ChatGPT search update focuses on quality, shopping, format

OpenAI today announced upgrades to ChatGPT search that aim to deliver more accurate, reliable, and useful results.

What’s new. OpenAI’s updates to ChatGPT search focused on three areas:

• Factuality: ChatGPT search produces fewer hallucinations, improving the accuracy of answers, OpenAI said.
• Shopping: Search is now better at detecting when users want product recommendations, keeping results focused on intent.
• Formatting: Answers are presented in cleaner, easier-to-digest formats without sacrificing detail.

Why we care. ChatGPT’s search is increasingly being positioned as an alternative to traditional engines like Google – and adoption of AI search tools is growing. Just remember that even though AI search is booming, it drives less than 1% of referrals.

The announcement. The updates were shared via ChatGPT changelog.

Can small businesses compete on Google Ads anymore?

Paid advertising, particularly through Google Ads, is a cornerstone marketing channel for businesses of all sizes.

However, there is no denying that with big brands dominating the platform, it’s becoming harder for smaller and mid-sized businesses to see success.

In fact, more than 50% of respondents to a recent poll said small businesses have been priced out of advertising on Google Ads.

Here are just a handful of the difficulties that small businesses face when advertising on Google Ads compared to bigger brands:

• Rising costs: With CPCs on the rise, it’s becoming more expensive for small businesses to drive potential customers to their websites.
  • With their Google Ads budgets no longer stretching as far as they once did, smaller businesses are missing out on opportunities to generate customers, while bigger brands are more likely to have the flexibility to increase their spend.
• Data volumes: Google Ads features such as automated bid strategies and RSAs (Responsive Search Ads) work more effectively when sufficient data is running through the account.
  • However, for smaller businesses with modest campaign budgets, lower data volumes can result in it taking much longer for the system to learn. This means that they need to be more patient when waiting to see results, often needing to wait months before their account runs more effectively, a privilege that not all small businesses can afford. 
• Account management: Using the correct bid strategy, implementing best practices while building an account unique to your business, navigating keywords and match types… There is an endless list of things to consider in order to run an efficient Google Ads campaign.
  • While bigger brands are likely to have an expert on hand (if not a whole team or department), smaller businesses are less likely to have these skills in-house or be able to afford to have an agency run campaigns on their behalf. As such, many small businesses are not using Google Ads to its full potential. 
• Brand awareness: Even with the best product or service in the market, brand awareness can make or break PPC efforts.
  • Bigger brands typically benefit from stronger brand awareness among their target audience. and this recognition can drastically improve their click-through rate and conversion rate. People are more likely to purchase from brands that they are already familiar with.
  • In comparison, smaller businesses often do not have a strong level of awareness or visibility, leaving potential customers unaware of their existence. They therefore face an uphill battle of building awareness, trust, credibility and recognition, to persuade people to engage with them, and not the market leader.

Despite these challenges, there is still hope for small businesses.

While the PPC playing field favors bigger brands, small businesses can still compete, as long as they do so with well-rounded strategies, smart targeting, and a willingness to adapt to and keep up to date with platform developments.

Or as Hana Kobzová puts it – small businesses just need to outsmart, not outspend. 

Dig deeper. The Google Ads mistakes costing SMBs time and money

Let’s look at three ways smaller businesses can outsmart bigger brands.

1. Focus on quality traffic over quantity

Where is the value in generating 10,000 clicks in a single day if it’s an irrelevant audience, who are not a right fit for the product or service?

Smaller businesses can benefit from focusing on a smaller segment of people, who are more closely aligned with the wants, needs and interests of their target audience, rather than casting a wide net and driving anyone to their site.

• For example: If a business only provides catering services for weddings, then their keyword list, ad copy, ad assets (extensions) and landing page need to be specifically chosen to resonate with someone planning their wedding.

This will likely lead to a decrease in metrics such as Impressions and Click volume, especially if the initial targeting methods were more broad. However, the more relevant the traffic, the higher the likelihood of conversion and monetary value being driven through PPC. 

2. Make every click count with accurate tracking

If businesses don’t implement Conversion tracking, then they can not accurately understand how their PPC campaigns are performing. And without understanding how their PPC campaigns are performing, then they can’t optimise them accordingly.

All businesses need to ensure that they have accurate conversion tracking, but for smaller businesses where every single penny counts, they need to ensure that their campaigns are generating real value. 

3. Create winning ads without big budgets

With tools like Asset Studio now appearing in most Google Ads accounts, it’s never been easier for small businesses to create and edit images and videos for their campaigns.

Small businesses no longer need to allocate budget towards costly asset production to make their ads stand out, they can create new visuals and videos directly in the Google Ads platform, saving them both money and time.

Whilst the limitless capabilities of AI are compelling – who doesn’t want to see what a unicorn with the face of a pug jumping over a rainbow would look like – small businesses should still keep to their brand guidelines and ensure that the assets they create are an authentic representation of their brand. 

Expand beyond Google to reach your audience

Small businesses struggling on Google Ads have plenty of other platforms to explore.

• Microsoft Advertising is an excellent alternative to Google Ads for many small businesses. Most verticals have lower CPCs and can deliver strong performance for industries that favor an older, more professional audience. It offers a similar interface and experience to Google Ads, but ads run across the Microsoft and partners network, including Bing and Yahoo.
• Social media platforms, such as Meta and TikTok, offer small businesses valuable opportunities outside of the Google network. You can reach your target audience on the websites and apps they frequent.

How smaller brands can compete on Google Ads

Smaller businesses can achieve meaningful success on Google Ads by outsmarting larger competitors through:

• Sharper targeting that prioritizes quality over quantity of traffic.
• More robust conversion tracking.
• Using the creative tools on Google Ads.

Bigger brands may benefit from sizable budgets and strong brand awareness. However, smaller brands can still be competitive on Google Ads.

It is by no means easy, but it is possible.

Dig deeper. Google Ads for SMBs: How to maximize paid search success

1.5 million chats reveal who uses ChatGPT and why

OpenAI and Harvard economist David Deming today released a large study about ChatGPT usage. The analysis of 1.5 million conversations shows that the chatbot is no longer a niche tool:

• Adoption is broadening globally.
• Gender gaps are closing.
• Most people use it for everyday tasks like writing, information-seeking, and practical guidance.
• While 30% of chats are work-related, ChatGPT is used daily in personal and professional life.

Who’s using ChatGPT. In January 2024, 37% of ChatGPT users had typically feminine names. By July 2025, it was 52% – mirroring the adult population.

• Usage of ChatGPT in low-income countries grew 4x faster than in high-income countries.

What people use ChatGPT for. Everyday tasks dominate – 3 in 4 chats are about writing, information-seeking, and practical guidance. Patterns of use:

• Asking (49%): Advice, information.
• Doing (40%): Drafting, planning, programming.
• Expressing (11%): Reflection, exploration, play.

Work vs. life. Thirty percent of consumer usage is work-related, 70% is non-work.

• Writing is the top professional use; coding and self-expression remain niche.
• Decision support (guiding decisions and streamlining tasks) is a key way people use ChatGPT.

Why we care. ChatGPT isn’t just for work – it’s becoming part of everyday life (like Google has been for many of us since the mid-2000s). ChatGPT’s spread across demographics and geographies makes it look less like a niche tech fad and more like a core technology shaping how people think, work, and live.

The blog post. How people are using ChatGPT

The paper. How People Use ChatGPT (PDF download required to view)

Google Search Console adds achievements section

Google added a new section to Google Search Console to show your “achievements” in the Search Console interface. This was previously only emailed as part of the receive Insights experience emails you received monthly but now there is a dedicated report for these achievements.

How to access it. You can access the “achievements” section on the bottom left of the menu bar or by clicking here and selecting the domain property.

What it looks like. Here is a screenshot of the new achievements report in Search Console:

What Google said. Google wrote on LinkedIn:

We’re happy to bring Achievements into Search Console as a new report. Up until now, you’d receive achievements via email, and it was part of our previous Insights experience. We know users love the milestones, so we thought we’d create a place where you can check them inside Search Console. We hope you like it and reach MANY milestones.

Why we care. This is a cute way to track the progress of your site’s performance in Google Search. Google will give you these little icons and awards for hitting various milestones.

This won’t replace the reporting you need to provide to your stakeholders but they may make you smile from time to time.

AI search drives less than 1% of referrals, organic still dominates: Data

AI-powered search platforms are growing fast, but still account for less than 1% of referral traffic, according to new data from enterprise SEO platform BrightEdge.

By the numbers. From January to August, AI-driven search referrals accounted for less than 1% of traffic.

• Organic search remains the primary driver of conversions across industries.
• AI search usage is still growing fast – with some platforms showing triple-digit month-over-month gains – but traffic isn’t translating into transactions.

Why we care. There’s been a lot of pressure to chase shiny new AI platforms. However, these numbers highlight the massive difference between hype and impact. AI search looks more like a research channel, while organic search drives conversions and growth.

What they’re saying. BrightEdge co-founder Jim Yu said:

• “AI search is the fastest-growing channel we’ve ever tracked. But growth and quality are two different things. Organic search continues to outperform on conversions and remains the engine of digital growth. The most successful marketers aren’t choosing one over the other – they’re adapting for AI while doubling down on the organic strategies that have always driven results.”

About the data. BrightEdge’s analysis is based on thousands of search queries and top-performing websites – including many Fortune 100 brands – from January through August.

The report. AI Search Visits Surging in 2025

Top Performance Max optimization tips for 2026

Performance Max has evolved dramatically since its 2021 launch. 

If you’re still running campaigns like it’s 2023, you’re leaving serious performance gains behind. 

With Google rolling out enhanced reporting and creative controls this year, the optimization playbook looks very different heading into 2026.

These strategies will help you maximize Performance Max in Q4 and beyond – whether your goal is lead generation or ecommerce growth.

Before diving in, remember: Performance Max requires historical data to succeed. 

Aim for at least 30-50 conversions per month, with established Search campaigns already running. It works best as a complement to – not a replacement for – your core campaigns.

4 pillars of Performance Max success

It’s crucial to understand the four core optimization areas that have proven most effective:

• Budget control and segmentation: Control where Google allocates your budget across different products or service categories.
• Audience and keyword targeting: Manage keywords, audiences, demographics, locations, and devices that trigger your ads.
• Creative assets and landing pages: Optimize creative assets and destination pages for maximum conversion.
• Smart Bidding strategies: Leverage automated bidding effectively while maintaining control. Choose Target ROAS when you have consistent conversion values and sufficient data, or Maximize Conversions when building initial volume with at least 30 conversions per month.

This structured approach helps solve the distinct challenges of optimizing Performance Max.

The 5-minute Performance Max health check

Every week, run through these five diagnostic questions to catch issues before they become expensive problems:

• Is my spend distribution above 80/20 (80% going to top 20% of products/asset groups)?
• Have any placements exceeded 15% of total spend?
• Are my best performing assets from auto-generation or uploaded?
• Did my Search campaign CPCs increase after launching Performance Max?
• Am I seeing conversions from unexpected geographic locations?
• Are more than 30% of my conversions coming from brand terms despite exclusions?
• Has my asset group performance rating dropped below “Good” for more than 7 days?

If you answer “yes” to two or more, immediate optimization is needed. 

Use this framework to know when to optimize versus when to trust the algorithm.

Tailored strategies for different campaign goals and industries

For lead gen campaigns

In lead generation, businesses that see strong results use Performance Max as a customer acquisition engine. 

The key is bidding exclusively on new customers while applying comprehensive brand exclusions, ensuring campaigns complement rather than compete with Search.

Proper segmentation has driven significant cost-per-conversion improvements. 

Instead of oversegmenting, focus on a few high-quality asset groups. 

While some advertisers test different messaging angles across asset groups, Google recommends consolidation to give the algorithm more flexibility and data. 

This level of granular control wasn’t available in earlier versions of Performance Max but is now essential for optimization.

Dig deeper: How to use Performance Max for high-value customer acquisition and retention

For ecommerce campaigns

For ecommerce campaigns, brands face unique challenges with Performance Max, especially when managing large product catalogs. 

A common issue is uneven spend distribution: 

• Some products get no impressions despite strong potential.
• Others convert well but receive little budget relative to their performance.

Google recommends campaign consolidation for optimal machine learning. 

But many advertisers find success segmenting high-volume categories into separate campaigns. 

Test both approaches – consolidated vs. segmented – to see what fits your catalog and budget. 

Strategic segmentation forces Google to allocate spend to overlooked product groups, helping brands scale profitable products that previously received minimal impressions. 

When implemented correctly, this structure can unlock significant growth while maintaining efficiency targets.

Ecommerce success with Performance Max also depends on feed optimization. 

• Product titles should include key attributes like brand, product type, and features. 
• Use custom labels to segment by margin, seasonality, or performance tiers. 

These optimizations give Performance Max stronger signals to match products with relevant searches.

Industry-specific considerations

Different industries require distinct approaches to Performance Max optimization in 2025:

B2B services

• Focus on URL exclusions to prevent budget waste on blog posts and informational content. 
• Prioritize high-intent landing pages that align with bottom-funnel search behavior.

Retail

• Leverage Google’s enhanced asset testing capabilities introduced in 2025. 
• Retail campaigns benefit significantly from the new image optimization features that automatically enhance product imagery.

Healthcare and professional services

• Implement geographic targeting and scheduling adjustments. 
• These industries often see better performance with conservative audience signals rather than broad targeting.

Travel and hospitality

• Take advantage of Performance Max’s new channel performance reporting to understand which networks drive bookings versus research behavior.

Leveraging PMax’s latest game-changing features

Enhanced search term visibility

One of the biggest 2025 improvements was expanded search term reporting. 

Advertisers can now spot and exclude irrelevant queries that were previously hidden. 

Access this data through predefined Google Ads reports, focusing on terms with high spend but low conversions.

Advanced creative controls

Google’s recent updates also introduced greater control over creative assets. 

While Performance Max still auto-generates headlines, advertisers now see performance data at the asset level. 

Track conversion rates and click-throughs for individual headlines, but remember: machine learning often creates combinations you didn’t provide directly.

Dig deeper: Google’s image optimization features for Performance Max

Negative keyword implementation

With expanded negative keyword limits rolled out, advertisers can now implement more comprehensive exclusion lists. 

This capability is valuable for brands wanting to separate brand and non-brand traffic between Performance Max and traditional search campaigns.

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5 critical PMax optimization tactics for 2026

1. Master URL exclusions

Landing page analysis is now critical for Performance Max success. 

Use the predefined landing page report to identify pages that spend budget without driving conversions. 

Common culprits include:

• Blog posts.
• Career pages.
• Other informational content that attracts top-funnel traffic. 

That said, test what works for your business.

Some advertisers see strong results from blog traffic via remarketing, and exclusions can limit the algorithm’s ability to find converters.

To apply exclusions, go to Campaign settings > Asset optimization, then add URL exclusions under the text section. 

This simple adjustment often delivers immediate improvements in cost per conversion.

2. Test your campaign structure

While Google recommends consolidated campaigns for better machine learning, test what works for your account. 

Consider these segmentation options if your budget and conversion volume support multiple campaigns:

For ecommerce brands:

• Product categories or profit margins.
• Customer lifetime value tiers.
• Seasonal product demand patterns.
• Best-selling vs. long-tail products.

For lead gen:

• Service categories or keyword themes.
• Lead quality tiers (enterprise vs. SMB).
• Geographic service areas.
• Conversion actions (form fills vs. phone calls).

This segmentation provides greater control over budget allocation and allows for more targeted optimization strategies.

3. Optimize asset groups ruthlessly

Monitor asset group performance weekly, keeping the 2-3 week learning period in mind. 

Look for groups with:

• Spend but no conversions.
• Declining performance over 30 days.
• Cannibalizing traffic from stronger performers. 

Pause or restructure weak groups so budget flows to proven performers.

4. Refresh creative assets regularly

Test and rotate your creative elements to combat ad fatigue and improve performance:

Headlines and descriptions

• Review asset performance metrics weekly in your asset group’s View details section.
• Replace headlines marked as Low performance after 14 days of data.
• Test different value propositions – promotional vs. feature-focused vs. benefit-driven.
• Maintain at least 10-15 headlines for optimal rotation.

Images and videos

• Swap out underperforming images monthly.
• Test lifestyle imagery vs. product-only shots (for ecommerce).
• Add seasonal creative before peak periods.
• Leverage Google’s image optimization features to auto-enhance existing assets.

When to update

• Any asset with Low performance rating after sufficient impressions.
• When CTR drops below the account average for two consecutive weeks.
• Before major sales periods or seasonal shifts.
• When launching new products or services.

Because Performance Max auto-generates combinations, supplying diverse, high-quality assets ensures more winning variations.

5. Leverage audience signals strategically

While Performance Max uses audience signals as suggestions rather than strict targeting, providing high-quality signals significantly impacts campaign performance. Focus on:

• Customer match lists for similar audience modeling.
• High-intent in-market audiences relevant to your offerings.
• Custom segments based on search behavior and website interactions.

Dig deeper: Auditing the Performance Max black box: A strategic approach

Common PMax pitfalls to avoid in 2026

Over-optimization

PMax campaigns require patience. 

• Avoid making frequent changes, as the algorithm needs time to learn and optimize. 
• Limit major adjustments to once every two weeks unless addressing critical issues.
• Don’t ignore cross-campaign cannibalization. Performance Max can pull traffic from your other campaigns, especially brand search terms.
• Even with brand exclusions, monitor your Search campaign performance after launching Performance Max. 
• Add campaign-level negative keywords to your Search and Shopping campaigns to protect Performance Max from internal competition.

Neglecting traditional campaigns

Performance Max should complement your search and shopping campaigns. 

Many marketers report Performance Max performing better when it’s the only campaign type running, avoiding internal competition. 

Ignoring creative quality

Despite automation capabilities, creative quality remains paramount.

Sitelinks now factor into Performance Max ad strength, making comprehensive creative optimization more important than ever.

Measuring PMax success

Focus on these metrics when evaluating Performance Max performance:

• New customer acquisition rate: Essential for understanding incremental value.
• Asset group efficiency: Cost per conversion by asset group.
• Channel performance: Leverage new reporting to understand cross-network performance.
• Incrementality: Compare Performance Max results against baseline campaign performance.

Looking ahead: The future of Performance Max

Performance Max will keep evolving through 2026, with new API updates hinting at finer audience targeting and better conversion tracking. 

The campaigns winning now are those that embrace automation while maintaining control through smart structure and segmentation.

Success in 2026 requires more than past playbooks. 

Focus on budget control, targeting, creative, and bidding aligned to your model. 

Performance Max isn’t set-and-forget. It demands steady monitoring, testing, and data-driven adjustments to deliver lasting results.

Thriving in the AI era of search: Realign, measure, collaborate

As I watched Live with Search Engine Land: SEO, AIO, GEO! on Aug. 11, which featured four top SEO experts discussing how to adapt as search shifts in the AI era, I had the strangest feeling I’d seen this movie before.

I remember feeling the same way back in 2011, when social media was shaking the foundations of search. 

The industry was being forced to adapt overnight – much like Hollywood pivoting from silent films to talkies in “Singin’ in the Rain.”

The question is clear: who will thrive as AI reshapes search?

The answer lies in adapting your skills, breaking silos, mastering new metrics, and collaborating across teams.

Realign your career path with the new customer journey

Organizations can’t afford to keep cranking out silent movies if the public is flocking to talkies. 

Optimizing video content and text is essential if you want to be the star of a talking picture.

Why video? 

Video combines sight, sound, and motion, making it more engaging, memorable, and shareable than text.

It’s a powerful way to convey complex ideas and build emotional connections.

Research backs this up. In Think with Google, Celia Salsi tells us why video now plays a central role in how people shop and make decisions. 

The challenge for brands isn’t just getting noticed, but being chosen – especially for considered purchases that require deeper trust.

YouTube plays a key role here. 

It’s a top destination for shoppers researching and comparing products, with more than 35 billion hours of shopping-related content viewed last year. 

Ads shown on connected TVs also drove over 1 billion conversions.

Salsi also reveals:

• “There’s no one way to shop online. New research decodes multifacted shopping journeys.”

A study of 2,000 online shoppers in the U.S. identified seven distinct shopping journeys based on different needs and motivations. They are:

• Impulse: Shoppers are triggered by something that catches their eye, but these journeys rarely end in a purchase.
• Passion pursuit: These shoppers are already experts in a product category and will wait for the right item at the right price.
• Vision to reality: Driven by style and self-expression, these shoppers use video to find products that will help them achieve a desired look.
• Rookie: New to a category, these shoppers seek ideas, advice, and recommendations to help them decide.
• Quest for the best: These shoppers do extensive research to feel confident in their purchase decisions.
• Buy and try: Shoppers in this category compare a few options and often buy multiple items with the intention of returning some.
• Quick-fire: This journey, which has the highest purchase rate, is for shoppers who need a low-cost replacement or a household staple and know exactly what they want.

Although most online shopping behavior is deliberate, Salsi reveals: 

• “YouTube’s influence cuts down the average online video shopper’s journey by six days.”

Get out of your comfort zone and organizational silo

You’ll also want to take a close look at “How to get cited by AI: SEO insights from 8,000 AI citations.” 

As Search Engine Land contributor James Allen reported, YouTube was the most cited domain in AI Overviews, followed by blogs like Zapier and news sites such as PCMag and Forbes, which together accounted for more than half of citations.

Websites with detailed, specialized deep content are favored over homepages, and sites known for expertise, particularly in finance and healthcare, tend to be cited, while community sites like Reddit and Quora are cited less often.

It’s time to get out of your comfort zone and organizational silo if you want to connect with people in video marketing and digital PR. 

Together, you’ll need to build new teams that can balance multiple disciplines – from content and social to analytics and PR.

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Measure outcomes and organic search traffic

To adapt and succeed as search changes in the AI era, you’ll need to measure outcomes alongside organic traffic. 

These outcomes fall into two categories that align with video campaign goals:

• Brand awareness and consideration.
• Website traffic, leads, and sales.

Brand awareness and consideration

In a zero-click world, you may be tempted to use a new marketing metric called share of model. 

It measures how effectively a brand is represented by large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. 

This newfangled metric quantifies how well the LLM understands and recommends a brand, based on its identity, products, and reputation. 

However, share of model may turn out to be a vanity metric, just like ranking for low-intent keywords, low-quality backlinks, impressions, gross rating points (GRPs), social media followers, and advertising value equivalency (AVE). 

Instead, use a different set of metrics to measure brand awareness and consideration: the brand lift study.

Over half a dozen major social media platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, provide brand lift studies to advertisers who meet specific spending requirements. 

These studies gauge the impact of ad campaigns on brand awareness, brand association, and consideration by surveying groups of users who were exposed to the campaign versus those who were not.

Brand lift studies measure changes in awareness, consideration, and intent – giving you hard data on how campaigns shape perception over time. 

Using these metrics as key performance indicators (KPIs) makes far more sense to senior executives than betting your credibility on experimental metrics like share of model, which may not align with share of search or market share.

Website traffic, leads, and sales

For more than two decades, SEOs have tracked organic search traffic as a primary metric. 

But with zero-click searches on the rise, it’s time to re-examine how you read Google Analytics 4 (GA4).

In one recent case, a marketer noticed a 28% year-over-year increase in new users. 

But a closer look revealed organic traffic down 32%, while “direct” traffic had spiked nearly 47%, now making up three-quarters of all new users.

The culprit? 

When their content appeared in Google’s AI Overviews, clicks weren’t passing referrer data to GA4 – making search-driven traffic look like “direct.”

Here’s how to adapt:

• Pay less attention to default channel groups and more to top landing pages within “direct” traffic. If many are recent blog posts, that spike may be AI-driven.
• Use campaign tagging strategically: Add parameters with Google’s Campaign URL Builder to links you share on platforms like LinkedIn. That way, you can measure the impact of your organic content and social posts even when GA4 hides the source.

Collaborate to generate successful campaigns

If you lead a marketing department or agency, you can easily subcontract skills like YouTube SEO, Reddit marketing, digital PR, or brand lift surveys. 

After a few projects, you may even decide to bring some of those capabilities in-house.

If you’re an SEO manager or marketing professional, the path looks different. You might: 

• Start by analyzing Tubular Labs leaderboards to see which brands are winning attention across YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. 
• Invest in workshops and online courses to expand your own skills – a step I’ve recommended before when talking about upskilling and reskilling.

And why push yourself to do this now? 

Because as soon as this fall, senior marketers will be scanning the horizon of a shifting search industry. 

Many will call for more creative collaboration, reorganize teams, or review agency relationships to realign with new customer journeys.

The SEOs and marketers who’ve already broken out of their silos – and built connections across video, PR, and social – will be ready to take the lead.

Google publishes new guide on Shopping ads pricing

Google has released a comprehensive “Understanding Product Pricing” guide to help merchants navigate the complex rules and options for pricing in Shopping ads and free listings.

Core concepts. The guide breaks down the fundamentals merchants need to get right:

• Price: The standard product price without discounts or promotions.
• Sale price: A temporary lower price shown with annotations highlighting both the original and discounted prices.
• Price drop annotations: Signals when a product’s price has decreased significantly, making deals easier to spot.

What else is new. Beyond the basics, the guide outlines advanced pricing capabilities:

• Automation: Automatic price updates to fix discrepancies, AI-powered automated discounts across inventory, and currency conversion for international reach.
• Special programs: Options for regional pricing, promotion-based discounts, and loyalty-specific pricing to reward members.
• Flexible payments: Merchants can showcase subscription costs or installment breakdowns to give shoppers more choice.

Why we care. Pricing is one of the most visible — and competitive — aspects of Shopping ads. With multiple formats like sales, promotions, and loyalty discounts, ensuring accuracy and clarity can directly impact click-throughs and conversions.

The bigger picture. Many of these features display as annotations directly on ads and free listings, giving consumers immediate visibility into deals, discounts, and payment flexibility. That transparency not only builds trust but also improves ad performance.

The bottom line. Google’s new pricing guide arms merchants with a roadmap for using every available lever — from sale price annotations to AI-driven discounts — to keep Shopping ads accurate, competitive, and consumer-friendly.

FTC probes Google and Amazon over ad pricing disclosures

The Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether Google and Amazon misled advertisers by failing to properly disclose terms and pricing for ads on their platforms, according to people familiar with the matter.

Driving the news:

• The FTC’s consumer protection unit is examining Google’s internal ad pricing processes and whether it raised costs without informing advertisers.
• Amazon’s real-time ad auctions are under scrutiny, including whether it disclosed reserve pricing — minimum price floors for sponsored listings.
• Both investigations build on prior antitrust actions against Google’s ad business and Amazon’s marketplace practices.

Why we care. Digital advertising is a multi-hundred-billion-dollar industry, with Google leading the market and Amazon quickly rising as the third-largest player. Lack of transparency in how ads are priced and placed could mean advertisers are paying more than they realize.

Context:

• Judges in two Justice Department cases have already ruled Google maintains illegal monopolies in search and ad tech.
• Amazon’s ad business generated $56 billion in revenue last year, but the company faces separate FTC trials on antitrust and consumer protection grounds.
• Google has previously acknowledged tweaking ad auctions to meet revenue targets without always disclosing changes to advertisers.

The bottom line. The FTC is signaling that ad pricing transparency — not just competition — is now squarely in its sights, keeping pressure on two of the industry’s dominant players.

87% read AI search summaries, 84% shop with AI: Survey

A majority of Americans are using AI in daily life – 87% read AI summaries in search, and 84% turn to AI for shopping. That’s according to new survey data shared exclusively with Search Engine Land by digital marketing firm Centerfield.

By the numbers:

• 87% of U.S. adults read AI-generated summaries in search results.
• 50% say they read the summary but then look for additional info elsewhere.
• 41% read and then click on a source link; 34% stop at the summary alone.
• 89% of adults report using AI tools or chatbots.
• 84% have used AI in their shopping journey — across all generations.

How shoppers use AI:

• Getting answers to product questions (46%)
• Comparing products or brands (35%)
• Getting product recommendations (35%)
• Summarizing customer reviews (29%)
• Finding the best prices or deals (29%)

Why we care. AI tools are reshaping how people research and make purchase decisions. That means brand visibility in AI summaries and answers isn’t optional – it’s where consumers are already paying attention.

Bottom line. Consumers are moving fast, so marketers must keep up. AI adoption is going mainstream among shoppers, but most brands are still figuring out how to optimize for the AI-driven future of search. And many are unprepared for GEO.

About the survey: The Centerfield Gen-AI Consumer Survey was an online poll of 4,604 U.S. adults conducted in July 2025, with a ±1.5% margin of error at the 95% confidence level. The sample was nationally representative by age, sex, ethnicity, income, and housing, following U.S. Census benchmarks.

Meta expands Reels, Threads, and AI tools to boost brand-building

Meta used its Brand Building Summit to unveil updates aimed at helping advertisers tap into cultural moments across its apps, with new ad formats, trending placements, and AI-powered targeting.

What’s new:

• Reels trending ads are opening up to more advertisers after closed beta. The format places brands alongside the most popular Reels, with early tests showing a 20% boost in unaided awareness — on par with YouTube Select and above TikTok Pulse.

• Threads ads now support carousel formats, 4:5 single image and video rendering, and simplified campaign setup. With 400 million monthly active users, Meta is pitching Threads as a growing space for authentic brand conversations.

• Value rules for awareness and engagement extend AI-powered audience prioritization beyond sales campaigns. Tests show advertisers doubled high-value conversions compared to business-as-usual setups.
• Landing page view optimization helps brands without direct pixel access (like CPGs) reach users more likely to load their destination site, cutting cost per view by 31%.

Why we care. Brands are under pressure to stay relevant where culture happens. The expansion of trending Reels ads means brands can align themselves directly with cultural moments, driving proven lifts in awareness and recall.

At the same time, AI-powered tools like value rules and landing page optimization give marketers more precise control over who sees their ads and how those ads perform, which should lead to stronger conversions and lower costs.

The big picture. With Reels seeing over 4.5B daily shares and more than half of Instagram time spent in the format, Meta is positioning itself as the place where culture spreads — and where brands can insert themselves seamlessly into the conversation.

The bottom line. Meta is giving advertisers more ways to ride cultural waves — whether through trending Reels, expanding Threads, or smarter AI targeting.

How to produce a better PPC QBR for your stakeholders

Quarterly business reviews can be stressful, especially for agency teams. 

They’re meant to showcase your impact and align on future strategy – but too often, they turn into 45-minute monologues packed with PPC metrics and little engagement.

Having worked across multiple agencies, I’ve seen firsthand that there’s no single “right” way to run a QBR – but there are plenty of ways to make them better. 

In a digital marketing landscape that’s evolving faster than ever, you can’t afford to waste the rare opportunity to have stakeholders’ full attention.

My agency has refined our approach to QBRs to make them more engaging, forward-looking, and valuable for clients. 

The result: clearer communication, stronger alignment, and a sharper focus on business goals.

This article covers the key improvements we’ve made, including:

• Better readability.
• Audience alignment.
• Building a narrative.
• Proactivity and forward motion.

Aim for readability

This applies to any presentation, but it’s especially crucial for QBRs where there’s a lot to cover: keep the pace brisk and the key messages clear.

In deck format, that means:

Leverage your slide titles (your most important real estate)

• Use the title to specify the main takeaway, not just the topic. For example, instead of “UGC on Meta,” say “UGC on Meta drives 95% completion rates.”
• Include numbers and impact where possible.
• Use verbs, not labels.

Streamline text

• Replace long blocks with concise, bullet-format summaries.
• Make slides easier to skim and present live.

Lean on visual call-outs

• Use bold font, simple iconography, or strategic positioning to highlight key stats. 
• Replace select tables with charts or key numbers. Don’t make the audience hunt for the takeaway.

Because a big part of readability comes down to presenter pacing, make sure your team:

• Is well-practiced.
• Doesn’t spend more than a minute on each slide.
• Uses the speaker notes section, hyperlinks, and an index to include details that would make the main slides too busy.

Dig deeper: How to deliver PPC results to executives: Get out of the weeds

Align your QBR content with your audience’s needs

Even if only your usual team of day-to-day client contacts will be in the room (or Zoom) for your QBR, you need to account for the fact that higher-ups and executives will have very different priorities for results, metrics, and next steps. 

Whether you’ll be presenting directly to company leaders or enabling your regular contacts to relay information, QBRs should include an executive summary of more high-level material: 

• Achievements.
• Focus areas.
• Next steps/tests.
• Performance against top-line goals.

Dig deeper: How to set and manage PPC expectations for teams and stakeholders

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Build a narrative

One of the common brand complaints about agencies is that they aren’t aligned with the brand’s business goals.

Many still report on shallow metrics like CTR and CPC without tying those to business outcomes.

A QBR is a great place to put that reputation to bed by focusing on the key business goals you’re helping your clients address. 

Keep those goals at the forefront of your QBR framing, and tie every data point, insight, and go-forward recommendation back to them.

This might even mean that you can’t focus as much as you like on some of the achievements you view as the biggest from the last few months. 

For instance, let’s say you finally got under your CPA goal in your Meta campaigns thanks to some valuable testing insights. 

That’s a win, but if the client’s top priority is improving the conversion rate of MQLs to SQLs, it shouldn’t be the centerpiece of your QBR.

Instead, you’ll be better served by focusing on your success with down-funnel growth and showing how you plan to build on that progress in the quarters ahead.

Dig deeper: How to approach weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual PPC reporting

Establish forward motion

Early in my career, I sat through too many QBRs that recapped the goings-on and results from the last quarter and left it at that. 

Instead, make sure you go into the QBR knowing the top-line goals for the next quarter.

Spin every result and insight into a recommendation for how to address those goals – essentially, going from “what happened and what we learned” to “what we do now.”

This is the difference between reporting “AOV dropped 10% quarter over quarter” to “AOV dropped 10% quarter over quarter, which highlights the opportunity to test value-based bidding.”

This framework also provides context for what we call “tactical opportunities.”

By that, we mean the resources needed – or the obstacles that must be removed – before we can act on those next steps.

This might mean:

• A request for a dedicated in-house contact for CRM questions to clean up data issues.
• A standard of one business day to get client feedback for P1 initiatives.
• Or a recommendation to be flexible with margin goals if there’s a chance to unlock scale in the process.

Forward motion in the form of next steps is essential, and you can enforce the momentum in the way you deliver your presentation, specifically by:

• Leading with the main point instead of building up to it.
• Letting key stats breathe before moving on.
• Previewing the next slide before you move on.
• Using connector phrases to keep the flow tight.
• Aiming for 30 to 60 seconds per slide. If you can’t get under a minute, split the slide.

Turning QBRs into growth opportunities

Instead of dreading the QBR process, reframe it as a chance to set yourself and your client up for success.

Yes, the reporting piece is important. But it’s far more valuable if you can pull out learnings and next steps from the past quarter’s results – and deliver them with a focus on what matters most to the people in the room.

Ideally, you’ll leave with both sides energized about what you’ve accomplished together – and, more importantly, aligned on how you’ll build on that growth moving forward.

Dig deeper: Agency-grade PPC audits: How to turn reports into growth roadmaps

Reddit launches Pro tools for publishers

Reddit is giving media brands new ways to track and share their stories on its platform.

Why we care. As search and referral traffic patterns shift, publishers are looking for alternative distribution channels. With 110 million daily active users, Reddit is a potential driver of engagement and traffic.

What’s new. Reddit is rolling out a beta of Reddit Pro for Publishers, part of its free Reddit Pro suite. The new tools that live inside a new Links tab in Reddit Pro include:

• Article insights: Track which stories are shared, where they appear, and metrics like views, clicks, and upvotes.
• Auto-import: Sync RSS feeds to make articles instantly shareable.
• Community recommendations: AI-powered suggestions for where stories might resonate.

What it looks like. Here’s a screenshot from Reddit:

Who’s in: Early testers include The Atlantic, The Hill, NBC News, and the Associated Press. Publishers in the alpha saw Reddit emerge as a top referral source, Reddit said.

Also new: Reddit is testing an updated link-viewing experience inside its app. Users can read an article, then swipe up to view comments and join discussions.

What’s next. Beta signups open today. Reddit expects a broader rollout next year.

The announcement. Bringing News and Conversations Together with Reddit Pro Tools for Publishers

Are Google’s AI Overviews eating your PPC revenue? Key things to know by Adthena

AI Overviews haven’t just shifted how Google presents search results; they’re already reshaping the economics of paid search.

When AI Overviews appear on your most valuable queries, they:

• Intercept attention.
• Push ads down the page.
• Erode click-through rates.

For advertisers, that means revenue leakage even when ads are positioned well.

But it’s not all bad news. 

By understanding where and how AI Overviews appear, PPC teams can adapt their strategies, capture more real estate where AI Overviews are weak, and sharpen positioning where they’re strong. 

The real question isn’t if AI Overviews will impact your campaigns, it’s whether you’re monitoring and adapting quickly enough to stay ahead.

The AI Overviews challenge: Pain points every PPC team faces

When AI Overviews dominate high-value queries, the effects ripple across every metric that matters. You still get impressions, but CTR can decline, meaning fewer clicks and, ultimately, less revenue.

The danger is also competitive. While you absorb the impact, rivals may adjust their strategies, become more aggressive on queries dominated by AI Overviews, or expand into those with low AI Overview presence to gain visibility more easily.

The hidden opportunities

Yet, AI Overviews don’t appear everywhere, and where they do, their impact isn’t uniform. 

• In categories where AI Overviews penetration is still low, advertisers can double down on capturing SERP real estate. 
• Where AI Overviews are prominent, the battle shifts: bidding more aggressively to secure more visibility, expanding reach to capture more revenue, and adjusting ad copy strategy becomes vital. 

Device-specific behaviors also create opportunities. In many industries, the frequency of AI Overviews varies between desktop and mobile, offering smart teams a chance to redirect spending to where visibility is clearer. 

Perhaps the most powerful lever is intent. AI Overviews do not treat every query equally. For example, informational queries may trigger summaries, while transactional queries still leave space for ads to close the deal.

Industry AI Overviews landscape: What the data reveals

Financial services: Why intent splits matter

Financial services show a stable presence of AI Overviews, but the real insight lies in the intent breakdown. Around 17% of queries are investigational, with users seeking information or context, while 14% are problem-solving, where searchers want specific answers or solutions.

For advertisers, this rules out a one-size-fits-all approach. Problem-solving queries call for strong, direct ad placements to capture conversions, while investigational queries require a different strategy: competing where AI Overviews provide context but stop short of delivering the final answer, and positioning ads as the natural next step.

Retail: Discount terms as a hidden goldmine

Adthena’s AI Overviews Dashboard for Retail UK shows a lower AI Overviews presence, with frequency reaching 6% for discount search terms. 

Despite low AI Overviews coverage, the search term “discount” is purely transactional, capturing users with high intent. That means ads positioned just below the AI Overviews block can still intercept high-value traffic at the moment of purchase. 

