- They see your ad while doom-scrolling Instagram. They click.
- Something distracts them away from their phone.
- They remember later in the evening (or 3 weeks later) thanks to a Trigger Event.
- They Google your company name.
- They visit your homepage, not the conversion-focused landing page you intended them to hit.
- AI chat-based search for all
- An AI-powered shopping experience with virtual try on
- Gemini in Chrome
- Multi-modal search via camera
- XR glasses
- How will this change user behavior?
- How will big G monetize AI search?
- No more paying for default status (this was the obvious ask)
- Get rid of Chrome
- Open source the data—queries, coverage, performance, etc
- Provide more information to advertisers in search query reports
- Let advertisers opt out of broad and automated keyword matching.
The modern consumer journey according to DemandCurve:
Between screenshots and post save buttons, everything is a bookmarking app now.
Marketing is like gardening. You plant a bunch of seeds and sometimes the best plant comes from the compost heap.
Everything Is Billboards Now
Kieran Flanagan posted on LinkedIn:
SEO isn’t dying. It’s evolving into TV ads.
Everyone sees your Ad, and no one clicks it. AI assistants turn search into a billboard.
To which I added:
Getting a click or a sale isn’t the purpose of each individual ad or touchpoint. It’s about the aggregate impact.
Each exposure is a seed planted in the mind of the audience member. A field of flowers makes a bigger impact than a solitary bloom.
This can be an uncomfortable shift for performance marketers that have been mainlining real-time data and ROAS numbers for years. It’s harder to measure the impact of exposure and reach but we don’t want to stop at counting impressions or mistaking correlation for causation.
But I’ve been giving my Google Ads ecommerce team member a hard time for years that my social ads work with unimpressive ROAS numbers has been driving easy sales to his high performing channel. I put in the work, he reaps the glory. (It is a joke, but the best jokes are rooted in the truth (or complete absurdity, but that’s not relevant here).)
But now even a Google Search isn’t the obvious end point.
Our role as marketers is to tell a story across the channels we operate on for a brand to establish familiarity so that when a customer is about to make a decision we come to mind. Whether that happens via them actively seeking us out or anchoring on our name in a consideration set.
Make an impression. Provide value. Play the long game.
Yesterday I asked if Amazon leaving Google Shopping is “temporary or a sign that the channel wasn’t worth the money?”
Google’s dominance in product discovery is under pressure as consumer behavioral shifts and genAI tools reshape how people search, shop, and buy.
The Year of the Splinter is now on year 3 and the era of the mega platform is over.
Google could become this cycle’s Microsoft.
via EMARKETER
Amazon has turned off Google Shopping (ads and free from the sound of it).
Auction pressure has reduced dramatically between this and the Temu and Shein pullbacks. Should mean a lot more opportunity.
Now the big question, is this temporary or a sign that the channel wasn’t worth the money?
This is interesting
In a recent update, Google has started indexing and sourcing Instagram content.
Now posts and reels function like blog posts from an SEO perspective.
For professional accounts this could mean approaching it more like Pinterest than TikTok.
attached screenshot from IG announcing the update found online
Add this to the interesting pile:
Google Shopping ad clicks surge 18% in Q2 as Amazon, Temu pull back
The big low price players dropped spend (thanks tariffs) opening up room in the auction competition for other retailers. And shoppers seemed to like it.
🍵 Reading the tea leaves, people aren’t searching Google Shopping to find products on cost competing aggregator platforms. They either don’t want to buy on Amazon or already searched there and the came to Google.
Amazon (and other platform) discovery doesn’t happen via other shopping channels, it happens before shopping searches start.
Apple is bringing in the big guns to power Siri: now with AI!
OpenAI and Jony Ive are thinking screen-free.
Google and Perplexity are powering assistants elsewhere.
Smart glasses are spilling from every nook and cranny.
As the ambient computing future draws nearer, what does your brand sound like?
