You know, when I started this podcast on the possibilities in marketing, I had some idea that technology will be a major part of the conversation. And surely, it is, and for all the obvious reasons. What I did not expect was that it will pretty much dominate in the way it has. Listen, I'm not complaining. I love technology and am some kind of nerd. But, being a marketer for nearly 2 decades, I do believe that there is more to marketing than technology. Anyway, today's episode will be slightly heavy because it is tech-oriented and on the subject of spending dollars to flood the business funnel. So, grab a chair and listen with intent.
The changing landscape of online search
The first episode of this podcast was about generative search and how it is going to change the way we search online. Even though it is still under development, generative search, in its current state, can't be ignored. How it has made online search conversational for the user, is magical. And, it will get even more conversational due to integration with large language models like LAMDA and ChatGPT. These language models will elevate the intuitiveness of generative search beyond imagination. If you look at the normal online search that we have been using, we are served with a listing of website links along with paid search ads that have been set up to be triggered for combination of keywords. Then, it is up to you to find the information that you are looking for by visiting multiple websites.
Generative search has changed that experience entirely, by making search results conversational. Instead of throwing up a list of links, it takes your search query or prompt, tries to understand the intent behind the query, and then generates an answer utilizing the languages models under the hood. And it doesn't stop there. It suggests follow up questions that are relevant to the prompt and the answer it has generated. OR simply ask a follow up question of your own. The process is very iterative, intuitive, and will continue till you haven't got the answer you are looking for. And if you are using Google's SGE or Bing, they will keep showing the source web links as citations, which, you are free to explore in detail.
Bing's Prometheus AI model takes a slightly different approach to this whole process. It combines search and chat to deliver a rich experience which is similar to Google SGE or ChatGPT. It breaks down your long-tail query into bite-sized search terms and and then fetches the most recent information for those search terms. Now you are able to get more recent information from all the major search indices - Google Index, Bard Index or Bing Index. It does not limit itself to showing the organic links, it also shows paid links in the citation.
In doing so, generative search is quitely changing the user journey as well. Even till date, we are used to saying "Let's Google it" because the search engine is still the first point for online search. But that is not entirely true anymore. Now people are searching on TikTok, Instagram or LinkedIn too, especially the young generation. Search capabilities of social media platforms has drastically improved over the years. One might argue about the quality of information they provide, but they are being used for search by a growing number of people.
Then, there is privacy. It has become a significant factor in online search. Compliance to CCPA and GDPR norms has gained momentum and will continue to do so. Search engines, social media platforms, and display ad networks are increasingly finding it hard to track users through their online journey. Case in point, Apple giving control to the user to decide whether an app can track activity in the background or not.
Looking at all these developments, it is quite clear that the way online search works has changed and will continue to change to a very large extent. And, it will shift paid search in the coming year and beyond.
Tectonic shift in paid search and impact on lead generation
I think how paid search ads will be served in a generative search environment will be an extension of the experience we have been used to, and that experience could be very different from what it is today. To be able to benefit from this change, marketers must look at search from two lenses: how AI is changing the user experience through generative search, and the enhanced functionalities it offers for setting up ad campaigns to reach untapped audience.
Now, generative search environment provides an answer to user prompts in a conversational way. To provide most accurate information, in a conversational rich experience, generative search sources information from most relevant links and integrates paid search links within the generated response. In doing so, it is looking at organic and paid search holistically. That means marketers need to look at their SEO and SEM strategies in the same way. In the previous version of online search, user's intent could be segregated between being acquisitive or not through paid and organic links. The line is now blurred with the integration of paid and organic links in AI-generated responses. So, the user's intent for search could be sitting anywhere in the funnel.