Travel: A pure opportunity sector

In travel, the picture looks different. If we look at the search term “last-minute deals,” AI Overviews appear only 32% of the time, and every one of those queries signals transactional intent. 

This makes the stakes crystal clear: AI Overviews intercept users who are ready to convert.

This creates urgency for travel brands. Protecting visibility through top ad placements is not optional; it’s essential for the remaining part of the booking funnel. 

The relative scarcity of AI Overviews also suggests that travel remains one of the industries with the greatest headroom for paid search to thrive, as we previously outlined in our Search Engine Land article, How Google AI Overviews are changing the PPC game. 

However, it’s worth noting that niche or specialist travel brands might experience a more significant impact from AI Overviews on their specific, high-value queries.

Healthcare: Elevated but logical AI Overviews presence

Healthcare stands apart, with AI Overviews appearing on more than half of all queries for the search term “treatment,” the highest penetration across industries. This makes sense given the nature of user behavior: 87% of healthcare queries are problem-solving in intent, and Google has leaned on AI Overviews to provide quick informational answers.

Healthcare advertisers should re-evaluate ad copy based on funnel stage and query type. For high AI Overviews queries, more targeted lower-funnel messaging that emphasizes trusted solutions, professional care, or product options will resonate once the informational need is met. On queries with lower AI Overviews presence, upper and mid-funnel ad copy can continue to capture attention earlier in the journey.

Automotive: A wide open landscape 

Automotive is perhaps the most surprising category. Despite being heavily research-driven, AI Overviews are almost absent, appearing on just 11% of any buying-related queries. For now, consumers are still moving through the research and purchase funnel without major AI disruption.

For car dealers and manufacturers, this represents a significant opportunity. By investing in paid visibility now, brands can lock in market share before the adoption of AI Overviews expands more aggressively into the sector.

Cross-industry insights

Search is evolving fast, and the presence of AI Overviews varies by industry and location. 

While some sectors see relatively low coverage, others experience higher visibility, highlighting the need for advertisers to monitor trends closely and adapt strategies to maintain performance.

How do I know if AI Overviews are impacting me?

Review your CTR

While a decline in CTR doesn’t necessarily mean the presence of AI Overviews, it could be a signal, especially if nothing else has changed in your campaigns.

Differentiate with smarter ad copy

• Many AI Overviews underrepresent brand nuances and emotional triggers. Ads that highlight trust, guarantees, or speed can stand out against AI’s generic summaries. 
• Another tactic is creating ad copy variants that counter the narratives of AI Overviews. For example, for the search term  “best credit cards for students,” dynamic keyword insertion could help you serve a message like “Rated #1 by Students—Compare Offers Today.”

Get ahead with new intelligence

If you’d like to see how AI Overviews are disrupting different industries, our free Market Share reports will soon include insights similar to those shown above. 

In the meantime, you can already use the existing reports to spot trends and competitor movements shaping your market.

Adthena’s AI Overviews Dashboard: Intent-based intelligence

These sample insights only scratch the surface. Adthena’s AI Overviews Dashboard reveals the intent patterns behind AI Overviews appearances and that’s where strategy becomes actionable. 

Each advertiser gets a completely tailored view of their competitive landscape. You can select specific search terms or categories and even see how AI Overviews impact the terms your competitors bid on.

Where other solutions only capture snapshots of AI Overviews once a week or a month, Adthena continuously indexes search results multiple times per day. This gives advertisers far more accurate and timely visibility into AI Overviews frequency, essential for those relying on Google Ads as a revenue driver, especially as ads begin surfacing directly within AI Overviews.

Unlock advanced AI Overviews intelligence

By tying AI Overviews visibility to intent, advertisers can prioritize spend, messaging, and positioning with precision. 

Without visibility into how AI is disrupting your PPC campaigns, revenue forecasts will be disrupted, performance gaps will remain unexplained, and brands will be left behind while competitors adapt faster.

Want to see how AI Overviews are impacting you? Book a demo today to see these insights tailored to your brand.

Google adds YouTube breakdowns for Demand Gen campaigns

Google updated reporting for Demand Gen campaigns, giving advertisers more granular visibility into how YouTube placements perform.

Why we care. Until now, Demand Gen reporting lumped all YouTube traffic together, making it hard for advertisers to know whether Shorts, In-Feed, or In-Stream placements were driving results. The new segmentation means marketers can finally align creatives with the formats that convert best.

What’s new.

• Network Segment update: Demand Gen campaigns now show separate KPIs for:
  • YouTube In-Stream
  • YouTube In-Feed
  • YouTube Shorts
• Campaign-level visibility: No extra setup needed – the breakdown is available directly in the campaign view.

The big picture. For many advertisers, Google Discover has been the strongest Demand Gen placement. But with YouTube usage shifting heavily toward Shorts and mobile-first formats, having clear performance data across each placement could reshape creative strategies and budget allocations.

First seen. This update was first spotted by Georgi Zayakov, senior consultant at Hutter Consult AG.

Facebook ad costs jump 21% in 2025, but still beat Google

Social ads remain small businesses’ go-to play despite rising costs. New benchmark data from WordStream LocaliQ shows Facebook’s average cost per lead (CPL) climbed 21% year over year to $27.66. By comparison, Google’s average CPL is $70.11.

By the numbers. Traffic campaigns:

• CTR: 1.71% average, up from 1.57% in 2024.
  • Highest: Shopping, Collectibles & Gifts (4.13%)
  • Lowest: Automotive repair (0.80%)
• CPC: $0.70 average, down 6.7% YoY.
  • Lowest: Shopping, Collectibles & Gifts ($0.34)
  • Highest: Finance & Insurance ($1.22)

By the numbers – Lead campaigns:

• CTR: 2.59% average, flat YoY.
  • Highest: Arts & Entertainment (3.92%)
  • Lowest: Dentists (1.05%)
• CPC: $1.92 average, slightly up from $1.88.
  • Highest: Dentists ($9.78)
  • Lowest: Restaurants & Food ($0.74)
• Conversion rate: 7.72% average, down from 8.67% last year.
  • Highest: Restaurants & Food (18.25%)
  • Lowest: Furniture (3.77%)
• CPL: $27.66 average, up 21% YoY.
  • Highest: Dentists ($76.71)
  • Lowest: Restaurants & Food ($3.16)

Why we care. Advertisers should care because this data shows where Facebook is still delivering outsized value and where it’s slipping. Traffic campaigns are proving more efficient than ever, with cheaper clicks and stronger engagement. That makes them a smart play for driving awareness and site visits at scale.

On the flip side, lead-generation campaigns are becoming more expensive and less reliable, with conversion rates falling across most industries. For marketers, this means it’s no longer enough to simply run Lead Ads and expect strong ROI — success now depends on tighter targeting, smarter creative, and a sharper focus on lead quality.

The big picture. Traffic campaigns are improving (higher CTR, lower CPC), lead campaigns are weakening (higher CPL, lower CVR) and inflation/competition/privacy rules are squeezing advertisers.

The divergence reflects broader economic and competitive pressures. Inflation and tighter household budgets are likely depressing demand in categories like home improvement and personal care, where conversion rates fell sharply. At the same time, advertising costs are climbing across the board as more businesses fight for the same attention in a crowded digital landscape.

What they’re saying. “Although CPC, CVR, and CPL have all taken a hit this year, CTR improving in spite of higher costs means consumers are still engaging with ads — a good sign for businesses.” — Tyler Mask, Director of Optimization Strategy at LocaliQ

What’s next. Marketers will need to sharpen their strategies in 2025. Experts caution against chasing cheap clicks alone and suggest putting more weight on lead quality over quantity.

Meta’s AI-powered Advantage+ tools can help streamline campaigns, but should be used carefully to avoid wasted spend or poor-quality leads.

A balanced mix of campaign objectives — traffic, branding, and leads — is increasingly important.

Above all, advertisers are urged to keep their larger business goals in mind instead of optimizing for a single metric, since performance trends are shifting across industries.

Full report. Facebook Ads Benchmarks 2025: NEW Data, Trends, & Insights for Your Industry

Google Ads adds new reporting for AI Max campaigns

Google rolled out deeper reporting for Search AI Max campaigns, giving advertisers fresh visibility into how its AI expands reach.

What’s new. Advertisers can now see two new metrics at the all keywords level:

• AI Mas expanded matches: Traffic from broad-match keywords generated by AI based on the ones you’ve added.
• AI Max expanded landing pages: Traffic from search queries triggered by your landing pages or assets, outside your keywords.

Why we care. Until now, advertisers could track which search terms AI Max generated and the landing pages users clicked through to. These new metrics go further, showing how Google’s AI is repurposing both keywords and assets to drive incremental traffic.

Bottom line. This means more visbility into how AI Max interprets PPC campaigns – and more data to evaluate whether the clicks it delivers are valuable.

First seen. We were alerted to this update by Aleksejus Podpruginas, senior Google Ads campaign specialist at Teleperformance.

Auditing and optimizing Google Ads in an age of limited data

As Google Ads leans further into AI-driven automation, savvy advertisers are looking for ways to stay in control – ensuring that automation truly drives efficient results.

Yet, the data available often tells only part of the story, with some advertisers reporting that 20%-80% of their ad spend is tied to hidden search terms.

So where should you focus when auditing a Google Ads account?

Let’s break down the areas where you still have real levers to influence performance.

Search term review

Even though a large chunk of search terms may be hidden, the terms that are accessible are invaluable to show the intent and relevancy of those who are viewing and clicking your ads. 

For those running Performance Max campaigns, Google has made moves toward transparency by now showing search terms.

When looking through search term reports, focus on:

• High-performing terms (low CPA/high conversion rate) that you aren’t bidding on as keywords.
• Low-performing terms (significant impressions/high CPA) that you should exclude as negative keywords.
• Irrelevant queries that you should exclude as negative keywords.
• Queries that don’t fit the theme of keywords in a particular ad group and would be better off in a different ad group with more relevant ad copy.

Auto-apply recommendations

Watch out for auto-apply recommendations that can make unwanted changes, such as adding assets or keywords. 

While some recommendations are more helpful than others (such as negative keyword conflicts), it’s best for attentive ad managers to leave auto-apply settings off and manually review through recommendations for any worthwhile suggestions.

Dig deeper: Top Google Ads recommendations you should always ignore, use, or evaluate

Device targeting

Look at the Devices section under Insights and Reports > When and where ads showed to see performance broken down by:

• Mobile phones.
• Computers.
• Tablets.
• TV screens. 

If you are using Target CPA bidding, device adjustments are the only bid adjustment type applicable, so note that this is one rare area of control you do have.

With enough data you may want to apply positive or negative adjustments for various devices based on results.

You can also apply device bid adjustments for a Maximize Clicks bid strategy. 

Other strategies (Target Impression Share, Maximize Conversions, and Maximize Conversion Value) let you set a -100% value for individual device types to exclude completely if performance is particularly bad for one category.

Geography

Review Matched Locations (also under When and where ads showed) to ensure that ads are only showing in your intended areas. 

Add location exclusions to help prevent unwanted spend where you don’t do business.

Additionally, check Location Options under campaign settings.

In most cases, you should select Presence to be more likely to reach individuals in or recently in your target locations. 

Otherwise, you’ll also be including those deemed by the system to be “showing interest” in the locations.

Dig deeper: 9 essential geotargeting tactics for Google Ads

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Ad group themes

While keyword-to-search-term matching is less precise than it used to be, account structure still matters. 

Attempting to go too narrow with SKAGs (single keyword ad groups) may be a losing battle, but you should still make sure that keywords fit the same theme within an ad group and relate to the ad copy.

For instance, if you are offering a service for building sand structures:

• “Professional sand castle construction” and “sand castle construction services” would fit in the same ad group, paired with ad copy for “Sand Castle Construction.” 
• But “sand cat sculpture” would fit better in a different ad group with more relevant copy.

Don’t obsess over breaking out ad groups for keywords that are synonyms or have different word order unless performance or intent are different enough to justify it. 

Microsegmenting often hurts performance today, as algorithms need ample data to make informed bidding decisions.

Placement review

Be sure to look through placement reports periodically and exclude unwanted placements. 

Here are a few ways to flag potential exclusions:

• Low performers with significant impressions and high CPA.
• Abnormally high CTR, which often indicates “junk” sites generating low-intent clicks.
• Websites and YouTube videos/channels geared to kids who may be using their parents’ devices.
• Questionable domains (e.g., ending in “.xyz”).
• Foreign characters that aren’t related to the language you’re running ads in.

Note that for Performance Max, you’ll need to exclude placements at the account level. 

Go to Content Suitability from the Tools menu and find Excluded placements under the Advanced settings dropdown. You can now add in negative placements.

Performance Max will also respect placement exclusion lists that are applied at account level.

With the addition of Search Partner placement visibility, you should also include any opted-in search campaigns for your review process.

Asset level performance

When running responsive search ads, you’re trusting Google to test various combinations and bias toward better performers over time. 

While you have little control beyond pinning assets in RSAs, review the data periodically for learnings that may inform future ad copy decisions.

Introducing performance data for RSA headlines has been another positive change made by Google. 

For Demand Gen ads and responsive display ads, you can view data for both text and image assets.

Asset usage

As Google experiments with new ad formats and asset combinations, you may feel you have less control over what’s shown. 

One way to stand out is by adding assets beyond the default headlines and descriptions. 

These highlight your key selling points while helping you capture more real estate in the SERP.

Here are the assets you should think through incorporating where they make sense for your brand:

• Sitelinks.
• Callout.
• Structured snippets.
• Promotion.
• Location.
• Message.
• Lead form.
• Call.
• Image.
• Logo/business name.
• Price.
• App.

Remember that many of these assets can also be applied to other campaign types besides search. 

Audiences

First-party data is vital to marketing in a modern ecosystem. 

• Use customer lists wisely: Sync your lists and check exclusions to avoid targeting existing customers where it doesn’t make sense, or use the campaign-level setting to target new customers only.
• Leverage your data: Use your lists to seed lookalike audiences in Demand Gen or as audience signals in Performance Max.
• Control audience expansion: If targeting customer match or remarketing lists, turn off audience expansion to keep spend focused on your intended audiences.

Conversion setup

Proper conversion tracking should be the fundamental starting point for any Google Ads account. 

Confirm that conversion tags fire on the correct actions using Google Tag Manager’s Preview Mode.

As privacy settings in iOS and various browsers may sometimes block conversion tags from firing, check for the implementation of Enhanced Conversions for Web and Enhanced Conversions for Leads to allow for more accurate tracking. 

These will ensure that you are matching conversion actions based on user information while also accounting for offline actions (with Enhanced Conversions for Leads).

Start taking action in your accounts

Whether you’re auditing a new account or reviewing an existing one, staying aligned with today’s evolving ad landscape is key.

AI-driven features can boost performance, but real success comes from knowing which levers you still control and monitoring the data that matters.

With the right checks and adjustments, you can make Google’s automation work for you – not the other way around.

Google AI Mode may become the default Google Search experience “soon.”

Logan Kilpatrick, lead product manager for Google, said on Friday that Google’s AI Mode will be the “default” search experience for Google Search “soon.” We know Google said AI Mode is the future of Google Search, Liz Reid, the head of Google Search announced that in May 2025. And now that may be happening soon.

What Google said. On Friday afternoon, Google’s Logan Kilpatrick, replied to a post on X asking AI Mode to become the default Google Search experience, saying “Soon.”

Here are those posts:

soon : )

— Logan Kilpatrick (@OfficialLoganK) September 5, 2025

Google AI Mode shortcut. This comes in response to Google’s announcement that google.com/ai now leads you directly to Google’s AI Mode. You no longer have to go to Google.com and click on the AI Mode tab.

Why we care. Google has been rapidly expanding access to AI Mode over the past few months. Google rolled out AI Mode in 180 countries and territories after recently expanding AI Mode in the UK, India and of course, the US.

What is AI Mode. AI Mode is a new tab within Google Search that brings you into a more AI-like interface. Google said AI Mode “is particularly helpful for queries where further exploration, reasoning, or comparisons are needed.” AI Mode lets you explore a topic and get comprehensive AI-based answers without you needing to do those comparisons and analyses yourself. We saw rumors of this news and it is finally officially here, for some of you.

AI Mode uses a “query fan-out” technique that issues multiple related searches concurrently across subtopics and multiple data sources and then brings those results together to provide a response. Google said using this query fan-out method provides searchers with a “more breadth and depth of information than a traditional search on Google.”

AI Mode supports searching with text, voice, and images through its multimodal capabilities. Plus, AI Mode offers the conversational follow-up questions like you’ve seen in AI Overviews and Gemini.

Tracking AI Mode. You won’t be able to easily track AI Mode queries and data in Search Console, despite that data being logged in Search Console. Google lumps it all together with normal search, despite it being a separate tab within Google.com.

Now that AI Mode is outside of Search Labs in India, you will see this data in Search Console, but it will just make it all super messy.

Why we care. AI Mode becoming the default can mean big changes to the future of SEO for many of us. And as I wrote before, while many of us like to complain and we honestly have good reason to be upset, complaining won’t help. We need to adapt and change and experiment. Experiment with these new experiences, keep on top of these changes happening in Google and at other AI and search companies. Then try new things and keep testing.

If you do not adapt, you will die. SEO won’t die, but you will become irrelevant.

The good news, SEOs are some of the best at adapting, embracing change and testing new strategies out. So you are all ready and equipped for the future of search.

Update: Maybe not. Robby Stein, VP at Google, said in response to this news that he wouldn’t read too much into the statement. He wrote, “wouldn’t read too much into this. we’re focusing on making it easy to access AI Mode for those who want it.”

wouldn’t read too much into this. we’re focusing on making it easy to access AI Mode for those who want it

— Robby Stein (@rmstein) September 7, 2025

Gating in an AI world: What to hide, what to show, and why

For as long as marketers have been chasing leads online, the debate over gated versus ungated content has raged. 

Entire conference sessions, whitepapers, and LinkedIn flame wars have been dedicated to the question:

• Should you hide your best stuff behind a form fill, or give it away for free to maximize search rankings and reach?

The problem is that most of this debate hasn’t caught up with the new realities of AI-driven search.

In a world where visibility in Google’s AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, and Perplexity directly shapes brand authority, hiding the wrong content behind a gate doesn’t just cost you some top-of-funnel visibility. 

It makes you invisible in the layer of search that now matters most: the AI answer layer.

AI can’t and won’t fill out a form or subscribe to your paywall. 

If your content is gated, the models can’t see it, can’t cite it, and can’t use it to represent your brand in synthesized answers.

This article aims to reframe the gating debate for 2025 and beyond.

Instead of a binary yes/no, I’ll offer a decision framework for modern gating:

• Always ungated: The materials AI and humans alike rely on to understand your value proposition.
• Conditionally gated: Feeper research, templates, and assets – but only after exposing enough to earn citations and trust.
• Never gated: The basics that establish credibility, authority, and discoverability.

By mapping each type of content to lead quality, brand visibility, and AI presence, you’ll have a clear rubric for what to hide, what to show, and why.

Why AI changes the gating conversation

Traditionally, the gating decision was framed as a trade-off between visibility and lead quality.

• Ungated: More eyeballs, less lead capture.
• Gated: Fewer visitors, but more “serious” form fills.

AI-driven search has come along and moved the goalposts. 

These systems no longer index the whole page and show a URL.

Instead, they retrieve and synthesize content sentence by sentence based on relevance and clarity.

That means if the only version of your report lives behind a form or your insights sit behind a paywall, they effectively don’t exist in the new search ecosystem.

Even worse, if your competitors ungate their abstracts, summaries, and key findings, their content becomes the default citation source for AI Overviews and Copilot answers. 

They become the recognized authority, while your gated masterpiece stays invisible.

AI doesn’t reward the best-hidden asset. It rewards the most visible, extractable, and trustworthy one.

Dig deeper: Driving traffic to gated content and paywalled sites: SEO tips + examples

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Always ungated: Your brand’s ‘understand me’ layer

Some content should never be hidden. Not from users, and not from machines. This is the content that establishes who you are, what you do, and why you’re credible.

Examples include:

• Summaries and abstracts: AI pulls these directly into answers. If your executive summary is locked up, you won’t be cited.
• FAQs and definitions: Frequently asked questions and concise definitions are prime AI fodder.
• Pricing and product basics: If you hide this, AI will default to third-party sources – which might not be accurate.
• Author bios and credentials: Ungating author information is a credibility multiplier. E-E-A-T/QC systems look for clear expertise.

These assets act like your brand’s knowledge graph in miniature. 

Gating them is like pulling your business card out of circulation and then wondering why no one calls.

Ungated basics ensure that both AI and humans can understand, trust, and represent you correctly.

Conditionally gated: The ‘earn the right’ layer

This is where nuance comes in. 

There are absolutely assets you may want to gate – but gating should come after you’ve earned visibility and trust.

Think:

• Research reports.
• Templates and calculators.
• In-depth guides.
• Case studies.

The trick is not to slam the gate at the headline. 

Instead, provide enough public-facing content to establish credibility and allow AI to cite you.

For example:

• Ungate the abstract, methodology, and key findings of a research report. Gate the full dataset and deep analysis.
• Ungate a screenshot and explanation of a template. Gate the full downloadable file.
• Ungate high-level insights from a case study. Gate the step-by-step breakdown or full deck.

This “teaser ungating” approach achieves two things:

• AI inclusion: Models can see, parse, and cite your key takeaways.
• Lead quality: Serious prospects will still exchange information for the full version.

It’s a balance, but err on the side of ungating enough to establish authority. 

If you don’t, someone else’s partially visible research will be the one cited instead.

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What about paywalls?

Yes – paywalls count as gating. 

From the perspective of both humans and AI, if the content isn’t visible without logging in or paying, it’s gated.

There are two major consequences:

• For most brands: A hard paywall means your content won’t be included in AI Overviews or Copilot, because the models can’t access it. Unless you negotiate a licensing deal with OpenAI, Google, or Microsoft (as a few elite publishers have done), your work is invisible.
• For media companies: Some can get away with it because their authority is so strong that snippets, summaries, and syndicated content exist elsewhere. But for everyone else, paywalls without visible abstracts or teasers are a recipe for disappearance.

If you must use a paywall, pair it with ungated summaries, abstracts, and key data points.

That way, AI systems (and human searchers) still see enough to recognize your authority and cite you.

Beware of soft gates and accidental gating

Not all gates are intentional. Sometimes, brands inadvertently hide their most important content behind what I call soft gates:

• PDFs that require clicking through a modal or JavaScript event.
• “Read more” toggles that collapse key details.
• Accordions or tabbed content where the default state hides the text.
• Inline lead-gen overlays that must be dismissed before accessing the content.

From a human perspective, these seem minor – just one extra click.

However, from the perspective of AI systems, they’re effectively gates.

Large language models:

• Don’t mimic human behavior at inference time. 
• Don’t open toggles, expand tabs, or click “download” buttons. 
• Retrieve and parse only what is visible in the rendered HTML at page load.

That means your “get to know me” content – the very material that establishes credibility and authority – may be invisible if it’s hidden behind a collapsed section or accessible only through a PDF download.

The fix is simple but critical:

• Surface summaries inline before linking to full PDFs.
• Keep key takeaways visible by default.
• Avoid making trust signals (like bios or pricing) conditional on interaction.

If the AI can’t see it without “acting like a user,” it won’t use it, and in the current landscape, invisibility is the same as irrelevance.

Never gated: The ‘credibility’ layer

Some information should never be behind a wall.

Gating it frustrates users and undermines your authority signals with search engines and AI models.

• Pricing: If buyers can’t see your pricing, they’ll turn to competitor pages, aggregators, or (worse) AI-generated guesses.
• Author and company credentials: Gating this is like telling AI, “We’re not sure we want you to know who we are.” It’s a bad idea.
• Basic product specs or service descriptions: Essential for visibility in product-related AI queries.

Hiding this type of content actively damages your E-E-A-T footprint. 

If AI can’t verify who you are, what you sell, or why you’re credible, you’re far less likely to be surfaced.

Think of this as the table stakes of trust. 

You don’t win by hiding them – you lose.

Mapping gating to outcomes

Here’s a simple way to visualize the impact of gating choices:

When in doubt, ask:

• Does gating this improve lead quality or revenue enough to offset the loss of AI visibility? 

If the answer is no, ungate it.

A practical checklist for deciding what to gate

Before slapping a form fill, paywall, or modal on your next asset, walk through this checklist:

• Will this content build trust if visible?
  • If yes, ungate it. Trust-building content is too valuable to hide.
• Does AI need to “see” this to recognize us as authoritative?
  • If yes, ungate it – at least partially.
• Can I provide a teaser version that earns citations without giving everything away?
  • If yes, use conditional gating.
• Would gating this undermine our E-E-A-T footprint?
  • If yes, don’t gate. You can’t afford to weaken your credibility signals.
• Is there enough ungated content elsewhere to establish authority?
  • If your entire site is walled off, you’ll vanish. Balance is key.

Bringing it all together

The old gating debate framed it as a binary: hide everything or give everything away. 

But in the AI-driven search era, the choice isn’t between free vs. lead-gen. It’s between visible vs. invisible.

AI Overviews, Copilot, and Perplexity are shaping how users discover and trust brands. 

If your best content is locked away – behind a form, a paywall, or even a toggle – AI can’t cite you. 

And if AI can’t cite you, you’re absent from the very narratives shaping search results.

The modern strategy is layered:

• Ungate the “understand me” content (summaries, FAQs, bios, pricing).
• Tease the “earn the right” content (research, templates, guides) so both AI and humans can see enough to trust you.
• Never gate credibility basics (pricing, credentials, specs).
• Be strategic with paywalls: They can generate subscription revenue, but only if they are paired with visible abstracts and context.
• Eliminate soft gates: Don’t let JavaScript, toggles, or PDF-only assets hide the very signals that make you worth citing.

In short: don’t lock away the very signals that make your brand worth citing.

Dig deeper: AI visibility: An execution problem in the making

Visibility is the new currency

For years, marketers justified gating with the phrase: “If they want it badly enough, they’ll fill out the form.”

The problem is: AI-driven search doesn’t want it badly enough. 

It will not fill out a form, it will not subscribe to your paywall, and it won’t click “expand more” to read the details.

That doesn’t mean lead-gen and subscriptions are dead. It means the path to leads and revenue now runs through visibility first. 

Build trust, earn citations, and show up in AI answers. Then invite users deeper with gated extras once your authority is established.

In 2025 and beyond, the brands that survive and thrive will be the ones that master this balance. 

Not by just hiding, but by knowing exactly what to hide, what to show, and why.

How generative engines define and rank trustworthy content

Generative AI has quickly shifted from experimental novelty to everyday utility – and with that shift comes growing scrutiny. 

One of the most pressing questions is how these systems decide which content to trust and elevate, and which to ignore.

The concern is real: a Columbia University study found that in 200 tests across top AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini, more than 60% of outputs lacked accurate citations. 

Meanwhile, the rise of advanced “reasoning” models has only intensified the problem, with reports of AI hallucinations increasing.

As credibility challenges mount, engines are under pressure to prove they can consistently surface reliable information. 

For publishers and marketers, that raises a critical question:

What exactly do generative engines consider trustworthy content, and how do they rank it?

This article unpacks:

• The signals generative engines use to assess credibility – accuracy, authority, transparency, and freshness.
• How those signals shape ranking decisions today and in the future.

What is trustworthy content?

Generative systems reduce a complex idea – trust – to technical criteria. 

Observable signals like citation frequency, domain reputation, and content freshness act as proxies for the qualities people typically associate with credible information. 

The long-standing SEO framework of E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) still applies. 

But now, those traits are being approximated algorithmically as engines decide what qualifies as trustworthy at scale.

In practice, this means engines elevate a familiar set of qualities that have long defined reliable content – the same traits marketers and publishers have focused on for years.

Characteristics of trustworthy content

AI engines today are looking to replicate familiar markers of credibility across four traits:

• Accuracy: Content that reflects verifiable facts, supported by evidence or data, and avoids unsubstantiated claims.
• Authority: Information that comes from recognized institutions, established publishers, or individuals with demonstrated expertise in the subject.
• Transparency: Sources that are clearly identified, with proper attribution and context, that make it possible to trace information back to its origin.
• Consistency over time: Reliability that is demonstrated across multiple articles or updates, not just in isolated instances, showing a track record of credibility.

Trust and authority: Opportunities for smaller sites

Authority remains one of the clearest trust signals, which can lead AI engines to favor established publishers and recognized domains. 

Articles from major media organizations were cited at least 27% of the time, according to a July study of more than 1 million citations across models like GPT-4o, Gemini Pro, and Claude Sonnet.

For recency-driven prompts – such as “updates on new data privacy regulations in the U.S.” – that share rose to 49%, with outlets like Reuters and Axios frequently referenced.

AI Overviews are three times more likely to link to .gov websites compared to standard SERPs, per Pew Research Center’s analysis.

All of that said, “authority” isn’t defined by brand recognition alone. 

Generative engines are increasingly recognizing signals of first-hand expertise – content created by subject-matter experts, original research, or individuals sharing lived experience. 

Smaller brands and niche publishers that consistently demonstrate this kind of expertise can surface just as strongly, and sometimes more persuasively, than legacy outlets that merely summarize others’ expertise.

In practice, authority in AI search comes down to demonstrating verifiable expertise and relevance – not just name recognition. 

And because engines’ weighting of authority is rooted in their training data, understanding how that data is curated and filtered is the next critical piece.

Dig deeper: How to build and retain brand trust in the age of AI

The role of training data in trust assessment

How generative engines define “trust” starts long before a query is entered. 

The foundation is laid in the data they’re trained on, and the way that data is filtered and curated directly shapes which kinds of content are treated as reliable.

Pretraining datasets

Most large language models (LLMs) are exposed to massive corpora of text that typically include:

• Books and academic journals: Peer-reviewed, published sources that anchor the model in formal research and scholarship.
• Encyclopedias and reference materials: Structured, general knowledge that provides broad factual coverage.
• News archives and articles: Especially from well-established outlets, used to capture timeliness and context.
• Public domain and open-access repositories: Materials like government publications, technical manuals, and legal documents.

Just as important are the types of sources generally excluded, such as:

• Spam sites and link farms.
• Low-quality blogs and content mills.
• Known misinformation networks or manipulated content.

Data curation and filtering

Raw pretraining data is only the starting point.

Developers use a combination of approaches to filter out low-credibility material, including:

• Human reviewers applying quality standards (similar to the role of quality raters in traditional search).
• Algorithmic classifiers trained to detect spam, low-quality signals, or disinformation.
• Automated filters that down-rank or remove harmful, plagiarized, or manipulated content.

This curation process is critical because it sets the baseline for which signals of trust and authority a model is capable of recognizing once it’s fine-tuned for public use.

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How generative engines rank and prioritize trustworthy sources

Once a query is entered, generative engines apply additional layers of ranking logic to decide which sources surface in real time. 

These mechanisms are designed to balance credibility with relevance and timeliness. 

The signals of content trustworthiness we covered earlier, like accuracy and authority, matter. So do: 

• Citation frequency and interlinking.
• Recency and update frequency.
• Contextual weighting.

Citation frequency and interlinking

Engines don’t treat sources in isolation. Content that appears across multiple trusted documents gains added weight, increasing its chances of being cited or summarized. This kind of cross-referencing makes repeated signals of credibility especially valuable.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently underscored this dynamic by reminding us that Google doesn’t manually decide which pages are authoritative. 

It relies on signals like how often reliable pages link back – a principle dating back to PageRank that continues to shape more complex ranking models today.

While he was speaking about search broadly, the same logic applies to generative systems, which depend on cross-referenced credibility to elevate certain sources.

Recency and update frequency

Content freshness is also critical, especially when trying to appear in Google AI Overviews.

That’s because AI Overviews are built upon Google’s core ranking systems, which include freshness as a ranking component. 

Actively maintained or recently updated content is more likely to be surfaced, especially for queries tied to evolving topics like regulations, breaking news, or new research findings.

Contextual weighting

Ranking isn’t one-size-fits-all. Technical questions may favor scholarly or site-specific sources, while news-driven queries rely more on journalistic content.

This adaptability allows engines to adjust trust signals based on user intent, creating a more nuanced weighting system that aligns credibility with context.

Dig deeper: How generative information retrieval is reshaping search

Internal trust metrics and AI reasoning

Even after training and query-time ranking, engines still need a way to decide how confident they are in the answers they generate. 

This is where internal trust metrics come in – scoring systems that estimate the likelihood a statement is accurate. 

These scores influence which sources are cited and whether a model opts to hedge with qualifiers instead of giving a definitive response.

As noted earlier, authority signals and cross-referencing play a role here. So does: 

• Confidence scoring: Models assign internal probabilities to the statements they generate. A high score signals the model is “more certain,” while a low score may trigger safeguards, like disclaimers or fallback responses.
• Threshold adjustments: Confidence thresholds aren’t static. For queries with sparse or low-quality information, engines may lower their willingness to produce a definitive answer – or shift toward citing external sources more explicitly.
• Alignment across sources: Models compare outputs across multiple sources and weight responses more heavily when there is agreement. If signals diverge, the system may hedge or down-rank those claims.

Challenges in determining content trustworthiness

Despite the scoring systems and safeguards built into generative engines, evaluating credibility at scale remains a work in progress. 

Challenges to overcome include:

Source imbalance

Authority signals often skew toward large, English-language publishers and Western outlets. 

While these domains carry weight, overreliance on them can create blind spots – overlooking local or non-English expertise that may be more accurate – and narrow the range of perspectives surfaced.

Dig deeper: The web is multilingual – so why does search still speak just a few languages?

Evolving knowledge

Truth is not static.

Scientific consensus shifts, regulations change, and new research can quickly overturn prior assumptions. 

What qualifies as accurate one year may be outdated the next, which makes algorithmic trust signals less stable than they appear. 

Engines need mechanisms to continually refresh and recalibrate credibility markers, or risk surfacing obsolete information.

Opaque systems

Another challenge is transparency. AI companies rarely disclose the full mix of training data or the exact weighting of trust signals. 

For users, this opacity makes it difficult to understand why certain sources appear more often than others. 

For publishers and marketers, it complicates the task of aligning content strategies with what engines actually prioritize.

The next chapter of trust in generative AI

Looking ahead, engines are under pressure to become more transparent and accountable. Early signs suggest several directions where improvements are already taking shape.

Verifiable sourcing

Expect stronger emphasis on outputs that are directly traceable back to their origins. 

Features like linked citations, provenance tracking, and source labeling aim to help users confirm whether a claim comes from a credible document and spot when it does not.

Feedback mechanisms

Engines are also beginning to incorporate user input more systematically.

Corrections, ratings, and flagged errors can feed back into model updates, allowing systems to recalibrate their trust signals over time.

This creates a loop where credibility isn’t just algorithmically determined, but refined through real-world use.

Open-source and transparency initiatives

Finally, open-source projects are pushing for greater visibility into how trust signals are applied. 

By exposing training data practices or weighting systems, these initiatives give researchers and the public a clearer picture of why certain sources are elevated. 

That transparency can help build accountability across the industry.

Dig deeper: How to get cited by AI: SEO insights from 8,000 AI citations

Turning trust signals into strategy

Trust in generative AI isn’t determined by a single factor. 

It emerges from the interplay of curated training data, real-time ranking logic, and internal confidence metrics – all filtered through opaque systems that continue to evolve.

For brands and publishers, the key is to align with the signals engines already recognize and reward:

• Prioritize transparency: Cite sources clearly, attribute expertise, and make it easy to trace claims back to their origin.
• Showcase expertise: Highlight content created by true subject-matter experts or first-hand practitioners, not just summaries of others’ work.
  Keep content fresh: Regularly update pages to reflect the latest developments, especially on time-sensitive topics.
• Build credibility signals: Earn citations and interlinks from other trusted domains to reinforce authority.
• Engage with feedback loops: Monitor how your content surfaces in AI platforms, and adapt based on errors, gaps, or new opportunities.

The path forward is clear: focus on content that is transparent, expert-driven, and reliably maintained. 

By learning how AI defines trust, brands can sharpen their strategies, build credibility, and improve their odds of being the source that generative engines turn to first.

SEO in the age of AI: Becoming the trusted answer

For years, I’ve updated my working definition of SEO to capture how the discipline has evolved. 

Here’s how those definitions have changed over time:

• 1998 to 2023
  • SEO is “the art and science of persuading search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo to recommend your content as the best solution to a user’s problem.”
• By 2023
  • As the landscape expanded, SEO became “the art and science of persuading recommendation engines – including Google, Bing, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Siri, Alexa, and Copilot – to present your solution as the best in the market.”
• In 2025
  • The definition has become simpler – and broader. Call it search engine optimization, generative engine optimization (GEO), answer engine optimization, or AI assistive engine optimization. Today, they have all converged into one unified discipline:
    • “The art and science of engineering a brand’s entire digital ecosystem to educate AI assistive engines, ensuring the brand becomes their most trusted, logical, and go-to answer at every stage of the conversational acquisition funnel.”

This redefinition raises an essential question: if SEO has converged into educating AI assistive engines, where should we look to understand how these systems learn?

Why Google still sets the blueprint for the AI era

Although Google may seem to be losing ground in online search and research, it remains the best ecosystem for understanding where AI assistive engines are heading.

Why?

Because it’s the only major player with all three pillars of the algorithmic trinity: 

• A dynamic web index from traditional search.
• A factual knowledge graph.
• A large language model (LLM) that can communicate.

Our role is to create clarity. 

Think of AI as a child – eager to please, but easily confused. 

It learns from your digital footprint and forms its answers, recommendations, and suggestions through three lenses: 

• What’s current (search results).
• What’s factual (the knowledge graph).
• What’s conversational (the LLM).

The curriculum to teach is threefold: conversation, knowledge, and up-to-date information.

Dig deeper: Generative AI is changing search, but Google is still where people start: Study

How to educate AI

To succeed in this new paradigm, brands need a structured, repeatable methodology. 

Traditional, channel-specific tactics won’t hold up because AI learns from the entire digital ecosystem.

This methodology rests on three sequential pillars:

• Understandability: Machines must clearly and unambiguously grasp who the brand is, what it does, and who it serves. This is the foundation.
• Credibility: The brand must prove it is the best solution by demonstrating notability, expertise, authority, trustworthiness, and transparency across the ecosystem.
• Deliverability: The brand’s message must appear with the right information, in the right format, at the right time, wherever its audience is active.

Together, these three phases build a consistent digital presence that:

• Educates the algorithmic trinity.
• Fosters long-term algorithmic trust.
• Positions the brand at the top of the algorithmic mind.

The conversational acquisition funnel: Your new curriculum

Every day, AI assistive engines like Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Copilot have trillions of niche conversations with billions of people who trust them. 

These engines now cover every stage of the Conversational Acquisition Funnel – explicit, implicit, and ambient research – and every prospect will engage with their version of your funnel at some point.

