30-second summary:
- Within the digital marketing space, the conversation around privacy and cookie changes has focused heavily on programmatic and paid social
- But how will third-party cookie deprecation and new privacy regulations impact paid search?
- Here is what search marketers can expect and how to prepare
In the digital marketing world, targeting, measurement, and optimization have foundationally relied on the ability to accurately track user behaviors and performance across the web. However, as we all know, platforms like Google and Apple have introduced privacy-focused initiatives over the past few years that complicate targeting and measurement for advertisers.
When discussing the impacts of these changes, much of the conversation has focused on programmatic and paid social, which are undoubtedly the digital channels feeling the greatest impact. What has not been discussed in great detail is the impact on search marketing. How should advertisers adapt their paid search strategies to adjust to these new realities?
Before digging into action items, let’s recap the newest updates and how they’ll impact paid search campaigns.
Chrome’s privacy updates will have a greater impact than iOS.
There are two key privacy changes top-of-mind for search marketers in 2021. App Tracking Transparency (ATT), introduced through Apple’s iOS 14.5 update, requires a user to opt-in before a company can track their data across other apps or websites. Fortunately, the impact of this update on search programs for most advertisers is limited. Advertisers may see fluctuations in universal app campaign (UAC) volume, and search properties with a larger app-based audience (for example, YouTube) will experience some degradation in measurement and targeting. By and large, though, the ATT update is more of an issue for programmatic advertisers than search marketers.
Google Chrome’s third-party cookie deprecation, coming in 2023, will have a larger impact on paid