Doing the Friday happy dance this week! It’s been a really good one. Today I can now say that ALL 8 of my parents have received at least 1 dose of the vaccine. Our taxes are done, I’m full steam ahead on the plan for my future and am busy manifesting it with gratitudes and positive energy. Not to mention, I’m meeting some friends for a day of shopping and eating tomorrow and next week I spy not one but 2 70+ degree days in the forecast.
I’m treating this week’s post a little differently and focusing all of my efforts on the great and powerful Google. Two parts privacy and one part search. In the 4th episode of this season’s Homefiniti & Beyond, we focused a lot of attention on Apple and Facebook. But Google is also making privacy changes. And they’re forever tweaking search and the ad product that goes with it.
MODIFIED BROAD MATCH NO MORE
Yup, they’re phasing it out. In its place will be phrase match. Really, what is happening is that phrase match is expanding to cover a lot of what fell into modified broad match, but alas, not all of it. This won’t take place until July. The good news is that phrase match is already Google’s preferred ad type and the one we use most often now. Once the changes roll out we’ll keep you up to date on the effect it has on phrase matches.
THIRD PARTY COOKIES BE GONE
We’ve mentioned this before, but Google is saying goodbye to third party cookies next year. With that they will also stop selling ads based on your browsing history. At first glance this is big. But, being the behemoth that Google is, it’s not as terribly impactful as one might glance. It’s not a small deal, but it’s not like totally earth shattering. See above. Search isn’t based on browsing history, so ads based on search habits are still totally viable. As are many other parts of their data collection. Cough Cough they own FitBit, Nest and a whole host of other companies that are busy gathering all your info.
Interestingly enough, in the March 4th episode of NPR’s Marketplace Tech, host Molly Wood, (she must be a smartie pants with a name like 😜) interviewed Meg Leta Jones, a professor of communication, culture and technology at Georgetown who spoke about the reason cookies came about in the first place – to help combat big tech and give little websites the ability to prove the value of the ads on their site to potential advertisers. She posits that through this cookie removal, we could see a shift that helps the little guy once more.
PRIVACY PRESERVING TECHNOLOGY. WHAT?
That’s what Google is saying about the tracking of you it will do in the future. Essentially, the FLoC’s will group like users together and blend their data so that no one person’s data is identifiable. What’s important for advertisers is that we all begin shoring up other methods of tracking the success of digital marketing campaigns. This is the part that we’re paying a lot of attention to. Building up your CRM, embracing email marketing a little more strongly, and making sure that all eggs are not in one basket.
For the record, I’m team third party cookie all the way. I love myself a dynamically targeted ad that speaks directly to me. It’s how I’ve come to find much of my wardrobe, was introduced the gorgeous yet affordable La Cornue range dupe that i’m currently lusting after, and how I learn about my clients’ competition and their digital ad strategies. You click on one new home ad and suddenly your feed is awash in builders. Some of whom are not tracking them, at all, which makes me want to cry; but that’s a post for another day.
