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\n\n“The weeks leading up to the recently-enacted News Media Bargaining Code in Australia have not been without controversy. Google threatened to shut down service in Australia if the original wording of the bill became law; Microsoft stated that it would be happy to expand its Bing presence in the Australian market if Google followed through with this threat. For a few days, Facebook removed the ability to publish or share news on its Australian site.\n\nThe lengths these tech giants were willing to go to fight this law should illustrate to marketers the dangers of dependence on a single platform. This is important to keep in mind as similar pieces of legislation are being considered in other countries.”\n\n\n
\n“While some European countries have already created taxes on online advertising, Maryland’s ad revenue tax will be the first of its kind in the US. There will be a lot of questions posed on how these tax laws interact with interstate commerce laws and how much they will be able to tax. With the Big Tech lobbying groups already suing the state, there will be a long legal battle ahead of them both. If this tax comes to fruition, I wouldn’t expect it to be enacted for some time from now.
\nVirginia’s new data privacy legislation is following in the footsteps of the EU’s GDPR data privacy restrictions. There’s a good chance Big Tech will try and fight back against this as well and discourage other states to implement similar legislation”
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\n\n“While it appears to still be in the developmental stage, Google introducing a widget like Chrome Cart could have a profound impact on Google Shopping and how consumers interact with PLAs. The ability to access a saved cart and potentially check out all from the new tab page will streamline the process for many and could lead to increased conversions across the board.”\n\nAs for Google enforcing price accuracy at checkout, this only increases the importance of having an optimized products feed. As we know, price changes are not uncommon and if the proper processes are not in place to address dynamic pricing, retailers could potentially miss out on advertising key revenue-driving products.”\n\n\nAmazon has also had a busy quarter. Jeff Bezos stepped down as CEO in February and was replaced by Andy Jassy—following Amazon’s first $100 Billion quarter in Q4 of 2020.
\nThese changes haven’t stopped Amazon from releasing updates. In Q1, Amazon improved product targeting for Sponsored Display campaigns. They also removed the product optimization feature for Sponsored Brands—as well as the review comment feature.
\nSenior SEM Analyst: CJ Milhoan\n\n
\n\n“To start the year Amazon released and, in some cases, removed various features within their marketplace/Seller Central. One of the smaller changes relates directly to Sponsored Brands. Amazon will no longer optimize various products outside of the “Product collection” you originally set up to be displayed. This means going forward you’ll need to ensure the proper products are advertised within proper campaigns, as you want to make sure top-selling items are garnering impressions.\n\nAnother change you should know about if you sell within the Dietary & Supplements category: Amazon is crunching down on products that might not be safe for consumers. If you sell in this category, you’ll need to receive a Certificate of Analysis (CoA), essentially, you’ll need to have your products analyzed by a laboratory or you can appeal this requirement. Furthermore, products will now require a guarantee from the manufacturer and products must have images that show essential product information e.g., nutritional facts, etc.\n\nOne of the biggest changes impacting a lot of sellers in early February was that Amazon changed the terms to Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP). In short, these changes mean that SFP retailers need to be able to meet one/two-day delivery (a key value prop for Amazon), sellers must use shipping methods that allow them to ship over the weekend (which can be burdensome for those organizations that don’t operate over the weekend), and the seller must have nationwide delivery (lower 48 states). This change is huge. If you’re a retailer who has SFP, losing this designation can significantly lower your ability to drive sales as if you cannot adhere to the above standards you stand to lose “Prime” eligibility on your items/store.\n\nIt’s important to stay informed regarding these trends, as they impact not just the advertiser but also the retailer/seller. It’s highly recommended that if you are impacted by these that you speak with your team about how to resolve these issues or overcome them.”\n\n\nAs privacy becomes a bigger concern online across the globe, cookies are falling to the wayside. Reflecting on this change, Google introduced an alternative solution to third-party cookies. It’s called Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC).
\nMarketing Manager: Christina DiSomma
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\n\n“Browsers are leaving cookies behind, and that’s left advertisers wondering how they’ll attribute sales in the future. Google’s answer to this is Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), which groups people with the same interests, demographics, etc into a cohort so advertisers can serve ads without sacrificing the privacy of individuals. Google estimates FLoC will cover 95% or more of sales, but it remains to be seen how much of a gap cookies will leave in attribution data.\n\nMarketers and advertisers should get ahead of this trend now. Google Analytics 4 represents more privacy-minded analytics from Google. It’s wise to configure a GA4 property as soon as possible as there is already a data gap present in Universal Analytics. A cookie-less future may not be here yet, but it’s not far over the horizon.”\n\n\n\nThat’s it for 2021 Q1 e-commerce news. What updates are impacting your business? Let us know here. Connect with an Omnitail analyst and see what profit-driven marketing can do for your business.
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