SMX Advanced Day 2 kicked off with Aaron Levy discussing the complex nature of search marketing and the need for a customer-focused strategy.
Here are some highlights from the keynote, which included a look back at what the search marketing industry has been through, his assertion that this next wave of AI-driven change is not new, and that search isn't going away anytime soon.
1. Search isn’t going away, but it will evolve from its current state unless marketers cling to the outdated mindset of paid search as the perfect direct response channel.
“Search has weathered some serious blows, like in the case of the show Nuclear Fallout. It carries the weight of what it once was and its reputation. It's adapted to a very tough environment and it's not a very good place to survive. I think a lot of search marketers are too hung up on what they think paid search used to be. Paid search is the perfect direct response channel, and I would argue that it never was.”
That's certainly not the case now, but it's an element of the customer experience.”
2. Generative AI and assistants are transforming search into “answer engines” that attempt to understand and address queries before they are asked.
“During Google's fourth-quarter earnings call earlier this year, Sundar Pichai said that generative AI would enable the Google Assistant to increasingly act as an agent, eventually going beyond simply providing answers and doing more, like following up for users. Then, at I/O in mid-May, Google announced several new features that further reflect its intention to become an answers engine rather than a search engine.”
“[Search Marketers] You need a broad and deep understanding of all the tools in your toolbox: while these capabilities can be extremely valuable and often highly beneficial, having a core understanding of how they work helps you understand when and where to deploy them.
Need to explore a branded search campaign?
Probably not.
Should you leverage retargeting, even if it’s not particularly incremental?
I don't think so, but that's for you to decide. And understanding how machines make decisions is very important to making decisions yourself.”
4. Performance marketing metrics alone are not enough. A mindset shift towards branding and incrementality is required.
“We have to move away from a performance-only view, or what I call a search-first view. There's always this weird battle between marketers who are performance-first and brand-first.
And it's time to put an end to that battle. Performance and branding are not separate. They happen simultaneously. They are the same thing. We use different metrics, different measurements, we may have different goals, and of course the tactics are different, but they happen simultaneously.
It's likely that it contributed to a conversion, but we don't know if it caused the conversion. We're part of a more complex journey, and one of the most complex things we have to do as modern search marketers is provide the right guidance, the right reward mechanisms, the right incentives, the right assets for the engine to work properly. Incentives, goals, conversions, whatever you want to call it, it's probably best to think of it as the compass for automation.”
5. Customer centricity is key. Leverage audiences, alternative KPIs and creative assets to guide customers through the full funnel journey.
“For years now, I've confidently said that in PPC, keywords are optional, but audiences are not, and I still believe that. Think about the good old marketing funnel. Yes, the customer journey is complex, but a funnel is the simplest way to understand it.
Not every date with a customer needs to lead directly to marriage. You should be leveraging alternative KPIs to move people through the funnel, rather than just going all out with the first pitch.
“Especially now, it's a very crowded industry, and there's a lot of competition within the search industry. We have to get a little more creative.”
6. Search is no longer just about keywords and language. It’s about understanding customer behavior, problems and emotions to provide the right answers and solutions.
“Aim for the heart and the head will follow. That means we have to go beyond simple questions and answers. The questions people are asking are never as simple as what they're actually saying. The answers we provide have to confront their emotions and problems. We have to tell them, 'Hey, I'm going to make your life better,' whether they know it exists or not.”
We had never really done anything like that in our search because we had made the relationship very transactional.”
7. Search is part of a larger, complex customer journey that spans multiple touchpoints before and after the search.
“People are weird and inconsistent. Search isn't always the most impactful part of the journey. Most of the time it's a part, but it's rarely what actually causes a conversion.”
8. New AI-powered search experiences will likely reduce site traffic, necessitating new affiliate/commission advertising models.
“What’s interesting is that we expect to see a significant drop in site traffic generated by the SGE experience.
I think we'll see some kind of affiliate negotiable commission model soon. I don't know what it'll be, but my opinion is that Local Services Ads and other commission-based products from Google and Microsoft will become the standard, and measuring the value of conversions will become even more important.”
“We must remember that these new tools before us are just that: tools.
We need to understand how they work, what they do, and how to best deploy them. There's an old saying that goes, 'If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.' We have complex problems, and we have complex tools to solve them.”
10. Search advertising is facing change, but search itself is not going away as long as people have questions that they need answers to.
“Search is not going anywhere. As long as internet users have questions they want answers to, search will be around.”
“We need to understand that we're building our work around people, not just words. We look at the problems. We look at people's actions. We look at people's hopes and dreams. We're saying we are the answer.”
How to watch the keynote
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