SODP Dispatch - 6 June 2024

Lightning Lesson: How to Navigate SGE and the Future of SEO for Publishers

🗓️ June 6, 2024 (Today) at 2 PM ET | 11 AM PT | 8 PM CET
➡️ Free 45-minute session

You still have time to register for and attend the lightning session on Maven. We will be discussing the implications of AI Overviews for publishers and how digital publishing and news media professionals can adjust their strategy moving forward.

How Has Generative AI Impacted Your Work?

We'd love to hear from you!

Last year, Media Collateral launched a study on the impact of Gen AI on Asia Pacific's communications and publishing professionals. For the 2024 edition, we are partnering up with Media Collateral. to bring our readers the latest findings of the study.

Your input is critical!

Please take the time to fill out the 2 minute anonymous survey to share your experiences, and gain access to the upcoming report's advice and insights.

🎁 Plus, enter a raffle to win a sport in the next News SEO Playbook cohort, valued at $600!

By Vahe Arabian

➡️ First-party data strategies for publishers

Publishers today are navigating a digital world where first-party data is gold. With increasing privacy regulations and the decline of third-party cookies, the ability to legally and effectively acquire first-party data from users is more crucial than ever.

By leveraging the right strategies, publishers can build rich, direct relationships with their audiences, enhancing personalization and driving revenue growth.

Here are 8 major opportunities publishers can capitalize on to legally acquire first-party data:

1. User Registration: This is probably the most straightforward of all data acquisition strategies out there. Users often get access to a free newsletter or other similar content in exchange for providing their email IDs and other personal data.
   

2. Single Sign On (SSO): Manually typing personal details in the sign-up form is a minor yet still significant friction in the user registration process. This can be easily side-stepped by giving readers the option to sign in with a single click, using an existing account on Google, Facebook, or other established platforms.
   

3. Progressive Profiling: Progressive profiling is a process where you slowly gather information about a user over time by making incremental requests. This feels less intrusive than asking a ton of questions up-front and can result in an enhanced user experience.
   

4. Event-Based Tracking: An example of potentially relevant interaction is commenting. Users who are more loyal to a particular brand are more likely to participate in online discussions. Brand loyalty is a highly useful piece of data from a marketing perspective.
   

5. Click Attribution: Links provided by affiliate networks to publishers contain a unique ID that is used to deliver affiliate commissions on successful conversions. When a reader clicks this link, this action is recorded by the network and is considered GDPR-compliant first-party data.
   

6. Polls, Surveys, Reviews: Polls and surveys can be effective ways to boost audience engagement and add to your progressive profiling efforts. With the rise of AI tools, the process has become drastically simplified and automated.

7. Publisher Provided Identifiers (PPIDs): PPIDs are part of Google's wider plan to replace invasive third-party cookies with privacy-friendly tracking on the Google Ad Manager (GAM).
   

8. Gamification: Publishers can use competitions and contests to increase audience participation and collect first-party data. A sweepstakes where anyone can participate by providing their email or other details is a good example.

🛠️ GSC Guardian Chrome Extension

GSC Guardian is a feature-rich Chrome extension designed to assist website owners, SEO professionals, and digital marketers improve your Google Search Console experience.
See more ▸

✉️ Case Study: Newsletter Migration

The Philadelphia Inquirer recently migrated to a third email service provider in about four years.
See more ▸

Native Ads Unleashed: The Unobtrusive Approach to Web Monetisation | The European Business Review

Sharing his expertise during the Monetization Week event as a presenter, Ivo Bobal, publisher development manager for Romania at Geozo, outlines the often-underappreciated monetisation capacity of native ads, and stresses their potential for transforming digital marketing strategies.
Read more ▸

Survey: 54% of people look through more search results vs. 5 years ago | Search Engine Land

What frustrates users most: looking through search results, visiting multiple websites and figuring out the right search term.
Read more ▸

WSJ plans multimillion-dollar brand campaign amid newsroom changes | Axios

The campaign is in conjunction with editor-in-chief Emma Tucker's mission to reorient the Journal's newsroom around what she says is a "reader-first strategy," focused on areas where the media outlet can be most distinctive and reach younger audiences.
Read more ▸

Google AI Overviews: New Research Offers Insights | Search Engine Journal

BrightEdge’s report indicates that Featured Snippets and questions were likely to trigger the AIO feature. Local search queries were the least likeliest to trigger an AI Overview search result.
Read more ▸

“If it’s good for the company now, work with them”: The Atlantic CEO on signing a deal with OpenAI | NiemanLab

CEO Nicholas Thompson shares why The Atlantic partnered with OpenAI: publishers can benefit from tech platforms, as long as they avoid becoming wholly dependent.
Read more ▸

Substack brings video to its Chat feature | TechCrunch

Newsletter platform Substack is introducing the ability for writers to send videos to their subscribers via Chat, its private community feature, the company announced on Wednesday.
Read more ▸