3 Key Trends Impacting Search Marketing Today

Over the last decade, marketers have relied on both organic and paid search to provide consistent results time and time again. The changes are gradual, giving marketers ample time to adjust their strategy.

But today, the pace of change in search engine marketing is accelerating, and more change is expected in the next two years than in the last eight combined.

The evolution of search automation and consolidation has been slow. To stay one step ahead, we need to keep up with the changes and understand why.

Here's a look at events that have had a major impact on the search engine marketing industry.

1. Privacy Laws and Signal Loss

In May 2018 , the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was implemented across Europe. The GDPR gives EU citizens many rights regarding personal data, including access to data rectification, deletion and portability.

Organizations that violate the GDPR can be fined up to €20 million or 4% of their annual revenue, whichever is greater.

Another important date for online privacy is September 2020, when iOS14 launches on Apple devices. The update includes a new feature called App Tracking Transparency (ATT) which lets users choose not to be tracked by apps.

This change will make it more difficult for advertisers to track users across apps and websites, reducing the effectiveness of targeted advertising. This iOS update changes the digital advertising landscape.

Another future event - upcoming - will occur on July 1, 2023, when the CPRA (California Privacy Rights Act) will go into full force. The CPRA applies to businesses that collect personal information about Californian consumers, regardless of where their business is located.

CPRA has the authority to investigate and prosecute violations of the Act and can fine up to $7,500 per violation. CPRA has legislative teeth and provides for severe penalties for non-compliance.

Google has announced that it will delete third-party cookies in Chrome in the second half of 2024 . This change will have a major impact on online advertising, as third-party cookies are essential for ad targeting. This allows advertisers to target specific audiences and track online ad performance.

Google wants to improve privacy by phasing out third-party cookies commonly used for tracking and advertising. By phasing out third-party cookies, Google makes it more difficult for websites to track users across multiple websites.

The browser market share in the United States is:

Chromium: 49%
Safaris: 35%
Benefits: 8.5%
Firefox: 3.5%

By the end of 2024, third-party cookies will be effectively phased out, with Chrome, Safari and Firefox accounting for nearly 90% of the US web traffic market share.

Google's Privacy Sandbox developed alternative methods for targeting audiences and tracking ad performance without third-party cookies. These privacy sandbox initiatives are:

FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts): FLoC proposes to replace third-party cookies with a more privacy-friendly way for users to track their interests. FLoC will enable advertisers to target groups of users with similar interests without tracking individual users across different websites.
Topics API : Topics API is a proposal for websites to request a list of topics of interest to users. Advertisers can use this information to show more relevant ads to users.
Trust Token API : The Trust Token API is a proposal for websites to verify user identity without the need for third-party cookies. Trust tokens help prevent fraud and increase the security of online transactions.

Performance measurement and targeting is a cornerstone of digital marketing.

The evolution of digital privacy has forced Google, Microsoft, Facebook and other ad serving platforms to develop new targeting and measurement methods.

As ad serving platforms change, marketers must also modernize their strategies to stay competitive.

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2. Machine learning and automation

Machine learning algorithms have made significant strides in recent years, along with signal declines caused by changes to privacy laws.

As a result of these two changes, advertising platforms such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft are redesigning their advertising platforms to rely on automation and artificial intelligence.

Google always plays the long game. Marketers used to know they needed help with cross-campaign attribution.

In addition, Google has long known that data will be limited due to advances in privacy. Finally, this prior knowledge is realized through automation and consolidation.

Google Ads introduced data-driven attribution (DDA) in September 2021.

DDA is a machine learning model that uses historical data from your account to determine how people interact with your various ads and convert them into your customers.

DDA can help you improve the performance of your Google Ads campaigns by providing a more detailed picture of how your ads affect conversions.

Bidding algorithms are nothing new in paid search advertising. Google introduced Smart Bidding in 2013 with the introduction of Target CPA (tCPA) bidding. The ability to bid on dynamic values such as revenue and ROAS was introduced in 2017.

Like most changes, the rollout of this feature has been slow. Many advertisers are unwilling to relinquish control of their auctions to the platform.

Loss of control and increasing reliance on machine learning will become recurring themes in digital advertising.

The Smart Bidding algorithm has improved significantly over time and is now the preferred method of managing auctions. Manual bidding is still used for some aspects of campaigns, but usage is declining.

As data and automation grew, so did the core functionality of keywords . Google Ads is changing its Enhanced Match feature in 2021. Previously, exact keywords only triggered ads for searches that exactly matched the keyword.

However, exact match keywords can also result in ads for searches that are close variations of those keywords. This change means that ads may appear on searches containing misspellings, synonyms, and other variations of similar keywords.

It's no secret that Google and Microsoft are pushing advertisers hard to develop games . However, many astrologers, myself included, have a negative perception of popular approval. Query matching is too general and traffic quality tends to be poor.

In the last two years we have expanded our use of wild game. Extensive matching options, combined with a well-designed bidding algorithm, can provide additional search coverage and revenue growth. Try again if you missed the deep game.

In July 2021, Google Ads removed modified broad match (BMM). Microsoft Ads followed suit and withdrew BMM bidding in March 2023. This was the start of a keyword past type consolidation.

(This is purely speculation, but Google/Microsoft will be phasing out other match types in 12-18 months.) If I make a prediction, phrase match will rank for exact match (for control) and broad match (for ). Series). ).

These changes are a direct result of advances in machine learning on ad serving platforms such as Google Ads and Microsoft Ads.

3. Strengthening the campaign

Data-driven attribution has become an important component of improving campaigns in Google Ads. Google's ad serving algorithm overrides user intent in its flagship search product.

Algorithms are needed to understand ad performance across different channels within the Google advertising ecosystem.

Once the algorithm knows how to optimize a Google property, it opens the door for further consolidation. Campaign consolidation was first introduced by Google and Microsoft as Smart Shopping .

It's a Google Smart Shopping campaign that allows businesses to automatically show product ads on the Google Search Network, YouTube, Display Network and Gmail. Smart Shopping campaigns use machine learning to optimize bids and placements.

In 2022, advertisers should migrate their Smart Shopping campaigns to Max Performance . Therefore, Maximum Performance (PMax) is the highlight of the current campaign consolidation.

PMax gives advertisers access to new inventory, ad formats and audiences across all Google channels, including YouTube, Search, Gmail, Shopping and Discovery.

Another consolidation point is the integration of dynamic search ads (DSA) into PMax. Google hasn't given a specific date for this migration, but the company says it's working to integrate the two features and hopes to make changes soon.

Take a step forward

The last five years have felt like a slow roller coaster ride. And it looks like the next two years are going to be a stormy autumn.

The decline has been driven by privacy laws, machine learning, automation and artificial intelligence. People fast forward!

The opinions expressed in this article are those of guest authors and not necessarily those of Search Engine Land. Our employee authors are listed here.

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