Your job is to win at every stage by being top of algorithmic mind, whichever engine your ideal prospect prefers.

Top of the funnel: Clarity makes you the answer

At the awareness stage, how does a new client discover you?

Google’s recent cleanup of ambiguous thing entities shows that AI assistive engines are unlikely to introduce a vaguely defined concept into a specific conversation. They prefer a recognized expert.

To become the clear answer here, you must provide relevant content in the right format and be the trusted entity on a specific topic (topical authority). 

When AI is confident in your expertise and you feed it the content it needs, it will prioritize your solution – and advocate for you at the top of the funnel. 

Awareness is the deliverability phase.

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Middle of the funnel: Clarity makes you the credible choice

At the consideration stage, Google’s focus on unifying person entities is telling. 

When a user is evaluating options, AI is asking: 

• Who is speaking? 
• Why should I trust them? 

An entity with a confused or multi-typed classification is at a disadvantage. It lacks the clear authority to be presented as a trustworthy option. 

To earn the recommendation here, AI must have absolute confidence in your credibility, earned through a clearly defined entity and reinforced by undeniable N-E-E-A-T-T signals. 

Consideration is the credibility phase.

Bottom of the funnel: Clarity closes the deal

At the decision stage, the stakes are highest – the perfect (money) click.

When a potential client asks, “Who should I choose?” you need to be firmly established as the ultimate choice.

To be the trusted choice at this stage, your brand must be factually and consistently defined across the web. 

That clarity allows AI to confidently present you as the solution – reinforced with a trust-building summary and a direct link to the money page.

Decision is the understandability phase.

The new job description for SEOs: Educators

Google’s June 2025 Knowledge Graph update was a call to arms for clarity – and it changes our job description. 

Our role is no longer about persuading algorithms with tactics, but about fundamentally educating them.

This is the greatest opportunity since Google won the search engine wars, when we could finally focus on one engine instead of half a dozen. 

Today, brands that embrace their role as teachers will build a deep, resilient moat of algorithmic trust.

Those brands will stay top of the algorithmic mind – and the ones AI engines confidently recommend again and again.

EU fines Google $3.5 billion over anti-competitive ad-tech business

The European Commission fined Google 2.95 billion euros ($3.45 billion) for its dominance and anti-competitive ad-tech business. The EU Commission accused Google of unfairly favoring its own display advertising technology services and told Google to end these practices.

What’s happening. The Commission also ordered Google to “bring these self-preferencing practices to an end” and “implement measures to cease its inherent conflicts of interest along the adtech supply chain.” The company has 60 days to respond.

• “Today’s decision shows that Google abused its dominant position in adtech harming publishers, advertisers, and consumers. This behaviour is illegal under EU antitrust rules,” EU competition chief Teresa Ribera said.

The backstory. This comes after a 2018 decision where the EU Commission charged Google with violating the European Union’s antitrust laws and suggested that “mandatory divestment” is the only way the search engine can resolve the issue.

Google’s response. “It imposes an unjustified fine and requires changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, the company’s global head of regulatory affairs, said in a statement.

• Google said the decision was “wrong” and that it would appeal. Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s global head of regulatory affairs, called the fine “unjustified” and said “it requires changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money”.

Why we care. Will this lead to Google breaking up parts of its ad-tech business or other business units. Will this result in any changes for advertisers? It is unknown. What we saw with the Google US monopoly ruling was very little, if any, action taken against Google as a result of that ruling.

More coverage. See Techmeme.

Trump. After this news came out, President Donald Trump threatened to launch a trade investigation to “nullify” what he said were discriminatory penalties levied by Europe against U.S. tech firms such as Google.

Google Ads API to switch to a monthly release cycle

Google will switch to a monthly release cycle for the Google Ads API release schedule. This will result in more frequent releases, with more updates more often. This new release schedule begins in 2026.

The new schedule. The new schedule will have three to four major releases and several minor releases. This is the new schedule:

Version	Planned Release Type*	Projected launch*	Projected sunset*
V23	Major	January 2026	February 2027
V23_1	Minor	February 2026	February 2027
V23_2	Minor	March 25, 2026	February 2027
V24	Major	April 2026	May 2027
V24_1	Minor	May 2026	May 2027
V24_2	Minor	June 2026	May 2027
V25	Major	July 2026	August 2027
V25_1	Minor	August 2026	August 2027
V25_2	Minor	September 2026	August 2027
V26	Major	October 2026	November 2027
V26_1 **	Minor	November 2026	November 2027

What Google said. Here is what Google wrote:

We will increase the number of major releases from 3 per year to 4 per year. The remaining releases will be minor releases, only adding incremental new non-breaking features. We have also adjusted the sunset schedules to avoid extra version migrations that will burden the API developers. Each major release will now be available for one year after the release.

With the new timeline, the tentative release schedule for 2026 will be as shown in the following table. Please keep in mind that these dates are only estimates and may be adjusted going forward. Additionally, releases may be added, removed, or switched between major and minor versions.

Sunset schedule. Google also its tentative sunset schedule for 2026:

Version	Projected sunset*
V19	February 2026
V20	June 2026
V21	August 2026
V22	October 2026

Why we care. If you use the Google Ads API within your own custom software or in a third-party software application, you can expect to have access to more features and changes more frequently.

This may help you manage your campaigns in more ways in 2026.

In memoriam: Alan Bleiweiss has passed away

The search marketing community today is remembering Alan Bleiweiss, a veteran SEO consultant known for his detailed forensic site audits, sharp wit, and tireless mentorship.

Bleiweiss passed away Aug. 22, but news of his death was only revealed publicly last night.

As I’ve written before about Bleiweiss, he was known for being selfless, friendly, insightful, caring, positive, helpful, and a true advocate for the industry.

Bleiweiss had been active in digital marketing since the mid-1990s, carving out a unique specialty in what he called “forensic site audits.” Since 2002, he built a reputation for digging into the smallest details to uncover technical and strategic issues that could impact how sites performed in Google’s search results.

Over the course of his career, he performed more than 60 “brutally honest” audits a year for medium and enterprise-level companies, with notable clients including NBC Universal, Disney, Petco, and the ACLU.

Mentor, friend, and advocate

Beyond his client work, Bleiweiss was a prominent and generous voice in the SEO community. He regularly offered guidance on social media and industry forums, often challenging misinformation and calling for higher standards in SEO advice.

Here’s what Susan Wenograd said in 2017, when she nominated him for recognition in Search Engine Roundtable.

• “Alan has been a tireless mentor and friend to me. He has helped me talk through dealing with stressful situations, and given me loads of encouragement and confidence to pitch, speak, and write as much as possible. All of his advice has been instrumental in my career,”

Kelsey Jones, another industry peer, said:

• “Alan has always been friendly, insightful, positive, and helpful. I regularly look to him for his insight and I know he doesn’t hesitate to help others in the industry. I know he cares a lot about this industry and does his best to promote and educate others.”

A voice for truth in SEO

Bleiweiss was known for his no-nonsense approach to advice. He often warned peers about the dangers of oversimplifying SEO.

• “Understand that your very short answer is RARELY valid in SEO as a stand-alone answer,” Bleiweiss said in 2017. “SEO is complex, scale factors matter, multiple algorithms matter, individual niche markets and keyword topical hubs matter, and so much more.”

His philosophy centered on responsibility: only give advice when you have the experience and context to do so, and be clear about the limitations of your perspective.

Life and legacy

Bleiweiss was most recently an SEO consultant at Alan Bleiweiss Consulting. He did SEO and web development for 30 years.

He was also formerly the Director of Search Services at Click2Rank, Senior Project Manager of Development and SEO at WebSight Design Inc., and Director of Web Development for ANT Internet Computer / Associates.

Bleiweiss also contributed many articles during his career and spoke at numerous conferences, including SMX Advanced.

When asked what he wanted to be known for in the SEO space, Bleiweiss simply said he hoped to be remembered as “that guy” – leaving us to interpret what that meant.

I had the chance to interview Alan in 2020, when I was at SEJ. You can listen to that nearly 90-minute interview in Sustainable SEO, Forensic Audits, Top Tools & More with Alan Bleiweiss.

I also did a special SEO “game show” with Bleiweiss and Jamie Indigo back in 2020. And I had no idea this video was online. Enjoy!

Industry reactions

Wenograd first shared the news of Bleiweiss’ passing away via Facebook:

It breaks my heart to post this, but my dear friend Alan Bleiweiss passed away on August 22nd.

After many years of heart problems he had treated and fought hard to overcome, his body finally had enough. I’m grateful he passed peacefully – he deserved to, for all the peace and comfort he gave others when they needed it.

Alan was one of my closest friends, and a light in my life. It’s been surreal to grieve over a person who would normally be the first one I’d call when something like this happens.

His family has asked me to be the designated point person for handling financial contributions, and I’m honored to help.

I will be setting up a GoFundMe this week I will post here. All funds and donations should be routed there only.

Alan’s will also requested donations be made to Make-A-Wish – any unused funds for his end-of-life arrangements from the GoFundMe will be donated there by his family, in his name.

• Update: The Alan Bleiweiss GoFundMe is now live.

Dr. Pete Meyers wrote on LinkedIn:

“He was passionate (occasionally to a fault), knowledgeable, but the thing I’ll remember most is that he was generous without hesitation. He dropped everything to be with Dana and Ed during her last days, and he cared deeply about bringing the community together in any way he could, even when he barely had the energy to keep his own practice running. Our industry’s reputation can take a beating sometimes, but it holds a deep thread of generosity, and Alan will be sorely missed.”

Victoria Shepherd wrote on LinkedIn:

“So sorry to hear about the passing of Alan Bleiweiss. He was another great mentor and teacher, and I’ll always fondly remember the time he let me video record him doing an audit while Lisa Buyer and I carefully watched.

Alan was also behind the legendary Pubcon Epic Dinners, an event that brought countless laughs, smiles, and unforgettable moments to the SEO community.

He will be deeply missed. Sending love to everyone grieving his loss.”

Laura Lee wrote on LinkedIn:

Very sad to hear of the passing of Alan Bleiweiss. He was very kind to me when I was beginning in SEO — something I’ll always remember.

In an industry where tensions run high at times, kindness is not a given, and it truly makes a huge difference.

Barry Adams wrote on LinkedIn:

If you’re in SEO and regularly perform in-depth SEO audits (and I don’t mean tool-generated reports, but actual data-gathering and analysis yourself), you probably owe a debt of gratitude to Alan.

His approach to SEO auditing and his sharing of knowledge and insights made the whole SEO industry better.

Back in 2016 when I met Alan for the first time at Pubcon, he very generously offered to share his SEO audit approach and template with me. That helped me elevate my own SEO auditing to higher levels.

Aside from being a superb SEO who helped push the industry forward, he was also a very vocal social media user who fought hard for causes he believed in. That got him banned more than once, but I couldn’t help but admire his outspokenness and passion.

I’m gonna miss him.

Apple to launch AI search for Siri in 2026: Report

Apple is preparing its own AI-powered search engine. Known internally as World Knowledge Answers, it will debut next spring as part of a long-awaited Siri overhaul, Bloomberg reported.

• The goal: Transform Siri into an “answer engine,” pulling information from across the web in a style similar to Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity.

The upgrade. It will go well beyond Siri’s current fact-checking. Apple’s new system will generate summaries that blend text, images, video and local results.

• The company plans to expand it to Safari and Spotlight, giving Apple multiple footholds in everyday search.

Behind the scenes. Apple will rely partly on Google’s Gemini AI model for its new search experience.

• Siri’s overhaul, built around large language models (LLMs), also includes a new planner and summarizer to make responses more conversational and accurate.
• Apple considered adding a standalone chatbot-style app, but for now is weaving the search into Siri and core iOS features.

Why we care. Apple’s push into AI search could reshape how billions of queries are handled on iPhones. Visibility for brands and businesses won’t just depend on Google rankings – it will depend on whether and how Apple’s AI systems surface and summarize your content in voice and web answers.

The report. Apple Plans AI-Powered Web Search Tool for Siri to Rival OpenAI, Perplexity (subscription required)

How to use Google Ads Auction Insights to outrank competitors

One of the most powerful tools for competitive intel sits right inside your Google Ads account: the Auction Insights report.

As long as you’re spending money on Search and Shopping, you can get an instant look into how your search visibility stacks up against theirs. Plus, it’s quite common for your “auction competitors” to be slightly different from who you might consider your “real world” competitors.

Let’s explore the metrics and use cases for the Auction Insights report, so you can understand what this data means and how you can use it to gain a strategic advantage.

What is the Auction Insights Report?

The Google Ads Auction Insights report shows you how you’re showing up in search results versus how your competitors are showing up on your search terms. It’s a quick and easy way to get a pulse on your competitive landscape.

To find it, go to Insights and Reports, then select Auction Insights. You can view this report at the account, campaign, ad group, or keyword level for Search, Shopping, and Performance Max campaigns.

Your search impression share needs to be at least 10% for this report to generate. Plus, the Auction Insights report is only applicable for Google Search inventory, not Search Partners inventory.

Auction Insights metrics explained

The Auction Insights report provides different metrics depending on whether you’re looking at Search or Shopping inventory.

You’ll see three metrics (Impression Share, Overlap Rate, Outranking Share) for both Search and Shopping inventory. The other three metrics (Position Above Rate, Top of Page Rate, Absolute Top of Page Rate) only apply to Search inventory.

Impression Share

Impression Share is the percentage of impressions you actually received out of the total impressions you were eligible to receive.

For example, if your campaign had the opportunity to serve 1000 impressions on your keywords, but only served 100, your impression share would be 10%. What happened to the other 900 impressions? You either lost the auction due to a limited budget, lost the auction due to low ad rank, or both. While the Auction Insights report won’t tell you which one, you can add those columns to your Campaign overview to isolate the culprit.

The beauty of checking your Impression Share in the Auction Insights report is that it doesn’t just tell you your impression share, it tells you your competitors’ impression shares!

For example, if a competitor has 20% impression share, it means that they served an ad in 20% of your eligible auctions. Note that this does NOT mean they have twice your market size or twice your visibility; the report is based on your universe of keywords and targeting, not theirs. So, the metric shows how they are performing on the keywords you are bidding on. In their account, they might have a completely different strategy and a much larger set of keywords that you can’t see, so you could show up very differently in their Auction Insights report.

Overlap Rate

Overlap Rate tells you how often your competitor served an impression when you also served an impression. Put more casually: how often is your competitor all up in your business?

A high Overlap Rate means you’re frequently vying for the same queries as your competitor, and showing up often together on the SERP.

Outranking Share

Outranking Share tells you how often your ad was shown in a higher position than a competitor’s ad, or how often your ad showed when theirs didn’t. This is basically how often you “beat” your competitor in the ad auction.

A high Outranking Share vs. a competitor means that even though they are present in your auctions, you are much more visible than they are.

Position Above Rate

This is essentially the opposite of Outranking Share. It tells you how often a competitor’s ad was shown in a higher position than yours, when both of your ads were shown.

A high Position Above Rate for a competitor means they are consistently ranking higher than you on the SERP.

Top of Page Rate

Top of Page Rate tells you how often your ad was shown at the top of the SERP, above the organic search results (but potentially still below the AI Overview).

For example, if you got 10 impressions and 4 of them were in the top auction, including 1 absolute top impression, your Top of Page Rate would be 40%.

If you’re looking at a competitor’s Top of Page Rate, that tells you how often they appeared at the top of the SERP in your auctions.

Absolute Top of Page Rate

Absolute Top of Page Rate tells you how often your ad was shown as the very first ad on the page. Just like the Top of Page Rate, you can compare this with your competitors to see who is dominating that coveted number one spot.

For example, if you got 10 impressions and 1 of them was in the number one position, your Absolute Top of Page Rate would be 10%.

To dig deeper into your SERP placement, you can add the Top vs Other segment to your Campaign report.

How to use the Auction Insights report

Now that you know what these metrics mean, how do you use this competitive data to your advantage?

My favorite way to use the Auction Insights report is to identify my auction competitors and spy on their ads. Once I know who I’m competing against, I look them up in the Google Ads Transparency Center. This free tool lets you see what ad creative your competitors are using.

By reviewing their ad text, I can get ideas for how to improve my own ad copy. Maybe they’re using a specific call-to-action or a unique selling proposition that’s worth testing.

Updating my ad text to be more relevant and compelling can improve my expected click-through rate, which can improve my ad rank and help me get better visibility in the auction.

How NOT to use the Auction Insights report

I don’t recommend constantly obsessing over your Auction Insights report. It has a lot of numbers, and it can be easy to get analysis paralysis.

Impression Share is the one metric I do keep a close eye on, looking at the Search Lost IS (Rank) and Search Lost IS (Budget) columns at the Campaign level to understand why I’m missing out on impressions.

I check the full Auction Insights report monthly or quarterly to get a broader overview of the competitive landscape and make high-level strategic adjustments. It’s also a good way to see if new competitors are entering the auction or if certain competitors are scaling up or down.

By understanding what each Auction Insights metric means and using the data to inform your ad copy and bidding strategy, you can make smarter decisions and improve your Search and Shopping performance.

This article is part of our ongoing bi-weekly Search Engine Land series, Everything you need to know about Google Ads in less than 3 minutes. Every other Wednesday, Jyll highlights a different Google Ads feature, and what you need to know to get the best results from it – all in a quick 3-minute read.

Google’s Danny Sullivan: ‘Good SEO is good GEO’

“Good SEO is good GEO.” That’s according to Google’s Danny Sullivan, a director within Google Search, and former search liaison

• Generative engine optimization (or whatever the new acronym is for optimizing for AI search experiences) is the same core work SEOs have always done: creating unique, valuable content for people and providing a great page experience, he said.
• This echoes Google’s Gary Illyes advice from July – that all you need to do is normal SEO.

Why we care. You can believe Google if you want. But we’ve tried to consistently say that we believe GEO is an emerging practice. That doesn’t mean it replaces SEO today or tomorrow – because SEO fundamentals matter and SEO is still not dead. But I also agree with Michael King’s assessment that SEO is deprecated. The future of Google and conversational AI search will be answers, not ranking, regardless of what Googlers say publicly today.

What he’s saying. Here’s some of what Sullivan said about SEO/GEO during his keynote at WordCamp US on Aug. 28:

• “…If you don’t know what GEO is, it’s like the latest acronym, but like I can’t keep track each day. There’s a different one. But SEO, search engine optimization; GEO, generative engine optimization.
• By the way, if you could dig it out when I was like in 2010, back when people were panicking then, I was like, you know, SEO doesn’t mean you get into the blue links on Google. SEO means you understand how people search for content and then you understand how to have your content there. And it could be everything from people asking a question to a voice device to people just opening up something on their phone or whatever.
• So, the basic things have not changed. Good SEO is good GEO, or AEO, AIO, LLM SEO, or LMNOPO. So, they’re all fine. What I’m trying to say is don’t panic. What you’ve been doing for search engines generally, and you may have thought of as SEO, is still perfectly fine and is still the things that you should be doing. … Good SEO is really having good content for people.
• … Are you saying write things in a clear way that people can understand? Cool. Like that’s just for people. All right.
• Are you saying write about things that are unique or interesting? Cool. That’s good for people. And all we [Google] try to do is understand how our signals can align with things that are good for people.”

CTR question. During the audience Q&A, blogger Angie Drake said her organic search click-through rate has plummeted since AI Overviews launched, even though impressions are up (known as the great decouoling of search). She asked Sullivan what Google will do to compensate publishers who are losing clicks. Sullivan’s response:

• Google has been unapologetic about zero-click factual answers (e.g., “What time is the Super Bowl?”) because users expect direct facts.
• Google is committed to rewarding unique, valuable content and supporting the open web.
• He said there will be “bumps along the way,” that feedback is heard within Google, and “it’s still part of what we’re going to be figuring out.”

Other takeaways. Some other data Sullivan shared:

• Google AI Overviews have led to a 10% increase in searches in the U.S. and India.
• Google does “up to 5,000 launches” (a.k.a., updates) per year. The last figure we had was 4,725, so not much has changed since 2022.

The keynote. Here is the full video. I’ve linked to the takeaways portion of Sullivan’s presentation, where he discusses GEO. Drake asks her CTR question starting at 45:06.

Viral post accuses Google’s AI Overviews of breaking its own spam rules

A viral social media post is roasting Google’s AI Overviews – the company’s AI-generated answers in search results – accusing it of breaking the spam policies Google enforces on everyone else.

The post. It was published by Nate Hake on X, minutes after Google’s announcement about the release of the August 2025 spam update:

“I’d like to report a spammer called “AI Overviews”

It’s coming up #1 for a ton of queries & violates all these Google policies:

-No first-hand experience
-Uses extensive automation
-No expertise
-Primarily summarizes what others have written

Screenshots of Google’s own guidelines accompanied his critique, making the punchline hit even harder.

Why we care. Many websites have been losing organic search traffic since the arrival of Google’s AI Overviews last year. We’ve also seen the great decoupling of search, with impressions up and clicks down. AI has been accused of contributing to the death of the business model of the web, as Cloudflare put it.

Flashback. In 2014, a similar viral moment hit when digital marketer Dan Barker quipped that Google itself was a “scraper site” – using Google’s own definition box as proof. That tweet, echoing frustrations among SEOs, racked up more than 14,000 retweets.

• Publishers who thought Google was borrowing content too heavily from other sites to generate the direct answers it displayed in its own search results in 2014 would be horrified by Google 2025. And indeed, many of us have been.

The big picture. Google’s AI Overviews have been under heavy scrutiny for accuracy, usefulness, and their impact on publishers. By highlighting Google’s own rules, this viral post crystallizes a long-running tension: search engines taking more space at the top of results while holding websites to standards they don’t meet themselves.

How generative AI is quietly distorting your brand message by Semrush Enterprise

Your brand message is no longer entirely yours to control. 

AI systems have become storytellers, shaping how consumers discover and understand your brand. Every customer review, social media post, news mention, and errant leaked internal document can feed AI models that generate responses about your company. 

When these AI-generated narratives drift from your intended brand message, a phenomenon we can define as AI brand drift, the results can be devastating.

Your official brand voice, customer complaints, and leaked memos are LLM fuel. AI synthesizes everything into responses that millions of consumers encounter daily. 

Your brand messaging competes with unfiltered customer sentiment and information that was never meant for public consumption. AI-driven misrepresentations can instantly reach global audiences through search results, chatbot interactions, and AI-powered recommendations. Mixed brand signals can reshape how AI systems describe your company for years to come. 

This guide will show you how to identify AI brand drift before it damages your market position and provide actionable strategies for regaining control. 

The complete brand spectrum: 4 layers you can’t afford to ignore

Large language models aggregate every available signal about your brand, turn around, and synthesize authoritative-sounding responses that consumers accept as fact. Companies confirm that phantom features proposed by ChatGPT cause support tickets, but are also considered part of the product roadmap. 

This is the case for the company Streamer.bot: 

“We often have users joining our Discord and say ChatGPT told said xyz. Yes the tool can,however their instructions are wrong 90% of the time. We end up correcting their attempts to get it working how they want, still creates support tickets.”

Brand stewardship now requires managing four distinct but interconnected layers. Each layer feeds AI training data differently. Each carries different risk profiles. Ignore any layer, and AI systems will construct your brand narrative without your input. 

The Brand Control Quadrant frames these layers: 

Layer	Description	AI Impact
Known Brand	Official assets: logos, slogans, press kits, brand guides.	Semantic anchors for AI; most controlled, but only the tip of the iceberg.
Latent Brand	User-generated content, community discourse, memes, cultural references.	Fuels AI’s understanding of brand relevance and relatability.
Shadow Brand	Internal docs, onboarding guides, old slide decks, partner enablement files—often not public.	The risk: LLMs can inject outdated or off-message info into AI summaries.
AI-Narrated Brand	How platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity describe your brand to users.	Synthesis of all layers. Answers served as “truth” to the world. This leads to a high risk of misalignment and distortion.

Key insight: AI reconstructs your brand from all accessible layers. AI co-authors brand narratives. 

Here’s a concrete example: BNP Parisbas’ logo is contextualized by Perplexity.ai using a “Bird Logos Collection Vol.01” Pinterest board. 

From technical flaw to brand crisis

“Semantic drift describes the phenomenon wherein generated text diverges from the subject matter designated by the prompt, resulting in a growing deterioration in relevance, coherence, or truthfulness.” – A., Hambro, E., Voita, E., & Cancedda, N. (2024). Know When To Stop: A Study of Semantic Drift in Text Generation.

When AI-generated content gradually strays from your brand’s intended message, meaning, or facts as it unfolds, you know you are dealing with a brand drift crisis. This can take several forms:

1. Factual drift: The model starts out as factual but introduces inaccuracies as the conversation progresses.
2. Intent drift: Facts are retained, but the underlying intent or nuance is lost, leading to brand misrepresentation or confusion with competitors. 
3. Shadow brand drift: AI-powered search may surface outdated product specs, misquote leadership, or reveal elements meant for internal communication only. 

Key insight: Even well-trained AI can quickly undermine brand clarity, consistency, and trust if not closely managed.

This can also create cybersecurity issues. Netcraft published a study concluding that 1 in 3 AI-generated login URLs could lead to phishing traps. Between fake features and dodgy login pages, monitoring is key!

How AI brand drift unfolds 

LLMs generate text sequentially, with each new word based on the prior context. There’s no “master plan” for the entire output, so drift is inherent. 

Most factual or intent drift occurs early in the output, according to a 2024 study of semantic drift in text generation. Errors are compounded in multi-turn conversations: initial misunderstandings are amplified and rarely corrected without a context reset (starting a new conversation for example). 

Marketers must be aware that they face critical vulnerabilities, identified by leading experts at Meta and Anthropic:

• Loss of coherence: This manifests as diminished clarity, disrupted logical progression, and a breakdown in self-consistency within the narrative.
• Loss of relevance: This occurs when content becomes saturated with irrelevant or repetitive information, diluting the intended message.
• Loss of truthfulness: This is characterized by the emergence of fabricated details or statements that diverge from established facts and world knowledge.
• Narrative collapse: When AI outputs are used as new training data, the original intent can morph entirely. 
• Zero-click risk: With Google AI Overviews becoming the default in search, users may never see your official content. They would rely only on the AI’s synthesized, potentially drifted version.

AI-generated content sounds plausible and on-brand but could subtly distort your message, values, or positioning. This drift can erode brand equity, undermine consumer trust, and potentially introduce compliance risks.

The hidden driver of drift

The shadow brand is the sum of internal, proprietary, or outdated digital assets your organization has created but not intentionally exposed:

• Onboarding documents.
• Internal wikis.
• Old presentations.
• Partner enablement files.
• Recruitment PDFs.
• And any other information that is not meant for public consumption.

If these are accessible online (even buried), they are “trainable” by LLMs. If it’s online, it’s fair game for LLMs (even if you never meant it to be public). 

Shadow assets are often off-message. Outdated or inconsistent materials can actively shape AI-generated answers, introducing narrative drift. Most teams do not track their shadow brand, leaving a major gap in their narrative defense. 

From drift to distortion: The brand risk matrix

Drift Type	Brand Risk	Example Scenario
Factual Drift	Compliance violations, misinformation, legal exposure, customer confusion.	AI lists outdated features as current, invents product capabilities, or misstates regulatory claims.
Intent Drift	Value misalignment, loss of trust, diluted brand purpose, reputational damage.	Sustainability message is reduced to a generic “green” platitude, or brand values are misrepresented.
Shadow Brand Drift	Narrative hijack, exposure of confidential or sensitive info, competitor leakage, internal miscommunication.	Old partner deck surfaces, referencing past alliances; internal docs or leadership quotes go public.
Latent Brand Drift	Meme-ification, tone mismatch, off-brand humor, loss of authority.	AI adopts community sarcasm or memes in official summaries, undermining professional tone.
Narrative Collapse	Erosion of brand story, loss of message control, amplification of errors.	AI-generated errors are repeated and amplified as they become new training data for future outputs.
Zero-Click Risk	Loss of audience touchpoint, diminished traffic to owned assets, lack of context for brand story.	AI Overviews in search engines present a drifted summary, so users never reach your official content.

Regaining brand narrative control

You should audit and map all four brand layers:

• Known Brand: Ensure all official assets are up-to-date, accessible, and semantically clear. Create a “brand canon,” a centralized, authoritative source of facts, messaging, and positioning, optimized for AI consumption.
• Latent Brand: Monitor UGC, community forums, and cultural signals; use social listening to spot emerging themes.
• Shadow Brand: Conduct regular audits to identify and secure or update internal docs, old presentations, and semi-public files.
• AI-Narrated Brand: Track how AI platforms summarize and present your brand across search, chat, and discovery. Implement LLM observability along with methods to detect when AI-generated content diverges from brand intent. 

Lead the AI brand narrative

Brand is no longer just what you say, it’s what AI (and your customers) says about you. In the generative search era, narrative control is a continuous, cross-functional discipline. 

Marketing teams must actively manage all four layers, own the shadow brand, and measure semantic drift. Track how meaning and intent evolve in AI outputs in order to establish rapid responses to correct drifted narratives, both in AI and in the wild. 

As Philip J. Armstrong, GTM Head of Insights & Analytics at Semrush, puts it, “Keeping an eye on brand drift protects your hard-earned brand reputation as consumers move to AI to evaluate products and services.”

How to create content that works for search and generative engines

For years, optimizing content meant focusing almost entirely on Google and other traditional engines. 

But with the rapid rise of generative AI chatbots – tools that don’t just link but summarize – content strategies need to adapt. 

It’s no longer enough to rank in search; you now need to be referenced, cited, and surfaced by AI systems as well.

This shift raises a critical question: how do we write content that satisfies both worlds – Google’s algorithmic complexity and AI’s citation-driven simplicity?

Where users are going: Search vs. generative AI

Statcounter’s Search Engine Market Share data suggests that Google is still firmly on top, but those numbers only measure traditional search engines. 

They don’t reflect the growing number of users turning to AI chatbots for answers, which is why separate measures – like AI Chatbot Market Share – are starting to emerge. 

For now, the two data sets can’t be directly compared.

AI chatbots generated 34 times fewer visits than search engines, per One Little Web’s April 2025 study. Even so, chatbot traffic grew 80.9% between April 2024 and March 2025. 

They may still be the underdog, but the growth trajectory is hard to ignore.

By June 2025, Chillibyte found that ChatGPT alone had attracted 55.2 billion visits in that same 12-month period – an 80% year-over-year increase.

Chillibyte noted that chatbots seem to be supplementing search engines rather than replacing them. 

Still, divided usage between search engines and AI will inevitably chip away at Google’s overall share. 

That’s why content strategies now need to account for both search engines and generative AI.

Dig deeper: How to optimize your 2025 content strategy for AI-powered SERPs and LLMs

How search rankings differ from AI citations

Creating content for both search and AI starts with understanding how each cites or ranks information.

Search engines: Simple inputs, complex algorithms

Search engines typically receive simpler input and deliver simple output. 

For example, the keywords you type into Google are usually shorter and less complex than an AI prompt. 

Google’s output is also simpler. (This is changing with AI Mode, though. We’ll focus here on traditional output rather than modern AI-driven results.)

Typical search engine input and output:

A simple query usually produces a simple list of URLs. 

But does that mean search engines are less complex than their generative AI counterparts? 

Not at all. 

While input and output may look simple, search engines are algorithmically complex in determining what that output should be.

Once a query is processed, layered algorithms define the results. Users can’t see this layer, but it’s always at work. A search engine may consider:

• Content relevance, including metadata, headings, and keyword use.
• Content quality, trustworthiness, and authority (e.g., Google’s E-E-A-T).
• Popularity signals such as inbound links.
• Link quality, with filters against spammy practices.
• Pricing for product results.
• Local signals.
• Schema and structured data.
• Reviews and testimonials.

Over the years, Google has evolved to disqualify pages that rely on manipulative techniques. 

Algorithm updates like Penguin (targeting spammy link practices), Caffeine, Panda, Mayday, and Farmer were eventually folded into Google’s core algorithms.

The point is clear: Google remains algorithmically complex.

Generative engines: Complex prompts, simpler filters

In contrast, AI chatbots handle richer input and produce more complex output. 

Their defensive algorithmic layer, however, is far less developed than that of leading search engines. 

Simply put, generative engines have had less time to build the protective algorithms that surround vectorized, LLM-based response systems.

Here’s an example of typical generative engine input and output:

Both the input and the output are clearly more complex. 

That said, generative engines are usually algorithmically simpler. 

Yes, they can crawl the web for new information when their LLM lacks the required data. 

But they’re far less sophisticated in determining which information to surface as authoritative or trustworthy.

A study I published here on Search Engine Land shows that AI RAG agents rely on far fewer sources than search engines. 

Generative engines also place greater value on co-citations – mentions of a term alongside a brand, even without a link – than on traditional backlinks.

This presents new opportunities for content creation and placement.

Many tactics that Google’s algorithmic complexity has pushed aside could be adapted and repurposed to earn AI citations and traffic.

In that sense, AI offers a fresh marketing opportunity.

AI may not yet command the lion’s share of traffic – but the traffic it does generate is, in many ways, more accessible.

That’s why it’s essential to include AI in your marketing mix and consider how to produce content that satisfies both search engines and generative engines.

Dig deeper: Why your best content is invisible to AI search engines (and how to fix it in 30 minutes)

Producing content that serves search and generative engines

Fortunately, much of what search engines prefer also works well for generative AI. For native content:

• Create well-structured pages with clear headings, supporting statistics, and rich media.
• Ensure content is accessible, even with JavaScript disabled. (Less of a problem for Google now, but AI crawlers are less sophisticated.)
• Build strong E-E-A-T signals for your content, authors, and brand.
• Address code elements such as alt text and metadata so they properly support your content.
• Use accessible, indexable URLs with unique, descriptive slugs.
• Cover topics in depth, including related keywords and common questions. Repeating exact-match keywords is no longer effective for SEO and even less so for AI. Instead, use semantic richness and engage with broader search entities.
• Include Q&A or answer-style formatting, since AI prompts are often phrased as questions.
• Don’t hide primary content (e.g., in linked PDFs).
• Provide summaries and key takeaways.

Because AI interrogates vectorized information, additional techniques apply:

• Co-citations are often more valuable than hyperlinks. Being cited alongside key terms on a high-authority site can be more effective for AI than earning a traditional link.
• External placement may help. Even without a link, branded citations can improve the likelihood of AI recognition.
• Consistency matters. AI blends vectorized information, so once citations enter the LLM, they may no longer be treated as separate documents. Consistent details (addresses, phone numbers, etc.) remain essential – don’t let local SEO slip.
• Disambiguation works differently for AI. In SEO, trying to clarify that you don’t provide a service can ironically increase rankings for that service. AI, however, is better at separating negatives from positives.
• Structured summaries are especially valuable. While they also help search engines, generative AI relies more heavily on them when interpreting main content.
• Keep critical information concise. Short, precise statements of facts or data vectorize more effectively.
• Shorter search terms still matter. RAG agents often distill compact terms from complex prompts, making FAQ-style content important for both SEO and AI.

Dig deeper: The search visibility framework: Dominating every corner of the SERP in 2026

Why your Amazon Ads aren’t delivering: 6 critical issues to fix

Amazon advertising operates within its own closed ecosystem, making ad delivery very different from other platforms. 

If you come from a Google or Bing background, you may be surprised to learn why your ads aren’t delivering. 

Often, it’s not about spending more or targeting. It’s about quickly identifying the real cause.

After reviewing hundreds of accounts, we’ve found the problem is rarely ad copy or targeting. Instead, it’s something more fundamental. 

Amazon’s ad system is tightly tied to your listings, inventory, and account health. 

If these aren’t aligned, even perfectly targeted campaigns with the right bids and budgets can stop delivering.

Over years of auditing accounts, we’ve found six issues that cause most Amazon ad delivery problems.

1. Buy box (featured offer) issues: The foundation of ad eligibility 

No matter how strong your keywords or bids are, if you don’t have the buy box, Amazon won’t run your sponsored products or sponsored display ads. (Sponsored brand ads will still run without the buy box.)

Since sponsored products usually make up the bulk of your ad budget, losing them can cause a sharp drop in sales. 

You can lose the buy box either through suppression of the listing itself or your specific offer.

Reasons you might lose the buy box for your products:

• Other sellers on the same listing have a lower or similar price with an FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) offer. 
• Your current price is significantly higher than the reference price for that same listing over the last 30 days. 
• Your seller metrics have declined (late shipment rate, order defect rate, cancellation rate).
• Your inventory is fulfilled by merchant (FBM) while competitors use FBA.  

How to fix it: 

• If you are the brand owner, limiting the number of resellers will give you the most control over your ability to run advertising for your products. 
• Review your pricing strategy and ensure you’re competitive. Basically, match or beat competitor pricing. 
• Switch from FBM to FBA if possible. Consider switching eligible and profitable ASINs to Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) if you’re currently using Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM).

Suppressed buy box

The other most common reason ads might stop being delivered is that Amazon has detected a lower price on Amazon. 

Amazon reviews prices from many ecommerce retailers. 

If they see a significantly lower price on another platform, they will suppress the buy box on that listing and prevent your advertising from being delivered. 

Example: 

• You have a product listed on Amazon at $19.99. You also sell on Walmart, and it is being offered there for $15.50. 
• Amazon will remove the buy box on your listing until you lower the price to match Walmart’s or raise the price on Walmart to match your Amazon offer. 

Suppressed listings: Policy violation, voice of the customer, or compliance

Listings can also be suppressed for:

• Missing details (unit count, images, structured data).
• Negative customer experience (NCX) issues flagged in Voice of the Customer.
• Compliance requirements, such as safety testing or restricted terms.

Policy violations are another culprit. 

For instance, using a term like “anti-microbial” could flag your listing as a pesticide. 

Understanding Amazon’s policies not only helps prevent these errors but also speeds up troubleshooting when ads stop delivering.

Dig deeper: Amazon advertising match types: What you need to know

2. Out of stock inventory 

Amazon ads will not deliver when your product is out of stock for sponsored products and sponsored display. 

Unlike Google and Bing, Amazon benefits the most when an ad is shown and that impression causes a sale on the platform. 

Maintain at least 4-6 weeks of inventory based on your daily sales velocity for advertised ASINs. 

For many of our clients, we also turn off ads for products with less than two weeks of inventory. 

We then keep those ads off until the inventory becomes fully available at the FBA warehouses. 

This helps ensure that our clients spend money on advertising only when the product will convert the best. 

3. Adult product classification

If Amazon’s system flags your product as adult content, your ads won’t be delivered through standard advertising placements. 

If you sell adult products, you are probably already familiar with the challenges of promoting them. 

You might think, “Well, my product is not an adult product, so this doesn’t apply to me!” 

Even if you sell in other categories, this is important to know. 

