The Huge Mess That Facebook Created
I don’t work on political campaigns, but I’m still alarmed by this article in Politico. Here’s the background: starting Oct. 27, Facebook stopped allowing new political ads (their VERY broad definition of “political” includes issues like climate change and health care). Then, all those ads will pause when the polls close on Nov. 3. Google is doing something similar. Facebook’s policy got off to a rocky start this week when they incorrectly blocked some campaign ads while launching others early. As Facebook straightens that out, I’ve moved on to worrying about what’s next. When will “political issue” ads be back? I help clients raise money to fight climate change and address other “political” issues. Will my ads be back by Giving Tuesday? The platforms are now saying “who knows?”
What to Know About Google Analytics 4
While you may have already heard the news about the update to Google Analytics, you haven’t heard my take. I’m pretty excited! GA’s new version has many promising new features. I’ll definitely use the improved integration with Google Ads. It will now be easier to remove someone from your campaign (say, automatically stop running “Donate Now” ads to people who have already given). It’s also promising that Google Analytics 4 is taking into account the phase-out of cookies (something we covered back in March). This new version can — allegedly — use machine learning to fill in the gaps in data. I’m going to see how that pans out. Other improvements included in the update? Expanded AI-powered predictive insights, better cross-device measurement capabilities, codeless event tracking (no more writing Javascript to track website scrolling), and more granular data controls.