The Internet is About to Change
WHO CARES ABOUT COOKIES?
The way that the internet works is about to change dramatically, and if Google has its way, you might not even notice.
We all know and love the free and open internet, and as Google is quick to point out, that’s only possible because websites are able to make money through advertising. The way that those ads are targeted, however, has come under a lot of scrutiny over the past few years (Apple’s ATT, Europe’s GDPR, a $5 Billion lawsuit in California), so they are going to completely overhaul the way that the world’s largest advertising machine operates.
In the next few months you’re going to hear a lot about a “cookie-less” internet, and the shift away from third-party cookie tracking. That’s a good thing for our privacy, and it means that we’ll have fewer permission boxes to click on every website that we visit, but the advertisers aren’t going to just let their golden goose die.
Instead, they’re introducing new tracking techniques, and here’s what you need to know about them:
First, in the current cookie-based system, each website drops a tiny bit of information into your browser (a cookie) that shares a bunch of your information and behaviour data back to a central database. That database can be used to target you with their own ads, or it can be sold to others who can run ad targeting based on your info.
In the new system, cookies would no longer exist, and audiences could no longer be sold.
Instead, Google is rolling out a system called Topics, that can read your browser history and then categorize you into an interest group. Then, when you visit a website, it can know what you’re into, and that site will sell ads in real-time to brands that they think will be a fit for you.
Topics is a part of a larger Google initiative called Project Sandbox, which is their attempt to continue to run the same types of ads that got them to where they are, without the egregious privacy violations.
In effect, they’re looking to flip the way that we think about audiences – instead of collecting a massive list and then carving it up, every website visitor will have a unique profile, which means that their data stays secure, and it may even lead to more relevant ads.
But not everyone is convinced. Legendary Silicon Valley investor and co-founder of tech incubator Y-Combinator, Paul Graham, came out and called Google’s new tools “spyware” in a recent tweet.
And Matthew Green, a cryptography professor at Johns Hopkins University, was quoted about the new ad targeting feature saying "I don’t want my browser keeping track of my browsing history to help serve me ads, and I definitely don’t want my browser sharing any function of my browsing history with every random website I visit."
So What?
If you’re in the business of buying ads, your options are going to start changing very soon. According to the latest news out of Google, they’ve already started testing this cookie-less internet, and assuming all goes well, they’ll have it completely switched over by Q3 2024.
And it won’t just be ads purchased through Google that will be affected. Right now, nearly all major ad networks use cookies to create targeted audiences. Meta published a series of semi-useful tips for businesses that want to stay ahead of the game.
Whether you buy ads or not, your internet experience, and that of your audience, is about to undergo one of the biggest shifts we’ve seen in a decade, so pay attention to what you see because it just might keep you one step ahead.
Finally, if you would like your personal information to be excluded from Google’s latest tracking experiment, here’s how to opt-out right now, thanks to the people at The Register.
“Depending on what Chrome version you're using, and whether you've been selected to start using Topics API, you can switch this functionality off and on by visiting chrome://settings/adPrivacy and/or chrome://settings/privacySandbox – cut'n'paste these URLs into your address bar to jump straight to the controls.”
HOW ARE PEOPLE ACTUALLY USING CHATGPT?
CONTENT, EDUCATION, AND PROGRAMMING
ChatGPT was the fastest growing anything in the history of the world, but now that it’s here, what are people actually using it for?
The team at SparkToro worked with real live data from OpenAI to answer that question, and what they learned comes as a shock to no one, but should be a spark for anyone not currently using this superpower in their work.
The top 4 uses of ChatGPT (by far) are:
Programming
Education
Content
Sales & Marketing
So, yes, people are using ChatGPT to assist them with their websites, blogs, and social media content.
Isn’t that cheating?
I’ll leave the AI-in-education debate for another time, but when it comes to business applications, as long as you’re not passing off the robot’s work as your own, then you should absolutely be using ChatGPT. The way that I see it, it’s like asking an accountant if they cheated in preparing your taxes because they had Excel do the calculations for them.
We should all be using this tool to make us better, faster, and stronger at what we’re doing. And the key is in viewing it as an assistant, rather than the creator.
Example: For The Brief, I’ll regularly ask ChatGPT something like “what are the implications of a cookie-less internet for small business advertisers” and very often it will spit out a new perspective, or idea that hadn’t yet occurred to me.I can then take that idea and incorporate it into this newsletter – that’s very different than using AI-based content to replace your own work.
So happy prompting, and if you do find the odd case where AI’s answers are so good that you want to copy & paste them, always make sure to give proper attribution. Your audience will appreciate it, and you’ll never have to wrestle with any sticky internal ethical debates.
TIKTOK THINKS THEY DESERVE MORE CREDIT
NEW ATTRIBUTION DATA SHOWS THAT TIKTOK ACCOUNTS FOR A LOT OF SALES
In what may be the most biased study of all time, TikTok found that ads on their platform were actually leading to dramatically more conversions than they were getting credit for.
But, this isn’t new. As Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest got more popular and sophisticated as advertisers, each of them came out with similar data showing that it was a good idea to spend more money with them.
Despite the dubious data analysis, there are two very important points worth paying attention to:
They’re all right. When it comes to social platforms — especially ones that host video content — last-click attribution is a terrible way to measure the impact of advertising. Instead, we need to be able to also track people who watch a video and then search, or otherwise seek out your website later.
Everything is overlapping. Humans are complicated creatures, so any decision that we make is going to be impacted by a variety of factors. In the case of an online purchase, that first TikTok impression is huge. But if our SEO isn’t strong, they may never find us. And what about our online reviews? Surely people are checking those out. And UGC?
The TikTok study, and others like it, should be seen as more reason why it’s important to have a well-rounded digital presence that takes into account the entire buying journey that someone will go through, and not any single touchpoint. They’ve added multi-touch conversion tracking to their analytics to help advertisers see how TikTok has contributed to more than just last-click conversions.
It also means that, if you’re going to advertise on any of these platforms, you should make sure to have their tracking pixel in place.
Read about TikTok’s new multi-touch conversion tracking
Read TikTok’s report on the value of views
A FEW MORE STORIES WORTH A CLICK
STUFF THAT WILL MAKE YOU JUST A BIT SMARTER THIS WEEK
Sponsored content engagement rates seem to be dramatically better on TikTok then they are on YouTube or Instagram
WhatsApp added topic-based channels to make interesting content more discoverable
Shoppers are stocking up on gift cards this year more than ever
Restaurants can now use these apps to get influencers posting about them
Written by Conner Galway, Junction Consulting
