Digital Digest #109
Turning Data into Action: Introducing Insights in Google Search Console
Google has consistently emphasised its commitment to enhancing the user experience, not just for those searching for websites, products, services, or information online, but also for the creators, publishers, and brands who own and manage websites. For brands, understanding their performance on the web is crucial to delivering a seamless user experience.
With that in mind, did you know that Google offers SEO insights at the click of a button? The Insights tool within Google Search Console (GSC) is an invaluable resource for your marketing team, designed to help grow your organic traffic. This powerful feature integrates data from both GSC and Google Analytics, offering a comprehensive and unified view of your website’s performance.
Google Search Console Insights provides five distinct performance perspectives, each offering a comprehensive overview of your site's metrics. These perspectives allow users to delve deeper into top-performing pages and specific search queries, enabling a more detailed analysis. The reports present actionable insights through concise snapshots of search performance, making it easy for all stakeholders to assess and enhance content effectiveness.
•Achievements report: The Achievement report provides a comparison of data from the past 28 days against historical data collected since 2019. It includes the below two key reports:
•In Progress Achievement Report: This report monitors the current number of clicks, highlighting both upward and downward trends. It provides direct links to detailed Search Console reports, enabling you to dive deeper into underperforming pages and search queries for a more thorough analysis.
•Google Search Impact Report: This report shows the total number of clicks the site has received.
•Performance on Google: The report presents a graph displaying the daily fluctuations in site traffic based on clicks from Google.
•Your Growing Content: Highlights URLs of webpages that have experienced increased traffic compared to the previous 28-day period. It includes a list of 15 URLs that are trending upward, along with the number of additional clicks gained, the percentage increase from the previous period, and the top search queries driving this growth.
•Your Most Popular Content: Report identifies the 15 most popular pages on your website, showing their associated top search queries and the total number of clicks each page receives. This report is valuable for understanding the topics where your site holds authority.
•How People Find You: This report helps you understand which search terms are most effective in attracting visitors and identifies emerging trends in search behaviour.
Summary:
Google Search Console Insights is a crucial tool for analysing your website’s search performance, offering valuable metrics and trends for SEO consultants and site owners alike. This tool highlights key performance indicators, enabling stakeholders of all experience levels to better understand their site’s trajectory and refine their SEO strategies. Currently in its beta phase, Google Search Console Insights invites feedback from brands and agencies to suggest improvements. Despite being in early development, it provides significant value by deepening users' understanding of their site and enhancing search performance. Presently available in Ireland, this tool marks the beginning of Google Search Console’s evolution. Future updates are expected to include AI-driven insights, a notable advancement as no current tools offer AI Overview data. Google remains committed to continuously improving the experience for users, creators, and publishers.
Source:
Amazon Expands to Social Commerce
In this week’s Digital Digest, we will be discussing how Amazon has unveiled new options for customers who link their accounts to either Pinterest or TikTok, as part of its strategy to deepen its presence in social shopping. The integration will allow users to make purchases on Amazon directly from these social platforms without leaving the app.
When Pinterest and TikTok users link their accounts to Amazon, they will have the ability to shop for Amazon products within the platforms. However, the new feature is only available for select products advertised on these platforms and sold either by Amazon or independent sellers on Amazon's marketplace.
Industry experts see both risks and opportunities in Amazon's new partnerships. While the integration with TikTok could boost Amazon's sales and digital marketing efforts, it also poses risks related to brand control, platform dependence, and regulatory challenges.
The biggest risk for Amazon is its limited control over the shopping experience on TikTok. If TikTok's popularity declines or if the platform alters its algorithms or policies, Amazon could face negative consequences. Conversely, this partnership aligns with Amazon's broader strategy to shift from traditional ecommerce to a more immersive shopping experience while also reaching a younger audience. This collaboration allows Amazon to expand its presence in social media, gain valuable consumer insights, and avoid the need to develop its own social platform.
As of now, TikTok Shopping on Amazon is only available in select markets, including the U.S. and UK, with an expected rollout to other regions in the coming months. We will keep a close eye on updates and provide timely information as the feature becomes available in Ireland. This integration could offer Irish businesses significant opportunities to engage with their target audience through a seamless shopping experience directly within TikTok and Pinterest.
Overall, Amazon’s integration with TikTok and Pinterest presents both exciting opportunities and significant risks, highlighting the need for careful navigation as ecommerce continues to evolve.
Sources:
Digital Commerce 360
Netflix expands Ad-Tech Integrations
Netflix announced in their most recent Upfronts deeper connections with the AdTech industry, moving away from their previous partnership with just Microsoft as they begin to ramp up their advertising offering.
In countries with the ad-supported tier, 45% of new sign ups now choose the ad funded model. This means that Netflix in turn have increased the range of available advertising formats, targeting capabilities and reduced their cost, with a reduction of approximately 75% in CPMs when compared to their launch in 2022.
From an advertiser's perspective, access to ad inventory is now available via Googles DV360, The Trade Desk and Microsoft Invest. 3rd party verification and fraud partners such as Googles CM360, IAS and Doubleverify are also available to integrate with the platform. While some advertisers remain frustrated by the slow growth of its ad-supported tier, Netflix is focusing on a long term roll out of their advertising offering.
Netflix also announced new partnerships with data firms Snowflake, LiveRamp, and InfoSum. These partnerships will give advertisers access to link their clean rooms, a privacy-friendly tech that allows data-sharing across platforms. These tools help measure audience overlap, reach, and attribution. Snowflake’s clean room is available now, with InfoSum and LiveRamp to follow. Clean room technologies ensures that sensitive user data remains protected, adhering to privacy regulations while still enabling valuable insights for marketers.
Netflix is still very much in its infancy globally when it comes to building their ad business. It is viewed as a premium platform when it comes to pricing in other markets as its CPMs are still high when compared to other players in the market. This had reportedly led to procurement departments in some advertisers not approving Netflix as an advertising partner as “it costs too much for limited reach”.
Despite all this, Netflix continue to move ahead with their long-term advertising plan and have made some big decisions already, moving away from their initial partnership with Microsoft in favour of building their own ad server and moving to a more agnostic approach with tech companies.
As Netflix prepare for hosting live Sports events on their platform later this year, they will need to ensure their ad server is up to scratch so ads can be dynamically served during live events and no revenue opportunities are lost.
From an Irish perspective, we are still waiting on confirmation of when Netflix ads, and other SVOD players such as Disney+ and Amazon Prime, will be available in this market.
Source:
https://www.marketingbrew.com/stories/2024/08/19/netflix-to-partner-with-data-companies
