- 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?
Coming Soon: AdsGPT?
OpenAI wants to monetize ChatGPT via ads (which isn’t a surprise, just think of the Google Search budgets waiting to be reallocated).
The company recently hired for a “Growth Paid Marketing Platform Engineer” (listing is no longer up) that :
would be responsible for “developing campaign management tools, integrating with major ad platforms, building real-time attribution and reporting pipelines, and enabling experimentation frameworks to optimize our objectives.”
There is currently an open role called Growth - AI Workflows, Martech, Creative Systems that will:
Design and launch AI-powered creative systems (dynamic content generation, automated asset production, experimentation tooling) that enable rapid, personalized campaigns across multiple channels.
&
Build and scale a modern martech stack (data pipelines, automation platforms, experimentation frameworks) that supports sophisticated targeting, measurement, and real-time optimization.
Connecting ad functionality to Instant Checkout is an obvious first step. The trap is building an ad system that looks like the current heavy hitters.
Turning responses into pay-to-play performance PR outputs kills trust.
Plopping Google Search Ads style placements somewhere in the chat pane is lazy and annoying.
Utilizing the unique understanding of a user, content, and intent to create a new paradigm of contextual advertising that provides value and isn’t reliant on hoovering up user data is the opportunity.
Beware your metrics: Google capped search results at 10 / page. No more 100 results on a page.
A lot of rankings tools are reporting issues and I’m noticing improved reported average ranks across Google Search Console accounts, likely from deep page data loss.
How are ChatGPT results changing?
Apple wants to release its own AI powered search integrated with Siri, calling it an “answer engine”. Potentially powered by a Google model.
Apple is rebuilding Siri around three core components: a planner, the search systems for the web and devices, and a summarizer. The planner interprets voice or text input and decides how to respond; the search system scans the web or user data; and the summarizer pulls it all together into an answer.
At this stage in the game, makes the most sense to build on an outside model. Maybe one less data set to figure out how to infiltrate for AI exposure?
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.