Digital Digest
Marketing Intelligence Weekly
Weekly updates on the digital marketing news you need to know, including data reform, AI, cookie deprecation and platform updates.
Cookies
Data privacy
Help desk
Privacy Act changes
- The first tranche of the Australian Privacy Act reforms has officially entered Parliament, bringing significant changes to how organisations manage personal data.
- Stronger Enforcement: A new statutory tort for serious privacy breaches means individuals can now sue for significant invasions of privacy.
- Automated Decision-Making: Organisations must disclose how personal data is used in automated decisions affecting individuals’ rights.
- Children’s Online Privacy Code: A new compliance framework for handling children’s data is coming.
- Data Breach Provisions: Enhanced powers to manage data sharing in emergencies and during major breaches.
- While advertising-specific provisions have been deferred, it’s critical for marketers to understand the broader impacts and start preparing now.
- Read more.
- You can start preparing now by downloading our free guide on data privacy for marketers.
AI in digital
Platforms
OpenAI releases o1 model
- OpenAI has released its o1 model that can “reason like a human”.
- “We are introducing OpenAI o1, a new large language model trained with reinforcement learning to perform complex reasoning. o1 thinks before it answers—it can produce a long internal chain of thought before responding to the user.”
- While this new model brings fresh capabilities to the table, it's important to note that it's not a replacement for GPT-4o in all scenarios.
- Read more.
Platforms
Meta integrating with Google Analytics 4
- Meta plans to integrate with GA4. When the feature rolls out, you can directly integrate Google Analytics 4 with Meta using GA4's reporting API.
- This lets you firehose information into Meta that it can then use to further calculate ad attribution and optimise costs.
- Meta is already testing integrations with Google Analytics and Northbeam, with plans to add Triple Whale and Adobe Analytics soon.
- Read more.
AI in digital
Platforms
Product carousels in AI Overviews are back
- Product carousels in AI Overviews are back for commercial queries.
- The AI Overview generates a browsable listing like snapshot that when opened, showcases clickable products carousels that trigger product knowledge panels, driving users directly to PDPs.
- According to SEO Expert, Aleyda Solis: ‘I've identified product carousels getting again triggered for product focused queries with a mix of commercial/informational intent, which are right now ranked by a mix of guides and category pages.“
- Read more.
Platforms
Wayback Machine links added to Google Search
- Google Search has added the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine links to “about this page” results.
- These links will enable searchers to easily view previous versions of the web page.
- Google told Search Engine Land: “We know that many people, including those in the research community, value being able to see previous versions of webpages when available. That’s why we’ve added links to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to our ‘About this page’ feature, to give people quick context and make this helpful information easily accessible through Search.”
- Read more.
AI in digital
AI results being manipulated to favour clients
- According to a story in the New York Times, black hat consultants are manipulating AI search tools and chatbots to favour their clients.
- "Chatbots are highly suggestible," Mark Riedl, Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing, told the NYT. "If you have a piece of text you put on the internet and it gets memorized, it's memorialized in the language model.”
- NYT tech columnist Kevin Roose was able to manipulate AI chatbots perception of him. All it took was a few senteces crafted to manipulate AI training data which AI researchers then fed into a chatbot, as well as a simple plea from Roose on his personal website asking AI to say nice things about him.
- Read more.
Marketing by numbers
Internet marketing advertisement is up almost 10% on last year
- IAB Australia’s Internet Advertising Revenue Report for the financial year ended June 2024 is out.
- The report shows that internet marketing advertisement has grown 9.7% since FY23, to $15.6 billion in Australia, with “search and directories” taking the biggest chunk.
- Video continues to take share from other display formats, however Search maintains the largest share, representing $0.44 of each $1 spent.
- The top 5 industry categories by expenditure are retail, automotive, finance, health & beauty, and entertainment.
- Unfortunately we cannot share the link to this report here, however please get in touch if you'd like more information.
AI in digital
Platforms
SearchGPT much more similar to Bing than Google
- In a recent analysis by SERanking, on how SearchGPT compares to Google, it was found that SearchGPT results are significantly more similar to Bing.
- SearchGPT is 73% similar to Bing and 46% to Google in search results, with top domains like openai.com, amazon.com, and forbes.com appearing across all three search engines.
- Domains listed in SearchGPT often get significant traffic from Google.
- Meanwhile, 26% of URLs ranking in SearchGPT receive no traffic from Google, suggesting new visibility opportunities.
- Read more.
AI in digital
Platforms
Google is swapping Video Action Campaigns for Demand Gen
- Google is switching its Video Action Campaigns into AI-powered ad product Demand Gen next year.
- Advertisers will be able to purchase Demand Gen inventory via Google Display and Video 360 starting in October.
