Digital Marketing News - December 2023

In this month's digital marketing newsletter, we will be discussing the latest trends and updates in all things SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Data across the e-commerce space. For the latest updates in all things digital marketing, look out for our monthly newsletter where we will delve into the significance of digital marketing and its latest trends. AYKO is a leading Magento and Shopify agency, specialising in E-commerce solutions as well as offering outstanding marketing practices to elevate your business.

SEO

Google Search Console will no longer report on product results in performance reports

Google announced in December that it plans to stop reporting on product results search in performance reports starting January 2024.

Websites that have product pages will soon no longer be able to click on the search appearance filter and see the product results option.

The importance of SEO in a website migration, as demonstrated by Real Madrid CF

Nothing kills the excitement of launching of a new site faster than a severe decline of search performance due to a poorly implemented migration strategy (or lack thereof). The purpose of an SEO migration is to ensure that rankings, site authority and indexing signals are not lost after major structural changes to the website. Neglecting this can have severe consequences.

A recent example of this is Real Madrid CF recently launching their new site without taking SEO into consideration.

From not following the best practices, they have lost:

• 14,000,000 Est. traffic;
• 216,000 keywords; and
• 16,100 keywords in positions 1-3.

Within 2 weeks of the new website launching, Real Madrid CF has lost more than -50% of organic website traffic. This should serve as a cautionary tale to all brands when launching a new website.

Is your business launching a new site? Let's discuss how we can help you with your SEO migration! Get in touch today!

SERP to CHERP

CHERP, or 'Chat Experience Results Page' is an acronym suggested by Search Engine Land. In essence, it describes the Generative AI results page that will provide users with quick and clear overviews of search topics without having to click on web pages. As Google is actively adopting Search Generative Experience (SGE), this, of course, will increase zero-click results thanks to searchers being able to find answers to their queries within the search results.

Findings found, that out of 100 SGE SERPS, 41% did not include links from the top 10 organic results - this means SGE is pulling longer-tail content with higher relevance and lower volume.

What does this mean for SEO? In short, search engines will be placing greater emphasis on longer-tailed keywords. Some other notable factors influencing SGE content include:

• FAQs play a role in populating SGE content
• Sites with quality links and citations are more likely to appear in SGE
• Faster page speed allows SGE to read content more quickly and easily
• Schema markup will enhance visibility of content
• Clicks may decrease but sales may increase

PPC

Google Analytics 4 audiences have been rolled out on Google Ads

Advertisers are now able to create Google Analytics 4 audiences directly within the Google Ads interface. Advertisers can now build Analytics audiences using the Audience Manager tool, or during the campaign creation process.

Google has also announced additional dimensions will be added to GA4 for better data filtering. The following GA4 features will be able to make use of the new dimensions:

• Audience builder;
• Segment builder;
• Custom reports builder;
• Data API.

You can find a list of the predefined item-scoped dimensions here.

Google is starting to phase out third-party cookies in January

This will impact 1% of randomly selected Chrome users globally, which is just over 30 million users worldwide - a gradual process of abandoning 3rd-party cookies entirely. According to Google's previous plan, this will be completed in the latter half of 2024, and it's working to provide developers with all the required tools.

Many advertisers still rely on third-party cookies on their sites and for personalised ads, so this is expected to have a huge impact on advertising.

Are you concerned about your business's data collection capabilities and paid advertising performance in 2024? Get in touch today to discuss how we can help.

Google’s been testing using Headlines in place of Descriptions in ads without informing advertisers

Google has not informed advertisers about this experiment, leaving many frustrated.

Ginny Marvin, Google’s Liason Officer, has described it as a ‘small test’. This, however, still raises the issue of transparency between Google and advertisers who use their tools. Ad copy is one of the areas over which advertisers still have a lot of control, thus changing ad copy dynamics without prior notice can not only impact testing, but also negatively affect advertising within certain, tightly controlled industries (eg.: legal, financial, medical).

Google lets advertisers apply recommendations, add keywords and edit ad copy directly within SERPs

This beta feature allows advertisers to edit ads and apply recommendations within SERPs when logged in to their account and have a verified Google Search Console property, and searching for the right keywords.

Any changes will be immediately visible in the SERPs, however won't be fully applied until they are saved.

This functionality can potentially save a lot of time, allowing advertisers to quickly adjust their ads based on other results and competitors in the auction.

Google Ads Displays budget pacing at Account-level

Spotted by Raman Yadav, Google Ads interface may now offer budget pacing insights, providing advertisers with a rough projection of spend for the month, as well as giving suggestions on any improvement actions that could be taken. It appears this functionality is currently in beta.

Advertisers should be able to find this information under the Insights tab on the platform.

PAID SOCIAL

Meta introduces ‘Topic Tags’ to Threads

Meta has added their spin on “hashtags” to Threads. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram and Threads, made the announcement in a Thread.

Whilst similar in function to hashtags, ‘topic tags’ have a number of differences, such as not showing a special symbol (however '#' will need to be used to start typing them out), allowing spaces between words, as well as special characters. Additionally, only one tag is allowed per post.

