Over the past decade, marketers have relied time and time again on organic and paid search for consistent results. The changes happened gradually, giving traders enough time to adapt their strategies.
But today, the pace of change in search marketing is accelerating, with more changes expected in the next two years than in the last eight years combined.
The evolution of research has slowly moved towards automation and consolidation. To be one step ahead, we must be aware of what is changing and study the reasons for it.
Here is a summary of events that have had a significant impact on the search marketing industry.
1. Privacy laws and signal loss
In May 2018 , the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was introduced in Europe . The GDPR grants EU citizens many rights to personal data, including access to accurate, deleted and transferred data.
Companies found to be violating the GDPR can be fined up to €20 million or 4% of their annual global turnover, whichever is greater.
Another important date for online privacy is September 2020 when iOS14 was released on Apple devices. The update includes a new feature called Application Tracking Transparency (ATT) , which allows users to opt out of being tracked by apps.
This change made it harder for advertisers to track users across apps and websites, making targeted ads less effective. This iOS update has changed the digital advertising landscape.
Another tipping point, though inevitable, will be July 1, 2023, when the CPRA (California Privacy Rights Act) comes into effect. The CPRA applies to companies that collect personal information about consumers in California, regardless of the company's location.
The CPRA has the power to investigate and prosecute violations of the Act and may impose fines of up to $7,500 per violation. The CPRA has some legislative teeth with stiff penalties for non-compliance.
Google has announced that it will be phasing out third-party cookies in Chrome by the second half of 2024. This change will have a significant impact on online advertising as third party cookies are critical to ad targeting. They allow advertisers to target specific audiences and track the effectiveness of online advertising.
Google is committed to improving privacy by blocking third-party cookies that are often used for tracking and advertising. By phasing out third-party cookies, Google is making it harder to track users across different sites.
The US browser market share is as follows:
- Chrome: 49%
- Safari: 35%
- Margin: 8.5%
- Firefox: 3.5%
Third party cookies will be phased out by the end of 2024 as Chrome, Safari and Firefox account for nearly 90% of the US internet traffic market.
Google Privacy Sandbox develops alternative methods for targeting audiences and tracking ad performance without the use of third-party cookies. These privacy sandbox initiatives include:
- FLOC (Federated Learning): FLOC provides a privacy-friendly way to replace third-party cookies by grouping users based on their interests. FLOC will allow advertisers to target groups of users with similar interests rather than tracking individual users across different websites.
- Topics API - Topics API is an offering that allows websites to search for a list of topics of interest to users. Advertisers can use this information to show users more relevant ads.
- Trust Token API : The Trust Token API is an offering that allows websites to verify the identity of users without the need for third-party cookies. Trust tokens can be used to prevent fraud and increase the security of online transactions.
Performance measurement and audience targeting are the cornerstones of digital marketing.
The evolution of digital privacy has forced advertising platforms such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others to develop new ways of targeting and measuring.
As advertising platforms change, marketers must modernize their strategies to stay competitive.
Earn the trust of daily newspaper search marketers.
2. Machine learning and automation
Machine learning algorithms have improved a lot in recent years in parallel with signal loss due to advances in privacy laws.
As a result of these two changes, advertising platforms such as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are revising their advertising platforms to rely on automation and artificial intelligence.
Google is always playing the long game. Historically, marketers have needed support for cross-domain attribution.
In addition, Google has known for a long time that data will be limited due to advances in privacy. Finally, this vision is being brought to life through automation and consolidation.
Google Ads introduced data-driven attribution (DDA) in September 2021.
DDA is a machine learning model that uses historical data from your account to determine how people interact with your various ads and decide to become your customers.
DDA can help you improve the performance of your Google Ads campaigns by giving you a more accurate picture of how your ads are driving conversions.
Bidding algorithms are nothing new to paid search advertising. Google introduced Smart Bidding in 2013 with the introduction of Targeted CPA Bidding (tCPA). The ability to bet on dynamic metrics such as income and ROI was introduced in 2017.
As with most changes, adoption of these features has been slow. Many advertisers were reluctant to give up bidding control on the platform.
Loss of control and growing reliance on machine learning will become a recurring theme in digital advertising.
Over time, smart bidding algorithms have improved significantly and are now the preferred method of managing bids. Manual bidding is still used for some aspects of campaigns, but its use is declining.
As data and automation evolve, so do the core functions of keywords . Google Ads has changed exact match functionality in 2021. Previously, exact match keywords would only trigger ads on searches that exactly matched the keyword.
However, exact match keywords can now also trigger ads for queries that are close variants of the keyword. This change means that ads may appear for queries that contain typos, synonyms, or other closely related keywords.
It's no secret that Google and Microsoft are actively encouraging advertisers to expand their reach . However, many advertisers, myself included, had a negative view of broad match. Request matching was very common and traffic quality was often below average.
Over the past two years, we have expanded the use of wider matches. Broad match can provide additional search reach and revenue when combined with well-designed bidding algorithms. If you're avoiding broad matching, consider revalidating.
In July 2021, Google Ads was removed from Broad Match Modification (BMM). Microsoft Ads stopped offering BMM in March 2023. This is the start of aggregating keyword match types.
(This is pure speculation, but Google/Microsoft will remove the other match type in 12-18 months.) If I were to make a prediction, phrase matching would gradually transition to exact (for verification) and broad (for alignment). .
These changes are a direct result of machine learning advances in advertising platforms such as Google Ads and Microsoft Ads.
3. Combining campaigns
Data-driven attribution has been an important component of Google Ads campaign integration. Google's ad serving algorithm dominates user intent in its flagship search product.
Algorithms are needed to measure the effectiveness of ads across different channels in the Google advertising ecosystem.
Once the algorithm figured out how to optimize Google properties, it opened the door for further integration. The campaign integration first came to Google and Microsoft as Smart Shopping .
Google Smart Shopping is a campaign that allows businesses to automatically show ads for their products on the Google Search Network, YouTube, Display Network, and Gmail. Smart Shopping campaigns use machine learning to optimize bids and placements.
In 2022, advertisers had to migrate smart shopping campaigns to Performance Max . Thus, Performance Max (PMax) is the current peak of campaign aggregation.
PMax gives advertisers access to new assets, ad formats, and audiences across all Google channels, including YouTube, Search, Gmail, Shopping, and Discovery.
Another point of integration will include Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) in PMax. Google hasn't given a specific transition date, but the company says it's working on integrating the two features and expects changes to be made soon.
Be one step ahead
The last five years have been like a roller coaster in slow motion. And it looks like the next two years will be a flood of screaming moments.
The decline will be driven by privacy laws, machine learning, automation and artificial intelligence. Gather, people!
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily those of the search engines. Staff writers are listed here.