This blended approach changes the way search ads currently appear to the user. Previously, factors like accuracy of keyword targeting, bid and competition determined whether an ad would be served or not. Now, relevance to the user intent is likely to be a driving factor. This is also likely to have a direct impact on the approach for keyword targeting. Marketers are used to targeting the money keywords and it has worked very well for them, whether you look at it from the perspective of leads generated or ROAS. With search becoming conversational, long-tail keywords are likely to have a lot of importance. Because the nature of query will be in the form of questions than a few keywords.
With this change, marketers would need to continuously analyze the user journey and keep updating the landing page content to remain relevant to queries across the funnel, and improve chances of their ad being triggered.
In the last few years, Google has been gradually introducing AI-based functionalities to Google Ads to improve targeting, reduce overall cost-per-click or CPC, drive more conversions, and increase the return on ad spend or ROAS. For example, the Exact Match keywords used for search ad targeting are being expanded to include more keywords because remember, it is not a keyword matching game anymore. It is what that keyword represents in the context of the intent behind the search. So, the difference between Exact Match and Broad Match keywords has reduced to reach more users searching related queries.
Google Ads has been doing this for a while now, and marketers need to pay close attention to their negative keywords list otherwise their ads will start getting triggered on irrelevant keywords, resulting in wasteful ad spend. Google has also been pushing marketers to use its Smart Bidding feature instead of manual bidding. Smart Bidding uses machine learning to consider a wide range of factors in real-time and optimize bids for better ROI.
Responsive search ads or RSA have now become mandatory for a while. RSA uses AI to mix and match creative assets like ad headline, description and link to serve the most relevant ad copy that aligns with the user intent. This could help improve the ad CTR and get incremental traffic. However, it is important to keep monitoring the ad copy being served by AI as it could mislead users into clicking the ad and inefficiencies in ad spend.
Another AI-packed feature is Performance Max campaigns. Introduced two years ago, it uses AI to make cross-channel promotion easier for businesses with a single ad campaign. It takes advantage of Google AI across bids, budgets, audiences, creatives, and attribution. Instead of bidding on one product, it allows you to bid on multiple products to get efficiencies across all of them.
To get the maxmimum value out of PMAX campaigns, marketers must approach it with clarity on goals, KPIs and budget. PMAX is designed to maximise lead generation, marketers should avoid using it for branded search ads. It also seems to be most relevant for generative search experiences since it requires a multi-modal approach to run text, video and display ads simultaneously.
Moving beyond Google, Bing could become relevant to businesses in certain industries and geographies. Its generative search experience is not very different and it has been found to show paid links in its generated responses. While Google will continue to remain the go-to platform for paid search ads, Bing seems to be a strong contender. Marketers will need to test out Bing Ads to find incremental audience. This will require budget allocation for testing. Best place to start would be analyze the current website traffic to see the share of traffic from Bing search and if it has been growing.
And finally, the KPIs. Yup, that aspect of digital marketing that makes it attractive, measurable, and reliable. With search experience changing with generative search, the KPIs for reporting SEO and SEM performance are also likely to change.
With more native ads being served in a generative search environment, user behaviour vis-a-vis ads may be different. Ad impressions might become as important as ad clicks and CTR. In some forums, zero click impressions have been cited as another metric for ad performance.
As search becomes more conversational, ad being triggered multiple times as the user asks follow up questions could be another way to measure performance. It might also be the case that the user may click at a certain point in the conversation and not convert at all.
Generative search will continue to evolve and so will the process of information discovery. User intent has been important in SEO and SEM, and critical for paid search delivering maximum ROI. Generative search is going to make it even more important, and significantly change the user journeys.
What needs to be borne in mind is that this is not something that might happen in a few years' time. It is already happening and WILL ACCELERATE in 2024. Two traits will help marketers navigate this evolving landscape: curiosity and speed.
Curiosity to analyze the available data to understand user journeys; expand the list of keywords to reach untapped audience; adopt and test AI-backed features for running campaigns; and keep optimizing landing pages based on ad performance.
AND do all of this with sense of urgency to avoid missing out on opportunities to get more traffic and/or leads; and maximise ROAS.
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