Good morning, Marketers, you can’t please everybody.
On Tuesday, Google unveiled its latest targeting tech, the Topics API. This is actually the company’s second attempt at a third-party cookie replacement (FLoC being the first). Unfortunately for the search engine, this means that advertisers are drawing comparisons between the Topics API and third-party cookies as well as FLoC.
I spoke to half a dozen search marketers for their take on Google’s proposal. Most approved of the new privacy controls for users, but almost across the board, the relatively small quantity of topics in the initial design (approximately 350) was seen as problematic.
Google has already said that figure might eventually get into the “low thousands,” but the fact of the matter remains that the future of ad targeting will be a big departure from the past. Perhaps this level of targeting is as accurate as we’re going to get while taking measures to protect users. Similar to how the attitude toward automation in PPC is evolving, maybe our standard for targeting must also move forward.
George Nguyen,
Editor
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