The Top Digital Marketing Stories from July 2020

Amidst boiling temperatures, the ongoing pandemic, and social unrest, we’re still here to bring you the biggest and best news from the digital marketing landscape. In addition to some major stories from Google, Apple, and other sources, we have several must-read articles from the Ayima team to help brands push through these unprecedented times.

SEO stories

Google Search Console adds “news” filter to performance reports

We love data at Ayima, and even more so when we’re able to really nail down exactly where that data is coming from. So it’s easy to understand why we’re excited to see that Google Search Console added another filter to performance reports. Within the “search type” functionality, you can now use a “news” filter to analyse traffic stemming from Google News. You can also compare it to traffic coming from the existing sources (web, image, and video).

Google drops, brings back Twitter carousel following hack

Remember that Twitter hack last month? It was wild, to say the least, and it had repercussions beyond the high-profile victims and the direct impact on the social media platform. It also led to Google temporarily dropping the Twitter carousel from the SERPs so the search giant could “carry out a careful review” before adding it back, according to SearchEngineLand. Well, that review didn’t take too long, because the carousel returned four days later—and Twitter apparently didn’t lose much search traffic amidst the hubbub.

Paid media stories 

Apple hamstrings IDFA with new iOS update

Apple’s announcement of iOS 14, which is due out this fall, essentially sounded the death knell for the Identifier For Advertisers (IDFA). In short, IDFA is a way for mobile marketers to track data and attribute ad spend. And with this iOS update, Apple users will receive a notification (see image below) that basically asks if they’ll allow a brand or app to track them “across apps and websites owned by other companies.” While this is a good thing for user privacy, the same can’t be said for mobile marketing. There’s a lot more to this story, and you can get the full picture at Forbes.

Google adds new features to Smart Shopping

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues and in-store shopping isn’t completely viable yet, Google is finding ways to improve their Smart Shopping offerings for online retailers. First, they added a new customer conversion goal that allows store owners to “add a conversion value for sales from new customers.” The search giant also provided more visual features within Smart Shopping campaigns “to help customers easily discover more retailers, explore options and narrow down who they want to make a purchase with.” If you’d like to learn more, head over to Google’s article on these updates. You can also reach out to us at Ayima to find out how our Paid Media team can help with your next campaign.  

Digital analytics stories

Comparing cookieless analytics tools

Industry vet Lukas Grebe put together a rather helpful article that compares five of the top cookieless analytics tools. And in doing so, he investigated various features of each tool, including how they predict, test, report, analyse, and more. While we won’t give away too much of what he found here—it’s well worth reading Lukas’ full comparison at his site—he had some great takeaways including shifting the focus from “individual user behavior” to thinking more about groups and clusters.

A call for executives to put analytics first

“CEOs need to roll up their sleeves and actively role model data driven decision making,” wrote Ryan den Rooijen, the group head of data & analytics for Chalhoub Group. In an article for QStar AI, Ryan outlined and explained exactly why executive leaders need to put a newfound focus on data and analytics by learning more about these subjects for themselves. “We are used to seeing business qualifications in the boardroom, but maybe it is time that this includes data and analytics degrees as well,” he said. You can read Ryan’s full piece at QStar AI.

Ayima news

In addition to covering the top stories from the industry, our team of experts is staying on top of some of the bigger issues and offering advice on how to handle them as they come. Click through to read and learn more about how you, too, can stop on top of the latest concerns facing digital marketers.

Insights posts and contributions

• Beat the competition with Google’s ‘Core Vitals’ metrics: Senior SEO Consultant Jonathan Imkeller explores Google’s new metrics for site speed, including why you should care and how you can use them to your advantage
• Forget ROAS – ecommerce brands should focus on POAS: Campaign Director Richard Ingilby investigates POAS, the hot new buzzword that everyone in the industry needs to know about
• How has COVID-19 changed the search landscape for luxury fashion?: Senior SEO Consultant Felicity Ferguson explains the pandemic’s impact on luxury fashion, particularly how it relates to search, and how brands can adapt