Digital Horizons

Brand News: Google's Cookie Deprecation & Social Channel Diversification

• James Walker

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Can your digital marketing strategy withstand the latest regulatory shake-ups? Discover how the changes to the Australian Privacy Act and Google's deprecation of third-party cookies are reshaping the landscape for marketers. We'll unravel how these regulatory moves align more closely with GDPR, adding complexity to data collection and usage. Learn why first-party data and server-side tracking are now more critical than ever, and why businesses must be more selective about their data practices to maintain compliance and create meaningful customer experiences.

How do your social media habits change with the device you use? We dive into the compelling user behaviors between YouTube and TikTok, revealing why YouTube reigns supreme on TVs for in-depth content while TikTok dominates phones as the go-to for quick, entertaining escapes. Uncover how these platform preferences can impact your marketing strategies and user engagement. Whether you need to navigate new privacy laws or refine your social media tactics, our episode offers actionable insights to keep you ahead in the ever-evolving digital marketing world.

The Digital Horizons Podcast is hosted by:

James Walker - Managing Director Walker Hill Digital
Brian Hastings - Managing Director Nous

Speaker 1:

let's get the mic close enough so I don't have to do the move. Yeah, that'd be a good intro. All right, we are back today with a another short form episode talking about recent news in the digital marketing space yeah, let's get into it.

Speaker 2:

We've got two articles that I'm just going to throw out on the table and see what we have to say about them, try to get a quick take and hopefully keep you guys up to date with what's going on in marketing and advertising news. A really, really exciting one to start with. Today. This one's on our news, an inflection point for Australian advertising. Privacy Act update meets cookie depreciation. Advertising Privacy Act update meets cookie depreciation. So what they're talking about here. The Australian Privacy Act, hasn't really been updated since 1988. It's not relevant for today's information gathering and the sort of internet-based world. So they're going to make some sweeping changes to it. It's going to be a lot similar to the GDPR rules that are found in Europe.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean. It just means it's going to make our job harder, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

And then I think what they're getting at is it's happening a few months before Google finally depreciates, deprecates the cookie, so it's going to be at the same time as we're losing cookie-based or third-party cookie tracking, which we're kind of already getting used to at the moment.

Speaker 1:

That's it. I mean we've had to do it for international clients and so now that we're having to do it here, I mean it's nothing that's not prepared for, but it does mean that we're just going to have to. There's more steps.

Speaker 2:

It's just going to mean that we've had with as much retargeting and all the data that we've been able to take advantage of. Yeah, I think where marketers and advertising agencies like us have gotten used to some of these digital channels being super accountable for where the traffic came from that attribution piece you spoke about a few weeks ago we're going to have to get more comfortable with different forms of targeting and contextual-based targeting to ensure you're reaching the right type of audience, rather than viewing what people have been doing around the web and then targeting them based off a series of websites they've visited.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think there's the server-side tracking and there's all that off-site conversion tracking that can be set up as well. So I think that using first-party data is going to be so key once we're doing this. I don't understand that shit at all. We've got one of our guys and I think it'd probably be worthwhile us bringing him on for an episode to get business, especially with this coming up, to get businesses a little bit more prepared in terms of how they should be approaching this, because it is going to impact results, it's going to give you to, and so it's not going to be a good position for marketers and businesses. So I think getting ahead of it is going to be key.

Speaker 2:

Yeah absolutely so.

Speaker 2:

That's the Google cookie being deprecated, the Australian Privacy Act updating, as well as what James is talking about with the GDPR request to accept tracking that pops up on websites that you might all be used to.

Speaker 2:

That's going to have to be rolled out a lot more for our Australian clients and Australian businesses, so get used to that. But also, the intent of the act, or the changes to the act, is to make marketers or brands more accountable for what they do with customer data. And especially, why are you actually asking for this level of data? So you have to kind of explain what you're going to use the data for to the person who you're capturing the data from, and if you don't actually need all these reams of personal data about them, you shouldn't be taking it in the first place. So there's going to be an expectation that you only ask what you need, which can impact some data collection efforts that we do for our clients clients where we're trying to build a picture of who our clients are and what category or client type they might fall into so we can reach them with better content and nurtures.

Speaker 1:

I wish more people would do some of that, more of that stuff, though I was just thinking I signed up for an email list it was called Skims and so I was on there and I've purchased. I got mail products on there, so I bought it and I keep getting hit with female email marketing blasts constantly and I'm like there's not a single thing in this relevant. But if they'd taken the time to do a, I guess, when you're signing up or creating an account or making a purchase, as to checking gender, then they could provide much more relevant email content. So I think that, whilst you've got to be aware of what you're taking, you do want to collect enough to also provide a really good experience to your customer base, and there's definitely reasons to be collecting this information, because nobody wants an email that is completely irrelevant to them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think with the changes to the Privacy Act, I still think that's going to be definitely possible. There's every reason why you need to collect the gender of the person or the category of clothing that they purchased previously so you can better target them with the same sort of category of clothing. That's absolutely relevant to the marketing efforts there. It's better marketing, yeah. So a lot more to come on that.