It is a common black hat tactic to report a competitor as selling an adult product to remove their ability to advertise. 

We have seen everything from baby spoons to gardening tools be flagged with an adult or sexual wellness flag. 

This classification can also happen automatically by mistake. You don’t have to sell anything explicit to get flagged.

Certain keywords, phrases, or images can trigger this classification, which removes your ads from general placements. 

Common triggers for adult classification: 

• Products containing suggestive imagery or language. 
• Health and wellness items with specific keywords.
• Products that mention body parts or intimate functions.
• Items that could be considered mature or sensitive content.

How to diagnose:

• Check your product listing for an “adult product” designation in your product details page. 
• You can also review your advertising campaign reports for any policy violations. 

Dig deeper: Amazon Ads: How to boost efficiency and reduce wasted spend

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4. Restricted product categories 

Certain product types and categories are either prohibited from advertising on Amazon or require pre-approval to run ads, regardless of whether these products are allowed to sell on the platform. 

If your product falls into one of these, you’ll either need to request approval or reposition your product to meet guidelines.

Commonly restricted categories include: 

• Political figures, campaigns, or political merchandise. 
• Sexual wellness products (though some exceptions exist). 
• “Embarrassing” products. 
• Tobacco and tobacco-related products. 
• Alcohol and specific alcohol-related products. 
• Products depicting violence or weapons. 
• Items related to illegal activities. 

5. Category and targeting misalignment 

Remember that Amazon benefits the most if your ad leads to a conversion. 

If your listing’s backend category doesn’t align with the category you’re targeting, Amazon will often suppress your ads. 

Relevancy is much easier for Amazon to identify because of the way the platform is designed. 

Common misalignment issues: 

• Product listed in “home and kitchen” but targeting keywords like “dog treats for big dogs.” 
• Targeting competitor ASINs from different categories. 
• Using broad match keywords that span multiple unrelated categories. 
• Category selection that doesn’t reflect your product’s primary use case. 

How to fix it: 

• Ensure your products are listed in the most relevant category. 
• Align your keyword targeting with your product’s category. 
• If your product fits multiple categories, consider creating separate campaigns for each. 
• Use category-specific keywords that match where your product is positioned. 

Sometimes moving your product to a more appropriate category can solve both targeting issues and improve organic visibility. 

6. Bid too low for the competitive landscape 

There are times when your bids or budget are just too low for delivery. 

Amazon’s auction system won’t serve your ad if you don’t meet the minimum bid threshold for the placement you want. 

If your maximum bid is significantly lower than what competitors are willing to pay, your ads won’t show, and no placement means no delivery.

Why low bids fail: 

• Amazon’s auction prioritizes both bid amount and ad relevance. 
• Popular keywords in competitive categories require higher bids. 
• Your bid may have been competitive when you set it, but market conditions changed. 

How to diagnose:

• Check your campaign reports for keywords with zero impressions. Use Amazon’s suggested bid ranges as a baseline for competitive positioning. 

How to fix it: 

• Review keywords with zero impressions in campaign reports.
• Increase your bids gradually, starting with 10-20% increases.
• Use Amazon’s suggested bid tool to understand competitive ranges. 
• Focus on long-tail keywords where competition may be lower. 
• Consider automatic targeting to let Amazon optimize bids for you. 

Dig deeper: 5 reasons Amazon Ads is better than Google Ads for ecommerce

Keeping your Amazon Ads running smoothly

Amazon ad delivery issues can be frustrating, but they’re generally solvable once you identify the root cause. 

By systematically checking each of these six areas, you can diagnose and resolve most delivery problems quickly. 

Remember that preventing these issues is more efficient than fixing them after they occur. 

Build these checks into your campaign launch process and ongoing account management routine to maintain consistent ad delivery and maximize your advertising ROI. 

The key is approaching Amazon advertising as a system where multiple elements must align for success. 

When your ads aren’t delivering, it’s the system telling you that something needs attention, and now you know exactly where to look.

SEO personas for AI search: How to go beyond static profiles

Simplified personas built as fictional characters with broad pain points are outdated in the future of search. 

Think “Curious Cathy,” who just wants to learn more about your product, or “Technical Tom,” who has years of experience in his field and can handle more detailed breakdowns.

Static personas once helped, but they no longer reveal enough about real people to stay competitive.

AI search demands smarter personas

AI is getting better at understanding people – their needs, context, and intent.

As search becomes more personalized, so should your personas.

By layering in real-world data – like location, industry trends, or other environmental factors – you can create personas that reflect the actual people behind the queries. 

This richer context makes your content more relevant and increases the chances that AI will surface it when your audience is searching.

The current state of SEO personas

Personas for SEO have always been how we attempt to define user intent. They cover:

• Basic demographics.
• Motivations.
• Wants.
• Likes.
• Dislikes.
• Emotions.
• Questions. 

But some personas are created only through the lens of a specific product, limiting our understanding of the people behind the queries.

Take a look at this hypothetical, simple persona of a small business owner. 

Look familiar?

This persona structure is still helpful, especially for user journey mapping. 

It gives you clues on tone, style, and even which questions to answer for Small Business Sara.

That’s a strong start. But in the AI-powered search landscape, tone and topics aren’t enough.

High-level and simplified persona models miss that your target customer is more than just your target customer. 

They are living, breathing people, all influenced by outside factors that need to be considered when tailoring content to their needs.

So, what’s missing?

Data on Sara’s environment and what makes her a real human is missing.

You don’t know what’s going on in Sara’s world that could be influencing her intent, needs, and decision-making process when she types in a query.

When crafting our personas, ideally, we would:

• Conduct user interviews and testing to help dig into Sara’s life a bit more. 
• Find a group of “Saras” who will provide similar answers and tell us about “her” life.

Most of us lack the time, budget, or resources to do this, though, leaving us with a knowledge gap we still need to fill.

If you gathered small business owners from similar industries and asked them to list the steps they took to start, you’d probably get similar answers.

If you think about it from a contextual perspective only, sure.

But if you listen more closely, you’ll likely notice a difference in the order they did things and what answers they found valuable at each stage.

And this order, likely influenced by their environment, impacts what they do and don’t know when they land on the content you assumed would fit their journey.

How environmental factors influence search intent

Environmental factors are going to be complex and difficult to capture in their entirety. 

Let’s explore just how one piece of additional data can provide a little more insight that you might be able to leverage.

Someone in Florida, which has the highest per-capita rate of business owners, will have different needs behind the query “how to start a business” than someone in West Virginia, where that rate is the lowest.

A person in Florida is statistically more likely to know someone who’s started a business, giving them easier access to information and inspiration. 

In 2024, there were just over three business applications per 100 adult residents, according to Census data.

In West Virginia, where there was only one new business application per 100 adults, the story is different. 

A business owner there may have some personal connections, but starting a business is a more novel, less familiar path.

They’re more likely to need guidance on the fundamentals, like business plans and logistics.

While both Saras may search “how to start a business,” what they need from that query isn’t the same. 

• The Floridian Sara is probably ready for logistical steps – forming an LLC, building a website – thanks to greater exposure and access to resources. 
• West Virginia Sara, on the other hand, needs foundational information first: what a business plan is, how legal structures differ, or where to find funding.

Same question, different needs.

You can’t capture every detail shaping a person’s intent.

Still, even a simple environmental context like this can help you interpret it more accurately – and build personas that feel more human.

Here’s how the intent behind the keyword shifts based on this environmental knowledge:

	Small Business Owner in Florida	Small Business Owner in West Virginia
“How to start a business”	Lives in the state with the highest per-capita rate of business owners. In 2024, there were 3 new business applications per 100 adult residents. Looking for the logical order of logistical steps to take to get a business up and running.  Is familiar with most of the jargon, and is more likely to jump into action with a clear list.	Lives in a state with the lowest per-capita rate of business owners. In 2024, West Virginia reported about 1 new business application per 100 residents. Looking for more foundational insights, like: – Needing a business plan. – Things to consider before starting a busines. Has no idea what any of these things are yet, and isn’t ready for the steps. Needs more education before taking any action.

You can argue that you have the content that ultimately fits both of these intents. 

But is that content ranking for “how to start a business”? Or is it featured in LLM responses or AI Overviews? 

I know my related content isn’t. 

It’s ranking for “how to write a business plan” and “steps to getting an LLC,” because SEO until now has been about mastering a query, not tailoring your content to a user’s environment.

In my “deprecated” SEO strategy, I have a pillar page for “how to start a business” that covers everything from business conception to making your first sale. 

I’ve got dozens of internal links with beautiful anchor text to every supplemental guide Sara needs. Google loves it. 

This is where my traditional approach to content needs improvement. 

While it’s written for what I consider to be the user, it’s still focused on being thorough enough that Google puts me at the top, and not considering other outside factors that might influence search needs.

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How AI factors context into search responses

If you doubt that location changes the needs behind ‘how to start a business,’ compare prompts with and without location in incognito chat.

Now, take a look at how it changes when I say I live in Florida.

It’s a subtle difference, but when you say you live in West Virginia, ChatGPT suggested clarifying your business idea and proper planning as the first step. 

In Florida, it dives right into business structure. 

While AI doesn’t already have everyone’s environmental context in memory, when the user includes context in prompts, ChatGPT attempts to adjust its response. 

Assuming everyone searching for “how to start a business” is looking for the same info might let you rank in a traditional blue-link search result.

However, this example shows that this shift to context-driven prompts influences how AI generates a response. 

This is just one data point. A full strategy needs deeper environmental context than business applications or economic stats alone.

What this means for content strategies

AI search – whether through AI Overviews or LLMs – is built to reduce the cognitive overload of digging through multiple articles, clicks, and follow-up searches. 

It leverages user context to deliver a succinct, relevant answer.

Take the earlier example: you could create 51 articles for every state and Washington, D.C. 

In traditional search, that might help you rank for “how to start a business in (state).” 

I’ve done this – customizing each article with state-specific agencies and forms – but without weaving in the deeper context of what’s happening in those states.

• Traditional SEO still depends on comprehensive coverage, query mastery, and strong site structure to win blue-link rankings. 
• But AI retrieval and AI Overviews weigh context, clarity, and modular chunks of information that can be pulled into responses. 

Both matter – they just reward different optimizations.

The goal isn’t to overhaul your entire strategy overnight. 

Start testing ways to incorporate more context over time. Revisit your core content and weave in focused examples or localized insights. 

Not every topic needs a “personalized” version.

Instead, find places where you can speak to your audience more directly, whether through localized callouts, customer-focused CTAs, or targeted subsections within existing content.

With clicks declining across the board, optimizing for conversion when you do get traffic is critical to proving the value of search. 

Even if you’re focused on just one “Sara,” you still need to understand which end of the spectrum you’re targeting – and adjust your content to meet that audience where they are in the moment.

Digging deeper into environmental data helps you prioritize information gain – the key to becoming the most valuable answer a platform can surface. 

The more clearly you understand who you’re creating for, the better positioned you are to deliver that value.

Environmental data isn’t the only input that matters. It’s one piece of a holistic persona-building approach. 

The real advantage comes from layering these insights with conversion data, click and impression metrics, rankings, LLM visibility, and referrals. 

Environmental context is simply one more tool in a stronger, more adaptive strategy.

Start by enhancing the data you already have

Hopefully, your personas are already rooted in data.

But what kind of SEO would I be if I didn’t ask for more data?

Adding environmental data from third-party sources helps you stand out, prioritize opportunities, and reach the right people at the right time. 

It’s most powerful when combined with multiple data sources, environmental factors, and qualitative insights.

Scaling your approach

Digging into every persona or segment at once can be overwhelming. 

• Start small: choose one persona and one or two environmental factors to explore. 
• Use that real-world context to adjust a few pieces of content, then test and measure the impact.

Focus on small, incremental adjustments for long-term gains, not a full content overhaul.

The suggestions below are meant to show you where to start – not to imply you need to do it all at once. 

Data exploration options

The data you need to understand environmental context rarely lives in-house. 

Your BI team can share valuable insights on where you’re winning or growing, but external sources will help you transform personas into richer, more actionable profiles.

First, make sure your base persona includes core demographics such as:

• Age.
• Gender.
• Race.
• Location.
• Education level.
• Income.

If you’re missing these basics, start with publicly available data like the U.S. Census, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), or Statista.

For example, in the business-owner scenario, I used Business Formation Statistics from the Census and population estimates.

The Census Annual Business Survey program also provides insights like:

• Business owners’ age.
• Education.
• Country of birth.

The BLS can help you see which states are experiencing growth in new businesses, while Census tables provide demographic breakdowns for those states. 

And if you know your target industry, Labor Force statistics can help you understand the age ranges most active in that space.

While this example focused on location as an environmental factor, age alone is another strong starting point. 

There’s ample research on what each generation values, fears, and prioritizes at different stages of their careers.

Here’s a list of environmental questions you can aim to answer and how that might inform your strategy:

Question	What it will tell you	Potential sources
Where is this business or industry most popular? Is my target demographic in an oversaturated, undersaturated, or normal market?	This helps give some insight into the competitive nature of your target audience and the resources they might have access to.	Bureau of Labor Statistics, Industry-specific reports
What are the common problems this industry faces? What’s in the news related to this space?	Things like tariffs, over-saturation, demand for your persona’s product or service, lack of consumer awareness, etc.  Are all the environmental factors that can be used in examples in your content and CTA opportunities to better speak to your audience?	Google News searches, Industry-specific websites
What challenges does this demographic face in their personal and professional life? What norms is this group trying to beat?	Understanding things like pay gaps, underrepresentation, and cultural challenges influences how someone makes a decision and the tone you can use to resonate with them.	Pew Research, Census Newsroom, Google News, Academic Research
What does this demographic value? What are their personal beliefs?	If you can dig into what your audience stands for and cares deeply about, you can use this in your marketing content to speak to them in a way that resonates with their beliefs. People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.	Pew Research, Consumer Studies like Kantar
What websites does this audience visit?	Knowing the websites they visit and the way these websites communicate can also give context.	SimilarWeb, Semrush Audience Insights

If you’re already a power creator – or have the budget – paid tools like Semrush, SimilarWeb, or Kantar can deliver deep audience insights.

If not, free sources like Census Data Tools, BLS tables, and some old-fashioned desktop research are still excellent for uncovering the data you need to better understand your audience.

Enriching personas with environmental data

Combine internal data with public sources to identify your top demographics and refine user journey mapping.

Environmental research helps you tailor content to real needs instead of covering everything broadly.

When layered with behavioral signals, technical SEO, and testing, these insights multiply visibility and conversions.

Marketers may not master the human mind, but we excel at interpreting data.

Apply that skill to strategy: focus on context, clarity, and information gain so your content becomes the answer AI and users trust.

Strong technical fundamentals still drive rankings, but environmental context boosts your chances of surfacing in AI responses.

Amid all the AI hype, the cornerstone of search is still the person behind the persona.

How to get your service area business verified on Google

Getting your service area business verified on Google can be challenging, especially when video verification is required. 

What Google expects to see isn’t always clear, and that uncertainty can lead to denials. 

But with a little preparation, you can eliminate the guesswork and ensure a smoother verification process. 

Learn how to get your business verified, handle denials, and maintain a compliant profile that lasts.

What does it mean to be a service area business on Google?

Before you begin the verification process, confirm that your business qualifies as a “pure service area business” on Google Maps and not another business type (i.e., storefront or hybrid).

A service area business delivers goods or services directly to customers at their location rather than serving customers at a storefront. 

Unlike a hybrid business, a pure service area business never serves customers at a physical storefront. 

This means the business’s address is hidden on Google Maps, and instead of a pin, there is a shaded service area.

While there aren’t many differences between a service area business and a storefront in terms of the live listing, the distinction between these listing types is crucial when it comes to the verification process on Google Business Profile.

How to properly verify a service area business with Google Business Profile

Since a pure service area business doesn’t have a storefront, there is no need to verify a physical location. 

Instead, the business only needs to confirm its existence and demonstrate that it provides the stated services within a specific service area. 

Sounds simple, right?

Essentially, Google needs to verify a few key things for your business to pass verification:

• The business is licensed and/or registered in its respective state, city, county, or province.
• The business is performing the stated services for customers within the specified service area.
• The person completing the verification is an authorized representative of the business.

Before you click the “Get verified” button and begin the process, carefully consider these essential elements.

Provide Google your business information early

Business website

A properly set-up business website is crucial for any small business aiming to establish itself in local search results. 

While it doesn’t need to be overly fancy, it should include key details such as:

• Your business name.
• Phone number.
• Service area.
• Hours of operation.
• Descriptions of the services you provide.

If you’re creating a new Google Business Profile, add this business information to your website at least a week before attempting verification. 

This can actually streamline the verification process and improve your chances of success.

Dig deeper: Top SEO tips for location-specific websites

Citation consistency

Ensure your business name, phone number, hours, and service area are consistent across other sources Google is likely to check. 

For new businesses, building a few high-value citations, like those from BBB, Yelp, or the local Chamber of Commerce, can help establish your legitimacy. 

In my experience, just a few key citations are enough to show Google that you’re a legitimate local business.

Not sure which citations to build? 

Try searching for your competitor’s brand name. 

Any sites they appear on are likely high-value citations in your local market.

Evidence of branding and the services you provide 

Google requires proof that your business is actually doing the services you claim in your specified service area. 

To provide this, upload photos directly to your GBP or website showing your business in action. This could include:

• Photos of branded vehicles or uniforms.
• Vanity shots of branded vehicles at local monuments or landmarks.
• Signage at storage yards or job sites.
• Tools and equipment at the location, on a lot, or in a branded truck.
• Branding materials like business cards, yard signs, or advertising materials.

Business documents

Before attempting to verify, always have supporting documents on hand to send to Google or present during a video verification. 

These documents should have the business name and can include:

• Business license.
• Business registration.
• Assumed name/DBA certificate.
• Insurance documents.
• Utility bills.

Use a domain-level email for affiliation

Use a domain-level email whenever verifying a listing, whether it’s new or existing.

An email tied to your business website signals trust and confirms you’re authorized to represent the business.

This can help expedite the verification process.

Google video verification for home service businesses 

If you receive the video verification method, don’t panic. 

Service area businesses can pass video verification just as easily as storefronts. 

To maximize your chances of approval, start by:

• Preparing your vehicle(s).
• Gathering necessary documentation.
• Ensuring your business information on your website is consistent before hitting “Record” to begin the verification video.

As you record the video, think of your branded service vehicle as your “storefront.” 

Here’s how to approach it:

• Park the vehicle at your home, a nearby intersection, or a shopping plaza where you can capture street signs or surrounding businesses.
• Make sure the business name on the vehicle is clearly visible.
• Show or demonstrate that your vehicle contains the tools necessary for your services.
• Unlock and start the vehicle to prove management control.
• On camera, present documents like:
  • Your business registration.
  • License.
  • Invoices.
  • Utility bills.
  • Assumed name/DBA certificate.
  • Branded marketing materials.
• If the vehicle is unbranded, spend extra time showing documents and other marketing materials.

Important reminder: 

• Do not include restricted addresses, such as P.O. boxes, virtual offices, or co-working spaces, in the address field. 
• Even though the address won’t appear on Google Maps, Google prohibits these types of addresses.  

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If verification is denied

Despite your best efforts, verification may occasionally be denied. 

In such cases, Google typically sends an email explaining which requirement(s) you did not meet. 

Additionally, a reason for the failure will appear next to the “Get verified” button on your profile.

Here, Google is asking for more evidence that the person recording is affiliated with the business.

Use this feedback to determine your next steps. 

Retry the video verification following the prompts.

If necessary, gather additional proof of business operations, such as updated documents or marketing materials.

Contact GBP support for verification issues

If verification continues to fail, you may need to contact Google directly and provide extra proof they request. 

Be sure to contact support through the contact button in the verification video workflow or the verification tool workflow. 

This will connect you to the appropriate team that can assist with your verification issue.

Reaching out via the general support form may result in the dreaded “no-reply” boilerplate email.

Maintaining compliance on Google as a service area business

Once your business is verified, it’s essential to keep your listing accurate and compliant to prevent re-verification or potential suspension issues down the road.

Setting your service area

Be as specific and accurate as possible when setting your service area. 

You can use:

• City names.
• Postcodes.
• Regions (like counties).

However, avoid selecting:

• Entire states.
• Provinces.
• Countries.

Google recommends setting your service area within a two-hour driving radius, but this can vary depending on the location. 

For instance, businesses in smaller U.S. states like Rhode Island or Connecticut can easily service the entire state within two hours of travel. 

Conversely, larger states like California or Texas may have businesses that cannot realistically serve the entire state.

Your service area in Google Business Profile should match the information on your website, such as the “areas we serve” page.

If you have multiple listings for the same brand, do not add overlapping service areas, as this can result in suspension.

Dig deeper: Localized SERPs: Winning traffic and leads with service area pages

Plan major changes to the profile

If you need to make significant changes to the profile, such as updating the address or renaming the business, be aware that this could trigger re-verification. 

Before making any major updates to your Google Business Profile (GBP), ensure that the website and other relevant sources are updated first.

Do not make more than one major edit at a time.

Wait 24 to 48 hours between significant edits to reduce the risk of suspension. 

Major edits include updates to the:

• Business name.
• Address.
• Phone number.
• Website.
• Business category.

Get reviews to the profile consistently

Consistent, fresh reviews are a strong signal to Google that your business is active in the area and, therefore, a legitimate operation. 

Reviews are one of the most effective actions you can take as a business owner to boost your profile’s visibility on Google and build trust with the platform. 

Don’t let up on gathering them!

Dig deeper: 6 Google Business Profile questions asked and answered

Get verified – and stay verified

Google verification may feel overwhelming at first, but a little preparation goes a long way. 

By following these steps, you’ll set your business up for smoother approval, stronger visibility, and long-term trust with both Google and your customers.

ChatGPT, AI tools gain traction as Google Search slips: Survey

Google’s role in everyday information seeking is shrinking, while AI tools – particularly ChatGPT – are quickly gaining ground. That’s according to a new Higher Visibility survey of 1,500 U.S. users.

By the numbers. Google’s share of general information searches fell from 73% in February to 66.9% in August.

Other survey findings:

• ChatGPT use nearly tripled, from 4.1% to 12.5% of respondents.
• Daily AI tool use doubled, from 14% to 29%.
• Platform switching is up, with 35% saying they’ve changed how they search, compared to 28% in February.

The big picture. Mainstream adoption of, and experimentation with, AI tools is accelerating. The number of people using AI tools daily increased from 14% to 29.2%. Meanwhile, “never” users dropped from 28% to 16%

• Younger users in particular are leading the way, blending TikTok, Instagram, and ChatGPT into their search habits.
• In local search – traditionally Google’s stronghold – AI use doubled to 10%.

Why we care. AI tools are reshaping how users discover, compare, and consume information. Search behavior is fractured, which means SEOs cannot rely on Google Search alone (though, to be clear, SEO for Google remains as critical as ever). Therefore, SEO/GEO strategies now must account for visibility across multiple AI platforms.

About the data. The findings compare two identical surveys of 1,500 U.S.-based participants conducted in February and August. Respondents spanned a range of ages, regions, and demographics, allowing Higher Visibility to track trends over time with consistency and validity.

The report. How People Search Today: A Study on Evolving Search Behaviors in 2025

Dig deeper. AI search is gaining traction, but it isn’t replacing Google: Survey

Google AI, ChatGPT rarely agree on brand recommendations: Data

Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode and OpenAI’s ChatGPT often give consumers different brand recommendations – a potential warning sign for marketers chasing AI visibility – according to a new BrightEdge analysis.

The big picture. ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode and AI Overviews disagreed on brand recommendations nearly two-thirds of the time (61.9%), according to BrightEdge’s analysis of tens of thousands of identical prompts.

• Only 17% of queries produced the same brands across all three platforms. This underscores the fractured state of brand exposure in AI search.

By the numbers. Just 33.5% of queries included brands across all three platforms, and only 4.6% had no brands mentioned anywhere. Other key findings:

• Google AI Overviews dominate: Google’s AI Overviews surfaced brands in 36.8% of queries, while ChatGPT led in just 3.9%.
• Brand density: Google AI Overviews averaged 6.02 brands per query, more than 2.5x higher than ChatGPT’s 2.37 and far ahead of AI Mode’s 1.59.
• Silence rates: ChatGPT offered no brand mentions in 43.4% of queries. Google AI Mode stayed silent 46.8% of the time, compared to just 9.1% for AIO.

The citation paradox. The study also uncovered stark differences in citation behavior:

• ChatGPT mentions more than it cites, with 3.2x more brand mentions (2.37) than citations (0.73).
• Google AI Overviews cites far more than it mentions (14.30 citations vs. 6.02 mentions).
• Google AI Mode shows an even bigger gap — 6x more citations than mentions (9.49 vs. 1.59).

This data may suggest that ChatGPT’s responses lean heavily on its training patterns, while Google emphasizes visible source attribution.

Where platforms align. The rare moments of brand alignment depended on query intent:

• Compare queries: 80% same-brand agreement.
• Buy queries: 62%.
• Where queries: 38%.
• Best queries: 23%.

Industry breakdown. Disagreement rates also varied by sector:

• Healthcare: 68.5%
• Education: 62.1%
• B2B Tech: 61.7%
• Finance: 57.9%
• Ecommerce: 57.1% (lowest)

Why we care. For brands, these findings highlight a volatile AI landscape where visibility is far from guaranteed – and often inconsistent. As BrightEdge notes, the fragmentation creates “massive untapped visibility opportunities” for companies optimizing for generative search.

Google fixes reduced crawling issue impacting some websites

Google has confirmed it fixed an issue with its crawlers impacting “some sites.” The issue was “reduced / fluctuating crawling” from Google’s end with Googlebot. It is now resolved and Google said the crawling should pick back up in the near future.

What happened. Starting around August 8, 2025, a number of savvy SEOs and site owners started to notice a drop in the crawl rate from Google within Google Search Console. I covered a lot of those reports on the Search Engine Roundtable but here are some:

Heads-up. There are several posts in the Search Central Forum about this, and I just saw the issue pop up for a client. Google's Crawl Stats reporting drops heavily around 8/8. There is no impact to rankings and traffic, but all the sites posting about this see it happen on 8/8.… pic.twitter.com/6mN79X8CGs

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 27, 2025

Most of all GSC accounts show crawl requests dropping to zero on Aug 20. Anyone else seeing this? Bug in reporting? @JohnMu @googlesearchc @rustybrick @seroundtable pic.twitter.com/yVXbHxnyDi

— Dhruv Pandya (dp) (@dhruvpandyadp) August 25, 2025

Google confirmed. This morning, John Mueller from Google confirmed the issue both on Bluesky and on LinkedIn, he wrote:

“This was an issue on our side, and is now resolved. It’ll catch back up automatically in the near future. Sorry for the crawl-blip! It was reduced / fluctuating crawling from our side, for some sites.”

Why we care. If you noticed crawling drops in August, it should resolve itself over the coming days. If it does not resolve, then it might be another issue, unrelated to this Google crawling bug.

That being said, it is unclear how much of an issue this caused in terms of ranking new content and updated content. It is also unclear how many sites were impacted.

You can check your crawl rate in Google Search Console within Settings and then the crawl rate report. Again, many sites, maybe most sites, were not impacted by this.

Google traffic to news publishers is steady, but it isn’t traditional Search

Google has remained a stable source of traffic to news publishers over the past year. Although many websites have seen their traffic significantly impacted by Google’s AI Overviews, Chartbeat data shows that for 565 U.S. and UK news publishers:

• Search referrals made up 19% of traffic in July, little changed since early 2019.
• Google dominates search traffic: 96% of publisher referrals.

Yes, but. “Search” here includes Google Discover, which is not traditional search. Discover is now the primary driver of Google referrals.

Why we care. Search traffic hasn’t collapsed. However, the stability is somewhat masked by a shift from traditional Google Search to Google Discover.

Dig deeper. Google says AI is boosting Search. Yes, but…

Direct traffic is shaky. Efforts to build a loyal, “type-in” audience have largely stalled, leaving publishers more dependent on Google and aggregators. Direct traffic to homepages and landing pages has fallen to 11.5% from a pandemic-era high of 16.3%.

Social keeps sinking. Social’s decline means fewer diversified referral sources:

• Facebook referrals are down 50% since 2019, despite a recent bump.
• X traffic is down 75% vs. 2019.
• Only Reddit is surging – up 220% since 2019, boosted by Google visibility and an AI training deal (but it still sends less referrals than Facebook and X).

The report. Publisher traffic sources: Google steady but social and direct referrals are down, as reported by PressGazette

Google replaces Content API for Shopping with new Merchant API

Google announced it will shut down the Content API for Shopping on Aug. 18, 2026, officially making the Merchant API the new standard for managing Merchant Center accounts.

Why we care. For over a decade, advertisers and retailers have relied on the Content API to push product data into Google Shopping. The new Merchant API promises a simpler, more powerful way to control how products appear across both organic and ad surfaces – but it means developers and PPC teams need to start planning migrations now.

Details:

• The Merchant API has been available in beta since May 2024, but is now generally available.
• Google describes it as a “simplified interface” for scaling product feeds and gaining programmatic access to data, insights, and unique capabilities.
• It will serve as the primary tool for product data management, spanning both paid and organic listings.

What’s next. The Content API remains available until August 2026, but Google urges advertisers to migrate sooner.

• Help docs are live to guide developers through the transition.
• Expect growing forum chatter as advertisers share migration challenges and best practices.

Bottom line. If your ecommerce business relies on the Content API, the clock is ticking. Moving to the Merchant API isn’t optional, and early adopters may gain a smoother path to scaling feeds and campaigns.

TikTok limits posts to five hashtags

TikTok is capping hashtags at five per post, a shift some users have recently noticed through in-app notifications.

Details. TikTok hasn’t formally announced the update. A Reddit user said a TikTok notification explained the change is aimed at:

• Reducing hashtag clutter,
• Discouraging spammy usage,
• Improving discovery relevance.

TikTok is the latest social platform to sideline hashtags:

• X dropped hashtags from ads.
• Meta’s Threads limits posts to one topic tag, while Instagram is testing a five-hashtag cap.
• LinkedIn has de-emphasized them.

Why we care. Hashtags have long been used to boost reach, but platforms are dialing them back as algorithms rely more on engagement signals – and as spammy, irrelevant tags clutter feeds. This could improve relevance and reduce spammy competition, but it also raises the stakes for picking the right hashtags to ensure campaigns still surface in discovery.

The big picture. For creators, the change means quality over quantity. Picking the most relevant hashtags matters more than piling on extras. TikTok’s Trends dashboard can help surface the tags most likely to drive discovery.

Google Search Console: How to fix ‘Duplicate without user-selected canonical’

The first time I saw the “Duplicate without user-selected canonical” error in Google Search Console, I gulped. “Oh, no. Please, not this.” 

Then I saw it again – and again. I heard rumors of other SEO professionals experiencing the same error. 

I hope it was just another bug in Google Search Console. “It can’t be. It has to be a joke,” I thought. 

It was snowballing, and it felt like there was nothing I could do to stop it. 

It’s one of the worst Google Search Console errors to hit the streets, and it’s more charitable than the chunky sneaker fashion craze. 

It’s time for us to band together and figure out a way to fix these Google Search Console errors. 

How do I fix a ‘Duplicate without user-selected canonical’ error in Google Search Console?

1. Go to Google Search Console > Pages > Duplicate without user-selected canonical 

Head over to Google Search Console’s Pages report and select the “Duplicate without user-selected canonical” error under the Why pages aren’t indexed section.

Once you’re in there, export the report into a spreadsheet. 

2. Check your canonical tags 

Next, manually check your canonical tags for a sample size of the URLs from the report. I manually check around 10 URLs with the Inspect URL tool in Google Search Console.

If you notice a pattern where Google selects your canonical tag, you should implement self-referencing canonical tags sitewide. 

In the example below, you can see that this URL is missing the user-declared canonical tag. Google is selecting its own canonical tag. 

In your spreadsheet, you can begin to filter by common duplicate content issues that can be fixed with proper canonical tags, like: 

• Parameter URLs: Anything after the ? should have a self-referencing canonical tag. 
• Language subfolders: Double-check your language subfolders (e.g., /en/). 

2. HTTP vs. HTTPS

Another common reason this error appears in Google Search Console is the incorrect redirect error from HTTP to HTTPS. 

HTTP is like watching a VHS movie, while HTTPS is like watching the same film in 4K streaming. 

Google prefers the HTTPS version of your site. 

For example: 

• http://website.com/
• https://website.com/

And Gary Illyes of Google confirmed it, saying:

“DYK that HTTPS URLS in a dup cluster have a higher chance of becoming canonical?” 

So if you see your HTTP version still hanging around in your export spreadsheet from Google Search Console, you’re diluting your own content. 

I recommend using a 301 redirect from HTTP to HTTPS. 

If you can’t do that, add a canonical tag to every HTTP variant. 

3. Include a trailing slash in URLs

If you want to play it safe, always include a trailing slash in your URL to avoid duplicate content. 

The key is consistency. 

John Mueller from Google breaks it down: 

• “The slash after a hostname or domain name is irrelevant… but a slash anywhere else is a significant part of the URL and will change the URL if it’s there or not.” 

Translation: Don’t skip that slash. Dropping or adding it changes your URL and can create duplicate content. 

For example: 

• https://website.com/double-decker-taco
• https://website.com/double-decker-taco/ 

Google treats both URLs as separate pages. 

Once you have your URLs with the trailing slash set up, create a 301 redirect from all the URLs without the trailing slash. 

---

4. www vs. non-www 

Picture this: you send out two versions of the same dish, one plated on fine china and the other in a Chinese takeout food box. They have the same recipe and flavor. 

But to Google, they’re two entirely different entrées. 

That’s how search engines see your www and non-www versions of your URLs. 

For example: 

• https://www.tacosareawesome.com/
• https://tacosareawesome.com/

When it comes to choosing www or non-www versions, there’s no one side that is better. 

Again, you just want to be consistent with your URL structure. Do not have both. 

Whichever side you choose, remember to 301 redirect any URLs from your non-preferred version. 

5. Session IDs or tracking parameters

Session IDs and tracking parameters are like serving loaded nachos with different toppings every time. 

One with cilantro. Another with spicy sauce. 

And another with a drizzle of lime. 

The nachos are the same, but different. 

Search engines treat your URLs with session IDs or tracking parameters as individual, separate URLs, causing duplicate content if not handled properly. 

For example: 

• https://www.tacosareawesome.com/
• https://www.tacosareawesome.com/?utm=medium=referral/ 

The best way to handle URLs with parameters or session IDs is to: 

• Do not include the parameter URL in internal links.
• Always include a self-referencing canonical tag without the parameters.
• Set up robots.txt files to block URL parameters. 

User-agent: *

Disallow: /*?sessionid=

Disallow: /*?utm_source=

6. Write original content

Google won’t penalize you for duplicate content, but it will filter out your weaker, similar, or repetitive pages.

That means your shiny new page might never see the light of day. 

Ask yourself: Are you using the same intro or FAQ across your product or location pages?

That’s like wearing the same outfit to every party. You blend into the crowd. 

I always aim to ensure each piece of content is 50% unique on each page, with a focus on the product description or regional information. 

If you’re content is templated, search engines are likely yawning and ready for a nap after crawling your site. You want to keep your content fresh with a different angle. 

Removing duplicate content is the only way to fix the ‘Duplicate without user-selected canonical’ error 

Ah, the ancient art of fixing duplicate content is nothing new to the SEO industry. Every SEO professional has dabbled in it from time to time. 

If you’ve got the “Duplicate without user-selected canonical” error in Google Search Console, I implore you to start auditing your content. 

Because here’s the thing: duplicate content has never been cool. It was a spammy way to get rankings back in the day. 

Remember that time when Who Let the Dogs Out was on every radio station? And Fubu was still around? 

That’s when duplicate content was cool. Duplicate content will forever be a stain on the history of SEO. 

Enough time will never pass for these errors to go away unless you roll up your sleeves and remove the duplicate content. 

Google Ads adds ‘Share of Cost’ toggle to PMax reporting

Google Ads is rolling out a new Cost Slider in Performance Max (PMax) campaign reporting, giving advertisers visibility into how much of their spend is going to each channel.

Why we care. This toggle surfaces Share of Cost data – the percentage of total PMax spend each network or placement consumes – offering advertisers a clearer path to optimizing spend.

How it works. Flip the Cost Slider on, and Google calculates and displays each channel’s share of total campaign spend.

The feature was first spotted and shared by Thomas Eccel, head of Google Ads at JvM IMPACT, via LinkedIn.

The upside. Eccel outlined three main benefits:

1. Cost transparency: See exactly how budget is distributed across channels.
2. Optimization insights: Compare spend share with conversion share to flag channels overspending without returns.
3. Scaling opportunities: Spot underfunded, high-ROAS placements and push for incremental conversions.

The big picture. When first introduced, PMax was criticized for its “black box” nature. This toggle update, and several other updates released this year, look to be working to quieten those assumptions. A simple toggle that breaks out channel-level spend could help advertisers make smarter, data-driven decisions.

The ultimate Shopify SEO and AI readiness playbook

Shopify powers over 5 million active stores and remains the go-to ecommerce platform for many fast-growing brands. 

Its out-of-the-box setup helps you launch quickly – but fast deployment doesn’t guarantee organic visibility.

By default, Shopify’s structure can leak SEO value:

• Duplicate URLs dilute authority.
• Schema markup is minimal.
• Performance bottlenecks slow down pages.

Meanwhile, the rise of conversational AI and AI-powered search means optimizing for Google alone is no longer enough. 

Your store needs to speak the language of large language models (LLMs) just as fluently.

This playbook covers the full range of Shopify SEO essentials:

• Resolving structural flaws.
• Improving speed and performance.
• Refining structured data.
• Strengthening internal linking.
• Preparing your store for AI-powered search and shopping.

Is Shopify SEO-ready right out of the box?

Mostly, but not entirely. A freshly launched Shopify store offers a solid starting point:

• Clean, user-friendly URLs.
• Essential schema markup.
• Automatic XML sitemap.

However, once you start crawling the site and inspecting URLs, canonicals, and collection structures, gaps emerge. 

Reaching modern SEO standards – and preparing for AI-driven search – still requires targeted optimization.

Remember: in ecommerce, the real SEO goal isn’t just ranking higher – it’s driving more conversions and revenue.

Typical SEO challenges in Shopify

Shopify comes with a few common SEO issues. One of the most frequent is the use of multiple URLs for the same product detail page.

Duplicate product URLs and how to fix them

The main product URL is always the canonical version and follows this format:

• yourdomain.com/products/product-name

However, when products are assigned to collections, Shopify generates additional URLs in this format:

• yourdomain.com/collection/products/product-name

Shopify uses these alternative URLs to:

• Enable features like Next and Previous links for browsing within a collection. 
• Display category-matching breadcrumbs on product pages. 

