In this week’s digital news to watch, we discuss the growing dependence on AI and why it’s crucial to strike the right balance between AI and humans to see success. Google explains why ad strength is so important, despite critics saying it doesn’t correlate with ad performance. Marketing Week have shared the results of their Career & Salary survey, and there’s five key takeaways. And according to a new report by Lokker, digital privacy efforts still continue to fall short.
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Google explains why Ad Strength is ‘so important’
Some Google advertisers believe that Ad Strength, a diagnostic tool aimed at improving ad quality, is irrelevant and should be disregarded. Despite Google’s promotion of Ad Strength, critics argue that it doesn’t correlate with ad performance. Mateja Matić, an experienced marketer, prioritises manual ad setup over Google’s automated recommendations, finding that his ads often outperform those rated with “excellent” Ad Strength. Frederick Vallaeys from Optmyzr advises experienced advertisers to focus on other metrics, as exceptional campaign performance doesn’t necessarily align with high Ad Strength ratings. Anthony Higman from Adsquire experimented with Ad Strength but found no increase in quality leads, deeming it a “waste of time.” Although Google’s Brendon Kraham emphasizes the importance of Ad Strength, critics remain skeptical, suspecting it may soon influence ad rank. Kraham advocates for Performance Max (PMax), highlighting its asset generative capabilities and its role in empowering businesses, particularly smaller ones, to thrive in the fast-paced digital landscape. He sees PMax as the future of Google Ads, leveraging AI to deliver tailored ads to consumers efficiently.
Striking the right balance between AI & humans
In marketing, there’s a growing dependence on AI for tasks like trend analysis and campaign strategy. However, there are risks to relying too heavily on automation. Human intuition remains vital for understanding consumer nuances. Ethical considerations are crucial to avoid over-personalisation and maintain consumer trust. Despite AI’s benefits in predictive analytics and personalisation, it can lead to a loss of creativity and reliance on formulaic approaches. Over-reliance on AI may stifle innovation and raise ethical concerns about data privacy and consumer trust.
60% of Perplexity citations overlap with top 10 Google organic results
A new study has found that 60% of citations on new AI search engine Perplexity overlap with the top 10 Google organic search results. This is an interesting finding alongside recent studies that have shown 94% of Google’s SGE links to be different from organic search results. With Perplexity’s strong MoM growth to 15 million monthly active users in recent months, this is positive news for site owners that have been optimising to rank in Google, as you should be off to a good start to be surfaced in Perplexity.
Five interesting stats from Marketing Week’s Salary Survey 2024
Marketing Week have revealed the results of their 2024 Career & Salary Survey. The report discusses the results of a survey of over 3,000 marketers, who say that strategy is the most undervalued marketing skill. Social media marketing is seen as overrated. Two-thirds of marketers have been in their current role for three years or less. There is a trend towards remote work, but many marketers miss out on networking opportunities because of it and some companies are looking to increase in-office work to improve collaboration.
Google shares tutorial on identifying INP issues
Google has published a new video tutorial to identify INP issues using Chrome DevTools, since the official replacement of FID as one of the three Core Web Vitals metrics last month. Following the steps in the video should help site owners understand what is causing page experience issues and work with developers to fix them to aim for the good threshold of under 200ms for the page to respond to user interaction.
Digital privacy efforts continue to fall short
The privacy landscape is becoming increasingly complex, which is making it difficult for marketers to keep up. While cookies are a well-known privacy concern, pixels are another form of tracking that can’t be ignored. A new report from Lokker, finds that nearly half of all websites use tracking pixels. Consent banners are not always effective, and many websites load trackers before users consent. “Marketers must adapt to the rapidly evolving data landscape,” said Ian Cohen, CEO of Lokker. “Key steps include prioritising transparency, limiting the amount of data collected, blocking third parties that are unknown, and creating a process between legal and engineering to understand and follow the rapidly changing regulatory landscape.”
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