I should've lied! I should have said there was a reason I couldn't deprecate the cookies!

Welcome to the sixth episode of I Think You Should Read This. It's a monumental occasion because it's the first one I've released late. You were probably expecting this a week ago, but I'm glad I waited. It gave me something bigger to talk about.

You know the drill by now. We're going to dive into three topics:

First up: A marketing update about cookies and how we're never going to run out of these delicious tracking treats

Second: Let's rant about the worst types of LinkedIn posts (with a surprise giveaway if you can guess correctly, but it won't be easy)

Last: A grammar tip that will have you deleting words (well, one word in particular)

Okay, let's do this!

Marketing Update: The cookieless future is dead! Long live the cookie!

I KNEW IT!

I knew Google would never give up the cookies.?

I can’t believe y’all fell for that.?

I bet you feel like a complete sucker for prepping for a cookieless future.?

It’s like prepping for that Mayan apocalypse in 2012 or whenever the heck that was.?

Suckers. That was all just a big waste of time and effort, right??

Not so fast. But we’ll talk about that more in a moment. First, let’s talk about what actually happened.?

The cookie deprecation that never happened

Unless you live under a rock, you probably have heard the “cookieless future” phrase a few times in the past year or so. A big part of that cookieless doomsday prediction was connected to Google’s announcement that Chrome would deprecate third-party cookies. You can read all about that here in this awesome but now grossly outdated article .

This news, first announced about four years ago, made everyone think the advertising world was going to crash and burn and we’d lose all our tracking and ad targeting and it would be like we were back in the world of newspaper ads, subway posters, and billboards.?

Wow, I need to catch my breath after that run-on sentence.?

While none of that was actually true, the prospect of the world’s largest browser deprecating third-party cookies was a pretty big deal.?

But Google kept delaying that deprecation until they finally said, "SIKE!"?

Okay, that’s not what they actually said.?

What they really said was this:?

We’re not going to deprecate cookies because it might impact our advertising dollars.?

Wait, that’s not what they said either.?

What they actually said (for real this time albeit in a paraphrased form) was this:

Privacy should be about choice. So instead of deprecating cookies, we are going to give users a choice to use cookies or not.?

Um, say what??

Haven’t we always had the choice to turn off cookies??

Google, let's be honest about the reason here.

There has always been a setting in Chrome that allows me to turn off cookies.?

Okay, maybe it’s not super easy to find, but it’s always been there.?

And now it’s going to be more prominent.?

How the survival of cookies will impact measurement

So what does this mean for the future of tracking??

Honestly, probably not much in terms of changes, but here are a few thoughts:

1. Some studies already suggest that almost 70% of users block some cookies, but other studies show that 40% of users blindly accept all cookies. The data on cookie acceptance is pretty mixed, but the reality is that most users are more interested in getting the best website experience than they are with blocking cookies.?Heck, most people still don't know what a tracking cookie is.
2. Any work you’ve done to prepare for cookieless is a good thing because it will give you additional data to help guide your marketing decisions. Given the fact that so many users already block cookies to some degree, your cookieless tracking gives you a better overall picture.??
3. Collecting as much first-party and zero-party data as possible should still be a top priority for you.

While cookies aren’t going away, collecting real data directly from your users is still probably the best thing you can do from a measurement standpoint right now.?

Need some help with first-party data? Check out this killer guide by Grace Hallen and Dennis Still .

What do you think of Google's decision to keep cookies? This one is sure to spark some debate.

Rant: LinkedIn is overflowing with dumbass content, and it’s ruining LinkedIn.?

I hate that this is true, but my worst content gets the most engagement on LinkedIn.???

When I post something short and cliche, all I have to do is call it a "hot take" and it gets 10x the engagement.?

When I post something lengthy and valuable, I don’t get shit (even if I call it a hot take).?

The problem: really good content often goes unnoticed while people go apeshit for garbage content.?

So today we're going to talk about the four worst types of LinkedIn posts that should be banned from the platform:

1. Bullshit engagement bait posts that require you to like, comment, and share in order to get a free download.?

Funny enough, I ranted about this very thing in a LinkedIn post a few weeks ago and actually got some really good engagement.

Spoiler alert - the free download, if it ever arrives, always sucks.?

If you are offering something of value on LinkedIn, then offer it with no strings attached.?

2. I just did X, and here’s what it taught me about B2B marketing.?

Sorry, but the only things that teach you about B2B marketing are related to B2B marketing.?

You didn’t learn about B2B marketing from your engagement or a soccer game or the Trump assassination attempt.?

You learn about B2B marketing from testing B2B marketing tactics and doing audience research.?

