Join us as we navigate the choppy waters of ecommerce remarketing with Phillip Ivellio-Vellin, exploring the ramifications of the impending Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Google Consent Mode's implementation deadline of March 6, 2024. This episode promises to equip you with the knowledge and strategies to t thrive in an environment where privacy regulations and tech giants' policies collide.
From the implications of user consent to the future of cookie tracking, our deep dive into the evolving digital landscape is a must-listen for every marketer and ecommerce professional seeking to maintain a competitive edge.Phillip offers his expert insights on the delicate balance between data compliance and business performance, shedding light on the industry's pivot towards prioritizing user privacy without sacrificing remarketing efficacy. Hang on as we dissect the future of ad campaigns and present an outlook on how these seismic shifts are poised to change digital advertising strategies.
Google's guidance on consent management requirements in the EEA and UK:
Join us as we navigate the choppy waters of ecommerce remarketing with Phillip Ivellio-Vellin, exploring the ramifications of the impending Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Google Consent Mode's implementation deadline of March 6, 2024. This episode promises to equip you with the knowledge and strategies to t thrive in an environment where privacy regulations and tech giants' policies collide.
From the implications of user consent to the future of cookie tracking, our deep dive into the evolving digital landscape is a must-listen for every marketer and ecommerce professional seeking to maintain a competitive edge.Phillip offers his expert insights on the delicate balance between data compliance and business performance, shedding light on the industry's pivot towards prioritizing user privacy without sacrificing remarketing efficacy. Hang on as we dissect the future of ad campaigns and present an outlook on how these seismic shifts are poised to change digital advertising strategies.
Google's guidance on consent management requirements in the EEA and UK:
Welcome to Growing Ecommerce. I'm your host, mike Ryan of Smarter Ecommerce, also known as SMEC. Today, I've got Philippe Vellio-Vellin making his second appearance on the show. There is a lot of noises here about cookies, consent and conversion modeling, especially here in Europe, so Philippe and I discuss how to keep your e-commerce remarketing alive in this environment. I ask Philippe what Google Consent Mode is, what happens if you don't implement by March here in Europe? And we talked about some very interesting information along the way about modeled conversions, about third-party cookies and about a new thing coming up, which is the ability for users to unlink their Google services, for example, disconnecting Google ad services from YouTube or Google search. It's a packed episode, so let's get into it. So, philippe, thanks for joining us on the show once again, we're really glad to have you back and for guests who missed your last episode or you know, it's just been a while why don't you reintroduce yourself to us? What are your core interests and skills? What themes interest you too?
Speaker 2:Thank you, Mike. Thank you for having me again. Yeah, I'm here at SMECH working on everything that touches tracking and analytics, and those, I guess, are the two main focuses of my professional being Absolutely, and that's a pretty boring area right now, right yeah it used to be. It used to be, I guess, until the sunset of universal analytics. Then Google Analytics 4 came huge chaos, you know, and now there's a constant mode and let's see what will come in the future.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. Maybe we'll be talking about Privacy Sandbox one time too, with this whole cookie deprecation thing. But let's keep it for today. Let's keep it focused on what you just mentioned on the Consent Mode. Just to set the stage for that a little bit, I just want to quickly discuss like.
Speaker 1:Consent Mode's been around for a while, but it's becoming a little more urgent now and that's due to this thing happening here in the European Economic Area called the DMA or the Digital Markets Act, and basically this is a way that regulators are trying to target some of these really large platforms and hold them to a high standard. They won't hold all businesses to the same standard, but they describe what they call gatekeepers. And so when you think of, like Big Tech Google is a gatekeeper, apple is a gatekeeper and a few of the don'ts that they're trying to regulate here like, or the kind of behavior that they want to regulate, they want to make sure that these gatekeepers are treating services and products from others equally as they treat themselves, so that they're not kind of self-dealing or self-favoring. And an example of this in the Google space and in e-commerce is that, you know, a few years back there was a CSS remedy or comparison shopping remedy here in Europe related to Google, because it was determined that they were really favoring their own comparison shopping option the shopping tab and Google shopping, above other comparison sites, and so they took a remedy. But now they're going to take additional measures to make sure that they're not self-savaring themselves.
