Happy Monday! Welcome to another weekly roundup; Matt, Tom and Kylie have collated their top stories in digital marketing and technology. In this week’s news, we’re discussing the concerns surrounding AI-generated fake images in PR, the interplay between marketing and sales in digital marketing, the growing trend of luxury brands focusing on the home as their primary market – and of course, several Google updates.
Table of Contents
AI images – should PR be worried?
High-profile individuals’ and brands’ reputations are incredibly important and can be damaged in the blink of an eye. As we begin to see more and more AI-generated images of individuals – can someone’s reputation be damaged because of a fake image? If so, what does this mean for PR and how can they minimise the potential damage from fake AI images?
Why sales and marketing should work hand in hand
Digital marketing has always worked differently from traditional marketing techniques due to its unique interplay with sales. In the digital landscape, businesses can track and analyse customer behaviour, creating a personalised experience that enhances customer journeys.
Aligning marketing and sales teams can help create a seamless customer journey and efficient acquisition process. Discussed here is how working together, marketing and sales can create a cohesive strategy to achieve a common goal of increasing success in the digital market. Understanding the interplay between marketing and sales is key to achieving success in today’s digital landscape.
No place like home for luxury brands
Fashion and beauty brands are entering the lifestyle market due to the high demand for home design from wealthy consumers. A survey by BoF Insights and Altiant found that high-net-worth individuals have increased spending on their homes by 12% since pre-Covid. Branded hotel and dining experiences, such as Harrods’ new Prada Caffè, are influencing 30% of consumers surveyed. This growth is attributed to post-pandemic trends like hybrid work and interest in experiential goods for at-home entertaining.
Google Ads enhances GA4 conversion imports
Google Ads has introduced a new update, Enhanced Conversions, which enables advertisers to import conversions from Google Analytics 4 (GA4) into Google Ads. This feature aims to provide advertisers with more accurate and detailed information about ad performance and user behaviour.
With Enhanced Conversions, advertisers can import additional data such as video engagements, scroll depth, and file downloads as conversions, in addition to the traditional conversion types. Users will find this update is expected to help them make better-informed decisions about their ad campaigns and gain a deeper understanding of the impact of their ads on user behaviour. This new feature has the potential to improve ad campaign strategies by providing advertisers with a more comprehensive view of the performance of their ads, ultimately leading to more effective and targeted ad campaigns.
Google retires several page experience ranking systems
Google updated it’s guide to Google Search ranking systems last week to drop a number of systems related to page experience from their retired list. The drops include:
- Page experience system
- Mobile-friendly system
- Page speed system
- Secure sites system
These changes caused SEOs to question whether these systems have always been redundant and why they were ever brought to our attention if they never had that much impact? John Mueller has now offered insight into the change and clarified that the reason for removing these systems was due to some SEOs hyper-focusing on these elements which is not the way they wanted site owners to deal with them. These elements should all still be considered as part of a holistic approach to ensure you are hitting Google’s other guidelines.
Google expands shipping and return info in Search
Google have expanded their rich results to enable e-commerce sites to display shipping and returns information within search results. Shipping cost, speed and returns policy are all major influences in a customers decision to purchase, so Google are responding to this by making it easier for them to be aware of the whole cost before clicking through. The hope is that this may lead to less abandoned carts once all these extra costs and information get added at last minute.
To help with achieving this, Google have improved their Shopping report within Search Console to track the setup and effectiveness of structured data that can be added to your site or via Merchant Centre. This is being rolled out in Google US at the minute, but will soon follow to other countries.
If you would like guidance with any of these Google updates, or you’d like to discuss how we can help your digital marketing strategy, in PPC, SEO, PR or affiliate marketing. Get in touch by sending us an email to team@modo25.com
