Pamela SapioAre you looking for the latest Google Ads news and the hottest tips and strategies to optimize performance for your paid ad campaigns?
You’re in luck!
The Curry, Cheese, and Vegemite podcast brings the cutting edge of paid advertising to your fingertips. In the inaugural episode, Solutions 8 strategy wizards Glen, Colby, and Usama talk about the emergence of AI search tools and what it will mean for advertisers.
Read on for a detailed summary of what they discussed, or click here to watch the video.
Say hello to AI search tools
AI search tools are here—and Google’s search monopoly may be in danger.
SearchGPT, a prototype from the folks at OpenAI (and still in the testing phase) recently joined Perplexity and other relatively new AI search engines in an effort to improve the search experience by providing more relevant and in-depth information.
And right about now you may be having the same thought as Glen: It won’t be long until we start seeing paid ads on these sites. Which is why these tools are worth thinking about now while they are still in the early stages so that we can be prepared for what comes next.
“I think as Google advertisers this is something we need to monitor,” says Colby. “In the future, I think the way that users search will probably transform. It might not be overnight, but in time we could see this changing.” In other words, don’t be a “one-trick pony” he adds, and be prepared to embrace the changes that are coming.
Where will the ads fit in?
Looking at ChatGPT search results on his screen, in particular the citations attached to each result, Glen theorizes that in the future some of those citations will have paid ads or paid links. Perplexity, which he uses regularly, has already started incorporating paid ads into its search results.
Why does Glen prefer Perplexity? Mainly because he can type the same search term into Perplexity that he would into ChatGPT and it comes up with a lot more options. The results are more detailed, it gives you more citations, and the summary is more comprehensive.
He points out that Perplexity also comes up with related search terms down toward the bottom of the search results, and he says this is where the paid ads are going to start rolling in—in those related links.
In fact, Reddit showed a concept of the ads recently, which did not receive a warm welcome from many of the pro users. However, the reality is that ads are coming whether or not we want them, and Glen advised advertisers to be ready.
Why is it important for advertisers to be ready?
Like any new and potentially lucrative business opportunity, it is important to get in on the ground floor, so to speak, while the price is less expensive and the competition is low.
Says Glen, “As advertisers, as paid media buyers, this is something we need to be aware of and jump on this very quickly with a view of getting additional traffic for our clients.” In other words, once an advertising interface rolls out, it only benefits advertisers to get in there as quickly as possible and start testing it.
While we don’t know yet how the targeting is going to work or where the ads will appear, it will likely be beneficial in terms of visibility.
The impact on content creation
Glen also predicts that content creation will be affected.
Because these AI search tools offer more extensive answers, with more in-depth results appearing below the seed search term results, he believes it will prompt businesses to create more content (e.g., blog posts) around specific search terms.
“So the idea is that you just keep clicking on each result and Google’s going to start giving you exactly what you should be writing content about for a specific search term. That’s what’s going to give businesses ideas on creating blog posts with specific keywords.”
Of course, he is assuming that tools such as Perplexity and ChatGPT will eventually have to give search volume data in the reporting section of the ads interface (similar to Google’s keyword tool) so advertisers can go in and look to see if it is worthwhile trying to run ads for specific keywords.
In Usama’s opinion, it will be search term related. He hypothesizes that these AI search engines may even start batching them into user profiles and running something like a native ad style to the side or even below each result.
Colby points out that while Google uses SEO, he wonders what criteria these new tools will be using, and if Open AI, Perplexity, and others will follow the same format or use different criteria. He also wonders how user confidence will be with these new tools, especially since a lot of people tend to think that because Google is the biggest, it must be the best.
The citations may be the best fit for ad placement.
Glen uses the following search example: What are the best Black Friday deals in Canada?
Looking at Perplexity search results, he points out that the answer has been broken down into categories such as Electronics and Appliances, Home and Kitchen. He says it would be the perfect place to run a promoted ad; you could have a snippet in there about the promotion you are running, with a link that goes directly to a sale page.
“These interfaces are setting themselves up perfectly to have these citations linking directly to paid ads,” says Glen. And, similar to how many people miss the small text that says “sponsored” on the Google SERP (indicating that the result is a paid ad), users will likely assume the results are organic because they will blend in with the actual organic results.
“These companies are going to be trying to do the same thing; they’re going to try and make these citations blend into the organic citations.” Usama agrees, mentioning that it may be something similar to a “Top 10” blog post, in which all of the links are just affiliate links to different offers.
Will it change how advertisers operate?
Colby wonders if advertising on AI search tools will prompt a shift in the way advertisers typically create ads. For example, instead of having a keyword-related focus, will we need to shift our focus into content development and more SEO than we had been doing in the past?
Right now, it is all just theoretical, and we don’t know for sure, but he also wonders about intellectual property and what happens when people do not want their websites crawled by the AI search engine bots.
Usama speculates that they may not have a choice, seeing as ChatGPT and Perplexity are already doing it on all the major networks and websites. However, Glen points out that for those using Cloudflare to handle their DNS settings, there is a free setting that enables you to block the AI search engines from crawling your website for information.
Why would someone want to do that? If you are the New York Times, for example, and you have owned information, you want people to come to your site for information (because then you can show them your ads) rather than having them go to an AI search engine to get that same information.
Final thoughts
Usama says he would compare AI search tools to something like Uber, AirBnB, or booking.com—basically a new brand or software that just came out of nowhere and simplified the whole process and is causing a disruption.
He posits that it may become a shared model, in which both the NYT and ChatGPT (for example) would both get a portion of the clicks. “That will probably be the compromise they come to, because I don’t think it’s avoidable.”
Or, says Usama, it might become like YouTube, where you have a bunch of content creators and then people run ads and they get a portion of that ad.
What do you think?
Our Curry, Cheese, and Vegemite team will continue to discuss this topic and share what they find as more information comes to light. Thanks for reading!
