January's Top Stories

The digital marketing news didn’t slow down over the holidays, and it certainly didn’t fall into any kind of a slump at the beginning of 2021, either. The stories just kept coming and coming, especially from Google, who made repeated splashes across the entire landscape. From their plans for “privacy-first” tracking to some nifty redesigns, the search giant ruled the headlines. We also have some great news to share from the Ayima offices, like our great new blog articles and soon-coming free webinar series.

You can read about all those stories and more right here in our January 2021 digital roundup.

SEO stories

Google add “Price Drop” to rich results

Google provided another way to entice potential buyers into clicking product links in search results by implementing a “price drop” note to the rich results. Basically, what this means is that retailers can now use “price drop” Schema markup on products to highlight their latest sale. If you want the full story, including how to use the markup yourself, head to Search Engine Journal. You can also reach out to us if you need some help!

Google redesigning mobile search

Google’s mobile search design is getting cleaned up. As part of a redesign, the search giant is doing away with some of the blockier bits of the layout to make it more concise and streamlined. It also serves to highlight the company’s font, but really, the whole thing is just much more visually pleasing. You can see the redesign at Verge or likely on your own mobile device, as the update should be out by now.

Paid media stories

Google outline plans for “privacy-first” future

Since announcing their intentions to phase out third-party cookies, Google has been working on ways to transition advertisers over to a “privacy-first” approach that still works for them. The company’s ad teams have tested their approach and seen some interesting results. For example, they said, “that advertisers can expect to see at least 95% of the conversions per dollar spent when compared to cookie-based advertising.” There’s a lot more to it than that potential alone, so you can get the full rundown at Google.

You can now exclude data from Google Ads Smart Bidding

Have you run into Google Ads conversion tracking issues in the past that impacted your Smart Bidding? To help combat wonky data that resulted from website outages or tagging issues, Google rolled out data exclusion controls. The goal is to give users more accurate conversion rates in the bidding process. Visit Google’s support page to learn more about how you can use these exclusions in your own setup.

Digital analytics stories

Learn to track core web vitals in Google Analytics 4

Simo Ahava makes yet another appearance in our monthly roundup, this time providing a guide for tracking core web vitals in Google Analytics 4 with Google Tag Manager. In the article, Simo explains both the how and why behind this can be so helpful for tracking site performance, as well as all the steps you need to take to do it yourself. Head over to Simo’s website to get the full guide.

Marketing analytics predictions for 2021

In addition to resolutions, the New Year always brings about predictions for the months ahead. And this past month was no different, of course, as Marketing Week published a list of the top three predictions for marketing analytics for the year. The author (Grace Kite, of Gracious Economics) has some rather intriguing insights into what we should expect from 2021, so be sure to check out the article to see if you agree.

Ayima news

As we got back into the swing of things in early 2021, we stayed plenty busy planning a new webinar series and writing new content related to the digital marketing landscape. 

Webinar series

Starting on 17th February, we’re kicking off a free series of weekly webinars that will cover topics such as SEO in competitive marketplaces, customer retention and advanced retargeting, and much more. Head to our Webinars page to learn more and sign up for an upcoming course!

Blog articles

Here are the two blog articles we published in January:

• What is the impact of iOS14 on Paid Media?: Head of Paid Media Lucy Whittaker explains the advertising changes you can expect as a result of iOS14, and how you can take action against them.
• 2021 SEO trends - search less for more!: From local SEO to humming (yes, humming!) and everything in between, London Account Director Georgie Sykes put together a list of the top search trends for this year.