Speaker 1:And you know another example that's more related to, let's say, like, Apple is preventing consumers from linking to businesses outside of their platform, or that could you know. You have to be able to make sure that if you're on a social media platform, that it's possible, that you're not kind of locked in, that it's possible to transfer out. Or if you're looking at the app ecosystem, there's this theme about side loading. So you need to, like, apple has right now really monopoly with their app store and they are going to need to allow people to buy apps in other ways. So those are a couple examples, but the one that really affects us today, according to these new standards, these gatekeepers are not allowed to track end users outside of the outside of the core platform for the purpose of targeted advertising without effective consent having been granted. So that's kind of one of these key themes and, having said that, I think that transitions us into Google's consent mode. What is consent mode?
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean, in my opinion, it does make sense that Google also kind of has to know whether the end user has given consent or not. What's always hard if you collect this kind of information from so many end users and advertisers and websites. As you know, as you browse through the internet, not every single website has the same consent banner and if you opt in or opt out, then you opt in or opt out to totally different categories once it's called marketing, maybe analytics, maybe personalized advertising and so on. And through Google consent mode, google gets the information which content was given when or before loading Google tags in a standardized way. So there are certain categories like add user data this one is new add personalization, analytic storage or ad storage, and this is standardized and this information is sent via Google Tags to Google and via those constant information, they know whether a user has given constant or not.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so, that kind of like. Basically, in September 6th there was sort of a 6th of 2023. There was sort of like a six month grace period more or less announced. And this doesn't just affect, then the gatekeepers like Google, it affects the advertisers within that platform. So fast forward six months from September 6th and you land on March 6th 2024. And that presents them kind of a deadline to opt into this consent month, correct.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, there's. I mean it's a hard deadline, so a real deadline when you're using remarketing. So if your, if your advertising is based heavily on remarketing, then ideally you should have implemented Google Consent Mode by March 6th, because if you don't, then your remarketing audiences won't be populated anymore, neither in Google Ads nor via Google Analytics. 4. What is also important is that you implement Convent Mode version 2. With Consent Mode version 2, there were two new constant categories introduced, which are add personalization and add user data. So if you've already implemented Google Consent Mode, like, let's say, a year ago, then you would have to update your content mode settings and integrate the two new content categories, which are add user data and add certainization.
Speaker 1:Like maybe you can talk us through a bit. What would be the implications of that, like I'm wondering. It doesn't necessarily mean that a remarketing would just turn off right away. I mean you'd have, if you have pre-existing lists that were, like, previously opted in or before this occurred. Would those lists keep working and then you'd kind of gradually see the life drain out of your remarketing over time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I would expect, based on Google's communication. But it could also happen that you know they within after, let's say, three months or so, that they shut down those audiences too. And, up to my knowledge, you are not able to create new audiences if you haven't implemented Google Consent Mode by March 6. And what also has been a topic within the last, I don't know like six weeks, was the impact of Google Consent Mode to conversion tracking. Because in a lot of communication there was said if you don't implement Consent Mode by March 6, your conversion tracking is not going to work anymore.
Speaker 2:Apparently, that is not the case. So even though you will not, even though you haven't implemented Consent Mode by March 6, your conversion tracking will still work. But in the end, you can only postpone the implementation of Consent Mode, in my opinion, because towards the end of 2024, it will also affect conversion tracking. So I would say don't wait too long to implement conversion mode Sorry, consent Mode. Of course conversion mode will be fine too, but because you know in the end you're going to need it. I mean, there are certain workarounds, but I would not go that way Because at least the basic Condent Mode, which I guess brings us to the differentiation of different ways of implementing Consent Mode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good point. So because there's what we call a basic Consent Mode, there's also something called advanced Consent Mode. Could you maybe tell us the difference there?
Speaker 2:Yes. So if you implement basic Consent Mode, then your Google Tags won't load without Consent. So in the end, google just gets the information that there was Consent given. So, as Google Tags don't load without Consent, they won't get any information about users who haven't given Consent, not even whether they gave Consent or not, because nothing is sent with advanced Consent Mode. Google Tags load before the user is given Consent. So, also for users that haven't given Consent, data is sent to Google. For example, in the case of Google Analytics 4, the browser requests that go to Google. They look the same as normal Google requests, but there are no cookies set and also no cookies read.