- Demand Gen powers creative material, creates lookalike audience segments based on existing user data, and can predict the audience segments that are most likely to engage with an ad.
- Read more.
Platforms
Google to unify Schema Markup and Google Merchant Center data
- Google wants to unify your Schema markup and Google Merchant Center data in order to improve the shopping experience.
- To address data discrepancies between the two data feeds, Google will stitch the data together to come up with the most accurate shopping data for users.
- This change should simplify merchant product measurement and provide consumers with more relevant, accurate product information.
- Read more.
Data privacy
REMINDER: Privacy act changes to be announced
- Privacy Act changes will be announced on the 9th of September.
- We can expect to see a version of the new text this time next week.
- Stay tuned!
AI in digital
Platforms
SearchGPT incorporates AI with web search
- SearchGPT by OpenAI integrates AI (GPT4o) with web search for fast, accurate answers.
- This could potentially impact Google’s dominance.
- Features include: conversational and interactive search experience, real-time information with clear source citations, collaboration with publishers for high-quality content, plus publisher controls for content management.
- OpenAI intends to incorporate these features into future versions of ChatGPT.
- Read more.
Platforms
GA4 now includes benchmarking data
- Google Analytics 4 now includes benchmarking data, so you can compare your data to other businesses in your industry.
- Users can access benchmarking data if their property has the “Modeling contributions & business insights” setting enabled in Admin > Account Settings.
- You can select from different categories to find the most relevant benchmarking data for your company.
- Benchmarks are refreshed every 24 hours and include your trendline, median in your peer group, and range in your peer group.
- Read more.
AI in digital
AI in travel
Platforms
Perplexity is getting into the ads game
- Perplexity AI is getting into the ad game. Its advertisers pitch deck unveils its Q4 launch plans.
- Perplexity's unique approach will integrate ads directly within users' queries and answers.
- Perplexity has identified over a dozen “key” advertising categories for its initial launch, including technology, health and pharma, finance, and travel.
- Read more.
Platforms
Google August 2024 core update impact
- In a recent poll conducted by Barry Schwartz, most respondents said they had been negatively affected by the August 2024 core algorithm update.
- 44% of respondents said my traffic/rankings are down, while just 27% of respondents said it had helped their traffic and rankings.
- 29% said there was no change.
- Read more.
Cookies
Data privacy
Platforms
Google unveils new tools for first-party data
- In an attempt to increase data privacy, Google has unveiled two new tools around first-party data.
- Google Tag Diagnostics: This new tool helps you gain valuable insights into the health of your Google tags directly within Google Tag Manager, Google Ads, and Google Analytics.
- Simplified Consent Management setup: Google is launching a streamlined solution that integrates with Google CMP partners. This integrated CMP setup streamlines consent banner creation and consent mode implementation directly within the Google tag user interface inside of Google Ads, Google Analytics, and Google Tag Manager.
- These new features will be available in all accounts and will roll out on a gradual basis over the next few weeks.
- Read more.
AI in digital
Platforms
Updates to Google Gemini
- Google has introduced Gems to Gemini, a new feature of pre-defined specialised experts to help users code, coach, create content, brainstorm and handle other tasks.
- Gems are for more specific, narrowly definied tasks.
- Gems will roll out soon across Gemini AI.
- Gemini AI is now integrated into the Chrome address bar. You can now simply type in “@Gemini” to access the AI assistant.
- Read more.
AI in digital
Platforms
AI Overviews affected by core updates
- Last week we announced a new Google core algorithm update, now Google has confirmed that AI Overviews are affected by core updates.
- Google’s Senior Search Analyst, John Mueller, confirmed via LinkedIn, “These are a part of search, and core updates affect search, so yes.”
- Many in the SEO industry believe that sources are seen to change in AI Overviews after an algorithm update.
- Read more.
AI in digital
Platforms
AI Overviews closely match top 10
- According to a new study by seoClarity, AI Overviews sources now more closely match the top 10 search results 99.5% of the time.
- After an analysis of 36,000 keywords, it was found that Google AI Overviews and organic results overlap.
- This is in stark contrast to previous analysis that showed AI Overviews sources were usually outside the top 10 search results for the same query.
- Read more.
Marketing by numbers
Finance sector sees biggest audience numbers for the year
- According to the latest data from Ipsos Iris (market research company and In Marketing We Trust client), the finance sector reached its largest audience numbers in July (the greatest for the year so far).
- Australian’s time spent online in July reached its peak for the year, driving record numbers across multiple industries, including finance.
- “The business and finance sectors reached 20.4 million and 20.7 million respectively for the month, driven by end-of-financial-year activities, with many Australians using tax time to seek out business and finance advice.”
- Read more.
AI in digital
Platforms
Google unveils Imagen 3
- In a new research paper, Google DeepMind announced Imagen 3, a new text-to-image model.