While useful for navigation, this can:

• Confuse search engines.
• Lead to unnecessary crawling.
• Dilute the authority of product pages because link equity is passed through canonicals rather than directly.

A best practice is to adjust your theme so that links point to the main product URL, removing category breadcrumbs and next-previous links in favor of a simpler URL structure.

To do this:

• In your theme files, find the product grid file – usually one of:
  • main-collection-product-grid.liquid
  • product-grid-item.liquid
  • product-listing.liquid
• Ensure the link on a product box points to {{ product.url }}.

After fixing this:

• Run a site crawl to confirm duplicate URLs are no longer used.
• Use Google Search Console’s URL removal tool in prefix mode to clear old indexed URLs in the collection format, e.g., /collection-name/products/product-name, leaving only /products/product-name as the crawlable version.

Limited schema options

Out of the box, Shopify themes provide basic schema definitions such as:

• Product.
• Organization.
• Website.

This is enough to start, but leaves room for improvement. 

Adding more detailed schema types for products and collections often requires workarounds, which are covered in the Schema section later in this playbook.

The Shopify SEO pyramid

It can be tempting to optimize everything at once. 

A more effective approach is to prioritize changes based on their potential impact on both SEO and revenue.

This Shopify SEO pyramid outlines a bottom-up strategy – starting with technical optimization, then moving up to complementary content.

Technical SEO considerations

At the initial stage of any Shopify optimization, confirm that all general technical SEO requirements are in place.

Pay close attention to the following aspects.

Site speed

Google and Nitropack’s joint study found that:

• A 0.1-second improvement in load time can increase conversion rates by more than 10%. 
• After 2.75 seconds, most users begin to drop off, making speed optimization a high priority.

Shopify is a hosted platform, so opportunities for improvement are mainly in three areas:

• HTML caching level.
• Image optimization.
• Theme CSS and JavaScript adjustments.

HTML caching

Shopify already works with Cloudflare to provide CDN (content delivery network) functionality, serving static content from servers close to the end user’s location.

If you have your own Cloudflare account, you can configure custom caching rules through the O2O (orange-to-orange) option. 

This setup proxies traffic through your own Cloudflare zone first, letting you apply additional configurations before passing it to Shopify.

Enabling O2O allows access to Cloudflare features in three main areas:

• Caching: Set specific caching durations and behaviors.
• Workers: Run custom scripts at the edge.
• Rules: Block, redirect, or rewrite traffic based on conditions.

Refer to Cloudflare’s Product compatibility guide before making changes.

Image optimization

The most recommended file formats for Shopify sites are still JPEG or PNG. 

WebP has been widely supported since 2020 across all major browsers and offers better compression, but JPG may still be needed as a fallback for older browsers or iOS versions.

Shopify pages, especially collection and product pages, often contain many images. 

This can mean tens, sometimes over a hundred, individual requests from the browser to the server, adding multiple seconds of delay.

Lazy loading can help by ensuring images are only loaded when they come into the viewport, reducing the number of elements requested at any given time. 

Images not visible before scrolling will not be loaded. 

However, delayed loading can impact user experience if images pop in while scrolling, so configuration needs to balance performance and usability.

Slow performance can also result from oversized image files. 

Many images are uploaded in high resolutions that are unnecessary for web display. 

Apps like Crush can automate optimization, offering different compression modes, renaming, and access to all images for further manual adjustments.

Theme optimization

Shopify themes consist of Liquid templates, CSS, and JavaScript. 

Files can be minified to reduce whitespace, and unused code can be removed to make the theme load faster.

Unused apps should be uninstalled. Ideally, active apps inject code only on pages where they are used. 

In many cases, apps inject elements sitewide, which can slow the entire store. 

For example, an FAQ app may add its code to all page styles instead of just product pages. 

Check with your developer or the app creator to limit where code is injected.

Some app functionality can be replaced with a few lines of custom code and a metafield. 

This speeds up the site and reduces ongoing app costs.

XML sitemap

Shopify automatically creates an XML sitemap at /sitemap.xml, which can be submitted to Google Search Console.

As with other platforms, the main sitemap links to nested sitemaps for products, collections, pages, and blogs.

Robots.txt

Since 2021, Shopify has allowed users to customize the robots.txt file. 

This lets store owners control which parts of the website search engines can crawl, and also block specific crawlers.

Although less common in ecommerce, some store owners may choose to block AI crawlers or SEO tool user agents. 

This can also be done through Cloudflare directly, which is the default for new Cloudflare accounts.

To edit robots.txt in Shopify:

• Go to Online Store > Themes > Edit code.
• Under Templates, select Add a new template and choose robots.txt. 
• Create a file named robots.txt.liquid and add your custom rules

Refer to Shopify’s documentation to create variations such as:

Internal linking

Shopify sites benefit from strategic internal linking to streamline navigation and distribute authority. Consider the following pathways.

Homepage-to-collection linking

The homepage should link directly to the most important collections, not just in the navigation menu but also within the content area. 

This improves user experience and ensures authority flows from the homepage – usually the most authoritative page on an established site – to collections, and from there to products.

Collection-to-product linking

Collections group similar products into a category. 

On a collection page, products appear in a set order, which affects both authority flow and click distribution. Many brands don’t pay attention to the order or the number of products shown.

If your competitors display more products, your store may appear less comprehensive to search engines and AI systems. 

Competitive research can help determine the optimal product count per collection page.

Two specific tactics within collection-to-product linking can further improve user experience and SEO value:

• Featuring products within a category
  • A featured products section on a collection page can highlight top sellers or promotional items. 
  • Adding subheadings or additional text near featured items can provide extra context for search engines.
• Using faceted navigation
  • When faceted navigation is present, Shopify canonicalizes filtered URLs to the main collection URL by default to avoid duplicate content issues.
  • However, complex faceted structures can still waste crawl budget by generating many unnecessary URLs.
  • In some cases, certain filter combinations (e.g., brand + size, brand + price) make sense to index. 
  • Doing so usually requires a special app or custom development to create optimized landing pages for these combinations.

Product-to-product connections

Product pages often include links to other products via:

• Related product recommendations.
• Cross-selling opportunities.
• Upselling opportunities.
• Bundle suggestions.
• Recently viewed items.

These links are often automated or manually managed in the case of cross- and upselling. 

Always link using the main /products/ URL rather than collection-based URLs.

Internal links between products help establish contextual relationships, which can improve both search rankings and AI relevance. 

However, too many unrelated product links can dilute authority. 

Fewer, more relevant product suggestions can be more valuable.

The organic product grid in Google Search and Google Merchant

Since 2019, Google has displayed an organic product grid in search results, offering an experience similar to Google Shopping but without paid ads. (Brodie Clark has documented these results extensively.)

To be eligible, start by signing up for Google Merchant Center Next. 

If you aren’t running Google Shopping ads, this setup may still be pending.

One of the easiest ways to integrate is to install the free Google and YouTube apps in Shopify and follow the instructions to:

• Create your free Google Merchant account.
• Prepare your products for submission.
• Generate and submit a product data feed.

Once your Google Merchant Center is active, aim for Top Quality Store status to increase visibility. Google evaluates four key areas for this badge:

• Shipping experience.
• Return experience.
• Browsing experience.
• Purchase experience.

Bing also offers a Merchant Center. 

Given Bing’s connection with OpenAI, submitting your product details there can help get them into AI-powered environments.

Some AI platforms, such as OpenAI, are preparing their own product feed features to enable product selection and purchase directly inside conversational AI chats. 

Currently, you can only join a waitlist to be notified when this becomes available.

Home page optimization

A well-structured Shopify home page can improve search visibility and help visitors quickly understand your brand. 

It should clearly describe who you are, what you sell, and who your products are for. 

Along with the About page, it is one of the most important signals for search and AI engines to interpret your brand.

Many brands overload their home page with product offers, slideshows, and videos. The main purpose should be to: 

• Introduce your brand and unique selling proposition.
• Provide a clear path to your main collections.
• Highlight a small selection of special offers or featured products.
• Build trust through reviews, as well as security and credibility indicators.

With a clear value proposition on the front page, you are more likely to attract visitors who are genuinely interested in buying what you offer.

Product detail pages

Shopify brands often focus on bottom-of-funnel optimizations, as a store visit usually signals strong buying intent. 

Improving product detail pages can yield a fast return and benefit both traditional SEO and AI optimization.

Any change to a product detail page can affect conversions, so monitor conversion rates closely. 

Consider rolling out edits as A/B tests before applying them sitewide.

A typical product detail page structure includes:

• The buy box.
• Bullet points in the buy box.
• FAQs.
• User testimonials.

The buy box

This is where the main conversion decision happens. 

Elements such as social proof, trust badges, and low stock indicators can influence whether a visitor adds the product to the cart and completes checkout.

Bullet points in the buy box

Short bullet lists near the Add to Cart button can highlight key benefits and clarify a product’s main use cases. 

This format is valuable for both users and search engines.

Examples:

• A running shoe page noting “Ideal for flat feet.”
• An olive oil product noting “Made in Spain.”

These details provide important context for buyers and help search and AI engines associate the product with relevant topics.

FAQs

FAQs can address real user questions and add unique context to a product page. 

While this often requires an app (such as HelpLab EasyFAQ), customized FAQs can set your product pages apart from competitors with the same items.

Avoid using the FAQ section for generic store policies like shipping times or returns. These belong in dedicated sections. 

Instead, gather product-specific questions from sources like:

• Customer surveys.
• Online forums.
• Reddit.
• Facebook groups.
• YouTube comments.

Example: 

• For the reMarkable 2 tablet, a common Reddit question is “Is reMarkable 2 a realistic alternative for paper notebooks?” 
• Adding such a question and answer to the FAQ block adds meaningful, user-driven content.

User testimonials

Product detail pages are the best landing pages for buyers of that specific item. Including customer reviews can increase trust and conversions. 

Reviews are user-generated content and provide authentic use-case context.

Customer testimonials, which are manually added to the page, can be optimized to highlight product benefits. 

Combining bullet points in the buy box, real-user content in FAQs, and testimonials creates a richer page experience than a simple product description.

Dig deeper: Product page SEO: A complete guide

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Collection page SEO

On many Shopify sites we audit, collection pages account for more than 60% of organic traffic. 

Because of this, they deserve focused attention during optimization.

A standard collection page layout usually includes:

• H1 headline.
• Collection description.
• List of products.

While this is functional, there are opportunities for improvement in areas such as description placement, schema code, and internal linking.

Top vs. bottom description

Shopify provides only one description box by default. The issue?

• Placing a long description above the product grid can push products too far down, reducing above-the-fold visibility. 
• Placing all content below the grid may limit relevance at the top of the page.

A better solution is to split the description into two sections:

• A short, focused introduction above the product list that naturally mentions the primary topic and main use case for the products in the collection.
• A longer, more detailed description below the product grid containing multiple H2 headings and semantically optimized content.

To implement this:

• Create a Collection metafield (Rich text) under Search > Metafields and metaobjects > Collection.

• In theme customizations, assign a rich text block to the section below the product grid and connect it to the metafield.

This provides immediate context above the fold and deeper, keyword-rich content below.

Schema code

When using Google’s Rich Results Test tool on collection pages, we often encounter the following result:

Most Shopify themes have no schema markup for these pages. 

Two useful schema types are OfferCatalog and CollectionPage, both of which can describe the list of products and their details.

Because collection schema is usually consistent sitewide, the best method is to add the markup directly into the theme as a Custom Liquid block rather than manually per page. 

Below is an example of CollectionPage schema using Liquid variables:

<script type="application/ld+json">

{

 "@context": "https://schema.org",

 "@type": "CollectionPage",

 "name": {{ collection.title | json }},

 "url": "{{ shop.url }}{{ collection.url }}",

 "description": {{ collection.description | strip_html | truncate: 300 | json }},

 "mainEntity": {

 "@type": "ItemList",

 "name": {{ collection.title | json }},

 "itemListOrder": "https://schema.org/ItemListOrderDescending",

 "numberOfItems": {{ collection.products_count }},

 "itemListElement": [

 {% for product in collection.products limit: 20 %}

 {

 "@type": "Product",

 "name": {{ product.title | json }},

 "url": "{{ shop.url }}{{ product.url }}",

 "image": {{ product.featured_image | img_url: '800x800' | prepend: 'https:' | json }},

 "offers": {

 "@type": "Offer",

 "priceCurrency": "{{ cart.currency.iso_code }}",

 "price": "{{ product.price | divided_by: 100.0 }}",

 "availability": "https://schema.org/{% if product.available %}InStock{% else %}OutOfStock{% endif %}"

 }

 }{% unless forloop.last %},{% endunless %}

 {% endfor %}

 ]

 },

 "publisher": {

 "@type": "Organization",

 "name": {{ shop.name | json }},

 "url": "{{ shop.url }}",

 "logo": {

 "@type": "ImageObject",

 "url": "{{ shop.brand.logo | img_url: '200x200' | prepend: 'https:' }}"

 }

 }

}

</script>

FAQ blocks

Collection pages are important entry points for potential buyers and can be used to connect the category to specific use cases. 

Adding an FAQ block specific to the collection allows you to address common questions sourced from platforms like Reddit or Discord, or from internal channels like customer service calls and sales conversations.

Whenever possible, mark up these FAQs with schema code. 

This can be done by creating a metafield in the Collection group, pasting the FAQ schema into it, and placing it on the template via a Custom Liquid block.

Internal linking

Collection descriptions offer opportunities for context-rich internal links to related categories, buyer guides, product landing pages, or key blog content.

Determine the industry standard for the number of products per collection page by reviewing top-ranking competitors. Matching this count can help align with search engine expectations.

Note that the /collections/all URL may rank for branded or branded and product queries and, in some cases, convert. 

However, for many brands, it ranks without converting. In those cases, consider removing it from search results with a noindex directive.

If product discoverability is not a concern, you can also block /collections/all in robots.txt. 

Since Shopify’s sitemap – /sitemap.xml – lists all product pages, the all collection is not necessary for URL discovery.

Complementary content: Shopify blog SEO

Shopify blogs work differently from platforms like WordPress. 

A Shopify store can have multiple blogs, all hosted under the /blogs/ prefix. 

There are no native blog categories, but you can use tags to group posts or create separate blogs as if they were categories, resulting in a structure like:

• /blogs/<category1>
• /blogs/<category2>

Blogs are valuable for:

• Explaining products in detail.
• Hosting product comparisons.
• Publishing buyer guides.
• Creating “Don’t buy X before you read this” content.

They also help build topical authority in your niche. 

Blogs allow you to create semantic context around a product use case:

• From a customer’s perspective describing how they use it.
• From your brand explaining the step-by-step use.

A quick win for many Shopify sites is to identify high-traffic blog posts and check their conversion rates. 

Often, popular posts generate significant traffic but no sales because they lack clear product placements or calls to action. 

Adding links or product showcases inside these posts can quickly turn them into revenue drivers.

How to prepare Shopify for AI shopping

Many of the optimizations covered earlier – such as schema markup, clear site structure, FAQ blocks, and internal linking – also help prepare your store for AI-powered commerce. 

The key is to create a semantically rich context around your brand, collections, and products, matching them to your ideal customer profile and the use cases your products serve.

Conversational commerce is expected to grow rapidly, so preparing your Shopify store for this shift is essential.

Content optimization for AI

When optimizing for AI, consider the following:

• Use natural language in a conversational tone.
• Cover fan-out queries where possible.
• Incorporate a question-answer format for common shopping queries, ideally at the product level for product pages and at the product group level for collection pages.
• Provide comprehensive information with clear details, numbers, and statistics to make your content more likely to be cited in AI chats.
• Focus on benefits rather than features to better fit conversational interactions.

For a start, your brand needs to be seen as a good fit overall. 

As Jessica Bowman has noted, LLM perception can influence whether your products are even considered during a fan-out process.

AI-friendly content structure

AI engines interpret page content based on structure and semantic optimization. Ensure your content:

• Uses proper headline hierarchy with subheadings.
• Includes bullet points, tables, and bold highlights where appropriate.
• Is supported by visuals relevant to the surrounding text.
• Clearly states who the product is for and the purpose it serves.

Complement your content with usage guidelines, technical details and specifications, and material or care instructions. 

This level of completeness helps both search engines and AI systems understand and recommend your products.

The future of Shopify SEO

Shopify SEO success depends on balancing current technical excellence with forward-looking strategies for conversational AI. 

The priority is to establish a strong foundation – site speed, product page optimization, and a clear collection page strategy – before expanding into broader AI-focused enhancements.

Once the fundamentals are in place, prepare your content for conversational commerce by ensuring it is structured, comprehensive, and aligned with customer use cases. 

The stores that implement these optimizations now will be well-positioned as AI-powered shopping becomes mainstream.

SEO is not a one-time project.

Long-term success requires regular monitoring, content updates, and adapting to new technologies in a competitive ecommerce environment.

Call it whatever you want – just don’t call it ‘Answer Engine’

The war for naming and defining the new search is more ferocious than ever.

I don’t care what you call it, just don’t call it “answer engine.”

Search has reinvented itself again and climbed back to the top of the food chain. Job boards are full of “head of” roles for this new search era.

That’s not hype; it’s survival.

And if you’re a brand waiting for the dust to settle, you’re already late.

Zero‑click is the default now

Most people get what they need without leaving the results page.

Bain says about 80% of consumers rely on AI summaries for at least 40% of their searches, cutting organic traffic 15–25%. Similar reports abound, placing those numbers much higher and proving that rounding errors are over.

• “Answer engine” focuses on the output, not the work.
• “GEO” is getting buzz, but it doesn’t help you run a P&L.

If we need a name, call it CEO: Conversational Engine Optimization – because the real work is inside conversational environments.

There’s no danger in people holding on to the three-letter top person moniker since, to anyone with an actual job, “CEO” is meaningless.

Slapping those same letters on a search strategy is consultant cosplay. The proof isn’t in the label; it’s whether you show up (and get credited) and whether that presence pays.

Be kind to the machines. When they take over, I want them to remember who said “please” and relayed facts.

The CEO checklist

• Write in clean, quotable sentences that machines can lift and credit; keep paragraphs tight; add a table or a source only when it truly clarifies the point.
• Answer the follow‑up questions people really ask and write as if the conversation will continue.
• Make pages fast and well‑structured so parsers don’t trip, you’ll need sensible schema, clear bot directives, no gimmicks.
• Put your name and date on the work, show your sources, lean on first‑party data.
• And change the scoreboard: track how often you’re cited in AI answers and how those mentions move your metrics.

If an answer requires no further action, desired actions drop, so protecting the revenue model is paramount. Falling short hits ads, affiliates, and lead gen and almost every other connected relationship a brand has.

Treat zero‑click as a channel, not a write‑off

Capture what you can on the surface, the low-hanging fruit like calls, bookings, and emails.

Where your content powers answers, push for attribution and licensing. Publish formats assistants can cite without replacing your value. Marketers are already adjusting, sometimes awkwardly, as anyone reading the coverage in the Wall Street Journal or The Guardian can tell.

For leadership, here’s the translation without the checklist:

Define success in terms that match the world you actually operate in: your share of answer (how often you’re cited), the accuracy of how your brand is described in AI outputs, the assisted conversions those mentions drive, and the revenue that follows. Restructure high‑value pages into clean Q→A narratives with sources. Publish evidence with benchmarks, calculators, and original research.

Again, it can’t hurt to be kind and give the machines what models they prefer to cite.

Don’t bet the farm on one just yet. You need Perplexity, ChatGPT (with browsing), Gemini, and Copilot.

And put real governance around it: editorial standards, update cadence, and fact‑checking that can survive summarization.

Name it if you must

GEO, CAIO, CEO, CAO, or AEO, it doesn’t matter.

While I’m confident that my three-letter moniker will stick and be universally adopted overnight, you may want to keep “answer engine” as a raised eyebrow for people in the know.

Either way, the job stays the same. You’ll need to earn presence and trust in conversational results, then make sure that presence pays.

Facebook upgrades Professional Dashboard with new insights

Facebook is rolling out an enhanced web version of its Professional Dashboard, adding fresh creator insights, streamlined navigation, and improved parity with its mobile tools.

Details:

• Web refresh: New home screen highlights earnings, content performance, and engagement; simplified navigation groups tools for monetization, audience connection, and education; Comments Manager now matches mobile functionality.

• Coming soon: Advanced trend insights, detailed content performance data, distribution breakdowns, data export, and bulk upload tools.
• New audience insights: “Popular with your followers” shows which content and pages resonate most with your audience.

• New performance metrics: Views over time, view rate, and retention help pinpoint content that hooks viewers and where engagement drops off.

Why we care. The dashboard is a key hub for creators to track performance, manage monetization, and engage audiences. The updates make it easier to work across devices and tap into deeper performance data for smarter content decisions.

The big picture. With more robust desktop tools and sharper insights, Facebook is giving creators a better way to spot trends, fine-tune content, and grow their audience – all from one place.

LinkedIn expands Thought Leader Ads to promote event posts

LinkedIn expanded its Thought Leader Ads format to let advertisers sponsor member posts that link directly to a LinkedIn Event Page.

Why we care. Trust is currency in B2B marketing – and people trust people more than brands. LinkedIn’s 2025 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report found:

• 94% of marketers say trust is the key to B2B success.
• 76% believe collaborating with creators builds authenticity; 81% say it helps establish trust.
• 58% prioritize credibility when selecting influencers.

By sponsoring authentic member posts, brands can tap into higher engagement rates, strengthen trust, and reach audiences more likely to take action. It’s a direct way to boost attendance while aligning with the growing B2B demand for authenticity and thought leadership.

How it works. When an executive, employee, creator, or expert posts an event, advertisers can promote it as a Thought Leader Event Ad (with member permission).

• In Campaign Manager, choose Browse Existing in the Content Library to find eligible posts.
• Standard metrics like CTR, CPC, conversions, and new followers track performance.

The big picture. By tying thought leadership directly to events, LinkedIn is giving marketers a scalable way to amplify credible voices, fuel attendance, and strengthen brand trust, all while meeting the rising demand for authenticity in B2B.

The end of easy PPC attribution – and what to do next

Marketing has never had more data – and never been more blind. 

Third-party cookies are disappearing, ad platforms guard their insights, and reports are riddled with blind spots. 

Privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA, browser updates, and iOS changes have fractured tracking into pieces too small to give a full picture.

Meanwhile, the customer journey is anything but linear. Google calls it the “messy middle” – a web of touchpoints across search, social, email, ads, events, and more. 

An ecommerce customer might have six meaningful interactions before buying. In B2B, that number can climb to 60+ across multiple channels, per Dreamdata. 

Yet many attribution systems still distill all of this complexity into one lazy metric: the last click. 

The result? 

Upper- and mid-funnel efforts that actually drive demand get sidelined, leaving PPC teams making budget calls with an incomplete picture.

Last-click attribution: The habit that won’t die

We’ve long known that last-click attribution is flawed, yet it still dominates in many organizations. 

It survives because it’s simple, familiar, and easy to explain to clients. Forecasts are built on it, and it’s woven into daily workflows.

But giving 100% of the credit to the final touchpoint, often branded search or retargeting, is a warped view of reality. 

If someone discovers you via a podcast, reads a blog post, sees a LinkedIn ad, then finally Googles your brand and clicks a search ad, last-click crowns that search ad as the hero.

Over time, this bias quietly drains budget from awareness and consideration campaigns. 

Demand creation slows, but the reports never show the warning signs. 

In B2B, where deals are rarely sparked by a single click, this short-term thinking is especially dangerous.

Worse still, last-click undervalues what’s often called “dark social.” Think:

• Word-of-mouth.
• Community discussions.
• Events.
• The influence that never shows up in click reports. 

One marketer even found Facebook undervalued by 90% using last-click metrics, yet convincing stakeholders to shift budget was a battle.

Dig deeper: 7 must-know marketing attribution definitions to avoid getting gamed

Why new analytics models haven’t saved attribution (yet)

Data-driven attribution models like GA4’s default DDA were supposed to rescue us from last-click thinking. 

In theory, they spread credit across touchpoints using machine learning rather than rigid rules. 

In practice, they come with their own problems.

• They’re opaque – a black box of fractional numbers with little explanation of why each touchpoint gets the credit it does. 
• They’re also incomplete – largely confined to the Google Ads and Analytics universe – and blind to offline, cross-device, and many third-party interactions.

These models fall under the broader category of multi-touch attribution (MTA), which assigns proportional credit to every marketing interaction a user has before converting. 

But even if MTA were perfect at distributing credit, it wouldn’t prove causality. 

It also won’t tell you whether campaigns are driving incremental results.

It works backwards from a conversion, assigning credit based on correlation. There is no way to tell if the ad actually caused the sale or if it would have happened anyway.

That’s a big problem in an era when research shows many platform-attributed conversions simply capture people who were going to buy regardless. 

Ad platforms often optimize for the “low-hanging fruit” – users most likely to convert – which inflates reported results without creating net-new demand.

With cookies disappearing and user-level tracking eroding, these models are also losing the very signals they rely on. 

MTA models built on granular tracking are disappearing fast due to privacy regulations and browser changes. 

Even with GA4 and data-driven algorithms, most marketers are still not in a much better position to confidently identify what truly drives value.

Dig deeper: Marketing attribution models: The pros and cons

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How to evolve your PPC measurement approach

If traditional attribution is broken and new models haven’t fully fixed it, how should you adapt? 

The answer is not to give up, but to change your approach. 

In a world of patchy data and complex journeys, you need to shift from chasing perfect attribution to focusing on pragmatic, business-driven insights. 

Here are several strategies to consider.

Leverage first-party data and CRM integration

With third-party data drying up, your own first-party data is now gold. 

Every marketing team should invest in capturing and integrating as much customer data as possible from:

• Analytics.
• CRM system.
• Other customer touchpoints.

Collect known user data (with consent) through:

• Gated content.
• Newsletter signups.
• Free trials can help. 

Just as important is tying that data together. Connect your ad platforms to tools like HubSpot or Salesforce and track post-click actions in your CRM pipelines.

By importing offline or downstream conversions (e.g., leads that turn into sales) back into Google Ads or Analytics, you close the loop on which clicks lead to real revenue. 

This deeper integration lets you move beyond vanity metrics. 

If a PPC campaign produces leads that rarely close, a CRM-integrated view will show it, even if last-click attribution looked healthy.

Measure incrementality, not just conversions

Perhaps the most important mindset shift is to prioritize incrementality over simple attribution. 

Instead of obsessing over which ad or channel “gets credit” for a conversion, ask yourself: Would this conversion have happened if we hadn’t run those ads?

In other words, what portion of conversions are truly incremental additional sales generated solely thanks to your marketing? 

As one expert put it:

• “The most important question isn’t ‘What drove the conversion?’ It’s ‘What drove conversions that wouldn’t have happened without the media?’”

Measuring incrementality requires experimentation. 

Savvy marketers use lift tests and holdout experiments to directly gauge cause and effect. 

You might, for example, hold out a random portion of your audience (or geographic regions) from seeing your ads and compare conversion rates with the exposed group.

This kind of testing isolates the true lift from your media spend. 

Major platforms now offer built-in tools (e.g., Facebook’s Conversion Lift, Google’s geo experiments), or you can design your own. 

The key is to make testing a regular part of measurement, not a one-off project.

By making incrementality your north star, you focus the team on net-new results. 

You may discover that retargeting is cannibalizing organic conversions you would have gotten anyway, while a modest LinkedIn campaign is actually driving a new pipeline.

Dig deeper: Incrementality testing in advertising: Who are the winners and losers?

Use marketing mix modeling for a holistic view

Attribution tools work bottom-up (assigning credit to touchpoints), whereas marketing mix modeling (MMM) works top-down. 

MMM analyses aggregate spend and results across channels over time to reveal each channel’s contribution.

It doesn’t rely on cookies, can incorporate offline channels, and shows insights platform reports miss like cross-channel synergies or diminishing returns. 

For example, it might reveal that:

• Display advertising is driving valuable assists even though last-click shows few conversions.
• Or radio and paid search together are more effective than either alone.

Think of MMM as a strategic planning tool. It’s not for daily optimization, but running it quarterly or annually helps set budgets with confidence. 

In one analysis, MMM showed that some channels with excellent platform ROAS actually had marginal returns below $1 when incremental contribution was measured.

Dig deeper: MTA vs. MMM: Which marketing attribution model is right for you?

Adopt a unified and flexible measurement framework

No single method will perfectly capture today’s customer journey. 

The smartest marketers blend platform-reported data, first-party analytics, qualitative insights, and experimental results.

You might combine:

• GA4’s data-driven attribution for quick insights.
• MMM for validation.
• Lift tests for direct measurement.

You can also supplement this with sales feedback or customer surveys. 

This multi-source approach overcomes the blind spots of any one method and forces internal alignment. 

Instead of PPC, SEO, and social teams fighting for credit in silos, everyone focuses on metrics that matter: 

• Incremental revenue.
• Cost per new customer.
• Pipeline contribution.

Finally, accept there’s no such thing as perfect tracking – and that’s OK. 

The goal now is clarity you can act on. Patterns, trends, and informed judgment will guide the smartest investments.

Attribution doesn’t have to be perfect

Marketers who combine first-party data, incrementality testing, and MMM will get close enough to make confident, revenue-driven decisions.

The goal isn’t to crown one channel as “the winner” but to understand which activities truly grow the business and invest more in them. 

In the end, the marketers who thrive will be the ones who measure what matters and put their budget where it counts, even when the path isn’t perfectly clear.

Google boosts iOS App campaigns with new formats, AI tools

Google is rolling out a suite of updates to boost iOS app marketing performance, from fresh ad formats to AI-powered bidding and privacy-preserving measurement tools.

Details:

• New ad formats: Expanded reach on YouTube Shorts, Search, and Display; co-branded creator ads now in YouTube in-feed and Shorts; playable end cards available on select AdMob inventory.

• AI bidding and creative tools: Target ROAS bidding now on iOS; maximize conversions bidding available for in-app actions; AI video enhancements auto-fit content to different placements.
• Privacy-centric measurement: On-device conversion tracking uses de-identified data; integrated conversion measurement delivers faster, more accurate attribution via app attribution partners.

Why we care. App Store consumer spending is up 24% year-over-year, according to Appfigures, making high-value iOS users a lucrative target for growth-minded marketers. The new ad formats open up untapped inventory like YouTube Shorts and interactive playable ads, while AI-powered bidding could squeeze more ROAS for your spend.

Plus, the privacy-centric measurement tools offer more accurate attribution without compromising user data, helping marketers make smarter, faster optimization decisions in a post-IDFA (Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers) world.

The big picture. These updates could give advertisers more reach, smarter bidding, and reliable measurement from iOS campaigns in a post-privacy-tracking era.

YouTube expands Promote tools, no Google Ads needed

YouTube rolled out a set of creator-friendly updates, including doubling the image limit in Community Posts, improving auto-dub editing, and adding fresh call-to-action buttons for in-stream promotions.

Community Posts. Starting this week, creators can upload up to 10 images per post (up from five) across all surfaces, enabling richer context and potentially boosting engagement.

Auto-dubbing edits. Verified creators can now use Studio Editor to update videos with automatic dubbing, with tracks reprocessed to match changes. Support for editing manually uploaded multi-language captions is planned for later this year.

CTA expansion. YouTube Promote campaigns targeting website visits now offer more granular button options like Book Now, Get Quote, and Contact Us, available on desktop. Promote allows creators to boost Shorts and videos directly without Google Ads.

Why we care. These updates give creators more flexibility in how they present, promote, and localize their content – streamlining workflows while potentially improving engagement and conversions.

Bottom line. YouTube’s latest tweaks aren’t revolutionary but give creators sharper tools to engage audiences, fine-tune messaging, and extend reach without leaving the platform.

The implosion of the blogging-for-dollars revenue model

For (dangerously) close to three decades, a large portion of the web was built on a simple and incredibly profitable premise: 

• Slap some content on a page.
• Paste with ads.
• Collect the check. 

This “blogging-for-dollars” model powered the growth of countless niche sites, media empires, and an entire supporting ecosystem of tools, services, and infrastructure. 

But the model that once drove the golden age of attention-optimized publishing – where the sole goal was to generate pageviews, not serve a purpose or sell a product – is falling apart.

And no one should be surprised.

How we got here: Ad revenue was the engine

There were three main ways people got traffic to fuel this model: 

• Organic search (SEO).
• Direct or type-in traffic (especially common among domainers and particularly effective with typo domains).
• Arbitrage. 

In this context, arbitrage meant:

• Buying low-cost traffic from one source – often PPC ads or social traffic.
• Funneling it to a site covered in higher-paying display ads in the hopes that the return would exceed the cost. 

It wasn’t really SEO, but it exploited the same economics: get traffic cheap, earn more from impressions.

This wasn’t just a hobbyist strategy. The blogging-for-dollars model powered nearly all of digital publishing. 

From lifestyle bloggers and casual domainers to the biggest legacy news publishers, ad revenue was the engine under the hood.

Even the largest newspapers became reliant on pageview-based monetization, optimizing their content and headlines for traffic over newsworthiness.

As profit targets rose and margins thinned, publishers added more and more ads. One banner ad turned into six. 

Then came sticky footers, full-page interstitials, in-text link ads, autoplay videos, and Taboola-style “recommended content.” 

Pages became more ad than article. Readers noticed, and so did Google.

When users developed banner blindness, advertisers responded with more aggressive formats, often relying on JavaScript to animate or rotate ads or sneak past ad blockers. 

JavaScript often bloated the page, tanked Core Web Vitals, or interfered with crawling altogether. 

This led to lower rankings, less traffic, and even more pressure to add monetization elsewhere.

Sites were slowly strangling their golden goose and calling it optimization.

You might be tempted to blame the boom of these content-for-the-sake-of-content sites on the publishing systems that made spinning up these sites at scale so easy.

But that’s not the way it happened. 

The blogging-for-dollars model didn’t grow out of easy publishing tools. 

The early ad networks and their CPM model planted the seed, and AdSense was the kerosene on the fire.

The fact that you could make real money – sometimes absurd money – just by getting people to your site and showing them ads was a powerful motivator.

It drove the development of easier, faster publishing systems, allowing money to be made quicker and in larger quantities.

The massive demand for content to put the ads on led to the rise of:

• Content spinners.
• Auto-blogging tools.
• Article marketplaces.
• Micro-niche site templates.

These were built explicitly to scale publishing operations that served ads.

Another industry that really benefited from and leaned into blogging-for-dollars is hosting. 

Just as the demand for easier and faster publishing systems exploded in response to monetization opportunities, so did the demand for cheap, scalable infrastructure to support them. 

As long as new niche sites were being spun up by the literal millions to support the insatiable appetite for more content, hosting companies enjoyed exponential growth and could offer unsustainably low prices because they were making their profits on volume.

Now, with the implosion of the system that built all of these industries, they’ll all have to figure out new revenue models.

Dig deeper: Is web traffic a vanity metric? Not if you’re a publisher

Why it’s dying

Ad rates keep dropping

Ad revenue has been on a steady decline for well over a decade. 

The glory days of $250 clicks on mesothelioma articles in 2008 are long gone. 

CPMs have dropped, CPCs have become increasingly competitive, and ad networks have gotten smarter about placement and fraud. 

More ad spend is flowing into video, social media, and direct partnerships, while less is going to long-tail, text-based content.

Programmatic doesn’t pay like it used to. Without those fat margins, the model’s economics break down.

AI is stealing the clicks

The introduction of AI Overviews, ChatGPT Browse, Perplexity, and Bing Copilot isn’t just a UX upgrade – it’s a structural threat. 

These models are designed to answer questions directly, often summarizing information from multiple sources without requiring the user to click through to the originating site.

Many ad-driven blogs rely on long-tail queries, such as:

• “How-to” questions.
• Product comparisons.
• Informational lookups.

But increasingly, that traffic is intercepted before it even reaches the site.

Being cited in an answer isn’t the same as getting a visit.

The result? Less traffic. Less opportunity to monetize. Less return.

Search behavior has shifted

Even without AI, user behavior has been trending away from generic, thin content. 

Audiences expect fast, clean, useful answers. 

Pages with 10 popups, autoplay video, or 1,500 words of fluff before the answer are getting bounced.

Google has been telling us for years to focus on helpful content. 

But AI and UX trends are now enforcing this by removing the last remaining monetary incentive to publish anything less.

Dig deeper: Niche blogging in the new Google reality: 5 strategies to thrive or die

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The ecosystem is cracking

This isn’t just a blow to the site owners. It’s pulling the rug out from under the entire ecosystem that profited alongside them.

Hosting providers

The ultra-cheap hosting industry was built on volume: 

• Thousands of made-for-advertising (MFA) sites.
• Niche blogs.
• Short-term experiments. 

As that demand dries up, so does the business case. 

Hosting growth will no longer come from an ever-expanding base of casual site spinners. 

Instead, the customers who remain will be more serious and more demanding:

• Ecommerce businesses.
• Brands.
• Professional creators with real revenue models and infrastructure needs. 

These customers aren’t shopping for $1 per month hosting and won’t switch providers just to save a few bucks. 

They’re looking for reliability, security, performance, and long-term support. 

The era of explosive growth fueled by churn is over. 

Hosting providers that want to survive need to shift their focus to delivering exceptional value, not just dirt-cheap plans.

CMSs and page builders

Publishing platforms like WordPress won’t disappear – but like the hosting industry, they’re facing a shift from volume to stability. 

For WordPress.org itself, being open-source and free cushions the blow. 

But this transition is going to hurt the businesses that sprang up around the WordPress ecosystem:

• Theme developers.
• Plugin shops.
• Managed hosting providers.
• Agencies.

The steep, continuous growth curve that they’ve enjoyed for more than a decade is flattening out. 

Ease of use and rapid scalability won’t be enough. 

What’s going to matter is stability.

• Not crashing.
• Not requiring constant emergency patches.
• Not changing so frequently that shop owners have to relearn or rebuild every few months. 

The next generation of WordPress users won’t be bloggers or hobbyists. They are:

• Ecommerce operators.
• Freelancers.
• Businesses that need their websites to work reliably to earn money.

The shift is away from self-publishing and toward self-employment. 

That means the focus has to be on reliability, not novelty.

Ad networks

The squeeze is on. 

Ad networks that thrived on scale and long-tail filler content aren’t necessarily seeing their inventory shrink.

However, they are struggling with:

• Falling margins.
• Tougher publisher demands.
• Changing expectations from advertisers. 

The rates they can command are dropping, and the quality publishers they rely on are asking for ad delivery methods that don’t interfere with SEO performance or tank Core Web Vitals. 

That makes life harder.

Ad networks certainly won’t disappear entirely. 

But they will have to evolve. 

That includes helping their publishers monetize non-search-dependent traffic sources like newsletters, apps, and direct audiences. 

The future is less about ad impressions at any cost and more about building monetization strategies around sustainable, brand-safe, and technically sound platforms.

