GOOGLE

Google Partner Badge: The new timeline and what advertisers need to know

Published

4 years ago

June 4, 2020

Google Ads’ new Partner Badge requirements, which force advertisers to use Google’s recommendations, will not go into effect until 2021.

In February, Google Ads announced it would be rolling out new Google Partner Badge requirements, causing a major backlash among advertisers. The new requirements double the amount of ad spend necessary to earn a badge and also require advertisers to implement Google Ad recommendations based on the platform’s machine learning systems.

Initially, Google had planned to launch the new requirements in June, but, in light of the COVID-19 outbreak, the company has pushed the release date to 2021.

What are Google Partner Badges and how are they changing?

Google Partner Badges confirm advertisers have passed product certification exams and are up to date on Google Ads product knowledge. The current requirements involve advertisers meet performance standards based on overall ad revenue and growth; a 90-day ad spend requirement of $10,000 across managed accounts; and, at least, one user (someone with admin privileges or standard access to the account) be certified in Google Ads.

The new rules will require Google Partners meet a 90-day ad spend of $20,000; have, at least, 50% of users certified; and, maintain a 70% optimization score – a rating system that enforces advertisers adopt Google recommendations based on the platform’s machine learning processes.

Criteria	Old Requirement	New Requirement
Performance	Deliver solid overall ad revenue and growth, and maintain and grow customer base.	Maintain a quality score of 70% or higher. Score is based on accepting machine learning recommendations.
Spend	Maintain 90-day ad spend of at least $10,000	Maintain 90-day ad spend of at least $20,000
Certification	Companies must have at least 1 user certified in Google Ads	Companies must have at least 50% of their users certified in Google Ads

The industry’s response to the coming changes

When Google first made the announcement, advertisers were quick to criticize the self-serving nature of the new requirements. At the time, Duane Brown, founder of the PPC ad agency Take Some Risk, tweeted in a #ppcchat thread:

How is specializations different from certifications? Sounds like a dodgy way to get everyone to take certifications. Is that really what Google wants? How does it show who’s the best of best?

Gil Gildner, another PPC advertiser, responded to Brown’s tweet:

I find the $20k threshold kinda laughable. Big problem I see is the automated suggestions. If it’s a question of building crappy campaigns and losing Google Partner…I’ll just lose the badge!

Pauline Jakober, the founder and CEO of PPC firm Group Twenty Seven, wrote on her company’s blog, “[The new requirements] essentially require Partners to put the goals of Google above the goals of their own clients.”

Greg Finn, partner at the digital marketing agency Cypress North, also pointed out major issues with Google’s new requirements, insisting the company was putting its own recommendations ahead of advertisers’ best interests.

You should be ashamed of yourself. Forcing advertisers to adhere to @googleAds recommendations instead of client needs. Despicable. cc @WittedNote

Is there another option?

Google Partners versus Client Partners — Cypress North created the Client Partners badge as an alternative to the Google Partner badge

Google has acknowledged advertisers’ concerns over its coming requirements, but has not altered its original stance – instead, only delaying the requirements until 2021.

While advertisers currently have no other option than to embrace the new requirements when they take effect if they want to keep their Google Partner status, Finn has created an initiative to combat what he defines as “unacceptable and morally reprehensible” actions by Google. Shortly after Google’s announcement, Finn launched a “Client Partners Certified” badge. Separate from the Google Partner Badge program, the purpose of Finn’s badge is to show advertisers, “they won’t put Ad Platform profit over client performance.”

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Akvile DeFazio

Akvile DeFazio is the President of AKvertise, a social media advertising agency. She specializes in Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter Ads. Follow @AkvileDeFazio

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AI

Exploring the Evolution of Language Translation: A Comparative Analysis of AI Chatbots and Google Translate

Published

2 months ago

February 26, 2024

Max

A Comparative Analysis of AI Chatbots and Google Translate

According to an article on PCMag, while Google Translate makes translating sentences into over 100 languages easy, regular users acknowledge that there’s still room for improvement.