- Google claims that Imagen 3 performs better than other state-of-the-art models, such as Dall-E 3 and Stable Diffusion 3. “In particular, it performs well at photorealism, and in adhering to long and complex user prompts.”
- Unlike Grok-2, Imagen 3 includes many guardrails in place to prevent the model from producing “harmful content”.
- Read more.
AI in digital
Platforms
New Spotify Ads Manager
- Spotify Ad Studio is now Spotify Ads Manager.
- Ads Manager includes expanded features such as video ad units and a more robust targeting system, with audience segments quadrupling to over 100.
- Additionally, Spotify is testing a generative AI tool called Quick Audio, which allows brands to produce voice-overs and audio scripts, streamlining ad creation.
- Read more.
Platforms
New Google core update
- Google rolled out a new core algorithm update last week (August 15th, 2024).
- Google’s John Mueller posted: “This update is designed to continue our work to improve the quality of our search results by showing more content that people find genuinely useful and less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on Search.”
- This core update may take up to a month to complete.
- Read more.
AI in digital
Platforms
Updates to AI Overviews
- Google is updating AI Overviews by testing links to websites and rolling AI Overviews out to more countries.
- In desktop you may see links in the main content of AI Overviews, and on mobile, users can click the site icons to view the source sites.
- “This experiment has shown early, positive results: Showing links to supporting web pages directly within AI Overviews is driving higher traffic to publisher sites.”
- AI Overviews is being rolled out to six additional countries after its successful rollout in the US: United Kingdom, India, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil – along with local language support in each country.
- Read more.
AI in digital
Data privacy
Platforms
X hit with 9 GDPR complaints
- X has been hit with 9 GDPR complaints after using European user data to train AI.
- X was targeted Monday with nine complaints following its non-consensual use of European user data to train its AI chatbot, Grok.
- The case surrounding X and its GDPR infringements have “implications for the entire AI industry, not just for X, and more acutely when it comes to the availability of data to lawfully train models,“ says Gabriela Zanfir-Fortuna, vice-president for global privacy at the Future of Privacy Forum, a think tank focused on data privacy.
- Read more.
Marketing by numbers
Retail media ad growth increases despite rising ad costs
- A new Q2 trends report by Skai, shows that US retail media ad growth outpaced search and social ad spending despite rising ad costs.
- While retail media ad growth outperformed search and social ads in Q2, increasing 21% YoY, social and search ads growth still improved by 13% and 6% respectively.
- Read more.
AI in digital
Platforms
ChatGPT training doesn’t match real use
- A new study by the Data Provenance Initiative has concluded that GhatGPT training data does not match its real-world use.
- The study, which analyzed 14,000 web domains, found that ChatGPT’s training data primarily consists of news articles, encyclopedias, and social media content, whereas its typical real-world use includes creative writing, brainstorming and seeking explanations.
- This mismatch suggests marketers may struggle with use cases around current events, niche topics and industry-specific knowledge.
- Read more.
Help desk
New Travel Digital Digest Launched Today
- Love getting this Digital Digest in your inbox every Monday? In the travel industry? Today, we’ve launched our Travel Digital Digest.
- It’s the same news, including AI in digital, marketing by numbers, data privacy and more but for the travel industry.
- By the same team you know and trust, In Marketing We Trust.
- Yes it’s a new newsletter, but don’t worry, your Digital Digest isn’t going anywhere.
- View the Travel Digital Digest and sign up here.
Platforms
Big brand ads featured alongside explicit content
- In a report published last week, it was found that fortune 500 brand ads are being published alongside pornography, violent imagery, and racial slurs.
- The research, produced by ad quality firm Adalytics, sampled publicly available data to analyse ad placements, and their source code, on the open web.
- According to the report, websites with offensive content, were seen displaying ads for large brands.
- Many of the campaigns were managed by ad agency holding companies, including Publicis, IPG, WPP and Omnicom.
- According to Adalytics, multiple brands that were exposed had paid for pre-bid and post-bid brand safety tech as well as keyword blocking, yet their ads were still found in unsuitable contexts.
- Read more.
AI in digital
Platforms
Google Search not impacted by new AI search tools
- According to a new report, Google search and traffic has not been impacted by new AI driven search engines.
- New data from Datos’ clickstream panel analysed by Sonata Insights showed Google traffic grew over the year, despite all the new AI competitors.
- The report showed Google search and traffic has grown, despite AI competitors, including Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT.
- The story was covered in detail by Rand Fishkin at SparkToro, who stated “In May of 2024, Google has slightly more desktop visits than they did in May of 2023 (+1.4% growth), while the largest of the AI search players by this metric (Perplexity), was at 15.69 (+42% growth from the year prior),”
- Read more.
