The CLICKTRUST monthly pick – October 2020

News and articles from the CLICKTRUST blog and from around the web that allows us to stay on top of our game. You might want to read them too.

CLICKTRUST Brainfood:

Ad customizer feeds in Google Ads

– Houda Fettaka

“We’re always looking for things that could make our lives a bit easier right? Well, you may have heard about the ad customizer feeds in Google Ads that could facilitate the process of customizing your ads. If not, here is a brief overview of what you can expect & how to get started.”

Technical SEO requirements checklist for developers & webmasters

– Lore Dessent

“We decided to create our own checklist focusing on the technical SEO requirements for a new website or webpage. We hope that it can serve as a starting point in communicating priorities to your developer and webmaster teams.”

The death of cookies and how to activate CRM data

– Jochen Fostie

“Ever since 2010, when Google launched the ability to retarget people based on their actions on a website, this targeting method has been an important part of marketing strategies. Other advertising platforms soon followed and implemented the same functionalities. However, recently, changes to browsers and the GDPR legislation have severly impacted the power of cookie-based audiences? How? Why should you care? What are the alternatives?”

General: Data, Privacy & more

4 Marketing Technology Projects to Consider for 2021

– Rick Dronkers

“You should invest in total ownership of your data collection and dispersion technology. You should invest in a way to identify and recognize users, with their consent. You should invest in implementing and adopting Google Analytics 4. You should invest in a digital marketing data warehouse.”

Digital Advertising Is Not the Next Internet Bubble – Here’s Why

– Search Engine Journal

“While there is ample evidence to suggest that digital advertising isn’t as effective as platforms like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and Amazon claim and that attribution (the process of apportioning “credit” for positive outcomes to contributing channels) is still murky at best, it simply does not follow that these ads are “worthless.” When you buy a digital ad, you’re buying the probability that the ad contributes to a positive outcome that has some value (X) to your organization. In short: you’re buying expected economic value (“EEV”).”

Microsoft Clarity, the company’s tool for visualizing user experience, is out of beta

– Search Engine Land

“Microsoft Clarity, a free product to help site owners better understand visitor behavior so that they can improve their user experiences, is out of beta and now generally available, the company announced Wednesday. First launched as a closed beta in 2018, Microsoft Clarity provides site owners with visual heatmaps that illustrate user engagement, individual session replays, a dashboard to help them get an overall understanding of user interactions and filters to drill down on various types of interactions.“

When Ad Platforms Control the Auction, Return, Data… & Now the Cookie

– Search Engine Journal

“I don’t know the best way to fix this, but I do know that it would be a great start for Google to step back from limiting advertiser data access and to begin treating its advertisers in more of a partnership manner to encourage healthy transparency and long-term growth.”

Customizable Amazon Sponsored Display ads go live globally

– Search Engine Land

“Amazon has rolled out the ability for eligible advertisers to add their brand logo and customize the headline in Sponsored Display ads. The customized Sponsored Display units can run on product description pages, customer reviews, shopping results pages and under the Featured Offer. The ads render responsively to fit inventory units on the web, mobile and in-app.”

Google: Organic, Ads & Analytics

Tag Assistant Preview Mode In Google Tag Manager

– Simo Ahava

“The new preview mode is now integrated into the Google Tag Assistant ecosystem. If this makes you nervous, I don’t blame you. Over the years, Google Tag Assistant has been lagging behind the development of Google’s tagging tools. However, with the release of Google Tag Assistant recordings a few years back, and now with the reimagined preview experience, Google Tag Assistant has suddenly jumped to the foreground when discussing which tools to most rely on for debugging the tags on a given website.”

Featured snippets: The 9 rules of optimization

– Search Engine Land

“In SEO, some might consider featured snippets the holy grail of rankings. Featured snippets are a great low hanging fruit opportunity for many websites. By optimizing for the featured snippet, you can propel your site to the top of the search results by only making very small adjustments to your page’s content. Throw away backlinks, performance, and site architecture (only kidding). Featured snippet optimizations allow you to bypass all of that for a chance at ranking in the first position without having to worry about all of those other factors.”

Proactively building negative keyword lists in Google Ads is now more important than ever

– Search Engine Land

“While pre-empting search queries with bulk negative keyword lists is nothing new, it’s now more important than ever to ensure traffic quality is maintained as best it can be moving forward. Aside from the obvious exclusions and general blocking of profanity from triggering your campaigns, leveraging contextual query data and search data ahead of pushing new campaigns live can and will save you money in the long run.”

Meet Google Analytics 4: Google’s vision for the future of analytics

– Search Engine Land

“The latest iteration of Google’s web analytics platform, dubbed Google Analytics 4, is now available. The new property type includes expanded predictive insights, deeper integration with Google Ads, cross-device measurement capabilities and more granular data controls. As third-party cookies are phased out, Google anticipates that data sparsity will become the new norm. It will rely on machine learning to fill in the data gaps.”

Google Ads brings YouTube into Attribution fold, expands data-driven attribution to more advertisers

– Search Engine Land

“Cross-network attribution reporting for YouTube and Search campaigns is now in open beta in Google Ads. When eligible, advertisers will be able to opt-in to see YouTube clicks and video engagements in their “Top paths,” “Path metrics,” and “Assisted conversions” attribution reports under Tools > Attribution.”

Solving an age-old SEO-PPC issue: How to bid on your brand name based on incrementality

– Search Engine Land

“Advertising on branded keywords is often misunderstood. Advertisers either take too much credit for branded keywords, or they deem the impact of branded keywords completely zero.”

Social: Facebook, Instagram & others

Facebook launches new Shopping audiences, Instagram Product Tag ads, tests Shops discounts

– Search Engine Land

“Facebook continues to expand Shopping capabilities and features across its platforms. As we head into the holiday season, Facebook is rolling out several new features for e-commerce marketers and brands. It is also launching promotional support for Black-owned businesses and training and software discounts for small businesses. “