In theory, large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT are expected to bring about a new era in language translation. These models consume vast amounts of text-based training data and real-time feedback from users worldwide, enabling them to quickly learn to generate coherent, human-like sentences in a wide range of languages.

However, despite the anticipation that ChatGPT would revolutionize translation, previous experiences have shown that such expectations are often inaccurate, posing challenges for translation accuracy. To put these claims to the test, PCMag conducted a blind test, asking fluent speakers of eight non-English languages to evaluate the translation results from various AI services.

The test compared ChatGPT (both the free and paid versions) to Google Translate, as well as to other competing chatbots such as Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini. The evaluation involved comparing the translation quality for two test paragraphs across different languages, including Polish, French, Korean, Spanish, Arabic, Tagalog, and Amharic.

In the first test conducted in June 2023, participants consistently favored AI chatbots over Google Translate. ChatGPT, Google Bard (now Gemini), and Microsoft Bing outperformed Google Translate, with ChatGPT receiving the highest praise. ChatGPT demonstrated superior performance in converting colloquialisms, while Google Translate often provided literal translations that lacked cultural nuance.

For instance, ChatGPT accurately translated colloquial expressions like “blow off steam,” whereas Google Translate produced more literal translations that failed to resonate across cultures. Participants appreciated ChatGPT’s ability to maintain consistent levels of formality and its consideration of gender options in translations.

The success of AI chatbots like ChatGPT can be attributed to reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF), which allows these models to learn from human preferences and produce culturally appropriate translations, particularly for non-native speakers. However, it’s essential to note that while AI chatbots outperformed Google Translate, they still had limitations and occasional inaccuracies.

In a subsequent test, PCMag evaluated different versions of ChatGPT, including the free and paid versions, as well as language-specific AI agents from OpenAI’s GPTStore. The paid version of ChatGPT, known as ChatGPT Plus, consistently delivered the best translations across various languages. However, Google Translate also showed improvement, performing surprisingly well compared to previous tests.

Overall, while ChatGPT Plus emerged as the preferred choice for translation, Google Translate demonstrated notable improvement, challenging the notion that AI chatbots are always superior to traditional translation tools.

Source: https://www.pcmag.com/articles/google-translate-vs-chatgpt-which-is-the-best-language-translator

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GOOGLE

Google Implements Stricter Guidelines for Mass Email Senders to Gmail Users

Published

2 months ago

February 13, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Beginning in April, Gmail senders bombarding users with unwanted mass emails will encounter a surge in message rejections unless they comply with the freshly minted Gmail email sender protocols, Google cautions.

Fresh Guidelines for Dispatching Mass Emails to Gmail Inboxes In an elucidative piece featured on Forbes, it was highlighted that novel regulations are being ushered in to shield Gmail users from the deluge of unsolicited mass emails. Initially, there were reports surfacing about certain marketers receiving error notifications pertaining to messages dispatched to Gmail accounts. Nonetheless, a Google representative clarified that these specific errors, denoted as 550-5.7.56, weren’t novel but rather stemmed from existing authentication prerequisites.

Moreover, Google has verified that commencing from April, they will initiate “the rejection of a portion of non-compliant email traffic, progressively escalating the rejection rate over time.” Google elaborates that, for instance, if 75% of the traffic adheres to the new email sender authentication criteria, then a portion of the remaining non-conforming 25% will face rejection. The exact proportion remains undisclosed. Google does assert that the implementation of the new regulations will be executed in a “step-by-step fashion.”

This cautious and methodical strategy seems to have already kicked off, with transient errors affecting a “fraction of their non-compliant email traffic” coming into play this month. Additionally, Google stipulates that bulk senders will be granted until June 1 to integrate “one-click unsubscribe” in all commercial or promotional correspondence.

