Generative AI and the Future of Search Marketing

Thu May 04 2023

Generative AI in Search Marketing

Generative AI is transforming the search marketing world.
Many brands are interested in AI but struggle with how to use it.
Net Elixir has built its own analytical AI marketing platform to identify highly curated audiences and target them through various channels.
Generative AI is a new industry that has fundamentally changed the entire industrial landscape forever.
The quantum of change brought by generative AI is not yet fully appreciated.
In the search marketing space, generative AI disrupts or changes the classic lens and has potential implications for advertisers.
There are three areas to consider when discussing generative AI in search marketing: how it changes the classic lens, potential impacts or consequences for advertisers, and sensitivity towards these changes.

Less than 20% of people go to the second page of search results.
80% of people prefer speed and getting relevant information on the first page.
Almost half a million searches happen every day that are brand new.
15% of all Google searches in 2021 were brand new.
The first page of search results is becoming cluttered with ads, pushing organic listings down.
Conversational search could be a solution to finding relevant results quickly.

Chat GPT and Microsoft are changing search by allowing users to engage in a series of chapter conversations that lead them to their desired answer.
This fundamentally changes search by giving refined answers instead of having to filter through ads and other irrelevant information.
Google has become more of an advertising bill rather than having a conversation, which is why chat GPT and Microsoft are important.
Prompt engineering allows for smarter questions and better responses, making the process more personalized.
Conversational search expands the entire search universe, making it easier for non-native English speakers or those with grammatical issues to find what they need.
The conversational aspect also saves time compared to scrolling through infinite search results.

Conversational search expands the addressable universe by 33% over the number of people who are certain.
Microsoft's smart move is integrating chat GPT everywhere, and LinkedIn would have the same capability.
Easy accessibility can impact information and reduce friction points, making search more humane, friendly, and inclusive.
The entire search category has expanded into something beyond search; it could be chat, discovery, or anything that you engage in your life.
There may be an opportunity for a connected ecosystem with conversational search at the center to make more incremental money through a different monetization model like cost per action or cost per result.
The classic CPC model would be very disruptive in conversational search because of its relevance and lack of advertising.
A bigger ecosystem whereby users are directed to a website from conversational search is a possibility for monetization.

Conversational search may lead to a bigger ecosystem with new monetization models.
The classic CPC model is not going away, but there may be tie-ins from advertising in standard CPC with results from conversation search.
SEO rules would need to be completely changed if conversational search takes off.
Interruptions to the hands would kill the sense of conversational search, but monetization avenues will emerge and be different from what we're used to.
Google will find different ways to make money despite the impact on digital marketers.
Digital marketers are struggling with customer acquisition costs, deprecation of third-party cookies, KPIs, and AI.
The shift is too big for humans to comprehend how to maximize it. We tend to look into anything on the future with strong focus on our past preconceptions.
Marketers are obsessed with productivity and ROI. Productivity is easy to show and helps bonuses at the end of it.

CMOs have an average tenure of 1.5 to 2.5 years and prioritize productivity that can be easily measured to boost their bonuses.
The post-COVID struggles, COVID depreciation, and changing consumer behavior are causing massive changes in the market.
Conversational search is becoming more popular due to people's aversion to constant advertising and desire for personalization.
It will take two to five years for the market to settle down after such a magnitude of change.
Marketers should build a culture of experimentation and embrace failure as a means of learning.
Companies should rethink their organizational structure to encourage innovation from all levels and provide psychological safety for sharing ideas.
A digital R&D budget can help companies test and fail frequently in order to learn what works.

In R&D, most experiments fail but you learn a lot from them.
Democratize idea generation process and give everyone a safe space to come up with ideas.
Annual innovation context can spark creativity across the organization.
Psychological safety and space to experiment is important for creativity.
Chief AI officer will be present in most large companies as AI touches every department.
Innovation is an outcome of how quickly you're able to fail and encourage failure.
Smaller businesses should lean on concept and build their own knowledge ecosystem by identifying people who are more informed about this particular space than them.

Businesses need to make a fundamental change in how they operate and focus on innovation.
CEOs should spend at least 10% of their time focusing on the future and innovating.
Small businesses need to prioritize innovation even more due to limited resources.
Asking questions about your company to chat GPT can help inform large language models and potentially impact SEO and conversation search results.
Mapping out each task and challenging teams to find ways chat GPT can save time can increase productivity.

Using chat GPT can increase productivity and energize the entire company.
Challenging the team to come up with productivity hacks for an ultra-federal world can make them feel more secure.
Unleashing creativity within the team can lead to new use cases that were never thought of before.
Bing has shown innovation and should be treated as a separate individual channel.
Recommended clients to invest 15-20% more in Bing budgets due to a shift in searches coming to Bing.