In this week’s digital news roundup, Google expanded its store ratings feature to more countries. At Advertising Week New York 2024, AI’s integration in advertising was a key theme, alongside the industry’s shift toward privacy-compliant targeting methods. UK affiliate marketing growth is outperforming overall digital ad spend by 50% and becoming a key investment channel for marketers. Google also updated its robots.txt policy, and TikTok launched five new advertising tools aimed at improving campaign performance. Lastly, OpenAI plans to integrate SearchGPT into ChatGPT by year-end, providing real-time search results alongside responses.
Google Search expands Store ratings to more countries
Google have rolled out Store ratings to more countries, including the UK, Australia, Canada and India, after only being present in the US before now. These can be found in Google Search and Shopping results and can be expanded to show a full list of customer ratings and insights, which provide information on details like shipping and returns. Store ratings are defined by Google as a way to help searchers find businesses that offer high quality customer experiences. If you don’t have store ratings enabled, it is worth participating in Google’s customer review program to gather reviews for this.
Five trends seen at Advertising Week New York 2024
Advertising Week New York 2024 was driven by the rapid evolution of technology and changes in data privacy regulations. The most prominent theme was the continued integration of AI in advertising, particularly in measurement and attribution. AI is filling gaps caused by signal loss and the decline of traditional data signals like third-party cookies. Marketers are shifting focus to creative intelligence, using AI to optimise ad performance while balancing human creativity.
Another significant trend is the challenge of data signal loss due to privacy regulations, pushing brands toward more privacy-compliant methods such as contextual targeting and cohort-based approaches. With fewer data signals available, creative elements are becoming more critical in campaign success, as advertisers can no longer rely solely on hyper-targeted ads.
Additionally, innovations in cross-channel measurement are helping brands get a clearer understanding of consumer behaviour, even as tracking methods evolve in response to privacy challenge.
UK affiliate marketing growth is ‘outperforming all digital adspend by 50%’
New report reveals current state of the UK’s affiliate and partnership marketing industry, with looks at the past, present and future of the channel. Affiliate marketing in the UK saw £1.67bn in investment in 2023, accounting for 10% of e-commerce transactions. The sector generated £20.6bn from 355m sales, with brand spending up 17% year-on-year. Retail and influencer marketing are key growth drivers, with average order values at £82. The outlook is optimistic, as 57% of advertisers plan to increase investment, though concerns around cookies, tracking, AI, and Google pose potential challenges for the industry moving forward.
Google updates Robots.txt Policy
Google have updated their robots.txt policy to support four specific fields and make it clear that using fields other than those specified in Google’s documentation will be ignored. The four fields supported include:
- User-agent
- Allow
- Disallow
- Sitemap
Notably, this implies that a commonly used directive like “crawl-delay” will not be supported by Google, although other search engines may still recognise them. In light of this announcement, it’s worth reviewing your robots.txt file to ensure that everything is still being seen as you intended it to be.
TikTok unveils five new advertising tools
TikTok has introduced five new advertising tools aimed at helping brands improve their marketing results. These include:
- Smart+: An automated ad performance tool.
- GMV Max: Focuses on boosting TikTok Shop sales.
- Out of Phone: Retail: Showcases TikTok content in physical stores.
- Conversion Lift Studies: Measures TikTok’s impact on conversions beyond simple clicks.
- Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs): Enhances data privacy in advertising.
These new tools emphasise TikTok’s role in driving consumer purchases and optimising campaign efficiency.
OpenAI to integrate SearchGPT into ChatGPT before the end of 2024
OpenAI is integrating its SearchGPT feature into ChatGPT by the end of 2024, allowing users to get real-time answers alongside ChatGPT responses. This update will drive traffic to publishers through clickable links but won’t offer direct ad revenue sharing. OpenAI aims to balance user experience with the need for proper attribution to publishers. Additionally, SearchGPT is already driving more traffic than some other search platforms, with the potential to make ChatGPT a player in the search space.
For more information on any of these stories or for support with your digital marketing campaigns, get in touch with our team. Why not capitalise on the affiliate marketing growth? We are experts in this field and can help you achieve your business goals, send us an email to [email protected]
