What did I miss? What happened in digital marketing over summer 2021

A recap of everything you as a digital marketer need to know about what happened in the industry while you’ve been on holiday.

It’s slowly starting to thin out for ‘OoO – see you after the Summer’ auto replies, and the good old “how was your vacation?” questions are coming thick and fast in every meeting. Yet, while most of us Europeans – as usual – have stuck to our silent agreement about collectively enjoying the slightly slower pace of the summer, the American tech giants haven’t missed the chance to launch new updates.

During the past couple of months there has been some interesting and also less interesting marketing news. News that we hope you have been too far away from your inbox to be fully updated on. Whether that’s the case or not, here’s some highlights of this summer’s most important industry news.

Several updates from Google

Google has launched a bunch of updates this summer, and their recent ‘’spam linking’’update seems to be the most intrusive and interesting one. The update has improved Google’s algorithms ability to detect backlinking schemes which are a standard part of many SEO professionals’ toolbox.

So if you are not sure if your SEO strategy is meeting Google’s quality guidelines, now’s the time to reconsider your tactics in order to avoid sanctions or being removed from the search field altogether.

You can read about the recent updates from Google here

Here’s a link to the Guidelines from Google

Danish speaker or handy with Google translate? Read why Precis thinks you should prioritise SEO in this article on Finans.dk

Facebook responds to Apples AAT changes with new update

Earlier this year Apple launched their data tracking update (ATT), which directly asked their users to opt-in on tracking of their activities on each individual app. Since then, a lot of users haven’t actively agreed to let Facebook track their activities – leaving the platform with limited data points for evaluating campaign performance.

Along with a couple of other features, Facebook has now added estimated conversions into their 7-day click attribution window in order to account for data lost due to the ATT update. That is, Facebook is now modelling conversion data to account for events from opt-out users. Previously, this was only done for 1-day click conversions.

1. You can read more about the whole update including the other features here
2. How many have actually opted in? Here’s one of the best trackers

Detailed targeting towards young people is no longer available on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger

How and to what extent Facebook should take responsibility for creating a safe environment for young users is an ongoing discussion, where the social media is often criticised for not doing enough. The company has, however, started launching some changes to the platform to make it better suited for young people.

Starting August 23, many targeting options including detailed targeting and custom audiences will no longer be available to target ads to people under 18. This means that it is now only possible to target by location, age and gender on ads to a younger audience. Facebook mentions that this may cause a decrease in audience sizes or potential reach for ad sets that use these targeting options.

1. You can read Facebook’s own description of of the new initiatives and their thinking behind it here
2. Facebook’s updated guidelines to targeting young people

Instagram is testing single images and the option for an image carousel in shop tab

In the next couple of months Instagram will be testing a new format in its e-commerce business, Instagram Shop. For now, it will only be available to a limited number of U.S. clients, but will be expanded to other markets soon. The update is another step for the platform to become an online shopping destination with an integrated checkout experience and therefore interesting for brands to consider when planning their future shopping strategies.

1. You can read more about the new format and Instagram’s plans for testing here

Tech companies take steps to improve privacy – but what does it really mean for users and advertisers?

Multi Party Computation, Differential Privacy, and On-Device Processing – these are all terms that you’ll hear a lot more about as tech companies race to make privacy an integral part of digital marketing. For a crash course in what it all means, we recommend reading Facebook’s recently published details of its investments in Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PET).

Here’s Rhys Cater, Managing Director at Precis Digital in London’s thoughts on this announcement from Facebook:

Regulation, technology changes by companies like Apple, and increasing public debate about the way that data is used in online advertising has pushed privacy to the top of the agenda for Google and Facebook. But what does privacy really mean, and do changes in technology actually result in changes in the behaviour of advertisers and tech companies? Does moving the location of audience segmentation from the Cloud onto people’s devices result in any increased privacy? Is it third-party cookies that internet users object to, or is it the fact that seeing an advert for protein shakes just after you bought an exercise bike feels creepy no matter how the technology behind the scenes is working?

Digital advertising is a commercial model that funds many of the things on the internet that people enjoy. In order for that to continue, users need to feel the benefit of privacy initiatives for themselves. Advancements in privacy technology are long overdue and a huge positive step for our industry. Now, advertisers and tech companies need to put focus squarely on user experience and win users’ hearts, not only their clicks.

1. Read Rhys’ original post on LinkedIn and share your thoughts
2. Google also published an updated timeline for their initiative Privacy Sandbox this summer

AI was used by Olympic brands to track their in-game sponsorships

As usual the Olympic Games has been packed with different sponsorships worth up to several million Euros. The development of AI has helped a whole lot in measuring whether these big sponsorships are worth the investment for the brands.

Morning Brew has published an interesting article on how a company like Eon Media uses AI to watch a broadcast game feed and evaluate the “exposure ROI” of in-game sponsorships.

Eon Media uses AI to measure:

• Where the branding is and how much space it takes up, whether on a court, an athlete’s uniform, or otherwise within view of audiences.
• How long that brand is actually seen and if it’s a cluttered shot or a clear image.
• A breakdown of costs—in other words, how much a particular logo sighting is worth.

1. You can read the full article with more details here

What next?

It can be hard to keep track. Whether you’re on vacation or not – the pace at which the big four release updates that impact the way you do business can be a little nutty. Let us do the hard work for you, stay up-to-date and follow us on Linkedin.