Exclusively Personal Gmail Accounts Subject to Rejection These alterations exclusively affect bulk emails dispatched to personal Gmail accounts. Entities sending out mass emails, specifically those transmitting a minimum of 5,000 messages daily to Gmail accounts, will be mandated to authenticate outgoing emails and “refrain from dispatching unsolicited emails.” The 5,000 message threshold is tabulated based on emails transmitted from the same principal domain, irrespective of the employment of subdomains. Once the threshold is met, the domain is categorized as a permanent bulk sender.

These guidelines do not extend to communications directed at Google Workspace accounts, although all senders, including those utilizing Google Workspace, are required to adhere to the updated criteria.

Augmented Security and Enhanced Oversight for Gmail Users A Google spokesperson emphasized that these requisites are being rolled out to “fortify sender-side security and augment user control over inbox contents even further.” For the recipient, this translates to heightened trust in the authenticity of the email sender, thus mitigating the risk of falling prey to phishing attempts, a tactic frequently exploited by malevolent entities capitalizing on authentication vulnerabilities. “If anything,” the spokesperson concludes, “meeting these stipulations should facilitate senders in reaching their intended recipients more efficiently, with reduced risks of spoofing and hijacking by malicious actors.”

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GOOGLE

Google’s Next-Gen AI Chatbot, Gemini, Faces Delays: What to Expect When It Finally Launches

Published

5 months ago

December 4, 2023

Max

In an unexpected turn of events, Google has chosen to postpone the much-anticipated debut of its revolutionary generative AI model, Gemini. Initially poised to make waves this week, the unveiling has now been rescheduled for early next year, specifically in January.

Gemini is set to redefine the landscape of conversational AI, representing Google’s most potent endeavor in this domain to date. Positioned as a multimodal AI chatbot, Gemini boasts the capability to process diverse data types. This includes a unique proficiency in comprehending and generating text, images, and various content formats, even going so far as to create an entire website based on a combination of sketches and written descriptions.

Originally, Google had planned an elaborate series of launch events spanning California, New York, and Washington. Regrettably, these events have been canceled due to concerns about Gemini’s responsiveness to non-English prompts. According to anonymous sources cited by The Information, Google’s Chief Executive, Sundar Pichai, personally decided to postpone the launch, acknowledging the importance of global support as a key feature of Gemini’s capabilities.

Gemini is expected to surpass the renowned ChatGPT, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 model, and preliminary private tests have shown promising results. Fueled by significantly enhanced computing power, Gemini has outperformed GPT-4, particularly in FLOPS (Floating Point Operations Per Second), owing to its access to a multitude of high-end AI accelerators through the Google Cloud platform.

SemiAnalysis, a research firm affiliated with Substack Inc., expressed in an August blog post that Gemini appears poised to “blow OpenAI’s model out of the water.” The extensive compute power at Google’s disposal has evidently contributed to Gemini’s superior performance.

Google’s Vice President and Manager of Bard and Google Assistant, Sissie Hsiao, offered insights into Gemini’s capabilities, citing examples like generating novel images in response to specific requests, such as illustrating the steps to ice a three-layer cake.

While Google’s current generative AI offering, Bard, has showcased noteworthy accomplishments, it has struggled to achieve the same level of consumer awareness as ChatGPT. Gemini, with its unparalleled capabilities, is expected to be a game-changer, demonstrating impressive multimodal functionalities never seen before.

During the initial announcement at Google’s I/O developer conference in May, the company emphasized Gemini’s multimodal prowess and its developer-friendly nature. An application programming interface (API) is under development, allowing developers to seamlessly integrate Gemini into third-party applications.

As the world awaits the delayed unveiling of Gemini, the stakes are high, with Google aiming to revolutionize the AI landscape and solidify its position as a leader in generative artificial intelligence. The postponed launch only adds to the anticipation surrounding Gemini’s eventual debut in the coming year.

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