For many digital marketers and analytics experts, 2024 was characterized by uncertainty. We continued to adapt to platform updates and adopt new tools while anticipating more changes further down the road. While change is constant in any tech-driven space, last year left many with more questions than answers compared to previous years. As we take stock of 2024, these are the areas where we see major changes coming in 2025, though the likely outcomes are still unknown.
Last year, as the already-delayed deadline approached for Google to end third-party tracking cookies in its Chrome browser, the search giant surprised few when it announced that those plans were indefinitely on-hold. Instead, they said they would move toward giving control over to users to decide if and how they were tracked in the browser.
Why did they finally change course? Insiders with knowledge of test campaigns using the new ‘Privacy Sandbox’ technology indicated that results fell below expectations, and time was running out for Google to make progress on a privacy-compliant tracking technology that would satisfy both advertisers and regulators.
Now, with the federal government seeking to force Google to divest itself of the Chrome browser altogether as part of its recent search anti-trust settlement, it's unclear what the future holds for the world’s most popular browser. Still, a default stance against allowing third-party cookies can be expected at some point, so advertisers should continue to develop first-party data and contextual targeting strategies and new measurement methods. That’’s also not the extent of the changes the Department of Justice is seeking; other potential remedies could include forcing Google to share search data with competitors (e.g. Meta, Apple, Microsoft, OpenAI) to create a more-level playing field, as well as preventing Google from favoring Chrome as the default browser for its other platforms and devices.
While the DOJ case against Google dates back to 2020 and concerns anti-competitive activity rather than privacy, legislators and courts have also been at work at the federal level and in many states addressing the improper collection and use of users’ sensitive data online. As of December, nineteen states now have some variant of a data privacy law in place, but they vary from broad restrictions on online data collection to laws that concern specific, sensitive data like location tracking or protected health information.
In 2024, major data breaches continued to highlight the need for more regulations on what data businesses collect and how they protect it from being improperly accessed, particularly when it comes to medical information and other sensitive details collected by insurers and hospitals. With that in mind, and in the wake of several multi-million dollar lawsuits against healthcare companies in the last three years for improperly using data collected online, the Department of Health & Human Services is expected to make major updates this year to its guidelines that interpret how HIPAA applies to online privacy.
In anticipation of these updates, and in order to mitigate the risk of legal action in the meantime, healthcare organizations and their marketers should continue to ensure that they are adhering to current HHS guidelines and avoid collecting any data that could be considered protected health information. We expect to see more companies in this space explore options for digital tracking that bypass traditional methods like collecting IP addresses or unique User IDs that could be used to identify their users online.
2024 was the first full year without Universal Analytics as a point of comparison for marketers to track their websites and campaigns. The initial adoption of GA4 was a long and bumpy road, and many of us went on the record with what we considered to be the platform’s shortcomings in that early period. Over the last year, though, the Google Analytics product team introduced (or reintroduced) a number of changes that made the platform easier to use–and in some cases simply made it more like Universal Analytics.
One big change was strictly nominal. When GA4 launched, Google decided that the name for specific priority events would be Conversions–the problem being that ‘Conversions’ is also a (slightly different) metric in Google Ads. Marketers would be measuring and analyzing ‘Conversions’ in both platforms, but the two metrics would mean different things and be calculated differently in each platform! Thankfully, in 2024 Google reconsidered and gave us the term Key Events instead. They also introduced a Key Event Rate metric and the ability to filter reports for certain Events right in the Key Events column.
The last 9 months on the platform leave us much more hopeful for Google Analytics’s future than the first 9 months. Google typically does not announce these kinds of changes in advance, but we have a short list of features we’re hoping come (or come back) to GA this year. Topping that list is the ability to filter unwanted traffic from GA4 properties. With GA4, Google decided that ability would only be available to GA360 users through sub-properties. While we don’t necessarily expect Google to make sub-properties available to all users, we’re hoping they will continue to bring back some of the functionality missing from Universal Analytics and trust admins to decide what they want to be included in their raw data.
Don’t let these changes catch you off guard. Start preparing today by auditing your current data strategies, experimenting with privacy-first technologies, and staying up to date with the latest industry developments. Subscribe to our newsletter for regular insights and actionable advice to help you navigate the road ahead, and as always, please reach out if you'd like help reviewing and planning your marketing strategy.