For the better part of the spring, my email was flooded with annoying reminders that "G4 is on its way."
The series of emails to follow felt more like a warning - a borderline threat, than an excited announcement of a new product. The first email was benign - an uplifting "G4 is the wave of the future." The emails that followed though, escalated with each send:
"Prepare to update to the new G4 Google Analytics platform."
"Don't get left behind; make the switch to the new G4 platform."
"If you don't update to G4 we will steal your first born."
Each email became more and more hysterical. I understand the message Google was trying to send -Google Analytics was upgradings its user experience, as well as the technology behind it. Therefore anyone using Google Analytics within their own site, or in sites they manage for clients, needed to be sure they integrated G4 into all necessary platforms, therefore avoiding complications in using the program and losing precious data.
Since data is what drives so many business interactions the threat of losing even a second of collecting it gives Google the opportunity to fear-monger with that thought.
*Please note, my work does not focus on managing Google Ads or Analytics for clients. While I have rudimentary experience analyzing data and creating strategy for the program, it is not my main focus, and I am not an expert in this field.*
During that time I received emails from distressed clients forwarding me their own emails from Google, panicked at the thought that their own sites might miss the G4 train. This forced me to begin my excavation into G4. To give you a cliff-notes version of this blog post; G4 relies on similar technology to Google Analytics, with similar tools - just renamed - that are configured to get around privacy measures instituted by personal devices like cell phones and computers.
The privacy measures that cell phones tout as an amenity when upgrading personal phones, are really just a placebo, as G4 and Google Analytics have already developed tools to get around said measures. Google has taken what used to be known as cookies, tokens or pixels, and renamed them as tags. These tags are more sophisticated versions of pixels that aren't recognized as a cookie by personal devices, and therefore can track your habits, site visits, and spending patterns.
Display ads seen on the sidelines of websites that seem to showcase exactly what we were thinking about, yet never said out-loud, will continue to show up even after we've turned our privacy settings on on our phone to the tightest measure. The ad that plays while we stream our favorite television show will be directed at us based on the location of our IP addresses, even if we've turned location settings off on our laptop.
This is a very unrefined explanation of what G4 accomplishes on your site, and of course there is extreme benefit to staying on top of your website's G4 and Google Analytics usage. What bothers me is the illusion of privacy.
I'm sure that last sentence could mark me as naive.
"Of course mega-conglomerates that border a ruling authority similar to an oligarchy don't have the best interests of user's individual needs as their first priority, Jaimie!" It's about the bottom line, and continually creating something that has the essence of "new" to generate chatter and demand, which in turn positively increases quarterly reports.
G4 isn't new. It's a repackaged program that has the intelligence to work-around privacy measures. While we tailor our devices to conceal our interests and whereabouts, large-and-literally-in-charge companies will also tailor their technology to unearth them.
It's a cycle - one that Google isn't the only one "guilty" of perpetuating - that will continue to occur, and me writing a blog post about it won't do anything to change it. What I am hoping it will do is encourage a new lens of looking at programming and technology.
There's no doubt that Google Business, Analytics, G4; having a Facebook profile, instagram grid; maintaining Yelp and TripAdvisor accounts, and streamlining a business with user data software is important. I would even go so far as ensuring that hitting a percentage of those things is imperative to a business' success. This reality will never go away.
As a group of small business owners - which according to SBA accounts for "...more than half of Americans either [owning or working for a small business, and creating] about two-thirds of annual new U.S. jobs," - we do have some power over this actuality. We can set standards for marketing that tightens the creative control conglomerates force us to take in order to stay relevant. While we will always have to use a program like Google Analytics, or some iteration of it to understand our customer's spending habits, there are micro-decisions we can make that I believe create a more holistic experience with technology.
Tactics such as
*Using SEO terms in content that refer to one thing, but the writing markets another (ex. using terms that focus on a popular vacation destination, when the topic of your article is an attraction in a more rural area, 60-minutes away from said destination.);
*Using popular hashtags to flood instagram with photos that have nothing to do with that hashtag; (ex. using #blondebalayage as a hairstylist when the photo you're sharing is of a brunette root-touch-up.); purchasing multiple URL's that are a close duplicate of your original URL;
*Using competitive key words in our Google Analytics that piggy-backs off of terms customers are using to search for your competitor's products;
Are a few that come to mind that dilute the power of messaging and marketing, and provide a feeding ground for programs like G4 to thrive. If we all compete against each other in purchasing a set amount of descriptive terms ranked by the technological powers-at-be...then...maybe we'll forget who curated this battle-ground in the first place...while paying them for the opportunity of even being in the battle?
Alternative options to online marketing that is more honest could include
*Providing detailed location tags on social media platforms and instead replacing them with ones that are more general - or perhaps even snarky, (ex. Planet Earth.);
*Partnering with local businesses or non-profits in similar industries to maximize an advertising budget, and sharing in the campaigns success;
*Training customers to call a business directly, instead of relying on aggregate platforms such as Yelp and TripAdvisor to share - what is usually - inaccurate business information.
are a few of my favorite ways to draw a line in the sand when it comes to marketing practices that play fairly with programs tech giants have created for business owners to use.
By the time I hit publish on this article, I am sure Google will have created a new program for businesses to implement. And I am sure it will be useful. Technology will never go away; it will only become more and more refined the more that we integrate it in our every-day lives. It will solve problems for business owners, provide feedback to make more customized decisions, and create solutions to streamline services which will make owners' lives easier. All of which is important, but it will also lie to us the entire time it's doing these things.
Fine - Google, Meta, payment processing, Apple, Constant Contact, etc. are so important to my business that I'll play the game. I'll give up my privacy and my user habits so they can be monetized by big business. I just want to KNOW that's what's happening, while it's happening.
Maybe by reading this or by working together, we can understand the "game" a bit more clearly and determine the rules in which we'll agree to playing.