Speaker 1:And I mean, I think there's been some controversy over whether that is really sort of following the intent and the requirements of like. Not everyone agrees if advanced Consent Mode is actually legal or not. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Yes, that's totally correct, and especially, we're working a lot with clients from Germany, Austria, and especially there I often hear from our clients and also legal advisors of our clients that it's, you know, not just about setting cookies, but it's about sending information. And then the next question is what information are you allowed to send without, even without cookies, and what information is not allowed to be sent? And I think there is a lot of insecurity and therefore it's hard for us to really say yes, we would say go and implement advanced Consent Mode.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, I think it's something that comes down basically to the exposure and the risk tolerance of each company and, ultimately, what their, what their legal advisor says about that. I mean, what just to think about the implications here, like, okay, so there's some data that is that is sent even before Consent is given. Why does that matter? Like what are the benefits of that that Google's telling us, or what does that enable? Why should we care whether or not advanced mode is activated?
Speaker 2:The data is used for modeling, that data which would otherwise be lost if you wouldn't have sent the data. Yes, I mean the thing is, if you don't set cookies and don't read cookies, and it's going to be very hard to know whether it's the same user who sent one event and then the next event and then the conversion on different pages, because this kind of tracking is at the moment mostly done by cookies. So this data which is sent without Consent is used by Google for modeling. But even if you implement the basic Consent mode version, even if you only send data when Consent was given in Google Ads, you will see a conversion uplift. So even then you get some kind of conversion modeling because in the end at least Google knows how many clicks there were and how many feedback they got with Consent. So it's possible for them, even with just the basic Consent mode, to model. But advanced Consent mode will deliver more and better data than just the basic Consent mode.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of that. And when we talk about each company or each business, they'll need to do kind of their own cost-benefit analysis or risk kind of benefit analysis. Like, okay, there's the risk that there is debate in the community whether or not this is legal or not, and then there's the upside of having these modeled conversions, of having more data that's getting captured and not lost, and so it's definitely something that people just need to look at and think about. So tell us more, like, if you have and let's just say if you've been implemented basic Consent mode, what are the implications of that? Is there anything else that we need to know? Like we talked about what happens if you don't opt in by March 6. Over time, or perhaps more suddenly, your remarketing could stop working and then, even on a longer horizon, we can expect that conversion tracking won't work either. But let's say you adhere to that deadline and you implement Consent mode or you've already got implemented. What are the implications of that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, as I said, the good part is that you will keep having remarketing or proper remarketing, as you have now, and the other good thing is the modeling the conversion modeling within Google Ads, so that you get a clearer picture of how your ads performed, because you get more data to work with, more data for the algorithms to work with. But there's not only implications for Google Ads, because you implement Consent mode for basically all Google tools that advertise and use. So Consent mode also works with floodlight tracking for the GMP. So it's the same situation there. If you haven't implemented Consent mode by March 6, then your remarketing audiences won't be populated anymore, and it's also the same in Google Analytics 4.
Speaker 2:If you use your Google Analytics 4 audiences in Google Ads, then Analytics 4 won't update those audiences anymore within Google Ads and there's also modeling implications within Google Analytics 4. So with basic Consent mode, there's actually nothing really happening in Google Analytics 4. So you will still have the same data. But when using the advanced Consent mode, then you have. The first thing is you will have better conversion modeling and in the end I mean Google Analytics 4 and Google Ads has been modeling conversions for years now, but it's not up until the Consent mode. It was not about unconsented data, but more about browser restrictions and so on. And yeah, in Google Analytics 4, if you implement advanced Consent mode, you will have a better conversion modeling and will have behavioral modeling and you will get additional data in Google Analytics 4 about the behavior of your website users and also the conversion export to Google Ads. If you're using Google Analytics 4 conversion tracking within your Google Ads account, it will also be better.
Speaker 1:And I think that's a great point that you mentioned as well that this has been happening for years. You know Apple has made privacy changes, to Safari, for example, and you see other smaller market share browsers like Firefox. It's really kind of just Chrome at this point.