3. Here is a graph with no context that shows an awesome hockey stick.

Don’t post those hockey stick graphs unless you are also willing to share the exact context of what happened.?

Some of these graphs are showing a meteoric rise of website traffic that’s really just going from 1 session to 25 sessions per month.?

Half of these graphs are probably completely made up.?

And the rest are flukes, outliers, glitches, and half-truths.?

Trust me, I could go into any Google Analytics or Google Search Console account and come out with an amazing hockey stick graph within 20 minutes. There is always data available that can make you look great.?

Look at the one above. Look at that MASSIVE spike in impressions. Holy cow, I 3xed it! I better hammer some rocket ship emojis right here! ?? ?? ??

Secret giveaway: If you can guess exactly what that spike is from in the comments, I will give you a lifetime of free SEO services. Seriously. Let's see your best guesses. I'll reveal the answer in the next episode of my newsletter.

Are any of them real? Yes, a few, and they usually have a long and detailed post attached to them.?

4. Plagiarized posts.

There is a lot of content theft happening on LinkedIn.?

And it’s not easy to spot unless you’ve seen the original post.?

It’s also not only coming from scammers and fake profiles.?

Some of this content theft is being done by well-known marketers. Heck, we could even call them influencers.?

They are all just stealing content, and not in the same endearing way that musicians sample music or “borrow” chord progressions.?

This is just straight up copy and paste while taking credit for something they didn’t write.?

It’s worse than using AI to generate all your content.?

So don’t steal content. Instead, you can repost something great and share your thoughts, or you can give the original author credit.?

Let’s move on before we start getting too far down the road of what’s ethical regarding content “repurposing.”?

What you can do to stop this bad content

Luckily, you aren't helpless to stop this bad content from spreading. Here are a few things you can do:

1. Don't post any of this bad content yourself.
2. If you see any of these types of content, keep scrolling. Any engagement, even if you say negative things in the comments, will give them a boost.
3. If you see valuable content, engage with it. Give it a reaction, but also leave an insightful comment. It doesn't hurt to share something from time to time as well.
4. If you see content theft happening, alert the original author of the content so they can deal with it.

Obligatory CTA asking for comments:

Which of these awful LinkedIn posts is the worst? Or is there something you hate even more? Share your thoughts in the comments.?

A grammar tip that will have you deleting words from your writing

My newsletters tend to be pretty long.

Even when I say I am going to keep them short.

So I'll try to do this tip quickly, but first:

Warning: this is not actually a grammar rule. This is an opinion piece about making your writing more concise, and it might create some controversy. Like a very, very tiny amount of controversy.

There is one word that you should delete from your writing in order to be a better writer.

Hint: I used the word in the previous sentence. Can you spot it?

Okay, time's up.

It’s that.

Let’s rewrite the sentence:

“There is one word you should delete from your writing in order to be a better writer.”

Did removing that change the meaning? Nope. Did it make the sentence sound worse? Nope. In fact, it sounds much better. It’s more fluid and less clunky. That is precisely what removing that can do for your writing. Except in that sentence. And that one. Dammit, this just got confusing.

So let's try to solve this confusion without introducing more confusion (like how to tell when "that" is acting as a conjunction versus a pronoun versus a determiner).

Here is a simple test. Just remove the word "that" and ask yourself if the sentence still makes sense without it.

Example:

My boss told me that I was getting a raise.

OR

My boss told me I was getting a raise.

Nope, that wasn’t necessary. Delete it.

Another example:

My boss told me I was getting a raise and that I would get a new office.

OR

My boss told me I was getting a raise and I would get a new office.

Definitely not necessary, and it breaks parallel structure. Delete it. And then rewrite the sentence as "My boss told me I was getting a raise and a new office."

See, we can sometimes delete a lot of words without changing the meaning!

One more example:

Let's talk about the cookie deprecation that never happened.

Sorry, but you can't rewrite that sentence without "that." It just wouldn't work. The word is 100% required to make this sentence work.

Here is the grammar tip in a nutshell:

Be as concise as possible when you write.

This can be applied to many other situations. "That" is just an easy example.

Final takeaways from this episode

If you just skipped to the bottom (which I really hope you didn't do), then here's what you should have gotten from this episode:

1. Chrome is keeping cookies, but you should still focus on first-party and zero-party data.
2. As tough as it is to get engagement on LinkedIn, don't stoop to shitty engagement-bait content. Stay the course with valuable content and eventually you will be rewarded.
3. Delete the word "that" whenever you can. It's often a waste of space.

That will do it for this week. See you again in two or three or four weeks. You really can't tell what will happen next in this crazy world of digital marketing.