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Good morning, Marketers, do you hate Google Analytics 4?
Chatter on Twitter this week indicates that many marketers are not adjusting well to Google’s change in their reporting platform. One of the big differences is that GA4 is event-based measurement (whereas Universal Analytics had page hits, event hits, ecommerce hits, and social interaction hits).
But for marketers, it seems the issue is making the leap (and hopefully getting more data after the beta is complete). “One client starting from scratch looked at GA4 reports rather than GA3 and immediately saw much more data without fiddling with GTM,” said Mark Alves. If you’re still lost, check out Colleen Harris’ SMX Advanced session: “Preparing your website data for Google Analytics 4.”
Hopefully Google will hear search marketers’ feedback and make big improvements in UX and data reporting before the GA4 beta ends.
Carolyn Lyden
Director of Search Content
Third-party cookies won’t be deprecated in Chrome until late 2023
Google has moved back its timeline to block third-party cookies in Chrome, according to an announcement yesterday morning. “While there’s considerable progress with this initiative, it’s become clear that more time is needed across the ecosystem to get this right,” said Vinay Goel, Privacy Engineering Director with Chrome.
The new timeline allows for more community input as well as room for Google to continue working with international regulators. First, Google will allow for testing, discussion, and preparation for adoption. If the solutions pass the commitments Google has made to the CMS, the rollout will begin:
- Stage 1 (Starting late-2022): Once testing is complete and APIs are launched in Chrome, we will announce the start of stage 1. During stage 1, publishers and the advertising industry will have time to migrate their services. We expect this stage to last for nine months, and we will monitor adoption and feedback carefully before moving to stage 2.
- Stage 2 (Starting mid-2023): Chrome will phase out support for third-party cookies over a three month period finishing in late 2023.
Why we care. This delay means that there is an opportunity for search marketers’ concerns to be heard by the tech giant and that there is more time to prepare for the major changes.
Demonstrating E-A-T: Tactics to implement, and avoid, for greater search visibility
The competition for site traffic, users’ attention and trust is constantly intensifying, and now, people have more choice than ever about where they can go to find the information or products they’re looking for. That’s why improving your E-A-T is such an important element to both your brand’s credibility and organic visibility. At SMX Advanced, Lily Ray of Amsive Digital discussed the tactics that she and her team have identified as being harmful to your E-A-T, as well as ways to bolster it for search engines and users alike.
In a nutshell, marketers should be avoiding thin content, doorway pages, creating content on a variety of topics (as opposed to focusing on their niche), unmoderated UGC and undisclosed affiliate links. For brands that are looking to take their E-A-T to the next level, Ray suggested:
- Updating, removing, redirecting and consolidating your content.
- Improving your site architecture using a logical parent-child relationship with categories and subcategories.
- Managing your brand’s reputation.
- And, increasing transparency wherever possible (with citations, bylines, publishing dates, etc.).
Get more in-depth on how to improve your E-A-T.
GMB 101, Facebook Ads ROAS and add tweets directly to Instagram Stories
Niki Mosier launches new GMB Management 101 course with BrightLocal. If you’re looking to successfully claim, optimize and maintain a Google My Business listing, local SEO expert Niki Mosier walks you through each step of the process in this free course.
How to increase ROAS from Facebook Ads. Step 1. Improve your ad copy. Step 2. Improve creative. Step 3. Profit? Check out the full list of tips from Charlie Lawrence here.
You can now add your tweets directly to Insta stories. This trend has always baffled me. Instagram influencers with huge followings have seen huge success just re-posting their tweets on the visual social platform. Now they don’t even have to screenshot.
What We’re Reading: Teamwork makes the dream work
That’s the idea behind this Wired article, “How humans think when they think as part of a group” by Annie Murphy Paul. We often think of “groupthink” as a bad thing. We’re all getting caught up in, “well that’s what they’re doing.”
“The group mind was believed to be powerful but also dangerous: primitive, irrational, incipiently violent. It was also assumed that the group was less intelligent than the individual,” said Paul.
However, she also shares examples detailing how thinking as a team is actually beneficial. Not only do we expand our brain power beyond just one person, we can figure out problems faster, brainstorm better new ideas, and adjust to the changing developments of a fast-paced world more quickly.
She later says that the keys to a positive group mentality are actually missing from schools and companies nowadays. “Our emphasis on individual achievement, and our neglect of interpersonal cohesion, means that we are failing to reap the rich benefits of the group mind.”
So how do we cultivate it again?
- People who need to think together should train together—in person, at the same time (kind of like the military does).
- People who need to think together should feel together—in person, at the same time. Ask members to candidly share their feelings on a topic.
- People who need to think together should engage in rituals together—in person, at the same time. The ritual can be as simple as sharing a meal with coworkers or friends.
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