For decades, Google has maintained an antagonistic relationship with digital marketers. The web’s largest and most influential search engine has attempted to thwart all manner of search engine optimization in all manner of ways, from refusing to divulge details about its monolithic algorithm to launching surprise updates and penalizing websites that participate in certain SEO activities.
Yet, in May 2023, Google extended a hand to long-suffering digital marketers by publishing an update to its Digital Marketing Playbook, which details anticipated changes to the search engine’s privacy policies and how digital marketers can and should react. Here’s a summary of the new Digital Marketing Playbook, which digital marketers, SEO experts, business leaders and others can use to improve their visibility online into the future.
A First-Party Data Strategy
Over the past several years, web users and consumers have grown increasingly concerned over the issue of data privacy. Merely by opening a browser and navigating to a webpage, web users are divulging a surprising amount of information about themselves, which savvy marketers and business leaders can leverage to manipulate consumers into making purchases. Unfortunately, much of that consumer data is less than adequately protected, and data leaks allow unscrupulous actors unprecedented access to sensitive details of real individuals.
In response to the consumer backlash to data collection, Google has resolved to end the collection of third-party cookies. Third-party data is data that has been collected by an organization that does not directly interact with consumers and is often sold to marketers or businesses looking for insights into consumer behavior. Because Google no longer supports the harvesting of third-party data, marketers and businesses need to learn first-party data collection strategies, which the company outlines in its Digital Marketing Playbook.
Much of the information about first-party data explained in the playbook focuses on the need to build trust amongst consumers and provide some exchange in value. Not only will this help convince a larger number of consumers to divulge sensitive information, but it will help businesses build more meaningful relationships with brands, which can be mutually beneficial in the long term.
Tools and Platforms for Data Measurement
Next, Google dives into all the new ways that businesses can accurately measure important marketing metrics, like user engagement. As Google — indeed, the internet itself — has become more sophisticated, it has become more difficult for marketers to determine the success of their online campaigns. Some tools and platforms suggested by the Digital Marketing Playbook include:
Sitewide tagging, using tags like the Google Tag for enhanced privacy and security.
Conversion modeling, taking advantage of sitewide tags to collect first-party data which Google can compare with its own stored user information.
Transitioning to Google Analytics 4, employing advanced machine learning to bridge gaps in consumer data.
Driving Growth
In its final chapter, Google’s Digital Marketing Playbook combines the information supplied in the first two chapters to help marketers and business leaders better understand how to take action and achieve success.
The first step is to find a way to engage first-party audiences without relying on third-party data, as mentioned above. Google suggests using any number of Google properties, like Gmail, Search, YouTube and Shopping. Ideally, businesses should be able to maintain engagement at scale.
Next, businesses might consider utilizing artificial intelligence to identify new audiences. By filtering data like demographic information, web and app activity and more, AIs can point to groups of consumers that businesses and marketers have previously overlooked.
Finally, it is imperative that businesses remain up to date on changes to Google’s privacy policy as well as national and international laws on consumer data. By no means are these the last-ever updates to data and privacy rules and regulations; in fact, it is likely that even more restrictions on how companies can collect, store and employ data will follow.
By no means is Google eliminating the collection and use of any online user data, but marketers almost certainly need to alter their strategies to account for these and future changes. Reading the Digital Marketing Playbook is a good step toward developing new methods for achieving success for business clients, but even more importantly, digital marketing firms should procure white label SEO services to partner with high-quality SEO providers capable of adapting to ever-shifting online landscapes.
Google is reaching out to digital marketers and business leaders, who are struggling to understand what changes to data privacy might do to their online strategy. As Google begins to feel threatened by new competitors to its supremacy — like ChatGPT — we might see more goodwill from the tech giant going forward.
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