Can you believe it’s autumn already? As the year continues to absolutely fly by, we’re back with another collection of the top digital marketing stories from the past month. And what a month of activity it was, as August brought about a lot of headlines from Google (of course), along with an important one from Facebook. We also have our own news stories to share, and you can read all about it in our August 2020 digital roundup!
SEO stories
Google indexation issue leads to ranking fluctuation
Chances are you heard about the major Google indexation bug that caused severe ranking volatility on 10th August. If not, check out Search Engine Land’s wrap-up to get the full story. It explains that while a bug did lead to serious ranking issues, Google located and fixed the problem within a handful of hours. Google’s Gary Ilyes provided more of an explanation (via SEL) of the indexing system itself and its complexity, and added: “Throw a grain of sand in the machinery and we have an outage like yesterday.”
Google add new search features for travel industry
Given the COVID-19 pandemic’s severe impact on the travel industry, Google sought out ways to make it easy for users to get to where they need to go, even in these trying times. In doing so, the search giant implemented a few new search features to help would-be travellers avoid any pandemic-related travel headaches. They include providing “travel trends” and “travel advisory” notices during searches in certain regions, as well as a filter to see which hotels offer free cancellations. You can learn more about these changes at Google’s The Keyword.
Paid media stories
How to stay CCPA compliant on Facebook
As of 1st July, Facebook implemented the Limited Data Use (LDU) setting for advertisers to become compliant with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). And with LDU in effect, the platform restricted how advertisers could store and process data believed to be from users located in California. While there’s a lot to dig into on this topic already, there was some additional news revealed on how to stay compliant. Ginny Marvin at SEL put together an easy-to-follow guide for advertisers, and it includes some telling stats on CCPA’s impact.
Google’s phasing out of “ETAs” was just a test
In late August, some Google Ads users told the team at SEL that they were unable to find the “Text ad” option for Search campaigns, which led them to believe that the company was phasing out expanded text ads (ETAs). However, it turns out the entire thing was actually a test. Google informed SEL that the company is always experimenting with “ways to improve our experience for our advertisers and users,” but that they also had nothing to announce yet. We’ll be sure to let you know if anything changes here in the coming months.
Digital analytics stories
How to use server-side tagging in Google Tag Manager
Server-side tagging has been a huge talking point in the Analytics community this year following its announcement at SuperWeek in January. And to help everyone get a better understanding of exactly what server-side tagging is and how to use it, Google’s Simo Ahava put together a comprehensive guide that’s well worth digging into. You can get familiar with server-side tagging at Ahava’s site, where he’s also answering a lot of questions in the comments.
Top Google Analytics tools, as recommended by the experts
Are you looking for a new tool to make Google Analytics work better for you? How about 39 (!) of those tools? Well, in this great new roundup by Accelerate co-founder Phil Pearce, you can find exactly that. Not only that, but Phil connected with leading GA experts to learn about the tools they use to make their work truly shine. Head over to the Accelerate article for the full list.
Ayima news
In addition to our collection of blog posts and contributions, we have some great company news to share this month.
Announcing our partnership with SessionCam
Across Analytics, SEO, and Paid Media, we work alongside our clients to improve their site experience in a variety of ways. SessionCam work in a similar way by helping their customers improve their experience across desktop, mobile, and tablet devices through a number of insightful tools. You can find out a little more about SessionCam at their site. Also, be sure to watch this space for our joint Ecommerce and Retail webinar, coming to a screen near you this autumn!
Insights posts and contributions
- A five-step audit to revitalize your Paid Media results: Campaign Director Ben Alwin outlines the five red flags his team sees when auditing new accounts and provides helpful tips on how to fix them.
- Technical SEO guide for retail and ecommerce: Senior SEO Consultant Harry Hjikakou provides a must-know, technical SEO guide for online ecommerce operations ( with a slight focus on the fashion industry).