Speaker 2:That's using these third party cookies anymore, right yeah but it's not about not only about third party cookies. It's all about first party cookies and which which conversion tracking is primarily based on at the current point in time. You mentioned Safari and you mentioned Firefox. They were talking about ITP and ETP tracking protection mechanisms, and there your tracking cookies will only have a lifespan of like one to seven days, and therefore it's very hard for marketers and you know the whole online marketing world to know which channel led to a conversion. Was it Google Ads? Was it maybe something different? So that's the technical part of what is already being modeled to a certain extent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's like I think I don't know. I've just noticed a huge uptick in the conversations about these topics, like this kind of cluster of topics around cookie deprecation, around consent mode. You know it's because of there's things like Google Chrome started at, I think, 1% of users or something that started cookie deprecation, and then this consent mode deadline comes up. So, on the one hand, it's perfectly understandable that it's on people's radars now and people are getting worried about it. But I think what should be calming to people to learn is that this is none of this is quite new. This has been going on bit by bit for quite some time now, and that you might not be aware of it, but this is already been affecting your business and your traffic and your measurements To one extent or another for a while now, and so I think that's a that's a positive here. Like the world is not ending, we're just, you know, we're just kind of really gonna be making a switch over to new ways of measuring.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and most clients I work with. They are totally aware that the data they are gathering and the data they are seeing is not a hundred percent the day to day of collected, but it's the day to day of collected is just the foundation of what they're they're actually seeing, of how their Attribution work, of how the different channels work. But I totally get why it's concerning to a lot of people. Also, when talking about the deprecation of third party cookies within Chrome, although it there must have been enough time to get some solutions, some workarounds, because it was postponed, I think, for I don't know, helped me out two years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I Think those postpones it. Don't quote me on this, but yeah, I think it was like twice and that summed up to like three years or something, I don't remember for sure. But yeah, it's been postponed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I hope so. What they've been building in the background or I mean Not really the background, but what they've been is the so-called privacy sandbox, where you get at least a how do I say something instead of a third party cookies to work with. Yeah, and something your remarketing will work with, because remarketing is based a lot on third party cookies right now.
Speaker 1:Yes, as you said, they haven't been building it like in the background or in secret. Exactly. It's been public what they're doing. There's some controversy about it too, because I think there's some concerns that I think there's always. It's funny because the goal of this kind of regulation is to, yeah, to prevent Unconsent and personalized tracking and stuff like that, and they're also trying to prevent some anti competitive behavior in there too, like we mentioned, with self self favoring and so on. But there's all, to me there's always a little bit of attention there because it potentially just creates more of these walls, gardens.
Speaker 1:I think that owned and operated properties any network that has, like the larger your owned and operated properties are, it's just going to be a huge advantage in the years ahead. So it's to me there's just some kind of a give and take where privacy often fuels potentially anti competitive advantages and yeah, but that's a whole other thing I wanted before I've got to just for a few more minutes. This is speculative. I mean, all this stuff, by the way, can change so fast. The thing it's everything's changing all the time, and I Believe I put a disclaimer at the beginning of the episode in the introduction about that, but this is rather new. We also saw something just in the last couple days that there's going to be an Additional consent banner coming where users will have the option of deciding whether or not their Google services are linked, and To give some context about that means that's Different. We were just speaking about owned and operated. That's different.
Speaker 1:Google owned and operated properties like Google Maps, youtube, google search, of course, Google ad services yeah, the ad services in there as well, and right now that that forms this big kind of pool together of these, these pools of where you're logged in user, navigating the web, switching from your YouTube account, searching on the web, going in your inbox, looking at for stuff on maps, etc. And this stuff is all allowed to speak to each other and all of it connects back to ad services. And we don't know how this consent banner will be shaped, but it will seem like users are gonna have the option to unlink those services or they have to give consent that the services are linked. What do you think about that, phillip? I mean, we were talking about it a bit before we start recording, but there's some dots for this and I'll share some dots too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the thing, what I would go for is I want to try to understand what data exactly is currently shared and also what data will not be shared anymore if you unlink those services, Because all the information we wrote on the I think it was a support page or a blog was that there are still some data shared for security reasons. But still it will be interesting what is the data that has been shared and what data will still be shared, and what data was necessary or used for advertising, and also, where's the line between ad services and search and shopping. To me, it's very unclear what the implication will be concerning especially those three services.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree. I think right now if you search something in Google, if you search, make a query that has a commercial intent or is related to a product or whatever, they're going to match that to some ads and I don't think that they're gonna stop doing that if you unlink. But it's unclear. Or maybe it means that those search terms won't get passed back to Google ads for reporting purposes at all, or it's so unclear what it means. I definitely think. Hold on.
