Digital Digest
Marketing Intelligence Weekly
Weekly updates on the digital marketing news you need to know, including data reform, AI, cookie deprecation and platform updates.
Cookies
Data privacy
Platforms
Google delays third-party cookie deprecation
- Google is delaying the end to third-party cookies in Chrome.
- The announcement was made ahead of quarterly reports from Google and the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority.
- “We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers, and will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem,” according to a statement Google posted on its website for the Privacy Sandbox. “It’s also critical that the CMA has sufficient time to review all evidence including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June. Given both of these significant considerations, we will not complete third-party cookie deprecation during the second half of Q4.”
- Google did not state a new timeline for cookie deprecation beyond hoping for early 2025.
- Our take: Google is not the only pony in the show. Third-party cookies have been deprecated elsewhere and we advise the industry to push forward with plans for third-party cookie deprecation.
- Read more.
Marketing by numbers
AU vs US digital advertising investment trends
- According to the IAB Australia 2023 Digital Advertising Investment Trends AU vs US report, while growth rates were similar in 2021 and 2022, growth in 2020 and 2023 was significantly less in Australia than the US market.
- The total market investment change from 2022 to 2023 in Australia was just 3.7% while the US saw 7.3% growth.
- However search, video and audio saw a higher percentage growth in Australia than in the US market across 2023.
- Display/native/infeed and classifieds are down significantly in AU.
- Digital video investment is following similar patterns in Australia and the US with comparable share of the total digital ad market (25.6% and 23.2% respectively).
- Unfortunately we cannot share the report from IAB here, however please reach out if you'd like more information.
Platforms
Google March 2024 Core Update finished rolling out
- The Google March 2024 core update has finally finished rolling out as of April 19.
- The core update took 45 days in total to roll out.
- Google said this helped reduce low-quality and unoriginal content in search results by 45%, which is up from their estimate of 40%.
- Read more.
Platforms
“New operating reality” at Google
- Google’s SVP overseeing Search, Prabhakar Raghavan, recently warned employees that the company’s search division faces a “new operating reality” with fewer resources, according to a CNBC report.
- Recent quarters have seen slower than expected growth across search queries and engagement, leading Raghavan to consider shortened project deadlines.
- “People come to us because we are trusted. They may have a new gizmo out there that people like to play with, but they still come to Google to verify what they see there because it is the trusted source, and it becomes more critical in this era of generative AI.”
- Read more.
Platforms
REMINDER: Google Analytics data will be deleted July 1
- Google Analytics historical data will be deleted come July 1.
- Ensure you have downloaded your historical data before then or it will be gone forever.
- Make sure you download your historical data correctly or you will lose it.
- Read more.
AI in digital
Platforms
Meta features Google and Bing search results in AI assistant
- Meta has incorporated Google and Bing search results into its AI assistant.
- Meta users can now search Google and Bing via the AI assistant without leaving the platform.
- SEO strategies need to adapt to include AI assistants as well as search engines.
- Read more.
AI in digital
Platforms
New AI tools for Demand Gen campaigns
- Google has announced new generative AI capabilities for Demand Gen campaigns in Google Ads.
- Advertisers can provide text prompts to generate high-quality unique AI visuals for ads.
- The aim is to help visual storytelling across Google’s platforms including YouTube, YouTube Shorts, Discover and Gmail.
- “Advertisers need to diversify their creative strategy with multi-format ads to keep audiences engaged and deliver results. With generative image tools, you can now test new creative concepts more efficiently – whether it’s experimenting with new types of images or simply building your creatives from scratch.”
- Read more.
AI in digital
Data privacy
Platforms
Brave announces AI search engine
- Brave has announced its AI search engine, Answer with AI.
- Brave’s AI search engine still shows links and does not automatically answer commercial and transactional queries with AI.
- Brave’s AI is powered by its own search index of crawled sites.
- Read more.
AI in digital
Platforms
Google says AI won’t replace search
- Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently spoke about how AI is reshaping search.
- AI enhances search; it doesn’t replace it. “The thing that excites me about AI is it’s the same underlying piece of technology for the first time in our history we have one leveraged piece of technology which can improve search, can improve YouTube, can improve Waymo and we put it all as cloud to our customers outside and so I feel good about that.”
- The relevance of websites and SEO isn’t diminishing. In the interview he talks about search not having been 10 blue links for a long time.
- Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) ensures a diverse, accurate search experience. He said that even with Search Generative Experience, they still want to point users to websites.
- Watch the interview from the 1 hour 17 minute mark.
AI in digital
Vids, Google’s next big productivity tool
- Google's new Vids app can create collaborative shareable videos for things people do at work.
- The app makes making videos as easy as making slides - no video production is required. Users line up assets inside the app and edit it all into a finished video. They can choose to do all of this themselves or ask Google's Gemini AI to build storyboards, write scripts, read the scripts aloud using text-to-speech, and create images to use in the video.
- People with access to the video can add comments, leave notes, and make edits.
- Vids will launch in public beta within the next few months.
- Read more.
Cookies
Data privacy
Platforms
Google improves INP for sites using consent management platforms
- Google has announced it’s improving its Interaction to Next Paint metric when a site is using certain consent management platforms.
- This improvement will yield faster load times when cookies are accepted by the user.
- “The team at Google have been working with a number of Consent Management Platforms, including OneTrust, Complianz and Axeptio, to improve Interaction To Next Paint (INP) by yielding more often—particularly when cookies are accepted.”
- Read more.
Platforms
Google Merchant Center updates product data specifications
- Each year Google updates its Google Merchant Center product specifications in an aim to boost the quality of product information for paid and organic Shopping listings.
- There are new product data specification attributes for AI-generated content in Shopping ads and free listings.
- There are new minimum price attributes and new free shipping threshold attributes which are effective immediately.
- Read more.
