February 2024: What's new in the world of digital
Posted on 8th March 2024 at 14:03
Read Time: Approx. 5 Minutes 26 Seconds
Author: Lewis Stretton
Welcome to the February edition, where we share the updates in the world of digital.
Google Updates their consent requirements to maintain targeting capabilities
What is it?: Google is enforcing new requirements for personalised ads in Europe, with a new consent mode setting. By March, advertisers must apply the new consent mode to ensure they serve personalised ads.
Why is it important?: The new requirements are important for advertisers, as they need to ensure they are hitting the consent mode requirements. Failing to do so, will result in losing the ability to serve personalised and remarketed ads. This does not only apply to Google Ads, but also GA4, as it has a new consent setting section available to all users globally. It is important that users turn on the consent mode to confirm that the consent signals are being passed to their web streams. This allows all tracking and measurements to be granted by the user, as a record of that consent is featured.
What action should you take?: We initially recommend checking if your website meets the new requirements using a free site check tool, for example, Cookiebot Compliance Test.
If you do, we recommend you apply the new requirements in order to not lose critical advertising capabilities in the UK and European Economic Area (EEA) as soon as possible. To update the consent mode, you will need to feature two parameters:
ad_user_data
ad_personalization
This sends consent signals related to personalised advertising and allows you to serve personalised ads. It is important to note that things will change as a result of the new V2 consent mode regulations. First party data will become more valuable for measuring and targeting, especially with the deprecation of third party cookies.
GA4 introduces multiple new dimensions for measuring paid and organic traffic and the launch of new trend detection insight
What is it?: This month, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is busy introducing 8 new dimensions for measuring performance. These are:
Manual source
Manual medium
Manual source / medium
Manual campaign name
Manual campaign ID
Manual term
Manual content
Manual source platform
It doesn’t stop there, as the new trend detection helps advertisers discover more gradual changes that unfold over an extended period, similar to previous feature anomaly detection.
Why is it important?: These new updates are important for advertisers as the new dimensions allow you to capitalise on user behaviour and analyse performance across channels, allowing you to optimise your strategy based on the new data.
With the introduction of the new trend detection insight, it is important that advertisers use not only this feature but also the existing anomaly feature as well. It is important as using this allows you to discover trends. While the anomaly detection identifies sudden changes in data, whether it is a spike or a drop, the new trend detection does the same on a longer scale, focusing on slower or gradual changes, giving you a more detailed view. Advertisers should use both to get a deeper insight into trends, enhancing optimisation effectiveness.
What action should you take?: We recommend you go to GA4 and use both features. Try out all 8 new dimensions and see if you can spot ways to optimise your strategy with new data insights. Also, have a look at the new trend detection insight tool, these could give you some insights into your performance, that may help optimise your campaign to the next level. It is important that you have had a look at the anomaly tool as well.
Instagram expands creator marketplace to help brands find creator for ads
What is it?: In the coming weeks, Instagram Creator Marketplace will expand to feature 8 new markets. These are:
Canada
Australia
New Zealand
United Kingdom
Japan
India
Brazil
The aim of this is to simply make it easier for brands to discover creators for partnership ads. It does this by using machine learning from the data it collects from Instagram, which allows brands to conduct targeted searches for creators.
Why is it important?: It is important because Partnership ads allow advertisers to boost content featuring a creator or another partner’s handle, this increases the reach of their collaborations. Instagram Creator Marketplace can now help brands find the creators that best fit their campaign and strategy. With the use of machine learning, it will be easier for the brands to get a targeted personalised list of creators that suit them, allowing the advertiser to save time and money looking for the creator.
What action should you take?: We recommend you take a look at the platform yourself. If you haven’t already, “join Instagram’s Creator Marketplace in Meta Business Suite, and creators sign up via their professional dashboard in the Instagram app, indicating relevant brands and interests while showcasing their uniqueness through portfolios.” This will allow you to reach out to creators directly and send them any project briefs or details. Once both the brand and creator agree, a partnership ad can be created by boosting existing content or creating new content via the ad manager.
Pinterest Ad partnership with Google
What is it?: Pinterest has announced a new ad partnership with Google, which enables ads to be served on its platform via Google Ad Manager. The new partnership is designed to boost ad revenue, enabling ads via Google’s Ad Manager for users to view on Pinterest. When a user encounters a Google Ad, they will be directed to the advertiser’s website to complete their purchase.
Why is it important?: It is important as this will give advertisers more opportunity to run Google ad campaigns to broaden their reach, allowing advertisers to engage with an active, high value consumer base. Pinterest initiated the rollout of the new ad integration a few weeks ago, this comes with reports of positive results, which is a similar pattern to the previous collaboration with Amazon. Pinterest CEO Bill Ready said “We went live a couple of weeks ago, and this is starting to ramp up. Third-party ad demand is scaling as we anticipated.” This means it has the potential to result in a stronger Return on Investment (ROI) and increase conversions.
What action should be taken?: With the rollout happening weeks ago and reports of positive results, it’s clear to understand that this partnership is going well for many brands out there. We believe you should try for yourselves by enabling the integration and allowing ads to be served on Pinterest via Google’s Ad Manager.
Bonus Update: Bard can now generate high-quality, photorealistic images!
On February the 1st, Google announced that Bard will now be able to generate images for free. This is now available in English in most countries. With other platforms like DALL-E and even Bing leading the way, Google took the leap by simply entering a prompt for the image to be created.
Our final thoughts ...
In amongst this month's many updates, Consent Mode V2, is one that needs to be understood and actioned across all brands, no matter what industry you are in. From making the basic change to your GA4 settings, to changing the consent approach when a user first comes to the site, these changes are essential to avoid data loss from both a tracking and personalisation perspective. Don’t wait and procrastinate, act now!
For further information on any of the latest product updates or anything new that is on your mind, get in touch with our team of digital experts today.
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