Tag Archives: Google

Car insurance from Google advertised in Gmail

Google has an unfair advantage when pushing its own products. Take Google’s car insurance comparison tool as an example. Just recently, adverts for the tool have started to appear in GMail – at the top of the lists of emails in the Promotions folder.

This is a very prominent position, the advert appears as follows:

Google advertising its own products
Google advertising its own products

These positions are open to all advertisers, of course, for a fee…

It is only Google that can occupy this prime location for free.

The advert takes the reader of their GMail promotions to the car insurance comparison research tool. The following screenshot shows how the advert appears within GMail when clicked… notice the calls to action to share the tool with others, not simply use the comparison tool – but pass it on too.

CTAs for advert within GMail to encourage sharing
CTAs for advert within GMail to encourage sharing

What do you think about Google using GMail to its advantage in this way ?

Car insurance aggregators (such as Confused.com) must look closely at these types of adverts and fear the possible domination of the price comparison sector by Google one day.

Ways to deal with (not provided) in Google Analytics

There is a growing problem for many businesses looking for insights from Google Analytics. Logged in users of Google products (and search bars), have the keyword referral data stripped and this is replaced with the keyword (not provided) instead.
There are several ways to gain insights from the data that is reported instead. At the simplest level, you can segment the organic data by landing page. For a more complex approach, register for the new (not provided) tool currently in Beta testing.

This tool relies on neural networks and machine learning techniques to discover the hidden keywords within the the (not provided) organic referrals.

Google testing search without a search box

Google has been testing search without the search box in Chrome as shown in the screenshot below.

Instead, the browser bar is the only place you can enter search terms – instant results appear beneath.

Search using the browser bar
Search using the browser bar