to this early release has been mostly positive, with the lack of ads and thorough citations being notable strengths. However, occasionally incorrect information has been found in some of the search results.
Once fully released, this may be a very viable competitor to search engines like Google, as it offers users an alternative to traditional search experiences.
Analytics
We’ve expanded our analytics coverage into it’s own blog. See Nico’s coverage of marketing analytics happenings through July in the Analytics Roundup.
