Google’s Roadmap for the New Digital Landscape: Part III - Resilience

Google’s Roadmap for the New Digital Landscape: Part III - Resilience

By: Conor MacDowell

For the first time since 2019, Google hosted marketers from around the world, in person, for their premier annual event, Google Marketing Live.

Despite Google pushing back cookie depreciation on their Chrome browser to late 2024, they provided a glimpse into their vision of the cookieless future by focusing on three main themes: Reimagine, Results, and Resilience – or, put another way, Updates, Automation, and Privacy. In a three part series, I will review each of these themes and provide our unique insight into how we, as marketers, can adapt to the changing landscape and continue to drive results for our clients.

?For Part I – Reimagine, see here . And Part II – Results, here . Rounding out our series, let’s take a look at Google’s pending moves to make the digital advertising landscape more resilient.?

?Part III: Resilience (i.e., Privacy)

Starting with the General Data Protection Regulation in the European Union and the subsequent California Consumer Privacy Act in the United States, consumer privacy laws are shifting the foundation of online advertising and disrupting how ads are targeted and measured. As a result, Google announced a variety of updates to provide advertisers with strategic solutions for their campaigns and stay ahead of globally evolving privacy regulations.

?“By 2023, 65% of the world’s population will be covered by online privacy laws, up from 10% in 2020.” – Jerry Dischler

?Ad Center Gives Consumers Control

For starters, Google is putting more control into the hands of consumers through My Ad Center, which will go live later this year. This tool lets users control how their data is used and what type of advertisements they see on YouTube, Search, and Discover. They can choose to see more ads that align with their passions and affinities while opting out of ads that are of no interest.

?My Ad Center

Google Tag: One Tag for All Google Properties

On the advertiser side, Google has simplified the tagging process through the announcement of Google Tag, which will eventually replace the current Universal Site Tag. Google Tag will operate as a single tag across Google properties, primarily Google Ads and Google Analytics, and ensure accurate reporting across platforms while respecting user privacy preferences through Consent Mode. Consent Mode lets advertisers modify how their tag measures user behavior based on their consent status, which Google then uses to model for gaps in conversions.

Data-Driven Attribution and Enhanced Conversions Are New Standard

As for conversion modeling, Google has invested heavily across their ecosystem to shore up modeling accuracy and consistency. Consequently, Google is switching all campaigns to data-driven attribution as a default. As opposed to last-click attribution, data-driven attribution will enable advertisers to optimize campaigns based on keywords and ads that have assisted in driving a conversion through the customer journey. Google reports that 48% of buyers switch between generic and branded terms while researching products, and data-driven attribution allows advertisers to better use this data to understand their customers and maximize campaign efficiency.

Another step Google has taken to ensure consumer privacy while maintaining accurate measurement is Enhanced Conversions. Enhanced Conversions capture hashed customer data on the conversion page, which Google then matches to their own hashed data on that particular user. The actual personally identifiable information for that user lives on their respective device and is not sent to Google or any third parties. While it’s already available in Google Ads, Google announced that they will expand Enhanced Conversions to Search Ads 360 later this year.

Conclusion (i.e., Where’s the Beef?)

?As Google prepares for the cookieless future, these announcements represent a roadmap of the future of digital advertising. Agencies and marketers will be less hands-on with day-to-day optimizations as they shift to be strategic, data-driven thought leaders. While things like multi-touch attribution and third-party cookies will be a thing of the past, Google has provided increased insight into how different channels within the Google ecosystem work together to drive incremental results for our clients while respecting user privacy every step of the way. For agencies, it is our job to constantly test and learn in effort to understand customer journeys and measure the incremental impact of our campaigns on the client’s business goals.

One last thought. While attending Google Marketing Live, I attended a session hosted by New York Times best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell. He spoke about how stories are what unite us as a society (and a species) and how, as advertisers, our job is to tell these stories and engage with our audiences in new, thought-provoking ways. At TRG, we pride ourselves on being storytellers, perhaps the best in the business (I might be biased). We face the future with a sense of excitement, poised to tell not only the story of our brands but our own story as well. Whether it’s how we navigate the cookieless future or become a leader in the DEI space, I hope you continue to follow our story – and maybe even become part of it.