Welcome to Part II of Edition No. 55 of my weekly newsletter, providing practical analysis in the world of digital content strategy.
Friday Five
I. Looker Studio has 8Xed its GA4 Quota Limit
II. TikTok is Banned in Montana
III. Good News for Google Underdogs
V. Better Reels Editing Tools Are Coming
VI. Other Important Updates
I. Looker Studio has 8Xed its GA4 Quota Limit
Compare this link…
…with what it looked like March 26:
🛠 Why does this matter? If you have connected GA4 directly to Looker Studio and accessed reports on a regular basis, you probably received a query limit error at some point.
This happens because every time you access your report in Looker (formerly Google Data) Studio, it has to “call” GA4 to update all the data. Each of those updates puts Google’s servers to work, which costs them money.
The solution (up until this point)? Using BigQuery – which is also a Google product and has limited free capabilities – or another data warehouse as an intermediary between GA4 and Looker.
For most of us, this means still having to pay money (based on usage) to visualize data in Looker while using a more complicated third product (in addition to GA4 and Looker).
I haven’t put this new query limit to the test myself, but unless you have multiple team members loading a ton of reports all day, every day, this should be a big help.
Now, I don’t completely understand the technical details of how tokens work, but just know that the more data points you have in a report, the more “tokens” Looker is going to use every time it refreshes your data. Breaking out individual reports into more specific, smaller dashboards might be one way to make sure you don’t “spend” all your tokens in a short amount of time.
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II. TikTok is Banned in Montana
"The Chinese Communist Party using TikTok to spy on Americans, violate their privacy, and collect their personal, private, and sensitive information is well-documented," Gov. [Greg] Gianforte said.
-NPR
The ban goes into effect Jan. 1. Fines would be levied against app stores that make the products available.
🛠 Why does this matter? Since this targets platforms – like Apple and Android – that make TikTok available, individuals are unlikely to see any penalty for having the app on their phone.
The real question is whether this is enforceable. (I hope you didn’t come here for a legal analysis!) If it is enforceable, I doubt Google and Apple will be willing to pay up to $10,000 per day in fines. So the real question is, can they get the ban overturned?
If it does hold up in court, there will certainly be other states – probably conservative ones – that follow Montana’s lead.
Since TikTok continues to be the preferred app of Gen Z (and many non-Gen Zers), this would be a significant hit on multiple fronts:
Marketing agencies that get paid to consult about/help create content on the platform
Creators who use TikTok to make a living
Shops that use it to sell their products (sometimes exclusively on TikTok)
Advertisers who want to reach this highly coveted audience
The most satisfying solution would seem to be that an American-based entity buys TikTok from ByteDance. Plan B (if you’re on TikTok’s side) would be for courts to say the ban is unconstitutional. Plan C is…Instagram?
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