Google’s recent announcement regarding Privacy Sandbox* is a prime example of how quickly data privacy standards and best practices are evolving. Originally announced in August 2019, Privacy Sandbox will no longer move forward as planned. While this announcement relieves some immediate pressure to transition from third-party cookies to first-party data, it doesn’t signal the end of the “data privacy revolution.” Google has already begun updating its products to allow users to more easily opt out of cookies, meaning that even if third-party cookies aren’t eliminated by Google, many users are likely to opt out of them anyway.
Navigating these changes can be challenging, especially when trying to ensure compliance while setting up campaigns for growth. Gone are the days of long-tail keyword mining and expanded text ads. Soon, strategies like web-based conversion actions, audiences based on web actions or page visitors, and even exact-match keywords may become obsolete.
Having been around since the dawn of digital marketing (no kidding – Working Planet just celebrated our 21st year as an agency), we have witnessed significant changes in both data privacy requirements and network capabilities. As we enter a new era of data privacy regulation, we have some high-level best practices to implement ASAP to ensure compliance and growth. If you have any questions or need assistance setting these processes up in your company, reach out to us here!
Anonymize Your PII
First and easiest, transition all of your data that contains PII (personally identifiable information like first name, last name, email, etc.) to anonymized, hashed data. It’s 2024; there is no reason for you to know that jimbob@hotmail just started a trial at your company. Ad networks no longer accept non-encrypted information, so you can't use it even if you want to. If the money-hungry ad platforms don’t want to deal with the risk that holding PII brings, you shouldn’t either. Sure, it will take a little legwork to update your data and ensure connections across data platforms are still working as intended, but at least you won’t have to worry about a class action lawsuit if any of your internal data is unintentionally leaked (looking at you, major corporations that have experienced this in the past five years).
Give Your First-Party Data Some Love
We have been spoiled by ad networks that made it easy to set up smart campaigns and build audiences with third-party data cookies, but those days are coming to an end. We will have to use our own data to optimize campaigns and build audiences. Start by auditing your data sources to identify and address any gaps, inconsistencies, or errors in your data. The information we feed these networks will make or break our digital marketing campaigns. Understanding your data and where the value lies within it will ensure your campaigns run at full capacity.
For example, if you are launching a Meta campaign and upload a list of all your eCommerce customers regardless of the value they produce, the AI might over-optimize for the “easiest” customers to find, regardless of their value. This means targeting a mix of low and high-value customers as you would expect, the campaign will go after the cheapest leads. Know your data, understand the characteristics that drive value, and set up campaigns accordingly.
Use Ad Network’s New “Innovations” with a Healthy Amount of Skepticism
As an agency that prides itself on innovation, we were early adopters of Google’s Offline Conversion Tracking and Meta’s Conversions API. In that adoption, we learned a few things. First, it is important to remember these AI algorithms are designed to spend money first and meet our goals second. For example, when your Google Ads account recommends a lower target ROAS to “increase conversion volume,” remember who’s best interests it has in mind. Secondly, always feed data to the network and optimize with profit top of mind, not lead volume or other top-of-funnel metrics that don’t always directly correlate to profit. (Read more about this)
Options, Options, and More Options
A network’s algorithm loves having options when creating an ad to show to a user. As we enter a world where less is known about individual users and data is aggregated, we will no longer be able to rely on hyper-segmented campaigns showing one value prop or one piece of creative to an audience. With the introduction of Responsive Search Ads and Performance Max Campaigns in Google and dynamic ads in Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, etcetera, algorithms now favor ads with a diverse set of copy, creative, and targeting options. This allows the AI to tailor ads to individual users. Even if you have the perfect image for a specific audience, you may not win many auctions to show that image, leading to lower lead volume, higher costs, and worse performance overall. Treat the AI as a member of your team and enable it to do its job to the best of its ability, just as you would any human on your team.
*Google’s July 22nd update on Privacy Sandbox: here.