There are no ads currently on Threads, however these tags may be implemented into ads when they are eventually rolled out and can be used now for organic engagement.

Facebook now stores ‘Link History’ for all users, using this data in personalised ads

Facebook has now started to archive 'link history' globally on both Android and iOS devices. The feature keeps track of the websites users have visited through the Facebook mobile browser over the last 30 days and stores the links for this duration. Sites visited through Messenger chats, however, are not archived.

The feature is set to be on by default, however users can opt out of it if they choose to do so. Meta will be utilising the collected data for targeted advertising.

It's possible that this feature could be a loophole for marketers to reach high-value consumers, but the solution could be temporary.

MARKETPLACES

Amazon Prime Video to have ads from February

Amazon has recently announced that from February 5th 2024, advertisements will be introduced to its Prime Video streaming service for users in the UK and Germany - unless they pay an extra £2.99 a month to upgrade to an ad-free membership. However, some forms of content such as live sports, will still have adverts even if users upgrade.

The UK and Germany are not alone in this roll-out, as it has already been announced to come to users in the US and Canada from January 29th, and Amazon plans to expand Prime Video advertisements to France, Italy, Spain, Mexico and Australia later in 2024.

Many brands are likely to shift some of their advertising budget to streaming TV ads in early 2024, as this will offer a unique placement which captures the viewer’s engagement and allows advertisers to showcase their brand message to unique and relevant audiences.

The UK alone has 13 million Prime subscribers, who can already access Prime Video’s streaming service, and as a result a large opportunity now exists for advertisers to engage with relevant audiences in a new and unique way.

Amazon launches Generative AI (Beta)

Amazon has launched Generative AI in beta (currently US only) for images, titles, descriptions and key product features. Sellers can input a brief description of the product, and content that also takes into account the product photos will be generated for review. For example, it can describe the type of collar on a shirt from the product photo.

Amazon found that Sponsored Brands mobile ads have a 40% higher click through rate when using lifestyle images, compared to standard product images. As a result, sellers can now use Amazon’s Generative AI to produce lifestyle imagery that can help improve their ads’ performance. For example, if a brand has an image of their coffee mug against a white background then Amazon’s Generative AI can be utilised to place that same coffee mug in a lifestyle context, such as on a kitchen counter, a desk, or next to a croissant etc.

Vertical Sponsored Brands videos

Amazon has closely monitored the success of YouTube’s ‘Shorts’, which has delivered 10-20% more conversions per dollar than with landscape video, and Amazon’s beta testing revealed an 8.9% increase in click-through-rates. 

Sellers in the US can now use vertical videos across all Sponsored Brands video placements, and Amazon hopes this move will allow brands utilise existing vertical content from their social media channels on Amazon.

Could your business benefit from Sponsored Brands advertising on Amazon? Get in touch with us today to discuss with an Amazon PPC expert.

DATA

New Custom Domain Setup For SGTM

Google now recommends that Google Tag Manager server-side setup uses a custom domain path such as shop.com/GTM instead of a subdomain e.g. GTM.shop.com for first-party cookie tracking with GTM server-side implementation.

With the new restrictions coming from Safari, more than just setting up a custom domain is required to prolong cookie lifetime. Even when a custom domain is mapped, cookies in Safari will be shortened. To make it last longer, advertisers and developers must ensure the custom domain has the same IP address as their website’s primary domain by configuring Own CDN.

Consent Mode V2 & Google Ads

In light of regulatory changes and increased demand for the protection of users’ privacy and consent choices, Google is now updating Consent Mode to Consent Mode v2. The main difference is the introduction of two additional consent states: 

• ad_user_data is used to determine whether the user gives consent for Google’s advertising purposes. This will be set to ‘granted’ when the user actively agrees to their data being shared with Google through a consent banner interaction.
• ad_personalization controls whether data can be used for ad personalisation (e.g. for remarketing). It can only be set to ‘granted’ when users specifically agree (through the consent banner) that their data is shared with Google for ad personalisation.

If these two new parameters are not ‘granted’, it will not be possible to build specific audiences and run personalised advertising on Google Ads in the EEA region. 

To maintain the quality of the audiences and measurement in Google Ads, businesses will need to make Consent Mode v2 is implemented correctly before March 2024.

Are you concerned whether your website is compliant with the latest regulations? Get in touch with us today to see how we can help!

As we conclude this edition of our newsletter, we hope you've found valuable insights and inspiration for your digital marketing efforts. If you have any queries about any information you have learnt here today please don’t hesitate to get in touch with a member of the team. We welcome your feedback and questions. Don't hesitate to reach out to our team for any assistance or to share your success stories with us. Contact: hello@ayko.com

About AYKO

AYKO is an Adobe Gold Partner & certified Adobe Commerce Specialist. Forged from the merger of two other Magento-certified agencies and one digital marketing agency in 2019, AYKO was formed to create one of the largest full-service digital, Magento eCommerce, and Shopify Plus agencies in the UK. Currently, with a team of 56 industry specialists, they specialise in design and development alongside performance marketing to accelerate your website and customer experiences.