Google Analytics 4

Web links that use the Google link shortener will soon no longer work. Plus: Outbrain is in advanced talks to acquire or merge with Teads.

In today’s newsletter: The New York Times is rolling out a generative AI ad product; the current state of adoption of Apple’s SKAdNetwork 4; Google seeks explicit consent for retargeting and personalization in the EU.

GA4 is a true ground-up rebuild, with the focus now on customer experience across both websites and apps. But although GA4 has a lot of potential, it also brings some challenges that marketers haven’t been shy about voicing.

State privacy laws could make it a lot harder for advertisers to use IP addresses – a foundational signal for CTV ad targeting and attribution for well over a decade.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Black And Blue Twitter has removed blue checkmarks from legacy verified accounts as promised, as in accounts that don’t subscribe to the new $8-per-month Twitter Blue program. The rollout has, of course, been a botched job.  Some celeb accounts, including Lebron James, Stephen […]

Google launched Google Analytics 4 (GA4) back in October 2020 to unify digital web and app analytics. Its push toward the new solution underscores the need for advertisers to implement a data strategy built on first-party data. But now the question is whether brands should prioritize the switch to GA4 before the sunsetting of Universal Analytics (UA) in July 2023 and what this transition means, writes Jessica Jacobs, global director of partnerships and growth at Incubeta.

Meta lost in court against French ad-tech champion Criteo, and it will now have to grant better access to its inventory. Meanwhile, France’s data protection watchdog, the CNIL, just deemed Google Analytics illegal – a move that the Italian data privacy authority has just followed as well. What happens now? It turns out there may be a server-side solution, writes Hugo Loriot, partner at fifty-five.

The impending Google customer force-shift from Universal Analytics (UA) to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) represents a major change to how advertising ROI will be measured via Google’s services going forward. But publishers that spoke to AdExchanger about their migration plans aren’t feeling the same pressure as with, say, preparation for third-party cookie deprecation, Google’s other major upheaval scheduled for next year.