What 2022 User Tracking Changes Mean for Your Digital Marketing Plans

February 10, 2022

You may have heard that Facebook suffered the most significant stock drop in its history, falling over $230 BILLION on February 3. As online privacy and data protection concerns have grown in recent years, some firms find that their digital marketing campaigns were less effective than in previous years. This is because of a smaller audience reach, less user data, and fewer leads to grow their businesses. We will show you how these 2022 user tracking changes have resulted in fewer leads and less data, and some ideas for what you can do in response.

How Apple’s Tracking Changes May Affect You

Apple added new features to give consumers more options over how apps can track them, which can influence your digital marketing campaigns. Apple updated its mobile operating system to iOS14.5 in 2021, and the “App Tracking Transparency” update requires apps to request permission from users to track their activity for advertising purposes. As a result, iPhone users can opt out of being tracked by specific apps, and many have.

This update is twofold: first, companies that advertise on paid advertising platforms like Facebook now have much less user data to create targeted ads that are more likely to generate clicks and leads than generic ads. Second, companies also have fewer targeted users to reach with their paid advertising campaigns. This combination of less data and a smaller audience makes paid and social media advertising campaigns less likely to generate leads than in previous years.

Google Revamping Tracking Affects Ad & Display Campaigns

Google is also planning 2022 user tracking changes that can affect Google Ads and Display campaigns. Google is shifting from tracking cookies to a new “Topics system.” Google will still track individual users and determine 3 topics assigned to a user based on their activity that advertisers can use to craft their campaigns. However, the system has some drawbacks for the advertisers:

The topics will be broad categories of interests rather than data specific to a user, which tracking cookies provide.
Chrome will only keep information about a user’s topics for approximately 3 weeks, after which one of the topics assigned to a user is deleted and replaced with a new one, based on their most recent activity.
Users will also be able to disable the Topic system, opting out of assigned topics and giving advertisers less data to use.

These Google changes may reduce the effectiveness of your paid search advertising campaigns by making it more difficult to create targeted ads due to more nebulous user data.

GDPR & the Growing Desire for Data Protection

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) regulations give consumers more control over how businesses use their data by allowing them to opt-out of tracking by websites and apps. Consumers’ growing desire for more data protection and the choice to prevent apps and websites from tracking them are driving forces behind these changes.

So what can you do to make the best out of these 2022 user tracking changes?

Get Back To the Basics of SEO

You need to get back to the basics of a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. Amongst all the sweeping changes related to user data, tracking, and online advertising, the core principles of SEO remain true for many businesses:

Create in-depth, well-written content relevant to the keywords you are targeting and the intent of your visitors.
Link to your content on your website to create ways for your visitors to travel from page to page.
Establish links to your website from authoritative sources and directories.
Optimize your website to focus on loading speed and mobile performance.

With less user data available and a smaller audience reach on many digital advertising platforms, a valuable method to retain your online presence is to optimize your current online properties, especially your website. A high-performance website with quality, optimized content continues to be a tried-and-true digital marketing tactic to get leads for your business.

Contact VIEWS For SEO & Digital Marketing Services

If you want an SEO strategy for your company, or want more ideas on what your business should do as a result of 2022 user tracking changes, contact VIEWS Digital Marketing. Our team of digital marketing experts can work with you to create a comprehensive, personalized SEO strategy to help your rankings in search engines. In addition, we can work with you to refine your website’s technical performance and conversion design as part of our SEO services. So contact VIEWS Digital Marketing today to get started on your SEO strategy.