So what’s new in the digital world in January?
Google and Facebook are being accused of colluding in an online-ad sales scheme, Google Analytics is not GDPR compliant in Austria, a new Topics API solution is replacing FLoC and a new robots tag was introduced. This and much more!
Let’s get you up to speed.
CLICKTRUST in the press
CLICKTRUST démarre la nouvelle année avec 25 employés
– Digimedia
“CLICKTRUST, l’agence bruxelloise de médias numériques axée sur les données qui aide ses clients à la fois dans la stratégie et l’exécution de leurs campagnes de marketing numérique, poursuit son expansion. A l’automne 2021, l’agence a accueilli pas moins de 5 nouveaux collaborateurs.”
CLICKTRUST Brainfood
How to get international SEO right in bilingual countries like Belgium
– Yannick Timmermans
Often, Belgian websites of a big brand are meeting Dutch or French websites on the Organic Search Engine Result pages, sometimes even getting outranked by them. Yannick explains why you should include international SEO in your SEO strategy and how to do so.
Tutorial: Introduction to GA4 linking with BigQuery and connecting with R
– Nicolas Schnock
Last month we already explained what Google BigQuery is and why you should use it as a marketer. In his latest post, Nicolas explains how you can create your very first BigQuery project with Google Analytics data and connect with R.
News
Google Misled Publishers and Advertisers, Unredacted Lawsuit Alleges
– The Wall Street Journal
“Google misled publishers and advertisers for years about the pricing and processes of its ad auctions, creating secret programs that deflated sales for some companies while increasing prices for buyers, according to newly unredacted allegations and details in a lawsuit by state attorneys general.”
Google and Facebook CEOs colluded in online-ad sales scheme, unredacted antitrust lawsuit alleges
– MarketWatch
“Chief executives of the parent companies of Google and Facebook colluded to manipulate online advertising sales under a 2018 scheme nicknamed Jedi Blue and signed off on it, state attorneys general allege in newly unredacted filings.”
Google Analytics not GDPR compliant in Austria
– Noyb – European Center for Digital Rights
“In a groundbreaking decision, the Austrian Data Protection Authority has decided on a model case by noyb that the continuous use of Google Analytics violates the GDPR.”
Google-related updates
Data Driven Attribution in Google Analytics 4
– Krista Seiden
“Google Analytics 4 now has Data-Driven Attribution (DDA) available for ALL customers – both free and 360 customers!”
Google Sunsets FLoC, Announces New Topics API Solution
– Search Engine Journal
“Google announces its new user privacy and targeting solution, Topics API, which will replace the heavily criticized FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) solution.”
Get ready for Smart Shopping and Local campaign upgrades
– Google Ads & Commerce Blog
“Starting in April, you can begin upgrading your Smart Shopping and Local campaigns to Performance Max to access additional inventory and formats across YouTube, Search text ads and Discover. From July through September, your Smart Shopping campaigns will be automatically upgraded for you. Your Local campaigns will be automatically upgraded from August through September.”
New robots tag: indexifembedded
– Google Search Central Blog
“With the indexifembedded tag, you can tell Google you’d still like your content indexed when it’s embedded through iframes and similar HTML tags in other pages, even when the content page has the noindex tag.”
We Studied 81,000 Page Titles – Google Rewrote 61% Of Them
– Zyppy
“For this research, we examined a total of 80,959 title tags across 2370 sites from across the globe and compared them against desktop Google results. In our analysis, we found that Google rewrote 61.6% of the titles. Looking at individual results, we found a number of common scenarios in which it became more likely for Google to rewrite titles.”
Other
The programmatic poop funnel
– The Ad Contrarian Newsletter
“Today, about $350 billion dollars is spent on online advertising. 70%+ of it is bought programmatically. It turns out it has been wonderfully efficient for the lads and lassies in the adtech industry. Not so efficient for losers like you and me. Let’s see how it’s working…”
Introducing App Tracking Protection for Android: The easiest way to block trackers lurking in your apps
– spreadprivacy.com
“DuckDuckGo is launching App Tracking Protection for Android into beta, a new feature in our existing app that will block third-party trackers like Google and Facebook lurking in other apps.”
IndexNow Enables Data Sharing Between Search Engines
– Search Engine Journal
“IndexNow launched in October 2021 as a solution to help websites get their content indexed and updated in search engines faster. Microsoft is making it easier to implement by ensuring submitted URLs are simultaneously shared between search engines.”
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