Dig deeper: AI isn’t the enemy: How bloggers can thrive in a generative search world

What SEOs and publishers need to do now

If your strategy still relies on ranking for hundreds of low-difficulty, monetizable keywords and stuffing ads around content, it’s time to pivot – quickly.

Shift from volume to value

You don’t need 1,000 articles. You need 10 that actually help people. 

Deep, useful, structured, and credible content is what gets surfaced in AI summaries and cited in real answers.

Build entity-level authority

AI doesn’t just look at page relevance – it looks at entity authority. 

That means authorship, branding, citations, and reputation matter more than ever.

Dig deeper: Inside Google’s secret search systems: 1,200 experiments, AI agents, and entities

Diversify revenue

Stop relying entirely on display ads. Explore:

• Affiliate partnerships.
• Premium content.
• Digital products, services, or memberships. 

The sites that survive will have multiple income streams and a business model that works even with reduced traffic.

Design for the answer layer

Treat your pages as answer sources, not just destinations. That means:

• Scannable formatting.
• Front-loaded insights.
• Clean markup.
• Clarity over cleverness.

The webmaster welfare era is over

You used to be able to coast – spin up a quick site, churn out AI content or rewrites, and still make a few hundred bucks a month. That time is over.

This is the collapse of webmaster welfare.

AI has raised the bar. 

The economic engine that once fueled low-effort publishing is seizing up. 

If your site can’t prove its value at a glance, it won’t be surfaced. And if it’s not surfaced, it’s not earning.

The future belongs to the ones who build something worth reading, worth referencing, and worth surviving the cut.

Dig deeper: The $1 trillion generative economy that smart SEOs will own

How much does SEO really cost

Many articles detail the top-level costs of SEO. 

The fee paid to an SEO consultant or agency is part of the cost of SEO. However, getting results also requires a business or brand to contribute time and effort.

This article will look beyond the surface at the full spectrum of costs associated with doing SEO well, enabling you to approach 2025 well-prepared for SEO success.

SEO costs: The basics

Looking for a straightforward overview of SEO costs? Several studies have answered the question. 

Exact costs vary depending on factors like business size, goals, industry, geographical location, and the overall complexity of the project. But, on average in 2025, we have:

• Hourly rates between $75 and $100.
• Project-based fees from $2,501 to $5,000.
• Monthly retainers ranging from $500 to $1,500.
• Local SEO ranges from $250 upwards, depending on competition and total locations.

While some of these figures may seem high, most businesses are small, and their SEO costs are much lower.

• In the U.S., small businesses typically spend $500 or less monthly on SEO.
• In the UK, the average monthly spend is around £500.

The problem with generic SEO costs

Unfortunately, there is a problem with this SEO pricing model.

Improving your SEO is a more involved and complicated process than buying traffic. 

Generic, top-level figures assume that SEO is an entirely hands-off process. 

You pay a consultant or agency $$$ per month, and they wave their magic SEO wand and shout “Optimizara” and – Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo! – you appear magically at the top of the search rankings. 

Unsurprisingly, that is not how things work in the real world, and effective SEO requires a synergy between the business and the SEO consultant. 

In 2025, SEO is hyper-competitive. Competition comes from search ads, AI Overviews, brands, and more aggressive and advanced competitors.

SEO for 2025 should focus on improving visibility across these SERP features. 

Succeeding in this landscape requires sage SEO guidance, a strong SEO strategy, a clear SEO plan, and lots of hard work! You have to aim at what Google is aiming at. 

Fortunately, Google’s philosophy for SEO is articulated by E-E-A-T. 

The content Google wants to surface is based on experience and expertise from trusted authority figures in your industry. 

Your SEO is unlikely to be that authority in your business, so rather than someone who does it all for you, your SEO should be a guide who analyzes the current SEO situation and provides you with a map to better results. 

Your SEO should be a kind of SEO Obi-Wan Kenobi – a wise sage who will tutor you in the ways of the SEO force and guide you forward. 

Instead of viewing SEO as a one-time service you pay for and complete, it’s better to think of it within the framework of the 3Ms model: manpower, money, and minutes.

• Manpower is the time you provide.
• Money is how you pay for guidance and advice.
• Minutes is how long it will take to get results (a key SEO consideration). 

This will allow you to develop a more holistic and comprehensive idea of how much SEO will cost to produce results.

Is SEO the right choice for now?

You must consider whether SEO is the right fit for your immediate needs. 

SEO is powerful, but it often takes time, so if you need new business today, you may need to have an SEO or PPC conversation first. 

The key here is to consider your goals, often using a system like SEO SMART goals.

Then, determine if SEO’s realities align with your overall marketing requirements.

If you decide to integrate SEO into your broader marketing approach, be mindful of tracking your progress with KPIs.

Dig deeper: When your business doesn’t need SEO

The SEO outsourcing trap

One final word of warning. 

SEO is not the same as PPC. 

Google wants to show the best sites at the top of the search engine.

You can’t just pay to play with SEO. 

This thinking can cause you to fall into an SEO outsourcing trap.

This is where you constantly seek the agency that knows the secret to SEO and will be able to succeed where many others have failed before them. 

Remember, no agency has a special relationship with Google, and there is no secret trick to get to the top of Google (for long, at least).  

Strategize. Plan. Do the work. 

The real costs of SEO

Let’s dig a little deeper and look at how to understand the true costs of doing SEO well.

SEO is not a direct pay-to-win model or as straightforward as paying an agency and getting guaranteed results.

Investing in organic search requires:

• Analysis.
• Insight.
• Strategy.
• Expert guidance.
• Tactical support.
• Technical updates.
• Creative effort.

It works best when the SEO and the business work closely together, where the SEO often plays the role of researcher, strategist, and project manager to pull everything together.

If I haven’t scared you off yet – and if you really want to improve your SEO, which you really should – then you must go into this with your eyes open and expect it to be difficult.

You will need to sacrifice time and money on the altar of SEO success, but if your sacrifice is worthy, there will be a pile of gold at the end.

Remember, the smartest SEO happens at the intersection of your business knowledge and the agency’s SEO expertise.

Working together, you can achieve results far beyond what either could accomplish alone.

At its heart, this is multi-format content marketing and SEO integrated and working together.

Caveats aside, let’s break this down into a more comprehensive set of SEO costs:

1. SEO outsourcing costs

Your first SEO cost is for professional advice from a credible, experienced expert. 

As detailed above, this will cost you anywhere from $100 per hour upwards, depending on competition, complexity, and scope.

Be mindful that there are many types of SEO companies, all of which offer a range of services from analysis and strategy to technical SEO and content creation.

As such, educate yourself on your situation and likely requirements.

Be prepared to do an initial piece of work to:

• Understand your marketplace.
• Assess your current SEO situation.
• Develop a plan with clear timelines.

Before you dive in, it’s crucial to become an educated buyer and understand the difference between SEO goals, strategy, and planning.

With a solid plan in place, you can then determine who will handle what responsibilities on both the client and agency sides.

The plan is crucial – don’t skip this step.

Although it may seem like extra work, planning saves time and money while improving results.

Choose wisely and plan effectively. This step determines whether you succeed or face slow, gradual, painful failure.

2. SEO internal resources costs

As a business, there are many ways you can inform and assist the agency in developing your SEO, including:

• The marketing big picture: The agency needs to understand the overall marketing strategy and approach, and where SEO fits into that bigger picture.
• Defining goals and objectives: Goals and objectives must be clear for the overall marketing and SEO within that larger framework.
• Content creation and approval: The agency may help, but often, this will depend upon specific industry knowledge that the business may need to provide. In many cases, the content may need to come from authentic individuals within the company to hit those E-E-A-T targets.
• Website support: Not all agencies provide website support, and many websites are complicated and require developer support to optimize the website design and SEO fully.  Your website remains crucial and must be carefully planned to maximize SEO success.
• Reporting and feedback: SEO is often judged on several KPIs, but it can be helpful to close the loop here and reconcile conversions to actual leads and sales. This will help the agency understand the real-world impact rather than just the metrics and improve results.  
• Training: Where the business will perform some of the more day-to-day SEO tasks, time may be assigned for training sessions. 
• Day-to-day SEO tasks: Where the business is undertaking website updates or content creation, there are some SEO tasks here (all of which should be covered in the SEO training). 
• Regular communication and meetings: SEO is an iterative process, and healthy engagement on the client side only helps ensure that opportunities are grasped and the SEO stays oriented toward the goal. Regular catch-ups, reviews, and communication help ensure hurdles are overcome and progress is consistent. This all takes time, but will improve results and keep you on track. 

The specifics here will always vary depending on the business and that all-important SEO plan.

The key takeaway is that the best results will come when the business and agency work together toward agreed goals. 

Dig deeper: Where should you spend your SEO budget?

3. The cost of not doing SEO

Not doing SEO also carries costs and impacts on the business.

• Reduced visibility: If your customers search, not being organically visible will lead to less visibility and fewer visitors.
• Reduced local or brand awareness: If customers can’t find you, this impacts direct business, referrals, and recommendations. 
• Credibility: There is a trust associated with organic rankings, and if you rely solely on ads or other means, then this will impact credibility and conversions. 
• Impact on other channels: Should a prospect find you from other marketing, they may still search for you unless you consider how your business is presented in search results. Then, you could lose business for all the wrong reasons. 
• Losing out to competitors: Each job you don’t win is what your competitors do. By not having a solid organic presence, you are slowly losing ground that will be harder to reclaim. 
• Higher advertising costs: Organic, when well-established, tend to have higher engagement and lower costs for generating leads and sales than other channels. This pushes you to rely on more expensive channels and again seeds a competitive advantage to your competitors who are winning more work at lower costs. 

Ultimately, if your customers use search engines and you don’t do SEO, you are almost certainly losing out and handing opportunities to your competitors. 

4. The cost of doing SEO badly

There is the old saying that if you think it is expensive to use an expert, wait until you see how expensive it is to do the job cheaply with an amateur.

That is SEO in a nutshell.

There are SEO experts on Fiverr. 

There is always someone who will do the job for less.

Many low-rent SEO tools and companies will make wondrous promises but deliver very little. 

The SEO AI tools are the latest addition of big promises and offer to pump out content daily to boost your SEO, but they will do little to help and could cost you dearly. 

Doing SEO badly will, at best, cost you time and money.

Worse still, in the helpful content world, doing SEO badly could hurt your site’s ability to rank in the future. 

The key is to use a credible, experienced expert and to put a plan together.  

Don’t scrimp on SEO today; it is too expensive in the long run! 

5. Costs for SEO software and tools

Another SEO cost is the many tools available that aim to help you rank. 

These tools range from around $50 to $100 monthly for a single site. 

These tools certainly have their uses from a monitoring perspective, and they can also provide suggestions regarding tasks that may improve your SEO. 

The main problem with these tools is that they have to make recommendations, many of which will do nothing to improve your SEO whilst eating up a lot of your time. 

Google’s John Mueller addressed the output of SEO tools in this Reddit SEO thread. 

• “Any SEO tool will spit out 10s or 100s of ‘recommendations,’ most of those are going to be irrelevant to your site’s visibility in search. Finding the items that make sense to work on takes to experience.”

That is our experience, and whilst SEO tools can be helpful, they require an experienced eye to separate the wheat from the chaff. 

My take on whether you should use SEO tools is that it depends on your experience.

If you are a novice SEO trying to use the tool to steer your efforts, you will likely eat up many hours, days and weeks following the advice of a tool that will do nothing to help your SEO.

The real cost of SEO tools for most novice users is simply the lost time (which is the most precious resource of all). 

6. Time to results 

An important note with SEO vs. other paid tactics is that it can take a while to benefit from improved visibility and traffic. 

Over time, you can often reduce SEO spend while seeing results stabilize and keep improving, but be prepared for the long game and don’t give up before you capture the hill! 

In the early stages, SEO often involves marketing spend aimed at progress toward a goal, but with little immediate tangible business result, so keep this in mind.

Dig deeper: What percentage of your budget should go toward SEO?

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SEO planning and accurate SEO costs

The key to getting accurate SEO costs is to work on an SEO plan.

The specifics here will vary, but at a high level, you will need to determine your:

• Situation: Where are you now?
• Objectives: Where do you want to get to?
• Strategy: What is the overarching strategy? Why should Google rank you?
• Tactics: What are the specifics of your approach?
• Action plan: Who will do what and when?
• Measurements: How will you measure progress and results? 

Once you understand all of the financial costs and internal resources and how long it will take to start seeing actual traffic, you can decide how to proceed. 

There is a wonderful little book called “The Art of War” by the military strategist Sun Tzu, written around 500 BCE.

Much can be mined from this book for business and marketing strategy, and the following statement seems particularly apt for SEO:

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

A lot of SEO is tactics without strategy.

Strategy is only useful if it is acted on through tactics. 

You need a well-researched and documented plan to understand the costs and timescales. 

Remember, professionals have plans; with modern SEO, this is the difference between success and failure. 

How much should you spend on SEO?

This is a trickier question and depends on your business and situation. 

Small businesses should generally spend between 7% and 12% of their gross revenue on marketing.

How much of that should be spent on SEO depends on:

• Your current rankings.
• How vital SEO is as a channel for customer acquisition.
• And myriad other factors. 

If you believe that 50% of customers will search and find you, investing 50% of your marketing budget on organic search and SEO may make sense.

Or you could spend 25% on paid search and 25% on organic (depending on your short vs. long-term goals). 

It is impossible to answer this question without considering your current situation. I recommend enlisting the help of an expert to develop a plan and move forward. 

The real cost of SEO

You need a broad overview of everything required to do SEO well in 2025 and beyond.

If you approach this thinking that you can get everything you need by spending just $500 a month, you will never compete with businesses that also invest their time and effort into building a long-term plan and vision for SEO.

Even for smaller businesses and local firms, where the agency can handle most of the work, you will achieve far better results by collaborating closely on content.

The win happens at the intersection of the business’s customer knowledge and the SEO’s knowledge of search.

If you’ve read this far, take solace in the fact that most won’t – and likewise, most won’t put in the requisite effort to get real results.

Most companies will either do the job badly or not at all. By being one of the few willing to put in the work to do it properly, you are already well ahead of the pack.

Find an expert to guide you, work diligently to build a plan, and aim squarely at being the best — and letting the world know about it.

This approach will embed SEO into your business in a way competitors can neither easily copy nor compete with.

Good luck!

Dig deeper: How to create and manage an SEO budget

YouTube is testing AI Overviews in its search results

YouTube is testing a new AI Overviews carousel. It will appear in search results for select queries. The feature uses AI to highlight the most relevant clips from videos tied to a user’s search.

Why we care. Google AI Overviews have reduced visibility and traffic to websites. If this experiment is rolled out, could YouTube’s version of AI Overviews end up reducing visibility and video views for brands and creators?

How it works. When a user enters an certain type of query, YouTube will use AI to scan relevant videos and surface highlight clips that it deems most informative or useful. These clips appear in a carousel within the search results, giving users a quick snapshot of what they might want to watch.

YouTube said AI Overviews are designed to help searchers with:

• Product research (e.g., [best noise cancelling headphones])
• Travel and local discovery (e.g., [museums to visit in San Francisco])

Who can see AI Overviews. The feature is available as a limited test.

• Only a small subset of U.S. YouTube Premium members will see the feature.
• It applies only to some English-language search queries.

What’s next. YouTube will collect user feedback (via a thumbs-up or thumbs-down). Insights from this test will determine the future of YouTube’s AI Overviews or a broader rollout.

The announcement. Testing New AI Overviews in Search Results

How to use CRM data to inform and grow your PPC campaigns

In the world of digital advertising, data is king.

Yet, many PPC advertisers underutilize one of their most valuable sources of insights: their CRM data. 

Whether you’re a B2B or B2C marketer, your CRM is a gold mine of customer information that can significantly enhance your paid media strategy. 

To boost efficiency and scale, focus on the most impactful CRM data, such as:

• Job titles, industry, company size, and revenue for B2B.
• Age, gender, location, product preferences, and customer lifetime value (CLV) for B2C.

This article tackles how to use CRM data to refine your targeting, craft compelling ad messaging, and create more relevant website content.

Evaluate CRM data through clustering analysis

First, you need to know how to organize your data to get the insights you’ll deploy in your paid campaigns.

One powerful technique for organizing data is clustering analysis, which helps group similar customers based on shared characteristics. 

For this, I prefer the k‑modes algorithm, an extension of the k‑means method.

The algorithm replaces means of clusters with modes – in other words, it replaces an aggregate average with attributes that appear frequently, which is much better for precise targeting.

This allows you to identify primary audience segments that are most valuable to your business. For example:

• B2B: Clustering leads and opportunities by job role, industry, company size, and annual revenue.
• B2C: Segmenting customers based on demographics, interests, purchase behavior, CLV, and engagement levels.

This analysis will help you uncover actionable insights to shape your advertising approach and ensure you focus on the right audiences.

3 ways to leverage CRM data for PPC advertising

Once you’ve identified key audience clusters, apply those insights across Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Meta Ads, and other paid platforms. 

While there are additional use cases, let’s focus on the three mentioned above.

1. Refine targeting without hyper-fragmenting ad accounts

A common mistake is over-segmenting ad campaigns, which can lead to inefficient ad spend, limited insights, and hinder platform algorithms from optimizing performance. 

Instead, leverage your CRM insights to refine audience targeting strategically:

• LinkedIn and Facebook audiences: Upload CRM data to create custom audiences and lookalike audiences, ensuring you’re targeting high-value prospects similar to your existing customers. (Note: A few significant new releases from LinkedIn add even more heft to this recommendation.)
• Keyword themes in Google Ads: Use CRM insights to identify the job titles, industries, or pain points that resonate most with your customers and optimize your keyword strategy accordingly.

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2. Craft messaging with ads geared toward primary personas

Different customer segments respond to different messages. 

Use your CRM data to create tailored ad copy, imagery, and CTAs that align with the needs and interests of your primary personas:

• B2B example: If your CRM data reveals that C-suite executives respond best to finesse and expertise-driven content, create ads promoting whitepapers or exclusive webinars.
• B2C example: If your data shows that younger demographics prefer discounts while older customers value premium quality, adjust your ad messaging accordingly.

3. Creating relevant website content

Your paid efforts shouldn’t stop at the ad level – your website must also reflect the personas you’re targeting. 

By using CRM insights, you can optimize your site to better convert visitors into customers:

• B2B: If your highest-value customers are from enterprise-level companies, make sure your website has dedicated pages for enterprise solutions and case studies, with messaging tailored to address their specific pain points and needs. A common issue I’ve seen with agency clients is that their landing pages lack depth; often, distinct personas would benefit from pages with more refined messaging.
• B2C: If a key demographic is young professionals interested in sustainability, highlight eco-friendly product attributes and include social proof from like-minded customers. 

These insights should extend beyond landing pages. 

It’s crucial to gather and evaluate whether your brand positioning across the entire site reflects the common themes that emerge when analyzing different personas.

Final thoughts

Your CRM isn’t just a database – it’s a strategic asset that can transform your paid media performance. 

You can drive more efficient and effective advertising campaigns by analyzing customer data through:

• Clustering.
• Refining targeting.
• Crafting tailored ad messaging.
• Ensuring your website content aligns with your audience. 

One final note here: this is not a one-and-done initiative. 

Use your judgment based on:

• How much and how quickly new data is entering your CRM.
• Any data cleanup projects that might alter the data.
• New product launches that could require fresh insights.

Use this information to schedule regular and ad-hoc updates to your analysis.

Don’t let your CRM data go to waste – use it to enhance your paid campaigns and increase your ROI.

Google hypes AI Overviews, refuses to answer CTR question

Alphabet spent much of its Q1 2025 earnings call last night talking up the growth of AI Overviews, but dodged a question seeking clarity on how Google’s AI-generated answers impact click-through rates and conversion.

Why we care. Did Google decide that last night wasn’t “the moment to go into details of click-through rate and conversion and so on” because they don’t want to state what is becoming clear to most of us? That click-through rates from AI Overviews are, simply, lower? Because, on the organic side, data shows that is certainly the case (see our Dig Deeper section, below). Many websites have seen traffic decline since AI Overviews launched last May.

The exchange. An analyst from JPMorgan asked (in part):

• “Can you just tell us how we should think about the 1.5 billion AI Overviews users just in terms of breadth of rollout? And I know you’re saying monetization at approximately the same rate. But what does that mean in terms of click-through rates and conversion?”

Here’s how Philipp Schindler, Alphabet’s senior vice president and chief business officer, answered:

• “I don’t think this is the moment to go into the details of click-through rates and conversion and so on.”

By the numbers. Schindler once again repeated Google’s year-old claim that AI Overviews “continue to drive higher satisfaction and Search usage.” Here’s what else Alphabet shared about AI Overviews and monetization during the earnings call:

• AI Overviews have “more than 1.5 billion users every month,” said Sundar Pichai, Alphabet/Google CEO.
  • Yes, but. Let’s be honest. AI Overviews aren’t a product that has “users.” AI Overviews are a Google Search feature. All this number means is that 1.5 billion Google Search users are served AI Overviews every month – because you can’t opt out of seeing AI Overviews.
• The volume of commercial queries has increased since the launch of AI Overviews, Schindler said.
  • This dataless data point is based on internal Google data from January that Google previously shared in this blog post.
• “For AI Overviews overall, we continue to see monetization at approximately the same rate,” Schindler said.
  • Schindler was asked later in the call for clarity on this monetization, but basically repeated what he said earlier in the call: “But as I talked about it before, for AI Overviews overall, we see the monetization at approximately the same rate, which gives us a strong base on which we can innovate even more.”

Google Search. More than 2 billion people use Search every day, according to Pichai, and they mentioned the 5 trillion annual searches statistic. Here’s what else was discussed related to Google Search performance in Q1:

• AI Mode: “…queries are twice as long as traditional Search queries,” and Google is seeing “significant growth in multimodal queries,” Pichai said.
• Circle to Search: Usage increased “nearly 40% this quarter and monthly visual searches with Lens have increased by 5 billion since October,” Pichai said.
• Revenue: Google reported $66.9 billion in advertising revenue, a 10% YoY increase. This was driven primarily by financial services, insurance, retail, healthcare, and travel verticals.

Dig deeper.

• New data: Google AI Overviews are hurting click-through rates
• Google organic and paid CTRs hit new lows: Report
• Google sued by Chegg over AI Overviews hurting traffic and revenue
• Not appearing in Google AI Overviews significantly harms webpages: Study
• Google AI Overviews, clicks and traffic impact: Unraveling the mystery
• Google Search boss: AI Overviews boost click quality

GA4 updates: Snapshot templates added, Aggregate Identifiers improved

Google Analytics just made it easier to get quick insights and more accurate attribution.

The Reports snapshot section now includes pre-built templates focused on user behavior, sales and revenue, and marketing performance. That means less time building custom reports and more time actually using the data.

Alongside the templates, the card library has been updated, making it easier to browse and add the visualizations that matter most to your business.

These templates help users quickly surface relevant insights without needing to manually create or configure reports.

On the attribution front. Google Analytics will now use aggregate identifiers to attribute traffic from paid Google Ads more accurately – even in scenarios where individual-level data is limited.

Why we care. These updates streamline reporting and improve data accuracy, making it easier for marketers and analysts to measure what matters.

Meta adds dynamic overlays to Advantage+ Catalog ads

Meta introduced a small but potentially powerful tweak to its Advantage+ Catalog campaigns: dynamic overlays.

Advertisers can now add price, discount, and shipping labels directly onto product images – styled like stickers – to make promotions pop in the Facebook Feed.

How it works. You’ve got four label options now:

• Current price.
• A strikethrough sale price.
• Percentage off.
• Free shipping.

You can turn each on or off, style them how you want, or let Meta choose what performs best.

Each overlay can be toggled on or off, and you can customize the look – or let Meta decide what to show based on performance signals.

The big picture. It’s a subtle update, but one that could meaningfully improve ad performance. In a crowded feed, a well-placed price tag or discount badge could be the scroll-stopper that drives a sale.

Why we care. While the feature isn’t entirely new (previously known as “labels”), this update gives advertisers more flexibility and control. It also taps into Meta’s AI to automatically show the most relevant offer, helping campaigns stand out and potentially convert better.

How to optimize B2B PPC spend when budgets and confidence are low

By now, you’re almost certainly feeling the effects of the tariff teeter-totter by the U.S. that started earlier this month. 

Economic instability seems to be a fact of life nowadays. 

Large shifts in supply chains, along with stock market volatility, can be scary for advertisers. 

It’s hard to contemplate spending money on advertising when uncertainty rules the day.

Here’s how to optimize B2B PPC campaigns in an uncertain economy.

How a tough economy impacts B2B businesses

B2B advertisers, who are selling products and services to other businesses, can be especially impacted by market swings. 

When it seems like every business is experiencing difficulties, it feels like your whole pipeline has dried up overnight.

B2B advertisers might find that lead volume has dropped, or that velocity has slowed – leads take longer to close. 

You might find that prospects are moving away from enterprise solutions and choosing smaller or mid-market solutions instead. 

And tariffs can impact the entire supply chain, forcing a price increase to the end user.

Scary stuff. As a business owner, your first impulse is to stop advertising entirely.

Don’t fall into this trap! When faced with the need to cut costs, it’s tempting to look at advertising as an unneeded expense. 

But it is more important than ever in a down market. There is still a market for your product or service. 

Sure, leads might slow down and take longer to close. But it’s essential to be there when users are searching for you. 

If you stop advertising, you’ll lose awareness and leads. 

Then, when things turn around, you’ll have to start from square one. 

Better to continue advertising, even if you have to reduce budgets, to keep leads flowing.

Think of it like investing in the stock market. This is a long-term play. 

If you sell all your stocks now, you won’t be able to take advantage of market gains when things improve.

Advertising is a similar investment.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t adjust your strategy. 

Performance changes are inevitable, and reacting appropriately to them is crucial.

Dig deeper: 5 tips for strong media planning during a recession

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Key challenges and tactical responses

Here are some changes you might see in your B2B PPC accounts, and how to deal with them.

Increased number of competitors as demand softens

Across most of our B2B PPC accounts, we’ve seen that competition and ad depth have increased significantly in Q1 and into Q2.

Google recently updated its policies so advertisers can run multiple ads for the same business, app, or site on a single search results page, provided they occupy different ad locations.

This means that a single deep-pocketed advertiser can appear more than once for the same search query. 

As advertisers fight for fewer customers, we’re likely to see this happen more and more.

What to do

As B2B advertisers, be intentional about what keywords you’re bidding on. 

Drop any vanity terms or overly broad keywords that don’t convert well.

Now is not the time to bid on a short-tail term just because you feel you need to show up for it. 

Be ruthless about what keywords get to stay in your paid search accounts. 

Higher CPCs due to increased competition

As competition rises, CPCs are up nearly across the board in Q1 from Q4 levels. 

In some of our B2B accounts, CPCs are up 80% or more quarter over quarter.

What to do

This is no time to set bid strategies and forget about them. 

Careful monitoring of performance is crucial, now more than ever. 

When CPCs are up this much, B2B advertisers can’t afford to let poor performing keywords or ad variations run for days or weeks. Fast action is needed.

Scripts can really help with performance monitoring, as can creating automated reports or alerts in your accounts. 

This is also a good time to ensure you’re optimizing for the right customers.

If you haven’t set up offline conversions yet, make it a priority to do so as soon as possible.

Remember, smart bidding can only optimize for data it can see. 

If your campaigns are driving a lot of form fills, Google will think that’s good, even if the form fills are all junk.

Feeding down-funnel data back into Google Ads is more important than ever to make sure you’re optimizing for quality, not just quantity.

Longer lead to sale times

I talked about lead velocity above. Skittish buyers are taking longer to make a purchase decision.

But that doesn’t mean they’re not doing research. And it doesn’t mean you should pull back on advertising.

When prospects are ready to buy, you want to be on their Day 1 list – the first company they call for when they’re ready to act.

About 92% of buyers end up buying from their Day 1 List, according to Rishi Dave of Bain. You want to do everything you can to be on that list.

What to do

When’s the last time you reviewed your ad copy and landing pages? Do they need a refresh?

Use your ad copy to weed out lower-quality prospects and tire-kickers. 

This is always a best practice, but it’s never more important than in tough times when advertisers pay a premium for every click.

Ad copy should make it clear that yours is a B2B offering. 

Use words and phrases like “For Businesses,” “Enterprise Software,” and so on to help discourage consumers from clicking on your ads.

Landing pages need to be extra-compelling. 

User patience for less-than-optimal pages is thin. 

Pages must:

• Grab visitor attention right away.
• Let users know you can solve their problems.

Otherwise, visitors will quickly bounce and go visit one of your many competitors.

Also, while it’s not strictly a PPC thing, make sure your nurture streams and retargeting strategies are in place and optimized. 

Take every opportunity to keep users warm and remind them why they should buy from you.

Retargeting is especially important, and it needs to be done thoughtfully. 

If you aren’t investing in B2B retargeting across all paid media channels, now is the time to stand that up.

If you are already doing retargeting, double down on optimizing those campaigns.

Simply serving a generic ad to previous site visitors won’t cut it anymore. 

Make sure your targeting, message, and landing pages are as relevant as possible. 

Lower conversion values

Recession-shy business decision makers are rethinking large investments in technology. 

Businesses that might have been looking for an enterprise solution are now scaling back and looking at lower-cost local or regional vendors.

What to do

As mentioned earlier, offline conversions will be more important than ever. 

Measuring results through the sales funnel and assigning values to each step allows B2B advertisers to take advantage of value-based bidding.

Using value-based bidding will help the smart bidding algorithm find your business’s highest-value prospects, focusing ad spend on the highest potential ROI.

Value-based bidding will help you attract customers willing to pay for the level of service you offer and weed out those looking for a lower-tier option.

You might also want to consider competitor conquesting. 

Create ads and landing pages that describe how your product or service is superior to lower-cost alternatives. 

Be sure to set specific KPIs for your conquesting campaigns. 

Although direct lead generation from conquesting is challenging, it can be effective for stealing impression share and building remarketing audiences. 

Tactically, use brand inclusions and exclusions to ensure your ads serve to the right searchers. 

Carefully measure to make sure the campaigns are meeting your KPIs. 

In a tough economy, if the conquesting space gets too crowded, you might need to bow out – but it’s worth testing to find pockets of opportunity. 

Test lower-cost alternatives

If you’ve been putting off testing Microsoft Ads, Reddit, TikTok, or paid social, now would be a good time to test the waters of Google alternatives.

Microsoft Ads often sees lower CPCs than Google Ads and can work well for B2B advertisers. 

Emerging platforms like Reddit are also worth testing, especially if your audience hangs out there.

Same for review sites like Capterra. If you’re in the B2B SaaS space, Capterra ads can be highly effective.

It’s time to get creative 

Leave no stone unturned when trying new ideas that could improve efficiency and reduce costs. 

Stay the course, but be smart. 

By staying one step ahead of competitors, you can optimize your B2B campaigns for success in an uncertain economy.

Dig deeper: PPC survival – Handling inflation and being ready for a recession

Google Ads expands Checkout on Merchant to Demand Gen campaigns

Google today expanded its Checkout on Merchant feature to Demand Gen campaigns serving on YouTube In-stream inventory.

Previously available only for Performance Max campaigns and organic shopping results, this update brings the streamlined checkout experience to more advertising channels.

By the numbers. Advertisers providing checkout URLs have seen an average 11% increase in conversion value at similar CPA in their Demand Gen campaigns, according to Google data.

How it works:

• Checkout on Merchant creates an accelerated path from product discovery to purchase.
• Users can quickly add products to cart or proceed to checkout on merchant websites.
• Merchants can enable the feature through Google Merchant Center via two methods:
  • Providing a URL template at the account level.
  • Adding checkout link template attributes to individual products in the feed.

Why we care. This update significantly reduces friction in the customer journey, allowing users to move directly from YouTube ads to checkout on their website. With the possibility of increasing conversion value at a similar CPAs, this feature could directly impact bottom-line results while requiring minimal implementation effort.

For brands already investing in YouTube advertising, this expansion creates a more seamless shopping experience that can capture purchase intent in the moment, rather than losing potential customers in a multi-step process.

Bottom line. The expanded feature is available to all U.S. advertisers using product feeds, aims to shorten the path to purchase by connecting interested consumers directly with merchants’ checkout experiences.

Implementation guides are available specifically for general users and Shopify customers.

Google asserts ownership of all advertiser assets in Local Services Ads

“This call is being recorded for Google algorithm optimization purposes.” 

On April 22, Google Ads notified Local Services Ads (LSA) advertisers of a significant update to its Terms of Service, asserting the right to use, modify, and analyze all content within an advertiser’s LSA profile, including phone calls from prospective customers. 

These rights extend not only across Google’s platforms, products, and services, but also to its affiliates.

And yes, Google has already been digitally eavesdropping on LSA phone calls. 

In July 2024, they replaced the previously manual (and relatively accurate) lead dispute process with an automated, AI-driven system. 

Anecdotally, this benefited advertisers who didn’t closely monitor lead quality – but those with efficient review processes ended up paying more. 

The scope of this AI analysis now extends far beyond lead quality, capturing service details, pricing, special offers, and discounts. 

In effect, Google is positioned to create a comprehensive pricing map of LSA advertisers using inbound call data.

At this point, it’s still unclear whether agency MCCs can override an individual advertiser’s consent – or if clients are even being informed when their data rights are handed over.

Join us – or else…

Advertisers must proactively opt in to the new terms by June 5.

“However, if you don’t [accept] your ads will no longer be eligible to serve.” 

Notably, agencies can accept these terms on behalf of their clients – presumably with notice, though whether that actually happens is beyond Google’s control.

Problems and pontifications

While this is speculative, the updated terms raise significant privacy, legal, and surveillance concerns.

Abuse of pricing data

Google specifically cites pricing information in its update. 

This opens the door to using that data in AI-driven pricing models – potentially allowing Google to influence bidding strategies based on advertiser revenue.

Privacy

There are serious privacy issues in shifting from simple call monitoring to full data synthesis. 

On the advertiser side, imagine a criminal defense firm fielding intake calls where prospective clients share incriminating details. 

Even more concerning is the ability to build caller-level profiles – tracking someone through multiple calls and stitching together deeply personal context.

Someone searching for a cheap plumber because they’re selling a house, due to a divorce, sparked by infidelity, while battling for custody of a diabetic child after losing a job and health insurance. 

That level of data mining is chilling.

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YMYL industries

Some industries may need to opt out entirely. 

Attorney Raif Palmer put it bluntly: 

• “I don’t think lawyers can agree, which means they can’t use LSA period.” 

With confidentiality obligations and Google claiming rights to recorded conversations, legal and medical professionals may have no ethical choice but to walk away. 

It’s unclear whether Google will eventually make exemptions for industries under the “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) umbrella.

AI Overviews

All this data – from images and websites to recorded calls – feeds AI Overviews. 

Businesses that embrace the ecosystem could gain visibility, as Google builds richer business profiles from this content stream.

Intake

Success in the AI Overviews era may come down to the first impression. 

Think: a friendly, keyword-savvy receptionist, or an automated message carefully crafted to hit all the right search triggers. 

In law, for example, intake staff might soon be coached to “groom” the AI Overviews:

 “Yes, Attorney Jones has 22 years of experience in divorce law in the greater Chattanooga metro. He was recognized by SuperLawyers last year, speaks fluent Spanish, and is competitively priced.”

Responding strategically to Google’s new LSA terms

It’s still early days for these changes, and with six weeks until the opt-in deadline, there’s likely more conversation – and potential pushback – to come, especially from sensitive industries.

For what it’s worth, the Google reps we spoke with didn’t seem to know anything about the program.

Shopify’s checkout overhaul means it’s time to migrate your Google Tags

Shopify is changing how it handles checkout. If you’re running Google Ads or Analytics, you’ll need to act soon.

Key deadlines. Shopify Plus merchants must migrate by Aug. 28, 2025. Non-Plus merchants have until Aug. 26, 2026. Missing these dates could result in a total loss of conversion tracking on your Thank You and Order Status pages.

The fix. Use the Google & YouTube app. The Google & YouTube app, developed by Google for Shopify, is now the go-to way to handle all things measurement, ads, and analytics.

Why migrate now?

• No code hassle: Easy, direct integration with Google Ads, Analytics, YouTube, and Merchant Center.
• Future-ready: Supports Shopify’s evolving checkout.
• Performance boost: Unlock advanced features like Enhanced Conversions and Customer Match with just a few clicks.

Why we care. Shopify is phasing out legacy methods (like checkout.liquid and “additional scripts”) that many merchants use to install Google tags. If you aren’t ready, you risk losing conversion data, which is critical for optimizing ad performance and reporting.

Who needs to take action? If your Google tags live in checkout.liquid (Shopify Plus only), “Order status page additional scripts,” custom pixel setups, or legacy Google Analytics setup in Online Store > Preferences – you need to migrate. Its recommended that you migrate all Google tags to the Google & YouTube app to avoid data loss and performance issues.

Things to watch. Google Tag Manager isn’t supported in the app, so move tags out of GTM containers for full compatibility. Custom Pixels might work, but are unreliable – Google can’t guarantee their performance. If you didn’t update your Analytics tags before Feb. 2, Shopify converted them to custom pixels, which can cause inaccurate data.

Bottom line: Shopify’s checkout changes are here. If you’re running ads or relying on Google Analytics, migrating your tags to the Google & YouTube app is not optional – it’s essential to ensure you see as accurate data as possible.

Google Ads made simple: Using life events for audience targeting

There are so many ways to reach your ideal customer using audience targeting in Google Ads.

We’ve recently covered Detailed demographic segments, Lookalike segments and Engaged Audiences,

Today, we’re exploring how to use Life Events segments effectively. This article will cover:

• What are Life Events segments in Google Ads?
• How are Life Events different from In-Market segments in Google Ads?
• Which Life Events can you target in Google Ads?
• Can you use Life Events in all campaign types?
• Tips for using Life Events effectively in Google Ads

What are Life Events segments in Google Ads?

Life events segments are one of the four types of audience targeting you can use in Google Ads based on the data that Google has about its users.

With this option, you can target users based on major transitions they are experiencing.

How are Life Events different from In-Market segments in Google Ads?

When you go to use Life Events in Google Ads, you’ll often find them grouped with In-Market segments under a category called “What they are actively researching or planning.” This is because both of these audience types leverage Google’s proprietary data to categorize users around temporary stages in their lives.

• For In-Market segments, those “temporary stages” are when someone is currently researching or planning a purchase. It can be a purchase as small as “Razors & Shavers” or as large as “New Houses (For Sale).” In-Market segments are product- or service-focused.
• For Life Events, those “temporary stages” are when someone is going through a specific change in their life, like getting married or graduating from college. Life Events segments are human-focused.

Which Life Events can you target in Google Ads?

