If you’ve ever tried using avatars or buyer personas to write a Google Ads headline, you know it can be frustrating and fruitless. You try to define your target market, only to be told, “Our audience is anyone who wants our product – we don’t exclude anyone.” Persist a bit and you might refine it…
Google Ads is rolling out a new data privacy feature, giving advertisers more control over user consent management. Why we care. As privacy concerns grow, and with cookies not going anywhere (for now at least) this update allows for more granular control over how personal data is handled in advertising campaigns, which aligns with Google’s…
Two large publishers – Dotdash Meredith and Ziff Davis – say Google AI Overviews haven’t significantly impacted their traffic. What Dotdash Meredith is saying. Here’s what the IAC (owner of Dotash) wrote its Q2 2024 shareholder letter: “Google began to roll out AI Overviews in mid-May, the impact on our traffic has been negligible. Referrals from…
When training new technical SEOs, I find they struggle to identify action items from tools like Google Search Console and site crawlers (e.g., Screaming Frog, Lumar, OnCrawl). I presented on this topic at SMX Advanced 2024. For those who missed it, I’m recapping the presentation as a mini-series here on Search Engine Land. Commonly used…
Three-quarters of leading brands in the US and UK reportedly fall victim to identity theft in Google Search Ads. Consequences range from financial losses for the targeted business to customers becoming victims of fraud, according to a new report by search marketing security firm, Marcode. How it works. Scammer trick consumers by impersonating the targeted…
Google today announced updates to Google Analytics 4 (GA4). The coming months will see improved cross-channel reporting and budgeting, AI-generated insights and some integration with Chrome Privacy Sandbox. What’s new. These are the five new features Google announced: Third-party ad data: Users will be able to import advertising data from Pinterest, Reddit and Snap directly into…
Microbes that are used for health, agricultural, or other applications need to be able to withstand extreme conditions, and ideally the manufacturing processes used to make tablets for long-term storage. MIT researchers have now developed a new way to make microbes hardy enough to withstand these extreme conditions. Their method involves mixing bacteria with…
Fewer U.S. adults are beginning their product searches on TikTok than a year ago, according to a CivicScience study. Why we care. This is the latest evidence that Amazon is a platform that retail brands must pay attention to. While TikTok intends to build a $20 billion ecommerce business, the U.S. won’t be a big…
Google may have pressed pause on their phasing out of third-party cookies, but the rest of us don’t have to. While this latest pushback means some businesses may put off their search for a solution, I will instead outline practical steps you can take today to test both alternative targeting and measurement options to successfully…
TikTok is reportedly developing AI-powered virtual influencers that will be able to compete against human creators for lucrative advertising contracts. The new AI avatars can allegeldy read scripts for video ads created from prompts submitted by brands and TikTok Shop sellers. However, this feature is still in its testing phase so everything is subject to…