A few weeks ago, I headed down to one of the biggest marketing events in the UK, brightonSEO and it made one thing very clear - the world of search is evolving faster than ever. With the sudden development and growing popularity of AI impacting the way people search, how can we continue to meet our marketing goals, and how should we be measuring success?
After a day of note-taking and visiting as many talks as possible, I feel a lot closer to understanding what the future of search looks like. Here are some of the insights that I have taken away from the day:
1. Limited data doesn’t have to hold you back.
When you’re running new PPC campaigns with very limited data, it can be tricky to predict what to expect, and sometimes it can feel like you only have your gut instincts to rely on and trust. But gut instincts aren’t led by useful, reliable data. In a talk by Alex Van Der Pol about how to make smarter PPC decisions using data and pattern-spotting, I learned that by analysing performance patterns from similar campaigns, you can create data-backed benchmarks instead of relying on guesswork.
To decide which campaigns to use as a comparison to the one you want to predict the outcome of, you should pick an existing or historical campaign that advertises a similar product or service that followed a similar budget, strategy and timeline.
2. ChatGPT doesn’t run ads (yet), but what happens when this time comes for paid search?
Whilst Google generates 14 billion searches a day, ChatGPT is slowly but surely catching up with a giant 2.5 billion searches. ChatGPT still has some way to go before it becomes the world's most popular search engine, but it is safe to say that it’s capturing the attention of audiences globally and creating a buzz in the marketing world.
During his talk, Ashley Fletcher gave us an insight into how ChatGPT generates its results, and it is entirely reliant on content relevancy. And to create more of a challenge for marketers, every search result is completely unique. Looking forward, we should all be thinking - how can we optimise for an experience that is different every time?
3. Understanding the way audiences use search platforms is key to investing in the right channels.
One of my favourite insights that I took away from Brighton SEO was from Becky Simms’ talk on the psychology of search behaviour. We often decide which platforms to optimise based on the demographics of our audience and their needs, but we need to start putting as much focus into the intent of the search. Why did they search on this platform, and what do they expect from the results? For example, audiences may search on TikTok or Instagram to get quick results that they don’t need to spend time researching, or they are simply looking for inspiration. However, audiences who are searching for answers on platforms such as Tripadvisor or Reddit are expecting to take more time to research and are often seeking validation from other users.
Overall, the takeaway here is that we cannot force one platform to do it all. Each platform serves its own purpose, and brands that can show up for each of these purposes on the appropriate platforms will win the audience's attention and trust.
4. Users aren’t just sticking to one platform. So neither should we when creating a marketing campaign.
Following on from the point above, when listening to the talk on the psychology of search, I also learned that most web users under the age of 44 are using around 5 platforms to collect information on their queries. And over 55s are using 2 platforms. Meaning your audience isn’t solely “on Google”, they’re everywhere. Brands are missing out on opportunities by only prioritising one platform.
This talk highlighted that audiences will subconsciously develop a preference for things, people, or ideas that they are more exposed to as they become more familiar with them. So all in all, the more exposure and brand awareness you can gain, the more you will maximise your performance.
5. It’s time to rethink our lead forms.
During my day in Brighton, there were only a handful of talks that didn’t mention AI. Most of these talks focused instead on the classic lead form. We all know that most users don’t enjoy filling out online forms, which means that we need to make their journey as easy as possible to get them to complete the form and to decrease our form abandonment rates.
Charlie Marchant’s talk gave me some great tips on how we can improve our conversion rates on forms; one of these was that having a multi-step form can make complex offers feel much less overwhelming for users.
Another great tip was to include the more difficult questions at the end of the form. This makes users less likely to abandon the form as they aren’t intimidated by them at the start of the form, making them less likely to complete all the steps.
Lastly, the talk made clear from case studies that relevancy drives conversions. So we should be tailoring both forms and landing pages to the types of leads that we are aiming to generate.
The Big Picture:
This year, brightonSEO really proved that AI is changing the way people search and how we marketers need to adapt to these changes if we want to continue seeing successful results, whether that’s in SEO, PPC or CRO. We can change our key performance indicators, we can optimise our content relevancy to suit AI platforms, and we can build a larger brand presence across multiple platforms instead of just prioritising one. Algorithms and search platforms will continue to evolve. But one thing will always stay the same - we need to cater to our audience’s needs first and remember the user behind the search.
