Episode 182 contains the important Digital Marketing News and Updates from the week of Oct 9-13, 2023.

1. Google's Demand Gen Ads: The AI-Powered Video Ads  - If you're using social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram for advertising, you'll want to know about Google's latest ad product: Demand Gen campaigns. Google Ads is a platform that allows you to place advertisements on Google's search engine and other platforms. Demand Gen is Google's newest effort to compete with traditional social media sites for your advertising dollars.

What sets Demand Gen apart? It uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create highly targeted video and image ads, specifically designed for platforms like YouTube. These ads can be up to 15 seconds long, ideal for YouTube placements, and can also feature image carousels tailored for mobile users. The tool uses Google's powerful AI to identify "lookalike audiences" that share characteristics with your existing customers, allowing for more targeted advertising.

Why is this important for you? Consumer habits are changing. People are now splitting their time between traditional social media platforms and video sites like YouTube. Google's Demand Gen aims to help you capitalize on this shift by offering visually compelling ads tailored to specific audiences. Early adopters have already seen promising results; for example, Argentine fintech startup Naranja X reported 3x higher click-through rates at 61% lower costs compared to its paid social campaigns.

2. Google Ads Policy Update: What You Need to Know About Offering Rewards 🎁 -  If you're using Google Ads to incentivize customer engagement, there's a significant policy change you should be aware of. Starting October 31, 2023, Google Ads will update its policies to allow indirect or non-monetary items to be offered as rewards. However, direct monetary items will still remain disallowed as rewards.

Here's what the change means in simple terms:

• The reward must be redeemable and usable only within your platform, website, or app.
• The reward must be non-transferable.
• If the reward is a discount or voucher for a physical item, it must not exceed 25% of the item's total value.

This update is crucial for businesses that use rewards to attract and retain customers. It gives you more flexibility in what you can offer as rewards, such as discounts, loyalty points, or even game character skins. However, these rewards must be confined to your own platform and cannot be converted into cash or transferred to third parties.

Why is this important? This policy change allows you to be more creative and flexible in your advertising campaigns. It could be a game-changer in how you engage with your audience and could potentially lead to higher customer retention rates.

3. Google's Cookie 🍪 Crumble: How Chrome's Upcoming Changes Will Impact Your Business - If you're using Google Chrome to manage your online advertising, you need to be aware of a significant change coming your way. Google Chrome is a widely-used web browser, and it's about to alter how it handles third-party cookies. These cookies are small pieces of data that track user behavior across websites, helping businesses like yours target ads more effectively.

Starting in early 2024, Google will disable third-party cookies for 1% of Chrome users as an initial step. By mid-2024, this will extend to all Chrome users. This move aims to enhance user privacy but will also force a shift in how digital advertising operates. The change could impact your ability to collect data and serve relevant ads to your audience.

Why is Google making this change? The tech giant aims to improve user privacy and security while still providing tools for businesses to sustain themselves. Google plans to introduce new "Privacy Sandbox APIs" to replace the functionality lost by the removal of third-party cookies. These will cover use cases like identity verification, advertising, and fraud detection.

What does this mean for you? If you rely on third-party cookies for advertising, it's time to prepare for this change. You'll need to adopt new methods for serving ads and possibly face a shift in the digital advertising landscape that could benefit larger platforms like Google, Facebook, and Amazon.

The upcoming changes present an opportunity to reassess your advertising strategies. If you're feeling overwhelmed by these shifts and need expert guidance, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We're here to help you navigate these changes seamlessly.

4. Take Control 🎛️ of Your Customer Data with Google's New Tool - If you're using Google Ads for your business, there's a new tool you should know about: Google Ads Data Manager. Google Ads is a platform that allows you to advertise your products or services on Google's search engine and other affiliated sites. The tool aims to simplify the management of first-party customer data, which is the data you collect directly from your customers. This is crucial because first-party data is generally more reliable and valuable than third-party data, which is collected from external sources like browser cookies.

Google Ads Data Manager offers a unified platform where data analysts and marketers can collaborate. It streamlines the process of setting up new data integrations and activating customer datasets for measurement and targeting. The tool eliminates the need for coding, reducing duplicated work between analysts and engineers. It even promises future integration with major platforms like Salesforce and Lytics, where many businesses build audience profiles and analytics repositories.

Why is this important for your business? As privacy concerns grow and third-party cookies become less reliable, focusing on first-party data becomes increasingly essential. Google's new tool aims to make this transition easier by providing a unified interface for managing your customer data. It's set for a full launch in 2024, starting with core features like conversion measurement and customer list activation within Google Ads.

5. Google Ads Glitches Could Be Draining Your Budget! Know What's Happening 🚨 - If you're using Google Ads to promote your business, you need to be aware of recent issues that could be affecting your advertising budget. Google Ads is a platform that allows you to place advertisements on Google's search engine and other affiliated websites. It's a crucial tool for driving traffic and sales, but recent glitches could be causing you unnecessary financial strain.

On October 11, 2023, Google confirmed a significant issue affecting a large number of Google Ads users. The problem lies in the serving of ads and the spending controls for campaigns. In simpler terms, the platform is not functioning as it should, which could lead to your ads being displayed incorrectly or your budget being spent faster than you intended. Google has been actively investigating the issue but has yet to provide a concrete resolution time.

This isn't a one-off event. Google Ads has experienced multiple outages and issues throughout the year, affecting various aspects like responsiveness and billing. These glitches have led to numerous complaints in Google Ads forums, indicating that the problem is widespread.

After almost three days, Google finally announced that the issue was resolved on October 13, 2023. However, the damage for many could have already been done by then. As a business ow...