In this week’s digital news to watch, GA4 introduces benchmarking data. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) now allows users to compare their performance with industry peers. The update also offers customisable peer groups and maintains data privacy through encryption. Global advertising spend is expected to increase 10.5% this year to a total of $1.07 trillion, according to WARC’s latest forecast.
Perplexity is preparing to introduce ads. The generative AI-powered search engine announced last week that it’s planning to launch advertising features on its platform. The changes will be made within the fourth quarter of this year. Google announced that images in the AVIF file format will now be eligible to be shown in Google Search and Google Images. Including all platforms that surface Google Search data.
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Google Analytics 4 introduces benchmarking data
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) now allows users to compare their performance with industry peers, offering valuable insights for strategic decisions. Users can access this benchmarking feature by enabling “Modeling contributions & business insights” in their account settings. Benchmarks, updated daily, include trendlines, medians, and peer group ranges. The update also offers customisable peer groups and maintains data privacy through encryption. This feature will help businesses better gauge their performance within their industry. Benchmarking tools are always useful even if to just get an idea of performance of the market as a whole.
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Perplexity is preparing to introduce ads. Will brands jump on board?
Perplexity, the generative AI-powered search engine that’s been hailed as a potential challenger to Google, announced last week that it’s planning to launch advertising features on its platform in the fourth quarter of this year. The launch of ChatGPT in late 2022 kicked off a race within the online search industry to incorporate generative AI. Microsoft was ahead of the curve with its multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI and its subsequent launch of a GPT-4-infused Bing. Google soon followed up with its own feature, called Search Generative Experience, which provides summarized responses to user queries. And OpenAI recently unveiled a prototype of its own search tool, dubbed SearchGPT.
WARC: Global ad spend to top $1 trillion in 2024
Global advertising spend is expected to increase 10.5% this year to a total of $1.07 trillion, according to WARC’s latest forecast. The updated projection represents a 2.3 percentage point increase over the firm’s last forecast and reflects the uptake of media tools enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI). Spending in North America will grow 8.6% to $348 billion, and Europe will increase 5% to $165 billion. Latin America will increase 6.2% to $32.1 billion, and the Middle East will grow 4.2% to 12.6 billion. Asia Pacific will remain the world’s second-largest market at $272 billion with 2% growth. Meta, Amazon and Alphabet will attract nearly 44% of all ad spending this year, and the companies’ share is expected to grow to more than 46% over the next three years.
Retail media is not just a trend, it’s reshaping the landscape of digital advertising
Retail media is rapidly reshaping digital advertising, with first-party data playing a crucial role. Ad spend for retail media is projected to grow by 13.7% in 2024, reaching $153.3bn globally. Major players like Amazon dominate the market, but there’s growing potential for smaller and non-endemic brands to establish their own media networks. These networks can leverage unique data and partnerships, particularly through collaboration and technologies like data clean rooms, to offer personalised, privacy-conscious advertising solutions. However, success depends on having robust, unified first-party data and the necessary expertise to extract actionable insights. Brands that move quickly and strategically to build their networks can position themselves as leaders in the evolving retail media landscape.
Google’s new support for AVIF images may boost SEO
Google have announced support for images in the AVIF file format so that these can now be surfaced in Google Search and Images. Serving images in AVIF format is beneficial for lowering file size to improve page speed and Core Web Vitals scores. Nothing special is needed to have your AVIF files indexed by Google so this is something it could be worth exploring if you currently have large images on site.
Google updates organisation structured data documentation
Google have updated their documentation to offer a clearer explanation of Organisation structured data, its purpose and benefits. The update includes how schema can influence knowledge panels, how to disambiguate your organisation from others by using the right properties, and a note that there are no required properties for Organisation structured data. But you should add as many as you feel are necessary for relevance.
For more information on any of these stories, or for support with your digital marketing – whether you’d like to increase your brand awareness through Paid Search, or if you’d like increase reaching your audience through SEO Marketing, get in touch with our team. Send us an email to team@modo25.com