Speaker 2:

You'll probably be hearing about it. You'll probably have people, if you're a marketer, asking you about what it means, and it's going to get really intense and scary for anyone holding a lot of data that they shouldn't be. So have a think about what data you collect and what data you're housing on your clients and customers, and have a think about why you need so much of it in preparation for these changes. Anyway, the second one is an article from Hootsuite. It's their annual survey to marketers to better understand their social media usage and email usage. One of the trends that they popped up that came from the data from the survey was called the platform trend, and it states strategic brands commit to their champion social platforms. So what they're saying is effectively, there's so many channels, so many places your brand can be, and the strategic brands are the ones that are picking fewer platforms and being more present in those, rather than trying to be everywhere all at once.

Speaker 1:

My team would love to hear that I'm giving them a content plan and be like hey, we're doing this new launch. I want us to have content on TikTok, on Facebook, on Instagram. I want reels every day. I want all these kind of things.

Speaker 1:

And they look at me like, hey, this is a stupid amount of content. But from what I'm understanding and what I feel works is by being everywhere. But it sounds like potentially that is not the process that should be going and it'd be more like, hey, just pick one that you're good at and just do that really well, as opposed to being shit at a whole bunch of them.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's probably not as simple as going down to one. I think you're still right in this case. They're just saying there's channels like six to seven to eight channels that they're having to be in, and they're probably bringing it down to five or four. Yeah, okay, cool.

Speaker 1:

That's good, because I still want to be publishing content on as many platforms as possible. But you're right, I mean when we start thinking about well, threads came out, Do we need a thread strategy? Probably not. Yeah, that was when we tried it and we put shit on there and we got a little bit of engagement, but it was definitely not the amount of effort that was going into it to the payoff. I feel was not worthwhile.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, one example they gave here. Take Twitter or X, for example. The majority 60% of organizations have made a presence there, but only a third of them feel strongly that it benefits their business, which might explain the 7% drop in that brand's use. And they have a graph there showing the ups and downs of brand usage and brand effort by platform. At the increase in brand usage by platform, tiktok is up 16% year on year. Instagram is up 5% year on year. Sorry, that was LinkedIn up 5% and Instagram was up 1% year on year. The drops, what's up it? I was down 18% year on year, pinterest is down 11% and X Twitter is down 7%, facebook down only 1%, which is not too bad considering the transition of all this.

Speaker 1:

I imagine it's been going down for a few years, so they're probably continually dropping. But I wonder if that's including usage of Messenger as well, because I mean, messenger usage is so high. Yeah, that I feel, even if you're not like, I use Messenger all the time but I'm not on the Facebook platform. So I wonder if they're including that within the usage in the platform.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think this is change in platform use for businesses.

Speaker 1:

Businesses.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so it's your business account usage and how much effort you're putting into there. So I think marketers are seeing value in entering TikTok. Still in LinkedIn. Surprisingly, that's gone up and Instagram's still growing, which is good to see. So, yeah, I think that's a fair point. I think don't spread to everything, but probably your plans that you're suggesting you want to hear, hear, hear and hear are still accurate because you can be good in those platforms and our audiences are spread across multiple channels. I just think you don't have to have a Twitter presence if you don't need to, or an ex-presence if you don't need to.

Speaker 1:

So what's your short-form content? Go-to platform for yourself, not as a business, like if you're jumping on and going to start following some shit you're on. Instagram Like Reels and stuff.

Speaker 2:

No, sorry, instagram for people I know, tiktok for entertainment.

Speaker 1:

Okay, but like so, do you use Instagram Reels, because that's going to be. It's got a similar algorithm too.

Speaker 2:

I have this weird thing I do at the moment where I try to buy back my attention span by deleting Instagram and TikTok and then I'll get one of them back a week later. Yeah, and I'll only have Instagram because it's less. I find it less addictive, less engaging, and then I'm still using Instagram Reels, and then a week later I'll go, I really miss TikTok, so I'll get it back, so I can tell I prefer TikTok because it's the one I delete for the longest to try to gain back some time.

Speaker 1:

It's good when you gauge it. Yeah, I'll flick on. I'll use TikTok. Instagram Reels I've never really used, and YouTube Shorts I want to use, but I just never think to use it. It doesn't even come into my mind that, hey, there's a platform here for entertainment. I use YouTube on the TV all the time, but in terms of YouTube Shorts, I like the idea of it, but I don't actually ever think to use it when I'm picking up my phone.

Speaker 2:

I find the Shorts irritate me a bit because I use YouTube on the big TV and it sort of has all my channels I subscribe to. They're being pushed by YouTube and we do YouTube shorts as well for Digital Horizons, but you'll have your upload and you'll be excited. Oh, I've got a few uploads from the things I subscribe to and there's like 19 shorts before you get to an actual full width video. So yeah, I find that a little bit irritating, but I guess it's for the app users rather than the TV users.

Speaker 1:

That's right, and I just don't think of YouTube as a phone app that I use for just killing time, whereas a TikToker if I'm sitting around with a bit of time, I'd do that, but anyway, off topic.

Speaker 2:

So that's, it.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening today. This is another one of our short form formats. We'll be back again shortly yeah, thank you see ya, bye.