There are nine categories of Life Events you can use in your Google Ads campaigns:

• Business creation
• College graduation
• Home renovation
• Job change
• Marriage
• Moving
• New pet
• Purchasing a home
• Retirement

For each category, you can target people who are approaching these milestones or have recently completed them. For instance, a pet store could target individuals who are “about to get a new pet,” those who “recently got a new pet,” or both.

Some Life Events categories have sub-categories, too. In our pet example, you can get more specific to target people who are getting a dog and/or people who are getting a cat.

Can you use Life Events in all campaign types?

Unlike the other types of “Google audiences” (Detailed demographics, In-Market segments, Affinity segments), Life Events segments are not compatible with all campaign types. 

You can use Life Events segments in:

• Display campaigns
• Demand Gen campaigns
• Video campaigns
• Performance Max audience signals
• Combined segments (for Display campaigns)

However, Life Events are not compatible with Search or Shopping campaigns.

Tips for using Life Events effectively in Google Ads

The best way to use Life Events is to ensure that your ad creative directly addresses the user’s current situation, and demonstrates how your product or service can assist them through this transition.

For example, if you’re:

• Targeting people who are moving, your ad copy could highlight your stress-free moving services.
• Reaching out to newlyweds, showcasing your home goods or financial planning services would be relevant as they relate to starting a new life together, building a strong relationship foundation, etc.

Life events segments offer a unique opportunity to connect with potential customers during pivotal moments in their lives.

Have you experimented with this audience targeting option in your Google Ads campaigns yet?

This article is part of our ongoing weekly Search Engine Land series, Everything you need to know about Google Ads in less than 3 minutes. Every Wednesday, Jyll highlights a different Google Ads feature, and what you need to know to get the best results from it – all in a quick 3-minute read.

What’s under the hood matters more than ever for SEO success by Edna Chavira

The platform behind your site plays a bigger role than you might think. From site speed and mobile responsiveness to content scalability and technical SEO, the foundation you choose can make or break your organic performance.

If your goal is seamless, secure, and engaging digital experiences that also support strong search visibility, it’s time to re-evaluate your CMS.

Join MarTech’s Future-Proof Your Content Strategy with the Right CMS, and discover exactly what marketers need to consider when evaluating content management systems.

You’ll learn:

• Must-have CMS features for delivering top-notch digital experiences.
• How to tackle security, compliance, and integration challenges effectively.
• Practical ways to ensure your CMS scales with your long-term growth.

Get real-world insights from industry experts and leave with a clear roadmap for making smart CMS decisions. Save your seat here.

The complete guide to high-impact educational video content

Educational videos are among the top 10 most-consumed video content formats globally, according to Statista. 

And it makes sense. Video is one of the fastest, most engaging ways to teach, demonstrate, and connect. 

But for creators and businesses alike, making a video that actually works (as in: educates, retains, or converts) requires more than hitting “record.”

I’ve been creating online content for years, so I know what works and what doesn’t. 

• Our online SEO training has helped thousands of marketers level up their skills through self-paced modules, monthly live Q&A webinars, and on-demand videos. 
• Our “Ask Us Anything” video series and SEO agency commercials are produced with the help of our award-winning video producer.
• Our YouTube channel continues to serve as a central hub for sharing educational content.

Whether you’re creating onboarding tutorials, educational content for your audience, or a course you plan to sell, below are tips I’ve seen succeed across every stage of the video creation process, from concept to camera to clicks.

• Define the purpose and audience through a clear strategy.
• Craft content around in-demand topics and the type of video.
• Script and storyboard to ensure clarity of the message.
• Select the right tech stack for your needs.
• Focus on production fundamentals for effective videos.
• Optimize for search when visibility is a priority.
• Publish, promote, and measure success to track performance.

1. Define the purpose and audience through a clear strategy

Every great educational video starts with a clear strategy. 

Before you pick up the camera or open your editing software, you must know who you’re creating for and what you’re trying to achieve. 

Clarify the purpose

Just like SEO, intent is everything in video production, so clarify the purpose upfront.

Are you aiming to solely educate or train, or will your video have an element of conversion? Maybe your education video is meant to retain your existing audience instead.

Whatever the purpose, the objective shapes the video’s content, tone, and structure. 

For instance, an SEO training module will differ significantly from an educational demo intended to convert prospects.​

Understand your audience

Understanding your audience is equally important. Consider their goals, challenges, skill levels, and preferred learning styles. 

Are they beginners looking for foundational knowledge or advanced users looking for in-depth insights? 

Tailoring your content to meet their needs will make your video more effective.​

Free or paid?

Consider whether your content will be free or paid. 

Free videos can build brand awareness and provide value to a broad audience, while paid content often offers in-depth training or exclusive insights. 

Knowing the role of videos within your broader content strategy, SEO initiatives, and customer journey will help you incorporate free and paid content where it makes the most sense.

2. Craft content around in-demand topics and the type of video

Whether you’re creating a one-off tutorial or a full training series, the key is to start with a clear plan of attack for the content.

Coming up with video topics

Your videos should align with either audience intent (what they’re searching for) or a structured curriculum (what they need to learn over time).

Here are some ways to generate topic ideas:

• If your videos support a product or service, look at keyword intent and customer FAQs to generate topics. What questions are coming up in comments, sales calls or support tickets?
• If you’re building an online course or internal training program, outline a logical progression. 
• You can also use keyword tools, YouTube’s autocomplete, or even generative AI to help brainstorm ideas around a theme.
• For more inspiration, you can spy on competitors’ educational videos. 
• If you already have blog content or written guides, repurposing those into educational videos is another easy place to start.

Define the video format

Choosing the video format dictates the rest of the video creation process. 

For example, how-to videos are great educational formats that provide step-by-step guidance. 

Plus, you can increase your chances of showing up in the search results for target “how to” queries with YouTube videos. 

In 2023, more than 30% of Google desktop SERPs in the U.S. featured a video carousel, video result or featured video, according to Semrush.

People watch more of a how-to video than any other type of video, per Wistia’s “2025 State of Video Report.”

Another thing to consider is how you’ll deliver the content in the video. 

Some companies prefer talking head videos, which add a personal touch and are a great way to build a brand when internal folks serve as educators on camera. 

Others prefer animations, which can help simplify abstract concepts. 

Webinars ​are another great way to help educate your audience. 

The majority of businesses (60%) use webinars for training or coaching sessions, followed by thought leadership events (50%), per Wistia. 

We’ve seen great success with a monthly live Q&A webinar on my SEO training membership site. 

In fact, many of our students become our clients after spending time with our training videos. 

Structure each video 

Most high-performing videos follow a similar structure: 

• Hook.
• Introduction.
• Main content.
• Recap.
• A call-to-action (CTA).

This is true whether you’re publishing on YouTube or delivering a paid course. You’ll need to adjust the pacing for training modules versus a marketing video. 

The hook is especially important. We’ve found the most success when you can capture interest within the first five seconds of the video.

This could be done through a surprising fact, a visual teaser, or a question the viewer wants answered.

From there, keep the pacing tight. Avoid over-explaining and cut the fluff where possible. 

Even long-form training videos should feel intentional and well-paced.

Length matters

Not all videos perform equally – and much of it comes down to how long they are. 

Based on Wistia’s analysis of over 100 million videos (linked earlier), viewer engagement varies significantly by duration.

Under one minute

Short videos work – especially on social or as top-of-funnel content – but they need to get to the point fast. 

Wistia found that videos under one minute had the highest average engagement rate at 50%. Short videos can be ideal for quick social snippets or teasers for longer video content. . 

One to five minutes

Videos in this range also held attention fairly well.

• One to three minutes: 46% average engagement.
• Three to five minutes: 45% average engagement.

Wistia notes that how-to videos under five minutes were especially strong performers, with viewers watching more than two-thirds of the way through, on average.

Five to 30 minutes

Once videos pass the five-minute mark, engagement starts to dip. 

Wistia’s data shows:

• Five to 30 minutes: 38% average engagement.
• 30 to 60 minutes: 25%.
• 60+ minutes: Just 17%.

That doesn’t mean you should avoid longer videos entirely – just be intentional. 

We have found that shorter videos (like reels) tend to get more views because they’re something somebody can watch quickly. 

But long-form videos tend to have higher conversion rates because they demonstrate more knowledge and authority on a topic.

What about course modules?

The most profitable online courses are typically between 10 to 25 hours in total length, per Thinkific’s data from 40,000 course creators. 

The data suggests that five- to 10-hour courses are about 75% as profitable, and longer courses – 25 to 100 hours – are slightly less profitable than those.

Regardless, the advice is that the ideal course length is the shortest time required to achieve the learning objectives.

Sequence for learning

If you’re creating educational content, sequencing matters. 

Build with progression in mind, with lessons getting slightly more advanced over time.

Use reinforcement techniques like callbacks, visual repetition, or simple recap slides to help learners retain key points. 

The flow should feel intuitive and purposeful.

3. Script and storyboard to ensure clarity of the message

Scripting and storyboarding help you organize your message and plan how it will appear on screen. 

Start with a script

Whether you’re creating a tutorial or building an online course, scripting keeps your message focused and easy to follow.

If the video is structured – like a course module or product walkthrough – a full script is ideal. It helps you stay on track and hit all the key points without rambling.

But not every video needs a word-for-word script. 

If you’re podcasting, recording a founder Q&A, or filming a talking-head update, a loose outline with bullet points works better. 

You still need to know where the conversation is going, but it should feel natural, not rehearsed.

Visual planning

Once you have your script or outline, translate it into a visual plan. This is where storyboarding comes in. 

A storyboard helps you map out what will appear on screen and when. 

It’s helpful if your video includes product walkthroughs, charts, or training steps that build on one another.

This part doesn’t have to be complicated. You’re simply matching the visuals with your message to make the content easier to understand. 

Add visual cues that stick

Visual cues matter more than most people realize. 

On-screen text, callouts, arrows, annotations, and simple scene transitions help guide the viewer’s attention and reinforce key points. 

For most educational videos (excluding longer formats like podcasts or webinars), aim to change the visual every five to 10 seconds. 

That could mean:

• Switching camera angles.
• Zooming in slightly at the same angle.
• Cutting to a supporting visual. 

It might feel like a lot, but those subtle shifts keep viewers engaged. 

Also, this may be obvious, but if you’re including a screen recording with a voice-over, make sure what’s happening on-screen matches what’s being said. 

Use tools to perfect the process

There are plenty of tools out there to help you organize and visualize your ideas before you record.

Tools like Boords and Storyboarder are great for visualizing a scene-by-scene breakdown. 

Even Canva can work well for rough storyboarding if you’re already using it for design.

You don’t need anything fancy, just something that lets you sketch things out before you press record.

And when you’re ready to record, you can use teleprompter apps to help you deliver your message smoothly. 

4. Select the right tech stack for your needs

Whether you’re recording a quick tutorial or producing a full online course, choosing the right gear, software, and hosting platform will save time, improve quality, and keep your process sustainable.

Match the tools to your goals

You don’t need the most expensive gear to make great video content. 

What matters most is choosing tools that match the type of content you’re creating and the audience you’re serving.

• If you’re a solo course creator, a smartphone camera, lapel mic and natural lighting can go a long way. 
• For internal training, you can level up with a mirrorless camera and external mic. 
• For a higher-end effect, invest in a more expensive camera, lighting, audio, and nice backgrounds to create a polished brand experience.

Regardless of the setup, don’t skip a test shoot. 

Check your resolution, depth of field, and lighting to ensure the final result looks the way you intend.

Tools for recording your screen

If you’re doing tutorials or walkthroughs, screen recording software is a must.

• QuickTime is what we use – it’s quick, easy and does everything we need.
• Loom is a fast, no-fuss option for quick recordings.
• Camtasia gives you more robust editing tools for polished content.
• ScreenFlow is a solid choice for Mac users who want both recording and editing features in one place.

Edit smarter, not harder

Editing doesn’t have to be intimidating. Some tools are built to make this part easier, especially for solo creators.

• Descript is great if you want to edit your video like a document.
• Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro give you more creative control but come with a steeper learning curve.
• You can also hire a video editor, especially if you need a high-end result or just want to save time.

Hosting your videos

YouTube is the most widely used video platform globally, making it ideal for reach and search visibility on educational content. 

It’s also the second-most popular social network worldwide, which means a lot of exposure for your brand. 

YouTube videos can be an essential part of an SEO program when targeting certain keywords (like educational and how-to searches). 

But remember, only verified accounts can upload videos longer than 15 minutes. 

Then there are LMS platforms like Thinkific, Teachable, and Kajabi, which are built for structured learning. 

If you’re building a course, these platforms offer features like chaptering, progress tracking, and quizzes to support the full student experience.

Finally, Vimeo and Wistia give you more control over branding, privacy, and analytics. 

They’re especially useful for customer training, B2B product onboarding, or gated video content.

Using AI

AI is quickly changing the video production space. 

About 41% of companies are already using it for video, per Wistia’s most recent data (linked earlier), and another 19% will start using it soon. 

Using AI can be particularly beneficial for short-form content, where speed and efficiency are key. 

Tools like OpusClip use AI to automatically generate short clips from longer videos, optimizing them for platforms such as TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels. 

But AI is also expanding creative possibilities. 

For instance, we’ve successfully used AI to modify our SEO training course online. 

Because SEO is a rapidly changing industry, SEO training can quickly become stale. 

Instead of reshooting whole sections of our training course, we used an AI avatar of me to deliver updated talking points – and it looks surprisingly like me.

However, it’s important to use AI cautiously. 

Love it or hate it, AI is a controversial tool, and some people may be turned off by it. 

That said, overreliance on AI-generated content can lead to videos that feel impersonal or lack authenticity. 

While AI can assist in scripting, editing, and even avatars and visuals, the human touch remains essential to ensure content resonates with viewers.​ 

Stay on top of your video performance with analytics and use your intuition to decide whether AI-generated videos resonate. 

The right balance ensures your videos remain trustworthy.​

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5. Focus on production fundamentals for effective videos

You don’t need a full production crew to make professional-looking videos, but you do need to get the fundamentals right.

Prioritize audio quality

If you’re going to invest in one part of your production setup, start with sound.

Viewers are much more likely to tolerate a slightly grainy video than audio that’s hard to hear.

Multiple studies have found that poor audio quality influences whether people trust what they hear and how they perceive you overall. 

A lav mic or USB condenser mic is an easy and worthwhile upgrade.

Get the basics right

You don’t need a studio setup to get a clear shot. 

Just focus on even lighting (natural light works great), a camera angle that’s eye level or slightly above and a clutter-free background.

If you’re doing a screen recording, make sure the visuals are crisp and readable. 

Zoom in on sections when needed, and don’t clutter the screen with too much at once.

Batch and template your process

The more videos you make, the more it pays to streamline. 

Batching – filming multiple videos in one sitting – helps you stay in flow and save time.

Templating your intros, outros, transitions and even lower-thirds (the graphic overlays that typically appear in the lower third of the screen) can make your content consistent and reduce the decisions you have to make for every single video.

Make it accessible

This isn’t just a “nice to have.” 

Captions help viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing, support people watching in a sound-off environment, and can even boost comprehension for non-native speakers. 

Most video tools now make it easier to autogenerate and edit captions. 

These are key in formal learning environments or when you’re serving global audiences.

Think about the viewer experience

Pacing, tone, and delivery matter. 

What works for an internal training video isn’t the same as a how-to on YouTube.

For instance, in training content, give your viewers time to absorb the information – use pauses, reinforce key points, and keep instructions easy to follow. 

Know when to call backup

Sure, you can technically do everything yourself, but that doesn’t mean you should. 

Even the most experienced video producers hire out when it makes sense. 

Whether you need a motion designer for intro graphics, a video editor to clean up pacing and polish transitions, or a script consultant to help shape the story, know your weaknesses (or resource constraints) and make the call.

6. Optimize for search when visibility is a priority

Up to 82% of marketers say video has helped them increase web traffic. 

Not every video needs to be optimized for search – but when visibility is the goal, it’s worth the effort.

When SEO makes sense

If you’re publishing on YouTube or embedding tutorials on your site, optimization can help your content get discovered. 

Moz data once showed that YouTube videos make up over 94% of all video results in Google. 

If your audience is searching for answers, YouTube is a strong place to meet them.

When it’s not a priority

If your content lives behind a login or paywall – like course modules or internal training – SEO doesn’t need to be part of your workflow. 

In those cases, focus instead on the learning experience and making the video content clear, helpful and well-paced.

Start with keyword research

Google’s Gary Illyes has stated that if you see video results for a keyword, that’s your cue to consider making a video for it. 

Start by targeting topics that already bring up video results in Google or YouTube.

Tools like YouTube’s search predictions, AnswerThePublic, and other keyword tools on the market can help surface what people are actually searching for.

When in doubt, do a search. 

If there’s already a cluster of how-to videos, you’ve got a green light.

Optimize for search

SEO for videos doesn’t have to be complicated. 

However, the approach varies depending on where your video is hosted. Here’s where to focus.

For YouTube-hosted videos

Metadata: Google states that the title, thumbnail, and description are the more important pieces of metadata for video discovery. 

• Title
  • Write a clear, engaging title that tells viewers exactly what they’ll get. 
  • Include your main keyword near the beginning, and keep it under 60 characters so it doesn’t get cut off in search. 
  • Make sure it reflects the actual content. Clickbait might get the click, but it won’t earn trust. 
  • Use things like all caps or emojis sparingly to highlight the right words. 
• Thumbnails
  • Design custom thumbnails that are visually appealing and accurately represent the content. 
  • YouTube now has a feature to test your thumbnails. 
• Description
  • Write a clear, keyword-rich description that tells viewers and YouTube what your video is about. (You have up to 5,000 characters here!) 
  • Include relevant keywords naturally. 
  • Link out to your website, social channels, or other videos when it makes sense. 
  • Use line breaks or bullet points to make it easy to scan.

Dig deeper: The DESCRIBE framework for effective YouTube descriptions

User engagement signals: While metadata is foundational for YouTube SEO, the platform’s algorithm places a lot of emphasis on user engagement and satisfaction. 

YouTube values the following:

• Click-through rate (CTR): This is where the thumbnail comes into play once again. 
• Watch time and retention: Videos that hold attention tend to get promoted more.
• Engagement: Likes, comments, shares and subscribers all tell YouTube your content is valuable.
• Viewer satisfaction: YouTube looks at behavior after the video ends – like whether someone bounces or keeps watching.
• Personalization: The algorithm tailors results based on viewer behavior, so understand your audience and create for them.

More optimization tips: Here are additional tips that help optimize videos for YouTube:

• Timestamps: Break up your video into clear, clickable sections. This is especially helpful in long-form or educational content.
• Captions: Add closed captions for accessibility and extra context. 
• End screens and cards: Help people take the next step. Recommend another video, playlist, or even a site link.
• Group content into playlists: This improves watch time and helps viewers binge your content.
• Consistent branding: Keep your intros, tone and visual style cohesive so viewers start to recognize your content instantly.
• Engage in the comments: Respond, ask questions, start conversations. YouTube notices when a video sparks interaction.

For videos hosted on your website

When hosting videos on your own platform, the SEO focus shifts a bit. 

First, understand that self-hosted videos can appear in several key areas on search engines like Google and Bing:​

• Video search tabs: Both Google and Bing have dedicated “videos” tabs that filter results to show only video content.​ This is a key place to show up.
• Main search results: Your video might show up as a rich snippet alongside standard web results, complete with a thumbnail, title and description.​
• Featured video results: For certain queries, Google may highlight a video prominently at the top of the search results.

Key optimization strategies include:​

• Dedicated video pages: Create individual pages for each video, ensuring that the video is the main content on the page. This allows for more precise optimization.
• Page title and meta description: Ensure the webpage hosting the video has a clear, keyword-rich title and meta description. This helps search engines understand the page’s content.​
• Video metadata. This includes things like the video title, description, duration, and thumbnail URL.
• Structured data: Implement video schema to provide search engines and people with detailed information about your video. You can highlight key moments, live broadcasts, educational content and more. This can enhance your video’s appearance in search results.​ 
• Transcripts and captions: Including a transcript and/or captions on the page improves accessibility and provides additional content for search engines to index.​
• Contextual content: On the same note, surround your video with relevant text content on the page to give search engines more context about the video’s subject matter.​
• Stable video URLs: If your video files or thumbnail URLs change frequently or expire, Google may not be able to index them reliably. So stick with permanent, clean URLs and double-check that they’re not blocked by robots.txt or other restrictions. This is one of those technical details that’s easy to overlook. 
• Videos above the fold. Put your video front and center on the page – ideally above the fold – so both users and search engines recognize it as the main content. But don’t sacrifice speed to do it. Use lazy loading where possible, and consider lighter formats like WebM to keep load times fast.
• Video sitemaps: If you’re hosting multiple videos, consider creating a video sitemap. This helps search engines discover and index your video content more efficiently.

Dig deeper: 7 video optimization tips to boost your organic reach in 2025

7. Publish, promote, and measure success to track performance

Creating the video is only half the job. 

To get the most out of it, you need to publish, promote, and pay attention to what happens next.

Publishing and promoting

Whether you are promoting free or paid educational content, don’t just post it and hope for the best.

Publishing with a strategy makes a big difference in who sees your content and how it performs.

Start with your owned channels

Start by embedding videos on your website where it makes sense – on a course landing page, a sales page, or a relevant blog post.

If you have an email list, use it. Email is still one of the most effective ways to get in front of warm leads. 

You can build a short email sequence around a course launch, for instance, or simply drop the video into a newsletter with a clear call to action.

Share where your audience is

Social media can help your video gain traction, especially if your audience already follows you there. 

Don’t just post once – share the video in different formats over time: full video, short clips or even just a quote or takeaway. 

Each platform has its own rhythm and opportunities:

• Instagram/Facebook: Reels, stories, and carousels can help you showcase educational content in bite-sized ways.
• LinkedIn: Great for professional or B2B-focused courses. 
• YouTube: If it’s not your main platform, consider uploading the video as unlisted and embedding it on your course page – or using YouTube Shorts to drive awareness.

Paid promotion

Sometimes organic reach isn’t enough. 

Paid promotion can help you get in front of more of the right people, faster.

YouTube ads, social media boosts, and even Google Ads can support your educational videos. 

Just make sure your landing page is clear, relevant, and compelling when someone clicks.

Tap into your network

If you have relationships with influencers, industry experts, or others in your space, see if they’d be open to collaborating or promoting your educational content in exchange for a commission or cross-promotion.

Look for partnerships that make sense; not just anyone with a following, but people your ideal audience already trusts.

Host live events to build momentum

Webinars, live Q&A sessions, or even a quick Instagram Live can help build buzz around your content. 

These live formats give people a taste of your teaching style and give you a chance to answer objections or highlight what’s inside your paid video content in a more personal way.

For example, we regularly post video content from inside our SEO training membership site to our YouTube channel to give viewers a sneak peek.

Repurpose strategically

Repurposing lets you extend the life of your content without starting from scratch.

Turn long-form videos into short clips for social or YouTube. 

YouTube Shorts has the highest engagement rate across all short video platforms at 5.91% while TikTok was second in line, Statista reports. 

You can also pull out quotes or visuals for blog posts or emails to promote your educational videos. 

Define what success looks like

Before you hit publish, know what you’re aiming for. 

Is it views? Engagement? Course completions? Conversions?

And if the video performs well in one area – even if it’s not the metric you were focused on – that’s still a win. 

For example, maybe conversions were low, but views were through the roof. 

That tells you something’s working, and it might be worth doubling down on similar content.

There’s no shortage of video content online. If something you create breaks through in any way, take that as a signal.

Track performance (and do it often)

Analytics will tell you what’s resonating and what’s not.

You should be checking your analytics regularly – ideally, every day. 

Make sure to use:

• YouTube Analytics for engagement trends. 
• Google Search Console to see how your video shows up in search. 
• LMS analytics for course modules. 
• Google Analytics 4 for how videos impact user behavior on your site. 

Learn from viewer behavior

Watch for drop-off points. If people keep bailing at the same timestamp, something’s off. 

And check your comments. If people are asking for a follow-up or mentioning another topic they want covered, that’s a content idea handed to you on a silver platter.

If your “How to Make Pizza” video gets many requests for spaghetti, it might be time to make a spaghetti video.

Making videos that teach – and stick

Educational videos work best when they’re built with intention. 

You don’t need a perfect setup or a massive production team, but you need to:

• Understand your audience.
• Have a clear message.
• Stay consistent in how you create your content. 

Whether you’re launching a full course or building out one helpful video at a time, the strategies outlined here are meant to give you a process to start. 

Because when your videos are thoughtful, useful, and well-executed, people notice – and that’s where the real traction starts.

Google Ads to show ads in the top ads position, also in the bottom ads position

Google will now allow relevant Search ads from advertisers who showed amongst top ads to also participate in the bottom ads auction. As a reminder, the definition of top ads changed about a year ago, as Google began mixing ads in various organic positions throughout the search results.

With this change, Google also reminded us that it updated its unfair ads policy (i.e. double serving) to say this is not double serving. Google added the words, “in a single ad location,” as an exception to the policy last March after Google was caught double serving ads under its old definition.

What Google said. Google wrote:

Today, we’re sharing more about a recent change we made to deliver more relevant Search ads at the bottom of the search results page. When someone searches on Google, we run different auctions for each ad location where we show Search ads—for example top ads are selected by a different Search ad auction from ads that show in other ad locations. Until now, Search ads from a given advertiser were generally restricted to a single ad location on a given page.

Recently, we started looking deeply at the user experience with ads lower down the page and observed something interesting. Often, users would scroll past the top results to review content lower down the page, but then scroll back up if they found top results more relevant relative to content further below.

To help reduce this friction and improve ad relevance lower down the page, we will now allow relevant Search ads from advertisers who showed amongst top ads to also participate in the bottom ads auction. This means a user scrolling lower down the page might see a highly relevant ad from the same advertiser, but not necessarily the exact same content they saw earlier.

We tested this for several months and found that allowing advertisers who showed amongst top ads to also compete in the bottom auction increased rates of highly relevant ads by about 10%1 and increased bottom ad conversions by about 14%2, improving both the user experience and advertiser value lower down the page.

Google’s FAQ. Google also posted a Q&A on these changes:

1. Is Google Ads changing its policy around double serving for Search Ads?

No. The unfair advantage policy for Search ads applies to ads that compete with each other to show in a single ad location and we recently updated our language to make this clearer. With this change, we are allowing advertisers who show up in the top ad location to also be eligible for ad locations further down the page. However, within a single ad location (either top or bottom), we will continue to apply and enforce the existing policy. 

2. How will this change affect the Search ads auction?

With this change, we will now allow relevant Search ads from advertisers who showed amongst top ads to also participate in the bottom ads auction. There are no changes to the auction that we run for top ads. Advertisers will continue to never bid against themselves with this change either in the top or bottom auction.

3. Will the same ad always appear at both the top and bottom of the search results?

No. We show the most relevant Search ad for each specific placement on the Search results page, whether it’s at the top or the bottom. The specific ad content shown to the user may be similar or different from the top to best suit the context of the bottom placement. 

4. Does this change loosen query matching or ad load constraints?

No, our query matching systems and controls remain the same, as do our guidelines around the number of top ads we show on the page. This change is solely focused on the bottom of the page.

5. How can I understand the impact of this change?

This change, which will provide more opportunities for relevant Search ads at the bottom of the page, may impact your overall metrics. To understand the impact on your campaigns, we recommend that you segment your metrics by “Top vs. other” if you’re interested in understanding performance for different ad locations. The search terms report will continue to show query-level clicks, whether your ads are clicked on in top or bottom locations.  

6. How do I best prepare for this change?

Since this update provides more opportunities for relevant Search ads to be seen, ensure your keywords, ad copy, and landing pages are well-themed with what users are searching for. As more opportunities become available at the bottom of the page, you will likely see higher conversion volume at your current targets. We recommend using bid simulator tools to explore potential performance changes and adjust your bids or targets strategically. 

Why we care. Google has been testing various changes to ad positions within its search results for the past couple of years. Google has been happy with the results of those tests and thus continues to allow the same or similar ad, from the same advertiser, in multiple ad locations throughout the search results.

I believe many advertisers are happy about this new policy but some may not be. Either way, you need to be aware of these newish Google Ads rules.

Meta tags for SEO: What you need to know

Remember when meta keywords were all the rage? 

Fast forward to 2025, and while search engines have evolved dramatically, meta tags remain crucial building blocks of your SEO foundation, just not the ones you might remember.

You’re juggling countless priorities, so it’s tempting to view meta tags as “set it and forget it” HTML snippets.

But here’s the truth: properly optimized meta tags are still conversion-driving assets that both search engines and potential customers use to understand your content.

This guide cuts through the noise to spotlight the meta tags that actually move the needle – on rankings, click-through rates, and visibility.

Before we dive deep, here’s what you need to know:

• Title tags and meta descriptions remain your most powerful meta elements in 2025.
• With AI Overviews now prominent in search, robots meta tags have become crucial content governance tools.
• Mobile optimization through viewport tags directly impacts your rankings.
• Social meta tags drive significantly higher engagement when properly implemented.

What are meta tags?

You’ve heard about meta tags, but what exactly are they? 

Think of them as your website’s elevator pitch to search engines, invisible to visitors but critical for rankings.

These HTML snippets live in the <head> section of your code, quietly working behind the scenes to tell Google, Bing, and other search engines what your page is about, who should see it, and how it should appear in search results.

Meta tags remain one of the few direct communication channels between marketers and search engines. 

Despite all the algorithm changes we’ve seen, properly implemented meta tags still provide clear ranking signals.

Unlike the early 2000s when you could stuff keywords into meta tags and call it a day, today’s meta tags work as part of a sophisticated system that impacts not just rankings but also user behavior and conversion rates. 

They’ve become even more crucial with the widespread adoption of AI-driven search features like Google’s AI Overviews.

Meta tags every site must have

Title tag

If I could only optimize one meta element, it would be the title tag every single time. 

It’s the heavyweight champion of meta tags, appearing as the clickable headline in search results and significantly influencing both rankings and click-through rates.

Here’s what actually works in 2025:

• Optimal format: Primary Keyword | Secondary Keyword | Brand Name
• Character limit: 50-60 characters (Google typically displays about 600 pixels worth)
• Psychology hack: Numbers and power words can entice clicks

I recently worked with a SaaS client who changed their homepage title tag from “Cloud-Based Project Management Software” to ” #1 Project Management Software for Remote Teams | Save 5hrs/Week”

The result? 

A 27% increase in click-through rate and a jump from Position 4 to Position 2 for their primary keyword. That’s the power of a well-crafted title tag.

But here’s what most marketers miss: your title tag doesn’t exist in isolation. 

It needs to work in harmony with your meta description to tell a compelling two-part story.

Meta descriptions

Think of meta descriptions as free advertising space. 

While they don’t directly impact rankings, they’re your best opportunity to convince searchers to click your result instead of the competition.

The most effective meta descriptions follow this proven formula:

• Open with a benefit or promise that addresses search intent.
• Include specific details that build credibility (numbers, stats, features).
• End with a clear call-to-action that creates urgency.

For example, compare these two meta descriptions for the same article about email marketing:

“This article discusses email marketing best practices for small businesses. Learn how to improve your email marketing strategy and get better results from your campaigns.”

“Boost your open rates by 37% with these 7 proven email templates designed for small businesses. See how brands like yours are driving 2X conversions with our step-by-step approach.”

The second example is specific, benefit-focused, and creates urgency. 

Tip: Google now dynamically adjusts meta descriptions based on the search query, but don’t leave this to chance! Write compelling descriptions for your key pages, or Google might pull random text from your page that doesn’t convert.

Dig deeper: SEO for page titles and meta descriptions: How to win more clicks

Robots meta tag

The robots meta tag has evolved from a simple indexing control to a sophisticated governance tool for how your content appears in search, particularly in AI-generated results.

The most important directives you need to know:

• index/noindex: Controls whether a page appears in search results at all.
• follow/nofollow: Determines if Google should follow links on your page.
• nosnippet: Prevents your content from appearing in featured snippets and from being used as input for AI Overviews.
• max-snippet:[number]: Limits how much text can be used in snippets and AI Overviews.

This last point deserves special attention. 

With Google’s AI Overviews now answering many queries directly at the top of search results, you face a strategic decision: 

• Do you want your content to be cited (potentially gaining visibility)?
• Or do you want to drive direct traffic to your site?

For high-value content that answers specific questions, using max-snippet:50 can be a smart compromise.

You provide enough information to be cited in AI Overviews, but not enough for the AI to give a complete answer without the user clicking through.

Viewport meta tag 

With mobile-first indexing now the standard, the viewport meta tag is non-negotiable. 

This simple line of code ensures your site displays correctly on all devices:

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">

This tag is so important because mobile usability is a direct ranking factor. 

Sites that force users to pinch and zoom on mobile can be impacted in search rankings, regardless of how valuable their content might be.

The strategy behind effective meta tags

Meta tags as the first impression

Your meta tags create the first impression in search results, before users reach your website. 

This first impression needs to accomplish three things:

• Signal relevance: Clearly show that you’re answering the user’s query.
• Build trust: Demonstrate expertise and credibility.
• Create urgency: Give users a compelling reason to click now.

The most successful meta tags address all three of these elements simultaneously. 

Aligning meta tags with search intent

One of the biggest shifts in meta tag optimization is focusing on search intent rather than just keywords. 

Today’s successful meta tags specifically address one of these four intent types:

Intent type	What users want	Meta tag approach	Example
Informational	Learn something	Educational tone, promise of insights	“What is Growth Marketing: 7 Essential Strategies Explained”
Navigational	Find a specific site	Brand-forward, direct	“Netflix Official Site – Stream Movies & TV Shows”
Commercial	Research before buying	Comparison terms, benefits	“Best Running Shoes 2025: Compare Top Brands & Features”
Transactional	Make a purchase	Action terms, urgency	“Shop iPhone 16 – Free Shipping & Returns Until Friday”

The key is matching your meta tags to what users actually want at this moment in their journey. 

This alignment signals to both Google and users that your content is precisely what they’re looking for.

Advanced meta tag techniques for 2025

Social meta tags

Social meta tags (Open Graph and X card tags) control how your content appears when shared on social platforms. 

With social platforms driving significant traffic, these tags are essential for comprehensive visibility.

The minimum social tags you should implement on every page:

Canonical tags

The canonical tag might not be visible to users, but it’s crucial for preventing duplicate content issues and consolidating ranking signals:

<link rel="canonical" href="https://yourdomain.com/definitive-url">

This tag is particularly important for:

• Ecommerce sites with product pages accessible through multiple category paths.
• News sites that publish similar content across different sections.
• Sites with both www and non-www versions (or HTTP and HTTPS variants).

Data-nosnippet

One of the newest and most valuable tools in your meta tag arsenal is the data-nosnippet attribute. 

This HTML attribute lets you mark specific sections of content that you don’t want included in either traditional snippets or AI Overviews:

<div data-nosnippet>This content won't appear in snippets or AI Overviews</div>

This offers control, allowing you to protect your most valuable content, like executive summaries, key conclusions, or proprietary data, while still allowing other parts of your page to appear in search results.

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Measuring meta tag performance

How do you know if your meta tags are actually working? 

Here’s my three-step process for measuring and optimizing meta tag performance:

• Track click-through rate (CTR): Use Google Search Console to identify pages with lower-than-expected CTR for their position. These are prime candidates for meta tag optimization.
• A/B test critical pages: For high-value pages, create variations of your title and description tags to see which combinations drive the highest CTR. Even small wording changes can yield significant improvements.
• Monitor impressions in AI Overviews: Track when your content is cited in AI Overviews and measure the impact on both direct traffic and brand awareness. This helps inform your robots tag strategy.

One test for a retail client of ours discovered that adding product prices directly in their title tags (“Men’s Leather Wallet – $49.99”) increased their CTR by 23% compared to titles without pricing information.

Common meta tag mistakes

Even seasoned marketers make these meta tag mistakes that can hurt visibility:

1. Duplicate meta descriptions across multiple pages

I recently audited a site where 62% of their product pages shared the same generic meta description. 

Google was forced to create its own snippets, resulting in inconsistent messaging and poor CTR.

The fix? Create unique, specific meta descriptions for each page, focusing on the unique value proposition of that particular content.

2. Keyword stuffing in title tags

It’s 2025, but I still see sites trying to cram every possible keyword variation into their title tags:

“Best SEO Services, SEO Agency, SEO Company, Search Engine Optimization Services”

This approach looks spammy to users and triggers Google’s title rewriting algorithm, giving you even less control over your SERP appearance.

3. Missing or improper robots directives

With AI Overviews now prevalent, misconfigured robots directives can lead to either:

• Valuable content being completely excluded from AI citations.
• Proprietary information being fully exposed in AI summaries.

Review your robots directives quarterly to ensure they align with your current content strategy and business goals.

4. Ignoring mobile meta tag optimization

Title tags and meta descriptions appear differently on mobile devices, with even tighter character limits. 

Yet many marketers still optimize exclusively for desktop display.

Mobile optimization means:

• Front-loading the most important information in titles and descriptions.
• Keeping mobile meta descriptions under 120 characters.
• Ensuring your viewport meta tag is properly implemented.

Meta tags and AI search: Preparing for what’s next

The rise of AI in search has fundamentally changed how we approach meta tags. 

Here’s how to position your content for success in this evolving landscape:

Strategic decisions about AI content usage

Every site now faces a critical decision: Do you want your content to appear in AI-generated summaries? 

There are valid arguments on both sides:

Allowing AI usage:

• Gains visibility as a cited source in AI Overviews.
• Positions your brand as an authority.
• Creates multiple entry points to your content.

Restricting AI usage

• Preserves direct traffic to your site.
• Protects proprietary or premium content.
• Maintains control over how your information is presented.

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Every brand should decide for themselves which aligns or take a hybrid approach.

Enhanced structured data integration

While not technically meta tags, structured data (schema.org markup) works alongside your meta tags to provide context to search engines. 

In 2025, implementing relevant schema markup is essential for:

• Qualifying for rich results (ratings, FAQs, how-tos).
• Providing clear entity signals to AI systems.
• Enhancing the appearance of your content in both traditional and AI search results.

The sites seeing the most success in AI-driven search are those that provide both strong meta tag signals and comprehensive structured data.

Your 15-minute meta tag audit

Ready to put these insights into action? Here’s a quick audit process you can run right now:

• Check your top 5 landing pages in Google Search Console for CTR outliers.
• Verify that each page has a unique, compelling title and meta description.
• Ensure your robots meta directives align with your AI content strategy.
• Confirm proper canonical tags are in place, especially for similar content.
• Validate that viewport and social meta tags are correctly implemented.

This simple process can help you identify quick wins to increase organic traffic within weeks, not months.

Smart meta tags power search performance

In 2025, meta tags are no longer just technical SEO elements; they’re strategic marketing assets that require thoughtful optimization.

