Kick Point Playbook gives you the digital marketing skills you need to grow—whether you want to land more clients, level up your career, or make smarter marketing decisions. Get bi-weekly insights on analytics, SEO, and reporting, curated by Dana DiTomaso and her team. Each issue is packed with expert tips, must-read articles, and free resources like templates and checklists—all designed to help you take action and see real results.
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👩⚖️ Can You Use Competitor Brand Names in Google Ads?
Published about 1 month ago • 5 min read
Can You Use Competitor Brand Names in Google Ads?
While the idea of showing up in your competitors’ search results is appealing, there are several factors to consider before jumping in. From Google’s policies to potential legal issues, knowing when and how to bid on another company’s name is crucial for success.
Today, we’re breaking down the dos and don’ts of bidding on competitor names in Google Ads. You’ll learn how to do it the right way—and how to protect your own brand if someone’s targeting you.
Making the Move From Search Optimization to Answer Optimization
Search is changing. Are you keeping up?
People aren’t just Googling anymore. They’re turning to AI tools, social platforms, and voice assistants for instant answers. In this webinar, Wil Reynolds and Dana DiTomaso break down how to shift from traditional SEO to a more human approach. You’ll get insights on creating content that earns trust, delivers value, and shows up where people are actually searching.
Join us on May 27, 2025, to learn how to stop chasing clicks and start becoming the answer your audience is looking for.
What are Google Analytics Annotations and why are they important?
Annotations is a feature in GA4 that allows you to add notes to your reports that will then be shown on the timeline. This feature was in Universal Analytics but GA4 didn’t have annotations until recently.
We love using annotations because they provide context to your data and improve collaboration among your team. What should you annotate? Here are some ideas:
Holidays
Important events such as product or campaign launches
Changes to marketing campaigns, such as Google Ads optimizations
Tracking core algorithm updates for SEO
Changes or improvements in GA4 or your tracking configuration
Conversion rate optimization tests
Anything else that makes sense!
There are two ways to add annotations in GA4.
Add an annotation directly on a Report:
When viewing any report, click the Note icon (at the top right) and click Create annotation.
If you already see annotations in a report, you can click that as well to open the annotation sidebar.
Enter your annotation:
Title (required)
Description
Date or date range
Select a colour
Click Create annotation.
You can also add (or edit) annotations in the admin by going to Admin > Data display > Annotations. If you have lots of annotations, there isn’t an easy way to import them yet—it requires use of the Google Analytics API. I am hoping they add something in the admin in the future!
I recommend putting together some rules to ensure that your annotations stay organized:
Establish a naming convention. For example, we start all our KP Playbook annotations with the category it falls under, like Speaking, Podcast, or Post.
Assign a colour to specific categories. We use brown for speaking, teal for posts, green for GA4 configuration or event changes, and red for issues (such as potential site spam).
If you’re comfortable with code, check out this really useful script that Thomas Geiger put together, that will automatically annotate GA4 whenever a new version of Google Tag Manager is published.
I am honestly really excited that annotations are back! It’s one of the best ways to ensure that your GA4 account isn’t just a data repository, but that it also helps people on your team understand what the data is reflecting.
🧠 5 AI insights from Google Search Central Live in Madrid on April 9, 2025
At Search Central Live in Madrid, Google confirmed that AI-generated content gets the lowest quality rating from human reviewers, even if it ranks for now. Aleyda Solis unpacks this and four other key takeaways, including how AI Overviews work, what you can block with nosnippet, and why SEO fundamentals still hold strong.
📌 People are Googling questions about your brand. Here’s how to find every single one
Steve Toth shares a practical regex filter you can use in Google Search Console to find every question people are asking about your brand. These queries are often high intent and can highlight missed opportunities for helpful, targeted content.
⚖️ Google quality raters now assess whether content is AI-generated
In a quiet but important update, Google told its quality raters to give the lowest score to AI-generated content that lacks originality or usefulness. It’s another signal that E-E-A-T can’t be faked—you can’t just add a few surface-level changes and expect Google to see your content as credible.
🔮 Hocus pocus shift your focus. When will SEO’s start thinking beyond the website?
Chantal Smink asks a question a lot of us should be asking: why are SEOs still acting like everything starts and ends on a website? In a world where people discover brands on social media, in AI tools, or through third-party platforms, it’s time to zoom out and rethink where we’re focusing our efforts.
📣 AI is still seemingly unable to properly understand the context between a "THING" and "THINGS"
Daniel Foley Carter breaks down how AI struggles with nuance, like the difference between an SEO agency and an SEO consultant. His advice is to focus on building visibility through verifiable facts, structured data, and credible citations from trusted sources like Clutch or rating directories. It’s less about chasing rankings, and more about being the kind of source an AI would cite.
🎯 Why is the PPC industry divided over Performance Max?
Because it depends on what you value more: scale or control. Mark Sansum explores why some advertisers lean into PMax’s automation and cross-channel reach, while others are frustrated by limited visibility and targeting options. He also explains how your spot on the adoption curve might shape your comfort level with any kind of hands-off campaign structure.
You’re already part of the team—now help us grow the fan club! Refer your digital marketing and analytics friends to the newsletter and earn exclusive rewards.
Refer 2 people: Get a shout out from Dana DiTomaso on LinkedIn
Refer 6 people: Get access to an exclusive presentation from Dana on Unpacking GA4 Explorations
Dana recently joined Katherine Watier Ong on the Digital Marketing Victories podcast to talk about digital marketing analytics in a privacy-first world. They discussed the shift from being “data-driven” to “data-informed,” the importance of context and critical thinking when interpreting data, strategies for communicating results to different audiences, tips for streamlining requests, and how to navigate challenges like privacy regulations, cookie restrictions, and tracking limitations.
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Kick Point Playbook
Insights that fuel action. Learn, apply, and grow your marketing skills.
Kick Point Playbook gives you the digital marketing skills you need to grow—whether you want to land more clients, level up your career, or make smarter marketing decisions. Get bi-weekly insights on analytics, SEO, and reporting, curated by Dana DiTomaso and her team. Each issue is packed with expert tips, must-read articles, and free resources like templates and checklists—all designed to help you take action and see real results.
Hello Reader, Thank you for attending today’s webinar, Making the Move From Search Optimization to Answer Optimization with Wil Reynolds! If you missed the webinar or want to rewatch it, here’s the replay link → We had an incredible discussion about how the future of SEO is evolving beyond rankings—and why marketers should be focusing on where (and how) real answers are being delivered across AI, social, and search. Key takeaways: We’re in the answers business, not just the SEO business....
How to Verify Consent Signals Are Being Received Correctly in GA4 for Modeling Eligibility and GDPR Compliance You put a consent banner on your site. That’s great! But here's the problem... Just because your banner looks nice doesn't mean GA4 is actually respecting what your visitors choose. We see this mistake all the time during analytics audits. The banner is there, sure. But the data? Still flowing in before getting consent. Oops. Here's what you should check right now: Is data being sent...
GA4 Explained: The Essential Guide to Page Path, Page Location, and Other Page Data Page path versus page location versus page path + query string… if you find yourself getting tripped up by these GA4 dimensions and are stuck navigating messy reports, you’re not alone. Knowing which dimension to use can seriously improve your reporting! In our latest guide, Dana DiTomaso breaks down what each dimension actually tracks, when to use them, and how picking the right dimension makes all the...