Today in Digital Marketing - Google’s No Longer Asking, It’s Forcing You to Switch to GA4

Episode Date: April 19, 2022

Google's not so inconspicuous tactic to get you to switch to GA4... More supply chain problems for your business could be on the horizon... Amazon is adding a new surcharge for merchants... Reason 700 why you can't depend on Facebook... And a look at how Twitter's Edit button could work... Go Premium! No ads, more stories, audio chapters, and extended weekend episodes — https://todayindigital.com/premiumGet each episode as a daily email newsletter (with images, videos, and links) — b.link/pod-newsletterADVERTISING as low as $20: https://todayindigital.com/ads JOIN OUR SLACK! https://todayindigital.com/slackFOLLOW US: https://todayindigital.com/socialmedia (TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit) ENJOYING THE SHOW?- Please tweet about us! https://b.link/pod-tweet- Rate and review us: https://todayindigital.com/reviewus/ - Leave a voicemail: https://b.link/pod-voicemail FOLLOW TOD:- TikTok: https://b.link/pod-tiktok- Twitter: https://b.link/pod-twitter- LinkedIn: https://b.link/pod-linkedin- Twitch: https://twitch.tv/todmaffin  Today in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin (https://b.link/pod-todsite) and produced by engageQ digital (https://b.link/pod-engageq). Subscribe at https://TodayInDigital.com or wherever you get your podcasts. (Theme music by Mark Blevis. All other music licensed by Source Audio.)Does your brand need a podcast? Let us help: https://engageQ.com/podcastsOur Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today, Google's not-so-inconspicuous tactic to get you to switch to GA4. More supply chain problems for e-commerce businesses could be on the horizon. But that's not bad enough. Amazon is adding a new surcharge for merchants. Reason number 700 why you can't depend on Facebook. A look at how Twitter's edit button might work. And on the Premium Podcast, with no ads, more stories, and deep dive weekend episodes, tap the link in the show notes for more. The best times for your brand

to post on social media to optimize engagement. It's Tuesday, April 19th. I'm Todd Mathen. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. Here's an interesting strategy to get people to upgrade your product.

Break the old version and force everyone to use the new one. If you haven't switched over to Google Analytics 4, here is your warning. Google has informed advertisers that the real-time report in Google Analytics may start to display inaccurate data for the old-school UA, that's Universal Analytics Properties. If your Google Analytics account is affected, real-time data for UA properties will appear lower than they actually are. The only way to make sure your data is accurate, says Google, is, I know, shocker, migrate to GA4. I wonder what other UA features will break during this transition.

And if that's not enough incentive to make the switch, Google is also rolling out a conversion migration tool that will let you migrate your Universal Analytics 3 goals into Google Analytics 4. It will let you quickly recreate conversion events from your UA property into your GA4 property, which could save you time by not having to set up those goals from scratch. Supply chain disruptions don't seem to be ending anytime soon. We do cover them here on the show. Yes, it is a digital marketing show, but, you know, a lot of people who do digital marketing are still affected by supply chain stuff. And it appears that the light that we thought we saw at the end of the tunnel was just a stalled transport truck light. Analysts are concerned that the Shanghai lockdown could mark the start of a months-long challenge as supply chain problems are compounding.

This according to Retail Dive. In order to enter sites, truck drivers must show a negative COVID-19 test, which has caused a logistical nightmare for moving goods. Due to the lack of trucking, companies have already noticed a 30% drop in efficiency. Many facilities in and around Shanghai have so far been able to maintain normal production thanks to a closed-loop system in which workers live on the factory or transportation campus. But cracks in that system are already forming, and if restrictions aren't eased soon, we may be in for some more pain again. From supply chain woes to inflation, gas prices are even affecting Bezos. Amazon has announced some bad news for its merchants. The e-commerce giant will implement a 5% fuel and inflation surcharge on its fulfillment services for third-party sellers beginning next week.

Amazon stated that after increasing wages and expanding its fulfillment network to meet demand last year, it had expected a return to normalcy from increased costs in 2022 as COVID-19 restrictions eased. Despite this, the company says escalating inflation has put pressure on them and it is not clear whether these inflationary costs will persist. As a result, Amazon says, quote, rather than a permanent fee change, we will be employing a fuel and inflation surcharge for the first time, a mechanism broadly used across supply chain providers. I guess podcasts just can't compete with the metaverse. While tech giants like Amazon, Apple, and more are pouring money into audio, meta is apparently now pulling back. Barely a year after Facebook launched podcasts and other audio tools for creators,

the platform says it is shifting away from audio to focus on the metaverse and other priorities like short-term video, online shopping, and generally making life miserable for advertisers. However, considering Facebook's pivot to audio never really took off, I wouldn't be surprised if we continue to see signs of its changing priorities. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters.

Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. After Twitter was basically shamed into announcing that it is actually getting an edit button, or at least working on an edit button, there has been a lot of buzz in the industry about how it will work, especially in regards to brand safety. Now we finally have a glimpse at how the platform's most anticipated feature could work,

according to tweets from reverse software engineers. The draft version shows that access to the edit tweet feature would be found in the three dot menu at the top of your tweet. After you correct your tweet, you click update to post it. But so far, there doesn't appear to be an edit history, which could be a big problem for brands. A couple of reverse engineers reported that Twitter has not created a user interface where original tweets would be shown, and that the button doesn't actually edit the tweet on the backend. It creates another, new tweet. Another engineer did find code references to the work-in-progress edit tweet feature in a recent build of the Twitter app, but she also noted the feature wasn't actually correcting her original tweet. It was creating a new tweet with the updated content. Google Ads has announced new

ways to create custom columns that can help give advertisers more control over what they see. Here's what you'll be able to do with the new features. You'll be able to include spreadsheet functions, calculate and compare metrics across date ranges, reference other custom columns in a formula. That's kind of a nice touch. You'll be able to add non-metric columns to your formula, things like campaign name, budget, and more. You can use brand new column formats like text, true and false, and date. Come on, Meta, we'll take an order of those too, please. You can apply multiple filters to a formula and filter by custom variables for conversions.

Google says the custom columns you create will also be available in Report Editor and dashboards in Google Ads over the next few weeks. Your brand can now use clips from long-form YouTube videos to create content for YouTube Shorts. That is YouTube's version of TikTok videos. The feature allows you to cut a one-to-five-second video clip from an eligible YouTube video, including other shorts, and include it in the new shorts video. If this sounds familiar, TikTok refers to this as stitching and is very popular on that platform. It's also an expansion of Short's existing remix tool, which allows you to sample audio from other videos. So, Steph, I feel that you're like, you've been writing the show now for like six months now? Yeah, six months. I feel like you're getting my smart ass, my smart ass personality now.

I think it was always like just a little bit there, but you definitely helped uncover it. I don't know if that's good or bad. It's thriving. Did you have a good long weekend? I did have a good long weekend. Yeah, absolutely nothing really happened. We got a lot of snow here, but... Oh yeah, that's right. You're in Ontario and Ontario apparently does not understand what a season is and thinks that it's winter and it's actually like spring no uh all of my tulips are now destroyed so we have about a foot here in london ontario it's uh it's great it's beautiful i mean you don't want to hear this in bc it's just beautiful out here but hang on because i'll be right there so i gotta get the pool boy to bring me my martini in a second. The hot tub boy.

Oh, don't even get me started on the hot tub. Thanks for listening, everyone. See you tomorrow. When I see the trees, the leaves are even greener. The flowers seem to smell a little sweeter now. Each day is raining in the new. Life's a little brighter with you. Life's a little brighter with you. Life's a little brighter with you.