Speaker 1:I'll give you one more, like let's think of performance max, which, at least the way that's described in the marketing, it's like it is this soup of placements and machine learning. It's the ad campaign type that grew up in this network of linked services and is designed to maximize that, the idea being that the AI has this audience graph and a product graph and it's these user specific signals and auction time signals and it's gonna find this perfect blend of touch points, and I think that's a romanticized view of what Pmax actually does. I think it's mostly these channels then, plus some remarketing. There may be a lot of remarketing, but it calls into question what this means for any of these services or campaign types individually, or these kind of these special campaigns like performance max. What will happen there?
Speaker 1:But I view it as just another hurdle at least to remarketing, because I think if someone is not linking these services it certainly seems punishing to remarketing. So they've got. There's this consent hurdle, there's this, and that's on the per advertiser kind of basis or per site basis. There's also this broader account level hurdle where they can change how Google is authorized to use their data at all, and it could have been interesting time ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, and the example of the search queries. That's actually very interesting how Google will be allowed to pass those queries. I mean, actually they write that it's only about personal information and they also link what is considered as personal information. But in the end, I don't know whether you exactly know, as an end user, what is personal information considered by Google, and also I guess that a lot of advertisers don't actually know how much information is passed between those Google services and, as you said, how it impacts ad performance, such as Pmax performance. But I totally agree with you, it will definitely have impacts on remarketing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's gonna be gonna be one to watch, and also how this Consents will be presented, like you know we have to, in each service, toggle on I want this service linked with all other services, or do I have to, you know, select for each service with which services it can be linked, and so on yeah, exactly, is it done at the Google account level, somehow with a single one?
Speaker 1:or yeah, is it how? How actively is it presented? It's gonna be really interesting and I'm sure they're gonna try to I won't say scare, although, let's say motivate users not to do that, because and by there, are some great features that come from having your services linked. I mean, I know my brother loves having all his Google services link because, you know, if he's on a business trip, like you know, just it's all, it's just kind of all there, like you've got your, you've got to your, you know your inbox is speaking with your calendar, which is speaking with maps and so on, and he gets alerts and he gets all kinds of stuff and he loves it and those those kind of things will break if you're like services. So definitely want to watch, but we're just about our time here, so I want to thank you, philip, for coming on the show again. Also, I know that you're so busy right now, so I really appreciate it and Did any any final words or anything you want to leave us with?
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for having me, mike. And so to sum up, the hot topic about Google Consent mode and the deadline in March, in our opinion, it should be totally fine to implement basic concert mode because Ideally, if you implemented correctly as for most clients, it is the setup now your Google tags will not share any information with Google and, whether or not you're using advanced content, nodes or tags will also load without Google, without users. Constant and send data to Google is yeah. Should there should be a risk assessment about the benefits and and the risks that comes with sending data Unconsented to Google? Yeah, and if you want to make it the easiest way for yourself, then you should use a constant banner or a CMP that's Google certified because they have a constant mode Integrations which make the setup of constant mode a lot easier. But, as said, I wouldn't wait too long with at least basic console mode, because at the end of 2000 or late in the beginning of 2025, not having Google constant mode will also affect your conversion tracking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what I can also recommend. There's some, some new resources at time of recording. There's some new resources from Google about this. I think we're all hungry and waiting for some resources, but those are available now and I'll put the links to those in the show notes when you can learn more about this and, of course, you can also reach out to us anytime to talk about that. So thanks again, philip, for coming on the show. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much.
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