The most successful marketers approach meta tags with three principles in mind:

• User-first thinking: Write for humans first, algorithms second.
• Strategic control: Make deliberate choices about how and where your content appears.
• Continuous testing: Regularly measure performance and refine your approach.

As search continues to evolve with AI at the forefront, your meta tags will remain one of your most powerful tools for visibility, engagement, and control. 

The time you invest in optimizing them today will pay dividends in traffic and conversions tomorrow.

Google Analytics 4 fixes data gaps, now flags issues early

Google Analytics is rolling out major updates aimed at sharpening marketing insights – boosting data completeness, adding richer context, and flagging issues before they become problems.

Key updates. Google announced these updates to Google Analytics 4:

• Enhanced data completeness. New aggregate IDs and smart fallback tools keep reports accurate even without traditional tracking, helping you see campaign performance clearly while honoring user consent.
• Updated data presentation. Labels like “(data not available)” and “(not set)” add clarity, helping you spot gaps and know where to take action.
• Proactive issue detection. A new data quality indicator and auto-generated notes act as early warnings, helping marketers catch and fix tracking issues before they mess with data.
  • If Google Analytics detects issues like large rates of missing session_start events – often caused by misconfigured tags – you will now receive notifications directly in the UI with guidance on how to fix them.

What Google is saying. A Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land:

• “These updates are part of our ongoing efforts to improve data quality and help marketers get the insights they need to move their business forward.”

Why it matters. Marketers need reliable data attribution more than ever. These update try to address the growing challenge of data loss from privacy changes and consent restrictions.

The new features can help maintain measurement accuracy despite these challenges. By flagging implementation problems early and providing specific guidance on fixes, this update should increase the likelihood of making informed decisions based on more reliable data while still respecting user privacy choices.

Comparing against first-party data will still be key in ensuring that these new updates are doing what you expect them to.

The big picture. These changes come as privacy regulations and browser changes continue to impact how businesses collect and analyze customer data, making accuracy and reliability increasingly critical for informed marketing decisions.

The announcement. Google’s Help Center article.

Court: Google’s illegal ad tech monopoly harmed the open web

The U.S. Department of Justice successfully prosecuted its antitrust case against Google, with Judge Leonie Brinkema ruling that the company operated an illegal monopoly in the advertising technology industry.

The court determined that Google engaged in anticompetitive practices that allowed it to dominate critical components of the digital ad market for more than a decade.

The details. From the ruling:

• U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that Google “willfully engaged in anticompetitive acts” to control the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets.
• The court found Google illegally tied its publisher ad server and ad exchange together through both contracts and technical integration.
• Google’s practices “substantially harmed” publishers and users across the web.

Why we care. This marks Google’s second significant antitrust defeat after losing its search monopoly case earlier. The ruling could fundamentally reshape online advertising.

Between the lines. The DOJ successfully argued that Google monopolized three separate markets in the ad tech space:

• Publisher ad tools.
• Advertiser ad networks.
• The ad exchanges that facilitate transactions between them.

The government’s case centered on how Google’s dominance allowed it to extract monopoly profits from publishers and advertisers while eliminating viable alternatives.

The other side. Google released an official response on X, saying some of their tools don’t harm competition and that they disagree with the Court’s decision:

• “We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half. The Court found that our advertiser tools and our acquisitions, such as DoubleClick, don’t harm competition. We disagree with the Court’s decision regarding our publisher tools. Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective.”

Google also defended itself by claiming the government’s market definitions were contrived and didn’t reflect reality. The company argued its integrated tools benefited consumers and had legitimate business justifications.

What’s next. This ruling comes as Google and the DOJ prepare for the remedies phase of the separate search monopoly case, where the government has proposed breaking up Google by spinning off Chrome and forcing it to syndicate search results.

The court will now need to determine appropriate remedies for Google’s ad tech monopoly violations, which could potentially involve structural changes to its advertising business.

Google Search boss: AI Overviews boost click quality

AI Overviews, Google’s AI-generated summaries that sit above organic search results, are already eroding traffic for many publishers and creators. However, publishers are getting “higher-quality clicks,” according to Elizabeth Reid, Head of Google Search, in a new interview.

Why we care. Google Search is continuing to evolve in the direction of AI Overviews, where less clicks to websites is the new normal.

Clicks. Here are some quotes from Reid’s interview with the Financial Times about the AI Overviews and the impact on clicks and traffic (a.k.a., that necessary evil) to publishers:

• “We see the clicks are of higher quality, because they’re not clicking on a webpage, realising it wasn’t what they want and immediately bailing. So, they spend more time on those sites. We see that it shows a greater diversity of websites that come up.
• “What you see with something like AI Overviews, when you bring the friction down for users, is people search more and that opens up new opportunities for websites, for creators, for publishers to access. And they get higher-quality clicks.”

Reid also said that AI Overviews are “designed to get you started and then help you dive deeper,” because “relying on webpages… can be difficult and AI Overviews provide more “substance” than individual webpages:

“But if your question is long, finding a webpage that covers every part of your question is hard, and sometimes what you get is a very surface-level webpage. Technically it talks about every one of your words, but you didn’t get much substance. With generative AI, we can go and look for web pages that talk about specific subsets. So, we’ll take that query, and we’ll turn it into multiple queries.

“And then we’ll say, a-ha, OK, you’re comparing two items that are not traditionally compared. Let me find a webpage about one item. Let me find a webpage about another. And then, you can expose websites that go in more depth on part of a topic, instead of just a webpage that is surface level about the whole topic.”

Not the first time. Reid follows Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who previously said that AI Overviews are good for click-through rate (CTR):

• “If you put content and links within AI Overviews, they get higher clickthrough rates than if you put it outside of AI Overviews.”

But. I’ve seen no evidence to back up Reid or Pichai’s claim. CTRs to websites are hitting new lows. Also, traffic and revenue for several websites (see: Chegg as one example) started to decline around May, which is when Google launched AI Overviews. Microsoft Bing’s Fabrice Canel has also talked about “qualified clicks” being the measure of success in AI search.

Ads and AI Overviews. There are “a lot of opportunities for ads” above, below and within AI Overviews, according to Reid, adding that “Ads are relevant whenever users are going to make a choice that has some commercial aspect”:

“When a query is predominantly commercial intent — like we think you want to buy something — then we might often show ads. But sometimes we think you probably don’t want to [see] ads, and so we don’t want to give everyone ads. But some people might want to buy something. If [you search] ‘how to clean a stain out of the couch’ and the first thing we show is a bunch of ads, you’re like, ‘Whoa, I just wanted some advice.’

“But if we’re giving you ideas and then we say, ‘if you’re having trouble you might want to consider a stain-remover product’, and then we give you some ads for stain-remover products, it feels natural and in context.”

How search will change. Some of Reid’s notable quotes:

• “…we want to make search effortless. That assumes multimodalities…”
• “It will get more personalised over time, not just in the results, but in how you learn well. Are you somebody who learns well with videos or are you someone who prefers text?”

How search won’t change. Reid said “never say never” about there being a paid version of Google Search, but Google Search will remain free for the foreseeable future:

• “Ensuring that search in general, the essence of it, is available for free, to allow access to information, will be important. There may be some aspects for people who have subscriptions in the future. But the core of search we want to have available for everyone for free, yes.

Google Search also won’t become a “chatbot” in the style of ChatGPT, according to Reid:

“We think of search as more of an information-focused question. We are starting to experiment more with the idea that people sometimes have a question that has multiple parts plus a follow-up. And if you have a follow-up question, you don’t want to start over from scratch.

“But it’s more designed as: how can you further your journey without repeating it the same way you might to a human — rather than designing it in the sense of: do you have a friend to chat with and ask them their views? It’s much more about organising information.”

Also:

“We put a lot of effort in our models on paying attention to factuality. That’s a way that we make a different choice on search, compared with a chatbot. You typically have to choose between how factual it is versus how creative or how conversational it is.

“If you’re building a product that’s designed to be conversational, you might weigh it one way. But in the case of [Google] Search, we have weighted factuality and put extensive work into that. We have continued to raise the bar on that for the past several months.

How people are searching differently. According to Reid:

• Younger users are asking “more and longer questions” and “more nuanced questions.”
• “We see a lot of growth in multi-modality: people asking these text-plus- image questions. So, it’s not just, ‘What is this image?’ or ‘Here’s my question’, but combining them.

The interview. Google’s Elizabeth Reid: ‘Human curiosity is boundless and people ask a lot of questions’ (subscription required)

The ROAS illusion: Rethinking what Google Ads success looks like

Return on ad spend (ROAS) has been the default metric for evaluating Google Ads performance for years. 

It’s easy to calculate, works well with automated bidding, and provides a quick snapshot of efficiency. 

However, as ad costs rise and tracking becomes less reliable, relying solely on ROAS is no longer enough, especially for businesses focused on long-term growth and profitability.

This article:

• Unpacks why ROAS can be misleading.
• Introduces better metrics to consider.
• Explains how to start moving toward a performance strategy that aligns with real business outcomes.

Why ROAS can be misleading

ROAS seems like the perfect metric. Spend $1, make $5. 

It’s clean, quantifiable, and easy to explain to stakeholders. 

But the simplicity hides some big problems.

ROAS doesn’t account for profit margins

Take a skincare brand with a 600% ROAS. 

Sounds great, right? 

But if their best-selling product only has a 10% profit margin, that return suddenly doesn’t look so strong. 

Once you factor in costs of goods, shipping, returns, discounts, and marketing overhead, there might not be much left in the bank.

ROAS tells you how much revenue you made, not how much money you actually earned.

It favors short-term, low-risk campaigns

ROAS tends to look best when campaigns are focused on retargeting, branded search, or people already close to converting. 

These campaigns might be efficient, but they aren’t driving new growth. 

If most of your budget goes toward people who would’ve bought anyway, your performance numbers might look good, but your pipeline will eventually dry up.

It can inflate results that would have happened anyway

Branded search campaigns almost always show high ROAS. 

But how many of those conversions would have happened without the ad? 

If someone searches your exact brand name and clicks your ad instead of the organic result, you haven’t gained anything – you’ve just paid for a conversion that was already on its way.

3 alternative metrics that align ad spend with business outcomes

ROAS was built for a simpler time. 

Today’s ad environment demands sharper tools. 

These alternative metrics go deeper, helping you measure real business value – not just platform performance.

1. Profit per impression (PPI)

What it is 

Profit per impression looks at how much profit each impression generates. 

It’s especially useful for top-of-funnel campaigns where clicks and conversions are lower, but influence can still be high.

Example

A DTC mattress brand runs YouTube ads to promote a new eco-friendly line.

CTRs are low and ROAS isn’t impressive in-platform.

But over the next two weeks, the brand sees a spike in high-margin product sales.

When they tie those sales back to the impressions and calculate the profit per ad view, they realize this campaign outperformed many of their search efforts, even though traditional metrics said otherwise.

Why it matters

PPI gives you a way to measure profitability at the brand awareness level.

It encourages you to think about efficient reach, not just clicks.

And it’s a better fit for platforms and formats where direct conversions aren’t the whole story, like YouTube or Display.

2. Customer lifetime value (CLV)

What it is 

CLV looks beyond the first purchase and estimates how much revenue a customer will generate over time. 

It’s essential for subscription brands, businesses with strong repeat purchase behavior, or anyone thinking long-term.

Example

A subscription meal kit service acquires two customers:

• Customer A signs up via a brand search ad. They cancel after one month.
• Customer B signs up from a generic recipe keyword and stays for eight months.

Customer A had a lower CPA and better immediate ROAS. But Customer B ends up being worth eight times more. 

If you’re only looking at ROAS, you’ll end up optimizing for more Customer As.

How to use it

Segment high-value customers using GA4, your CRM, or analytics tools. 

Import those customer lists into Google Ads via Customer Match, or send offline conversion values into your account. 

Then use value-based bidding to steer spend toward audiences that bring more value over time, not just quick wins.

3. Incrementality

What it is 

Incrementality tells you how many conversions happened because of your ads – not just those that happened with your ads.

It’s about isolating the true impact of your campaigns, which ROAS doesn’t do at all.

Example

An eyewear brand runs Performance Max campaigns alongside branded search. They test two regions:

• In Region A, they pause Performance Max.
• In Region B, they leave it running.

Both regions have similar brand awareness. 

After a few weeks, Region B shows 20% more total conversions, even though ROAS is lower. 

That 20% lift shows the campaign is actually driving new business – not just picking up conversions that would’ve happened anyway.

Tools and tactics to test incrementality

• Geo-based holdout tests using Google Experiments or manual setups.
• Google’s Conversion Lift studies (if eligible).
• Media mix modeling with tools like Northbeam or Rockerbox.
• Compare brand keyword performance across paid vs. organic using Search Console data.

Dig deeper: Incrementality testing in advertising – Who are the winners and losers?

From ROAS to value: Evolving your bidding strategy

Google’s automation can be incredibly effective, but only if it’s optimizing for the right outcomes. 

If you’re feeding the system shallow goals like page views or “add to cart” events, don’t be surprised when your campaigns prioritize low-quality actions.

Here’s how to start shifting your bidding and tracking strategy toward real value.

Define success by business impact, not just ad metrics

Are you trying to acquire new customers, increase profit per order, or attract high-LTV segments? 

Be clear on what success actually looks like and make sure your campaign goals reflect that.

Bring in better data

Use Enhanced Conversions to send more accurate signals. 

Push offline conversion events like closed deals or retained customers back into Google Ads. 

If your value data stays in your CRM, Google can’t optimize for it.

3. Use conversion value rules

Adjust conversion values based on audience type, location, or device. 

For example, you might want to increase the value of conversions from repeat customers or loyalty program members.

Test broad match with value-based bidding

When paired with good first-party data and well-defined goals, broad match and value bidding can help you scale beyond narrow keyword targeting, without sacrificing efficiency.

Final thoughts

ROAS still has a place in your reporting stack. 

But it shouldn’t be the only metric guiding your decisions. 

By introducing metrics like profit per impression, customer lifetime value, and incrementality, you can build a performance model that reflects the real value your campaigns are driving.

The advertisers seeing the biggest gains in 2025 aren’t just chasing higher ROAS – they’re building smarter, more sustainable strategies focused on growth, profit, and long-term success.

Dig deeper: How to optimize for ROAS in Google Ads using LTV insights

U.S. search ad revenues surged to $102.9 billion in 2024

Fueled by “impressive YoY growth,” paid search advertising revenues hit a new high in 2024, according to a new report.

In total, search accounted for $102.9 billion of a record $258.6 billion in U.S. digital advertising revenues, according to the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report: Full Year 2024, conducted by PwC. That is a $14.1 billion increase compared to 2023.

Why we care. Paid search becomes more expensive and challenging every year, with less transparency. But advertisers continue to pour money into paid search because it drives results for brands and businesses.

Paid search is still king. Search continues to own the largest market share of advertising – 39.8%. That is up from 39.5% last year, but down from 40.2% in 2022, 41.4% in 2021 and 42.2% in 2020.

• YoY growth of search advertising was three times the YoY growth seen in 2023, according to the report.

By the numbers. Of note from the IAB report:

• 2024 was a year of consistent YoY growth (15.7% in Q1; 15.2% in Q2; 14.7% in Q3, and 14.3% in Q4) – though the growth rate slowed as the year went on.
• Social media ad revenue rose to $88.8 billion in 2024, a 36.7% YoY increase.
• Video advertising increased to $62.1 billion, up 19.2% from 2023. It now accounts for 24% of all internet advertising revenue.
• Display advertising revenues jumped to $74.3 billion, which is YoY growth of 12.4%.
• Retail media networks reached $53.7 billion, a 23% YoY increase.

The state of digital advertising. Robust. Helped by the presidential election and Olympics, advertising spend returned its strongest level of growth since 2021. This despite ongoing issues like inflation, high interest rates and job cuts.

2025 outlook. Advertisers will have to adapt to a more complex and “outcomes-focused” marketplace, where agility, accountability and relevance are king, according to the IAB.

The report. You can read the Internet Advertising Revenue Report Full-year 2024 results here (PDF).

The best affiliate networks by need and use case

Affiliate networks aren’t one-size-fits-all. 

Between evolving tracking laws, new tech capabilities, and shifting fee structures, the best choice depends on your business model and goals. 

This guide breaks down top affiliate networks by use case, so you can make a smarter, more strategic decision.

The data-driven approach to choosing an affiliate network

If you’re ready to launch an affiliate program – a marketing channel where others promote you on a revenue-sharing or performance basis – but aren’t sure which affiliate network to choose, I’ve got you covered.

Over the last 20+ years, I’ve worked as an affiliate, an in-house affiliate manager, managed a network, and now run an agency that offers affiliate management services and program audits across multiple platforms.

A few of our clients were curious whether they should change networks, given the substantial technology updates over the last few years, new tracking laws at both the state and country levels, and increasingly competitive pricing.

I spent hours talking to platforms on their behalf and used more than 70 data points – including features, software functionality, pricing, and even bedside manner – to identify the best affiliate networks for their unique needs across different industries.

Our clients range from lead-gen programs and service-based businesses to ecommerce shops. 

Some networks are designed specifically for apps or niche markets, specializing in tools for those spaces. 

Others are more all-encompassing and offer broader capabilities without the enterprise-level price tag.

Instead of a top 10 list, I’m sharing my top picks based on specific business needs – including an overall best. 

That was the hardest one to choose, as more than one network could’ve earned the spot.

Dig deeper: Affiliate managers – It’s time to shift your focus beyond media

What to know before choosing an affiliate network

There are a few things to know before selecting an affiliate network. 

These are some of the most common questions or myths we get from clients – or that I’m asked about at trade shows and conferences where I speak. 

Knowing this information ahead of time can help you avoid making the wrong decision, especially since you’re potentially stuck for at least a year if you choose the wrong system.

• An affiliate network’s purpose is to provide a tracking and payment platform that also keeps you informed and compliant with local, national, and international advertising laws.
• It is your job as a brand or affiliate manager to bring affiliates to your program. If the network has affiliates and a marketplace, that can be a bonus, but it isn’t their job.
• Affiliate networks that have marketplaces also mean the partners you recruit will be exposed to your competitors who are also on the same network.
  • Many networks will reach out and introduce the partners you recruited to your competitors. You cannot stop this from happening, so the work you put into recruitment benefits your competitors.
• All affiliate networks give bad advice on who you should approve into your program. It is your job to make sure your company or your clients’ goals are being met.
  • Affiliate networks make their money off the number of transactions that go through the platform.
  • This incentivizes them to encourage you to work with low-value and zero-value partners. In some cases, they give these partners awards at industry events to add credibility – causing confusion when your data doesn’t line up and you realize the partner actually hurts your bottom line.
  • It is your job as the brand to patrol, remove, and ensure the partners add value if you want a revenue-generating program vs. one that just shows numbers.
• You should always negotiate an out clause into the network contract and agreement.
• If you are big enough, you can negotiate preferred rates, software upgrades without additional fees, and lock in pricing for exclusivity on the platform or for being featured in network case studies.

Now let’s go into who I’ve chosen for the top affiliate networks and why. 

This doesn’t mean others aren’t good – so talk to more and make a decision based on your company’s needs.

Best overall affiliate network

This one was not easy because every network has pros and cons, but when it came to the details that matter, AWIN Global takes the cake as the best affiliate network. They:

• Launch brand new toolsets constantly.
• Create software partnerships to ensure you have the latest and greatest tools.
• Consistently build new software if no partnership is necessary.

Unlike other affiliate networks, AWIN does not charge upsells on new features or have hidden fees to access software after you sign the dotted line. 

They’re incredibly flexible when you’re a larger brand on override fees, so you can negotiate down from the industry standards of 20% and 25%. 

I get incredibly fast responses from both the agency and the merchant support team when I reach out as a brand, and the responses tend to be accurate.

In the past, when we needed to consider other platforms because the client was shopping, AWIN didn’t like to see a program leave, but they allowed for flexibility in their contracts. 

Other networks get legal and try to scare you. AWIN is there for you as a brand, and that goes far in my book.

They are one of the few affiliate platforms that back off when you let them know they’re being too aggressive sales-wise, which is very nice. 

It doesn’t mean they don’t overstep a boundary, but they’re more respectful than other enterprise-level and large networks.

Pros

• Elite software capabilities and tracking, including server-based.
• Offers multi-channel tracking and attribution.
• Transparency in pricing.
• The ability to expand globally vs. needing a new platform in the EU, APAC, LATAM, etc., makes it appealing if you ship worldwide.
• Easily tag and group affiliates in unlimited ways for better communications, stronger commissioning and attribution options, and to make it easier to see performance by type of publisher, top performers, and content niches or promotional strategies (social, blog, newsletter, YouTube, etc.).

Cons

• The in-house management and publisher teams recommend low- and no-value publishers.
• The in-house management team lacks the ability to get top-funnel partners going (based on my experience auditing when the in-house team was co-managing with an in-house affiliate manager).
• They favor big brands vs. smaller companies, so you won’t get the attention you want unless you pay.
• No space to keep detailed notes about specific partners on the partner’s page for other team members to reference – making it hard to know why decisions were made.
• Cannot leave public feedback or scores on partners, making it harder to detect fraud in the application process.
• There is no PPC and trademark bidding monitoring tool, but there was on ShareASale.
• Unlike a majority of other networks, AWIN does not let you combine multiple stores into the same program account – you have to keep them separate. I was surprised by this because it was available on the platforms they purchased like Buy.at and ShareASale.

Best enterprise-level network

Impact is the go-to for enterprise and global brands. 

It comes at a cost, as everything is an upsell – and it isn’t cheap. 

However, when you’re an enterprise-level brand, their tiered-down commission structure can actually make more financial sense than a traditional network with a flat override fee. 

(The override is the amount of money the network takes on top of the affiliate commission.)

Impact was the first to use this model – and it’s brilliant. 

When it comes to innovation, Impact is always first to market. 

They were the original network with cross-channel reporting in the affiliate space and built it into an easy-to-absorb report. 

With Impact, you can see if PPC referred a sale, then SEO had a click, and an affiliate came in at the last second to take credit. 

You can also automate not commissioning that partner or bounce the commission back up to a high-value touchpoint.

My favorite feature in Impact is the by-URL commissions. 

If you want to be featured on a specific page – like a listicle in a media company – you can make sales from that listicle worth 20% and the rest of the domain 10%. 

If that same publication also builds a page that ranks for your brand + coupons, you can set commissions from that coupon page to 0% while keeping the rest active. Impact was the first affiliate network I worked on that offered this level of flexibility.

Impact also acquired an influencer software system. 

Although I haven’t heard great things yet, I’ve heard it’s always improving. 

And if there’s one thing I know for certain, it’s that Impact invests heavily in software. 

They won’t just get it right – they’ll take it to the next level and beyond. 

That commitment to tech is why they’re considered a top-tier, high-caliber affiliate network.

Pros

• Big brands bring on tons of publishers, giving you more exposure as you grow.
  • Smaller brands benefit from affiliates brought in by the larger brands.
• Heavy investments into technology and continuous advancement.
• Very quick response times and excellent bedside manner when solving issues.
• You can keep notes on specific publishers for other team members to reference.
• Includes a PPC trademark bidding monitoring tool.

Cons

• The price – everything is an upsell, and new software always comes at a cost (where other networks may include it).
• It’s extremely difficult to break your contract or leave if things aren’t working out.
• The sales team could be overly aggressive, often failing to respect boundaries.
• You must get everything in writing to protect your brand – or be prepared to jump through hoops and deal with more red tape than other platforms.
• It’s critical to have a lawyer review your contract and confirm all terms – including promised software, pricing, out clauses, and anything else that matters to you.

---

Best B2B and SaaS platform

PartnerStack came out of nowhere and built one of the coolest systems for B2B, lead gen, and SaaS affiliate programs. 

You get all the transparency offered by other networks, along with powerful logic systems that support custom tracking, commissioning, and reporting features tailored to your program’s goals.

Much like Impact, where you can assign commissions based on a specific referring URL, PartnerStack takes this ten steps further. 

You can assign commissions based on virtually any trackable or reportable event – and it’s all incredibly user-friendly.

Here’s an example: one configuration can commission 20% only if the sale is an annual or quarterly purchase, while excluding all other sale types. 

You can do this with just a few simple selections – no IT support or advanced coding required.

PartnerStack’s simplicity is a thing of beauty. 

You don’t have to second-guess anything, as the tools are clearly labeled and intuitive. 

Their support team is highly responsive and offers straightforward, easy-to-follow guidance on how to use the platform effectively.

Pros

• Extremely simple to use with tools named for exactly what they do.
• Flexible reporting with digestible charts and graphs.
• Advanced commissioning options.
• Built specifically for SaaS, lead gen, and B2B programs – tools and features are optimized for these use cases.
• Includes a clean, easy-to-use email tool to communicate with the full program or segmented partner groups.

Cons

• No datafeed support – makes it a poor fit for ecommerce, which can be a drawback for software companies that also sell guides, ebooks, manuals, etc.
• Not all support reps are fully familiar with all features – you may need to escalate to get the right help.
• The platform isn’t designed for ecommerce. While you can run an ecommerce program on it, it won’t be easy or intuitive.
• You can’t leave public feedback on partners – this would be helpful for identifying or flagging violations of terms of service.
• There’s no plugin for server-to-server tracking – only cookie-based tracking, which is now considered obsolete. You’ll need someone with technical expertise to get around this.

Best CPA network

Everflow wins the best CPA network – hands down!

CPA networks are different from affiliate networks in that a CPA network has products or services as a single offer, whereas an affiliate network lists a company with multiple SKUs. 

CPA networks are ideal for financial offers like credit cards, insurance leads, or subscriptions to platforms like hosting.

Some niches are suitable for either a CPA network or affiliate network, such as hosting, but CPA networks are the right choice for bundles, lead gen, offers, supplements, or gambling. 

There are a few reasons why Everflow stands out.

The first reason is that your program is self-managed versus network-managed, giving you control over who has access to your offers, unlike networks that hide them from view. 

This allows you to ensure your brand is cared for, promotions follow company guidelines, and you can remove violators from the program.

With Everflow, you can also see referring URLs from partners and turn them off if they are hiding what they are actually doing. 

Commissioning tiers are simple to set up, and you can create private or public offers, as well as time-stamp commissions to prevent end-of-sale interceptions.

Pros

• Hands-on customer support that works with you to find solutions.
• Detects parameters from the URL when using server-side tracking, so if an affiliate forgets to use the correct affiliate link, sales may still track.
• Ability to private-label their system to make it appear in-house.
• Access to all affiliate contact information within your program.
• Built-in email template creator for newsletters and program-wide communications.
• No annual fees on top of other fees.

Cons

• Only two levels of commissioning for multiple partners with a click (compared to other networks that offer five or more).
• No advertising options within the platform to bring awareness to new publishers.
• Lacks tools for tracking TOS violators, like PPC bidding and monitoring.
• Six-month minimum contract length (which isn’t a bad negative, considering most programs take a year to get going).
• There is a setup fee if you do not sign an annual contract (but it’s minimal).

Dig deeper: Why are so many affiliate sites losing organic traffic?

Two other networks worth mentioning

I didn’t know exactly where to place these two, but CJ and MobIdea deserve a mention.

Revitalizing a legacy platform with modern tools

I wasn’t sure where to place CJ. It’s been years since I considered them, but a few clients are using the platform, and I’ve been impressed by what they’ve done. 

I had assumed CJ was a legacy, outdated platform, but I was wrong. 

Much like the networks mentioned above, they’ve invested in their technology and now offer the tools needed for modern affiliate programs and management.

The team is incredibly responsive, which is crucial for affiliate programs. This has been my experience with them for roughly 20 years. 

I may not always like their answers, but they provide quick and efficient responses. Their network show, CJU, is high-end, and you truly feel like royalty. 

While it may not seem important, having a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere at networking events makes a significant difference. 

It lowers the barriers for introverts like me and encourages meaningful connections. 

Mobile-first CPA network with verification tools

MobIdea also took me by surprise. They are a CPA network that typically keeps affiliates in a hidden box, so you don’t have visibility into what’s happening.

This is standard for all CPA networks, which is why our clients generally don’t work with them. 

But MobIdea has a major difference. 

It’s the only CPA network I know of (outside of Everflow) that allows an advertiser to require a referring URL to be passed back in order for a sale to be commissionable.

You can then verify if the referred website actually drove the sale by checking social sharing and seeing how well the page performs for SEO. 

You can also check if PPC keywords are driving visitors to the page. If the information doesn’t check out, you can turn off that publisher and void their commissions.

MobIdea is also one of the few networks that specializes in mobile apps and app tracking. 

After a private demo with their team, I loved the protections and technology they’ve built to make the process run smoothly.

If you have an app and don’t want a traditional affiliate network, they’ve created a CPA network tailored for you.

While you won’t get the transparency of a traditional network or as many protections, their team will help get your offer in front of top partners.

Everyone I met at MobIdea was friendly, helpful, and responsive. They won me over!

Final thoughts

Choosing the right affiliate network isn’t about picking the biggest name – it’s about aligning features, pricing, and support with your business model. 

Whether you’re running a lead-gen campaign, scaling a SaaS program, or growing global ecommerce sales, there’s a platform built to support your goals. 

With the right fit, your affiliate program won’t just run – it’ll thrive.

Google Ads API v19.1 adds new Demand Gen, video campaigns features

Google announced the release of version 19.1 of its Google Ads API, focusing on expanding capabilities for Demand Generation, video campaigns, and Local Services Ads.

The details. Google announced the v19.1 release of the Google Ads API, maintaining backward compatibility for users already on v19. Updated client libraries and code examples will be published next week.

• Demand Gen. New ad group-level Channel Controls for Demand Gen campaigns, plus enhanced Planning services support.
• Local Services Ads. Advertisers can now submit feedback for leads through a new LocalServicesLeadService.ProvideLeadFeedback() method.
• Video campaigns. Added metrics and segments for querying reach metrics with demographic adjustment, plus ability to retrieve Audio Ads.
• Shopping in Performance Max. Advertisers can now override brand exclusions specifically for Shopping ads within Performance Max campaigns.
• Conversions. New ability to set google_ads_conversion_customer when creating customers.

Why we care. The new ad group-level Channel Controls for Demand Gen campaigns provide more granular targeting options, while the ability to override brand exclusions specifically for Shopping ads in Performance Max campaigns allows for more strategic flexibility.

Video advertisers gain access to enhanced demographic measurement capabilities, and local service businesses can now provide feedback on leads to improve quality. These improvements collectively enable more sophisticated campaign management and optimization without requiring major code changes.

What’s next. To use any of the new features, advertisers must upgrade their client libraries and client code. The update requires no coding changes for those already on v19.

Search behavior, decoded: What platform preference really tells us

When we talk about search, we usually focus on what people are looking for – keywords, queries, and intent.

But in 2025, there’s a more powerful question to ask: “Where are they searching – and why that platform, in that moment?”

The search landscape is evolving fast. 

• AI tools like ChatGPT are gaining traction. 
• Social platforms like TikTok and Instagram are doubling as discovery engines. 
• Yet, Google remains the top choice – the default, the go-to for most people right now.

But platform preference isn’t just about functionality. 

It’s rooted in human behavior. How we think, feel, and choose depends on the journey we’re on.

Behavior takes time to shift – but shift it will. And as AI becomes more commonplace, that change is likely to accelerate.

Let’s unpack the behavioral science behind platform choice.

Much of what follows comes from research my agency ran to explore how search habits are shifting across platforms, demographics, and industries.

Active vs. passive search: The behavioral lens

Understanding the difference between active and passive search is key to decoding platform behaviors.

Active search: Goal-driven and intent-led

Active search is task-oriented. 

“How do I fill out this tax form?” or “Best trainers for running.” 

These are goal-driven moments. 

The SEO industry has traditionally optimized this way, answering queries based on something someone wants to do. 

Passive search: Exploratory and emotion-led

Passive search, on the other hand, is exploratory.

Users aren’t looking for something specific. 

They’re scrolling, browsing, and being inspired. 

Passive search can lead to immediate action, but more often, it plants a seed. 

Many passive search findings will fuel people’s “saved items” lists or screenshots on their phones – building ideas for future purchases or decisions.

Platform usage at a glance

Platforms fall into these two camps:

Search type	Platforms most used
Active	Google, YouTube, Reddit, ChatGPT
Passive	TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest

Google still reigns supreme, with 8 in 10 people using it as their primary search engine. 

Second place saw YouTube charting with 49% of respondents using it to search followed by Instagram with 30%​. 

ChatGPT came in at fourth place, with 23% of of respondents saying they use it to search.

This is important to note – as at the end of 2024 Google dropped below 90% market share for the first time since 2015 – the start of a shift starting to develop. 

Dig deeper: 5 behavioral strategies to make your content more engaging

Why people choose different platforms

Behavior changes based on emotion and intent – not just need.

Google = Habit + trust

People stick with what’s familiar. It’s the cognitive path of least resistance. 

This is the status quo bias in action – we favor defaults. And Google is the ultimate default.

Our research found that 41% of respondents who don’t use AI tools said they simply prefer traditional search engines – not because AI doesn’t work, but because Google is good enough.

Social media = Personalized discovery

On TikTok and Instagram, users aren’t typing in queries – the content finds them. 

This taps into:

• The mere exposure effect: The more we see something, the more we like it.
• The endowment effect: Algorithms serve content we’ve “trained” ourselves, making the experience feel ours.
• The social proof loop: We trust what others like, and social platforms are built for showcasing it.

No surprise, then, that:

• 20% use TikTok or Instagram when looking for inspiration (e.g., outfits, recipes).
• 42% turn to YouTube for learning a new skill.

These platforms offer emotional connection, relevance, and the dopamine hit of serendipity.

Behavior drives platform choice by demographics and sector

Not everyone searches the same way. 

Platform preference can vary widely by age and by the industry someone works in:

• Gen Z (18–24): 1 in 5 always use AI tools like ChatGPT to search.
• 55+ audiences: Nearly 75% say they never use AI to search.
• IT sector: Almost 50% of professionals use AI regularly.
• Education and social care: The least likely sectors to adopt AI search​.

Why does this matter? 

Because personas need to go beyond demographics. 

If you aren’t accounting for motivational and contextual preferences, you’re missing the real drivers.

This also highlights how the industry you work in can affect your behavior. 

Working in IT or marketing/media, we are surrounded by conversations about AI every day. 

For someone who works in social care, this is not the case, so they are less likely to be curious to try different platforms, as they are not getting the same exposure. 

Dig deeper: Search everywhere optimization – 7 platforms SEOs need to optimize for beyond Google

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What this means for your strategy

Search isn’t confined to a single channel. 

Your audience is searching across platforms, often without even thinking of it as “search.” 

If your strategy is still built around a single funnel or platform, you’re missing the bigger picture and the deeper behavior underneath.

Here’s how to move from theory to action.

1. Start with mindset, not keywords

Keywords matter – but mindset matters more. 

Traditional keyword strategies often skip the question of why someone is searching. 

Are they curious? Anxious? Seeking validation? 

Searching to feel something – or to do something?

Use the “think, feel, do” model here:

• Think: What’s the user thinking when they enter this platform?
• Feel: What emotional need might they have?
• Do: What action are they trying to take – if any?

From there, reverse engineer the channel and content experience to match that state.

2. Map platforms to the journey – but make it behavioral

It’s tempting to align platforms strictly to funnel stages (awareness, consideration, conversion). 

But users don’t always follow a funnel – they follow feelings and friction.

Instead, try this matrix as an example. (You should build your own with what you know about your audience.)

Intent Type	Example Platforms	Strategic Goal
Passive and Emotional	TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest	Inspire, spark discovery, plant emotional seeds
Passive and Rational	Reddit, forums	Validate, build trust through community or peer voices
Active and Emotional	YouTube, website (e.g., product demos)	Educate with empathy – mix logic with emotion
Active and Rational	Google, ChatGPT	Deliver clear answers, conversion paths, proof points

Your job is to meet people where they are – mentally and emotionally – and guide them from there. 

3. Rethink content format – It’s not one size fits all

Remember, users don’t want a whitepaper on TikTok. 

And they aren’t likely to watch a 10-minute video on Google SERPs.

• Create snackable, emotive content for social platforms.
• Reserve your deeper, logical content for search engine-driven moments.

Content that works on Google will likely fall flat on TikTok. Your strategy needs format fluency:

• Short-form video: Best for emotional resonance and passive discovery.
• Long-form text: Ideal for deep dives and rational comparison.
• Community responses: Build trust through relatability and social proof.
• AI-generated summaries: Useful for speed, but lacking human nuance – supplement with authenticity.

Tip: Test the same message in different formats across platforms to uncover what lands and why it resonates.

Dig deeper: Content mapping – Who, what, where, when, why and how

4. Segment by motivation, not just demographics

Your audience isn’t just “Gen Z” or “marketing managers.” 

They’re humans with emotional, social, and rational needs.

Build personas rooted in behavioral science:

• What motivates them?
• What holds them back?
• Where do they go for inspiration vs decision-making?

Use tools like social listening, on-site search data, and even quizzes or surveys (nudged properly!) to uncover real motivations.

5. Don’t just track the obvious – Track what matters

Top-line traffic and ranking reports aren’t enough. 

Measure based on the job each platform is doing in the journey.

Some examples:

• Social platforms: Track saves, shares, watch time, and community engagement.
• Google: Track CTR, engagement time, and assisted conversions.
• AI tools: Look at brand visibility in generated summaries and clicks to your source links.
• Reddit/communities: Track mentions, referrals, and sentiment trends.

Tie everything back to intent and emotional outcome, not just raw numbers.

6. Balance AI with human-centric trust

Yes, AI tools are shifting the landscape – but trust is still human-first. 

Our report shows only 12% of people say they don’t trust AI at all, yet concerns about privacy and misinformation still hold many back.

What this means for your content:

• Be transparent about how AI is used in your strategy.
• Lean into human expertise – especially where trust is critical (think health, finance, legal, B2B tech).
• Use your team’s voice, stories, and POVs to differentiate from commoditized content.

In a world of AI Overviews and algorithmic results, your voice is your differentiator, and it is what your audience will buy into.

Dig deeper: How to build and retain brand trust in the age of AI

TL;DR

• Build a platform-diverse strategy rooted in why people search, not just what they search for.
• Align content and platform to the emotional and cognitive state of your audience.
• Don’t let old funnel models limit your view – behavior is messy, non-linear, and deeply human.

Final thought: Search isn’t just about search engines

Search is not confined to the search engines.

It’s TikTok. It’s YouTube. It’s ChatGPT. 

It’s your customer’s mindset – in that moment, in that context.

To build strategies that truly resonate, we need to move beyond keywords and rankings and focus on the human behind the search.

So next time you’re planning a campaign, start by asking, “Where can we meet our audience?”

Not, “Where should we place this content?”

That shift in thinking could change everything.