蘑菇AV

Paid social search offerings differ significantly from traditional search ads

If the DOJ breaks up Google, who would be king of search? A filing hinted at a potential breakup, but political uncertainties could slow plans.

Study reveals genAI鈥檚 impact on Google ad placements: SE Rankings demonstrates shopping ads preferentially placed over SGE snippets, altering digital marketing.

As retail media grows, it is changing. At the moment, search remains retail media鈥檚 bread and butter and sales ads are the best awareness drivers. In the future, in-store media and shoppable video ads may take on a bigger role. But no matter how ad formats change, one thing is for certain: Measurement will be key for retail media鈥檚 continued growth.

Ad spending growth is tapering off, but major changes are coming to the market, including the deprecation of third-party identifiers, a new era in TV ad measurement, and growing use of AI in advertising.

With the rise of digital ad channels like connected TV and retail media, there鈥檚 a lot of emphasis on making every ad and consumer touchpoint shoppable. Ad formats with direct calls to action help drive conversions and increase ROI. But brand equity can get left out of the conversation when we focus on performance marketing in isolation. Every ad should perform and provide some sort of measurable impact, but each ad is also vital for telling a brand鈥檚 story, even at the bottom of the funnel where marketers are more focused on driving conversions.

Google's SGE threatens to cut publisher traffic by up to 60%: The evolution could push the industry toward innovative revenue strategies and partnerships.

A jarring deceleration in ad spending growth has shaken the advertising industry in many parts of the world. However, this softness is not universal, and it is likely to be short-lived.

Google鈥檚 AI Overviews debut advertising space: Pressure to monetize costly AI tech is driving Google to launch ad space in AI Overviews as it works to improve the product.

Google isn鈥檛 looking so good as it prepares for trial with the DOJ: A historic antitrust challenge comes as Google is under fire for multiple advertising controversies.

Google stares down another antitrust front: A class-action lawsuit alleging that the giant monopolized ad buying tools for small advertisers is on the docket.

Can Google coast comfortably through a challenging 2023? The search and advertising giant鈥檚 Q4 foreshadows slow growth, revealing cracks in its empire.

Since Google debuted its Search Generative Experience AI-based interface in beta three months ago, it鈥檚 made a lot of updates to alleviate early concerns from testers. But according to search expert Lily Ray, Google still has some work to do to fix issues with its new AI-driven experience. Meanwhile, Microsoft鈥攚hich is still a very distant rival鈥攃ontinues to innovate on Bing Chat, which Ray called 鈥渢he best AI product that鈥檚 out there right now.鈥�

Traditional search鈥攚hich excludes retail media search鈥攚ill claim the biggest share of US ad dollars this year, amounting to $90.73 billion, according to our March 2024 forecast.

Social search is growing, fueled by consumer behavior and AI鈥攁nd so are the search ad opportunities on TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and others. But search on social media isn鈥檛 the same as traditional search. Here鈥檚 what advertisers should know.

Content creation has relied on manual processes鈥攎arketers, writers, and designers crafting messages that resonate with audiences. The introduction of generative AI has revolutionized these workflows. Three-quarters (75%) of professionals who use generative AI say the technology saves them between one to 10 hours per week, according to the recent Contentful survey.

77% of US advertisers incorporate on-site ads as part of their retail media strategy, according to a February 2024 report by Skai and Path to Purchase Institute.

Retail media works. For 77% of US organizations, retail media has either met or exceeded KPI expectations, according to a December 2023 survey from Skai and the Path to Purchase Institute. Only 3% say it had little or no impact on desired objectives.

The travel and retail industries will post healthy digital ad spending growth figures this year, but many other verticals we track will underperform compared with the national growth average. Next year is looking better for almost all of them.

Bing's new features take aim at Google: Microsoft is betting that ChatGPT-powered Bing Chat Answers and an image generation feature could keep recent search converts in the fold.

Amazon plots an upgrade to its search capabilities, with help from generative AI: The retailer is planning to incorporate an AI chatbot to help shoppers with queries, recommendations, and product comparisons.

The layout of Google SERPs is changing. They still show sponsored results but not always at the top. And when AI Overviews are shown in results, ads can appear alongside organic references. A strong organic approach will be critical to search marketers as they navigate this shift.

鈥淚n 2022, retail media hit the first of many milestones when it became the fastest US ad channel to eclipse $30 billion in spending鈥攏early twice as quickly as it took social media,鈥� our analyst Max Willens said on a recent Meet the Analyst webinar. 鈥淭hat was just the start.鈥