Remember when a big deal was made about Gen Z using Instagram and TikTok to search for places to eat? Well…
Gen Z consumers are starting their purchase journeys more often on Google…
But this isn’t a Google Search comeback story:
properties, including YouTube and Gemini
While Gen Z shoppers have moved away from Google Search as their primary method of discovery, those losses have been more than offset by YouTube’s growing importance as a channel for product discovery and research
The former search company is quickly becoming the YouTube company.
via EMARKETER
Early indications suggest that legacy SEO tactics —such as aggressive link building, keyword stuffing, or micro-optimization—will likely diminish in effectiveness. In their place, Google is prioritizing content that demonstrates topical authority, real-world expertise, and clear value to the end user
Amazon wants to be the Google Ads of CTV (potentially) moving to auction-based buying.
Lower costs, no delivery guarantees, and (I’d imagine) a workflow many digital-first buyers are more familiar with.
Now for the jargon:
non-guaranteed delivery across run-of-service (ROS) inventory, targeting any Amazon DSP audience, but with a dynamic pricing model.
That pricing flexibility allows real-time bid optimization within a defined range—marketers set a floor and a ceiling, and Amazon’s system works within those bounds to find available impressions.
I misheard “monetization upheaval” (in regards to publishers in the age of AI) as the “monetization of people”
Which, isn’t that really the root here?
The shift to social, the rise of influencers, Substacking the newsroom.
The person is the atomic unit of relationships. Mastheads are molecules.
Drop the look, keep the voice.
High-performing brands have shifted to voiceover-first UGC, Ads that strip away the face, drop the performance, and just let the message land.
As Google Ads tries to become more like social, are social ads becoming more like podcasts?
via Buyology
What Google announced at I/O that you might want to know about
(hint: it rhymes with “hey why”)
The two main questions for marketers:
We might get some hints during Marketing Live today.
Some Google updates you might have missed earlier this year:
Exclude age groups from shopping placements in Performance Max campaigns
an AI sales assistant in shopping related search results (in testing)
Demand Gen campaigns are adding display network to the placement portfolio at the ad group level (so much for quality).
Video Action Campaigns are being migrated to Demand Gen, but you
will be able to use Demand Gen to create a YouTube only performance campaign
More robust campaign planning with Advanced Plans. Looks to offer options based on your objective, recommending the campaign type mix and budget allocation.
Customer Match list membership duration will be capped at 540 days
Could Google’s best anti-trust defense be to play up its coming irrelevance?
Apple SVP of Services Eddy Cue said last week that AI will one day replace search engines like Google.
Cue said he expects Safari to eventually swap out Google for AI services from up-and-comers including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity.
Which of course brings to mind the Twain-ism, “the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
In the long run, Google’s 10 Blue Links™ approach is likely dead, a former monopoly. But how long is that long run?
via The Daily Upside
Eventually all large platforms become commerce platforms
When ChatGPT users search for products, the chatbot will now offer a few recommendations, present images and reviews for those items, and include direct links to web pages where users can buy the products.
The ChatGPT search update is part of OpenAI’s effort to compete with rival Google by creating a better, more personalized experience to find products and information on the internet.
Everyone is coming for Google these days.
via TechCrunch
Perplexity wants to be Google, but based in AI vs. traditional search.
From TechCrunch:
“That’s kind of one of the other reasons we wanted to build a browser, is we want to get data even outside the app to better understand you,” [CEO Aravind] Srinivas said. “Because some of the prompts that people do in these AIs is purely work-related. It’s not like that’s personal.”
This aligns with the company’s vision and is not a recent pivot, but you can tell they smell blood in the water with Google’s regulatory woes.
Here’s how the DOJ & friends want Google to break up its search monopoly:
If it’s still a monopoly in 5 years, Android could be on the chopping block.
The advertising remedies are kind of weird…
On the first one, sure, whatever.
But on the second, feels like advertisers refusing to change and wanting their old toys back.