Fin the Week

Indulge

The Friday financial marketing & technology briefing.

  1. Oct 2

    Signal Loss launch: why Google Analytics isn't as useful as it used to be

    It's launch week for Q4 and this edition is all about Signal Loss. Whilst demand for accurate reporting data is as high as it has ever been, access to clean and reliable web data is arguably worse than it has been since the launch of the web. To kick things off, we dig into cookie compliance and why Google Analytics (or GA4) isn't anywhere near as accurate as it used to be. Thankfully, we have a few thoughts on what marketing teams can do ahead of planning their 2027 marketing strategies! Chapters 00:00 Introduction and episode overview 00:16 Meet the hosts and episode context 01:03 Series focus on trust and signal loss in Q4 02:12 Setting the scene for tracking challenges in 2026 05:23 Technical overview of web tracking and cookies 07:18 The decline of Google Analytics and cookie compliance 12:03 The rise of third-party tracking and privacy laws 17:30 Browser controls and their impact on tracking 20:46 GA4 and the limitations of cookie-based tracking 23:23 Impact of cookie banners and user opt-in behavior 26:12 Data segmentation and bias in tracking data 30:42 Triangulating data sources for accurate insights 31:41 Design considerations for cookie banners and UX 35:39 The future of cookies and alternative tracking methods 39:55 Google’s evolving approach to privacy and ad targeting 44:48 Emerging AI tools and privacy concerns 46:26 Key takeaways: triangulation and data reliability 47:05 Jargon busting: understanding junk bonds

  2. Sep 25

    Using Cloudflare? You might unwittingly be blocking your website from search

    In July (2026), Cloudflare announced that it was going to categorise web crawlers (bots) in one of three ways: search, agent, or training. If you want to opt out of training, you can block training bots - easy, right? Not so...common crawlers such as Googlebot (critical for showing up in Google search) are classed as multi-purpose. They crawl for search purposes, but they also train AI models. In this discussion, we explain Cloudflare's strange decision to hide settings within the 'security' section and how easily a brand could trap itself into obscurity if it chooses the incorrect settings. Chapeters 00:00 Introduction to AI training and web crawling issues 01:58 Overview of Cloudflare's categorization of crawlers 03:31 Cloudflare's default settings for training and agent crawlers 04:27 The challenge of 'multi-purpose crawlers' 06:19 What is Cloudflare and how does it work? 08:14 The evolution of Cloudflare's features and internet security 09:28 The rise of AI crawlers and their impact on content security 11:36 The challenge of balancing bot access with website security 15:31 Implications for businesses and website owners 21:32 Managing crawler settings and the role of IT and marketing 24:25 Historical context and the evolution of AI and web scraping 25:48 The decoupling of impressions and clicks due to AI overviews 28:17 Cloudflare hides crawler settings within 'security' 29:39 Next steps for businesses: managing Cloudflare settings 33:20 The importance of transparency and security in bot management 38:30 The future of website visibility and AI training 42:02 Jargon busters and closing thoughts

About

The Friday financial marketing & technology briefing.