DIGITAL ROUNDUP - MAR 2024

Welcome to this month’s edition of the roundup to some core updates in the digital advertising industry.

Google brings out updates to PMAX / Search Partners

Google have announced a set of changes on Search Partners within Google Ads campaigns, with added capability from a reporting / setup perspective for PMAX campaigns from March & the ability to opt out on an account level (https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/14587068)

DEEPDIVE

Over the course of 2023, Google were subjected to multiple ad quality related incidents, which generally themed around the “partner” nature of their integrated supply. Whether this was on YouTube (GVP) or Search (GSP), the quality of this inventory put together with the actual ad format is questionable to say the least. The Adalytics reports in particular highlighted these shortcomings, leading to Google allowing advertisers to opt out but only if you had a rep.

Therefore this newest update to bring more transparancy into what exactly GSP is & where your ad campaigns are serving on is a win for transparency / control as well as general quality. But there are still core points to be aware of:

  • Google Ads has always had very inconsistent placement reporting; it will never be full url level nor will it likely be fully transparent (a lot of anonymous.google), so keep this is in mind

  • Google will report what they see, but doesn’t necessarily means that is where the ad was served based on fraud / redirects

  • Google Ads particularly with this type of inventory does not allow any 3rd party verification in to go to the granularity you may see on programmatic

From my opinion, if you want to run Search, you stick to the search engine. If you want to run YouTube, you stick to YouTube & if you want to run Display, you buy on quality / curated supply. As soon as you step out of this in the name of automation / AI, the lines blur not only from what the campaign optimises for but the ad quality issues that come with it.

Privacy sandbox called out by CMA / IAB in various aspects

Google’s Privacy Sandbox concept has been reviewed by the IAB Tech Lab’s taskforce in a 106 page report, alongside the CMA’s quarterly review of the intention to remove 3rd party cookies in 2024, with question marks arising as to where this will net out

(https://iabtechlab.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Privacy-Sandbox-Fit-Gap-Analysis-PUBLIC-COMMENT-RELEASE.pdf)

DEEPDIVE

Starting with the CMA report, it is important for anyone wanting to understand if & when 3rd party cookies deprecate on Chrome, to follow this. There are positives in the report which are not necessarily getting the attention that it deserves, where progress is being made to iron out issues. But the core negative is that it is still overall in a state that may not be ready in time, which is opening the door to a potential delay. But despite numerous reporting saying that this is a forgone conclusion, there is no factual proof that there is a delay until either Google or the CMA says there is.

The IAB report is a lot more deeper, given that the core aim is to focus on the adtech use cases that can / can’t be done through the sandbox. In summary, the majority of what the IAB taskforce states as core use cases are either not possible or do not work the same through the sandbox. Google responded to this to point out general errors or misconceptions, some of which are very fair (the dev documentation is complex but has been available in github a long time). It is also worth a listen to Marketecture’s interview on this topic here.

But the reality is, not all use cases are going to work without 3rd party cookies & trying to make it work opens the privacy door to the point of doing the same thing a 3rd party cookie does but worse. What Google are having to do is a pretty impossible situation but it is also not the only solution in market. Where you do have to give Google credit is the fact this has been open for contribution for several years in comparison to Apple who forced upon SKAdNetwork with no viable workaround (where was the uproar for this).

There is also the argument that the best placed company no matter the outcome of Privacy Sandbox / 3rd party cookie deprecation is Google. I don’t think anyone would disagree with that but the thought process that the Sandbox team / Ads team are aligned right now is not particularly true, given the current state of privacy sandbox testing in Google’s own ads tools. In my opinion its time to rip off the plaster and move away from 3rd party cookies; there will be different ways to do digital advertising which will involve re-calibrating how to think about planning / buying / measuring.

OtHeR KEY CALLOUTS

SOCIAL HIGHLIGHTS 📱

PROGRAMMATIC HIGHLIGHTS 🌐

IDENTITY HIGHLIGHTS 🆔

For any additional questions or comments, feel free to contact on the form below!