Google CEO talks future of SGE, Gemini, Ads and AI Search

We have entered the new “Gemini era” of Google – and the Search Generative Experience and AI will continue to be a huge part of Search, based on the latest earnings call of Alphabet, Google’s parent company.

Why we care. Despite what you may have heard on social media, SGE isn’t going away. While it’s still unclear whether Google will fully launch SGE as the default experience in 2024, Google continues to test and tweak it. CEO Sundar Pichai said he feels “very good” about the progress of SGE.

What we learned. Let’s look at the most interesting quotes from the Q4 Alphabet earnings call around SGE, Gemini, Ads and AI Search.

SGE. We are in the “earliest days” of SGE, Pichai said, which should be the clearest indication SGE isn’t going away anytime soon. Also, SGE was one the first things Pichai commented on.

Pichai also said that SGE is showing more links with SGE, which has been a huge and ongoing concern for publishers worried about losing valuable organic traffic. But whether those links are driving any traffic? We have no idea because Google has shared no data.

Here’s what Pichai said:

• “We are already experimenting with Gemini in Search, where it’s making our Search Generative Experience, or SGE, faster for users. We have seen a 40% reduction in latency in English in the U.S. I’m happy with what we are seeing in the earliest days of SGE.”
• “It’s available through Search Labs in seven languages. By applying generative AI to Search, we are able to serve a wider range of information needs and answer new types of questions, including those that benefit from multiple perspectives. People are finding it particularly useful for more complex questions, like comparisons or longer queries. It’s also helpful in areas where people are looking for deeper understanding, such as education or even gift ideas.”
• “We are improving satisfaction, including answers for more conversational and intricate queries. As I mentioned earlier, we are surfacing more links with SGE and linking to a wider range of sources on the results page, and we’ll continue to prioritize approaches that add value for our users and send valuable traffic to publishers.”

Later in the call, Pichai said he felt “very good about the progress” of SGE, as well as AI Search in general:

• “When we test Search Generative Experience, particularly against everything that’s out there. And we can see the progress we are making and how much users are liking the experience better. And so I think I feel very good about the progress. And our roadmap for ’24 is strong both on the Search and the underlying AI progress, including the model. So I’m pretty excited about what’s ahead of us in ’24.”

Gemini. Gemini 1.0, launched in December, ushered in the new “Gemini era” of Google, Pichai said. Gemini Ultra is “coming soon.” Google previously said the Ultra model will be used for highly complex tasks. It will be a paid model.

Pichai’s quotes:

• “We closed the year by launching the Gemini era, a new industry-leading series of models that will fuel the next generation of advances. Gemini is the first realization of the vision we had when we formed Google DeepMind, bringing together our two world-class research teams. It’s engineered to understand and combine text, images, audio, video, and code in a natively multi-modal way, and it can run on everything from mobile devices to data centers.”
• “Gemini gives us a great foundation. It’s already demonstrating state-of-the-art capabilities, and it’s only going to get better. Gemini Ultra is coming soon. The team is already working on the next versions and bringing it to our products.”

SGE and Ads. Google is continuing to experiment with ads native to SGE, but also indicated ads above or below SGE were also successful. Here’s what Philipp Schindler, Google’s senior vice president, chief business officer, said:

• “As we shared last quarter, ads will continue to play an important role in the new search experience and will continue to experiment with new formats native to SGE. SGE is creating new opportunities for us to improve commercial journeys for people by showing relevant ads alongside search results. We’ve also found that people are finding ads either above or below the AI-powered overview helpful as they provide useful options for people to take action and connect with businesses.”
• “Launches included a one-stop shop deals destination; new filters, like get it fast; and AI-generated gifting recommendations in SGE.”

Dig deeper. Google search revenue rises to $48 billion, total ad revenue up 11%

AI Search. Google’s future vision of Search seems to be going beyond just providing answers – where Google acts more as an “agent.” This seems to be more of a 10-year type of goal, and Search will be radically different than we’ve known it for more than two decades.

Google has previously said it wants to make Google more “ambiently” available (essentially meaning, Search is everything, everywhere, all at once). Here’s Pichai’s quote:

• “Clearly, as I said, as we are incorporating SGE in the product, the early feedback is positive.”
• “And we’ve been iterating on it, and it clearly works for certain type of queries very well. We are expanding the set of queries where it works very well. It definitely is answering a certain category of queries for the first time in a better way. So that gives us direction to proceed as well.”
• Overall, one of the things I think people underestimate about Search is the breadth of Search, the amount of queries we see constantly on a new day, which we haven’t seen before. And so the trick here is to deliver that high-quality experience across the breadth of what we see in Search. And over time, we think Assistant will be very complementary. And we will again use generative AI there, particularly with our most advanced models and Bard, and allows us to act more like an agent over time, if I were to think about the future and maybe go beyond answers and follow through for users even more.
• So that is the — directionally, what the opportunity set is. Obviously, a lot of execution ahead. But it’s an area where I think we have a deep sense of what to do. And all the work we have taken so far, the feedback has been super positive.

Pichai also discussed Circle to Search, Lens and Bard:

• Beyond SGE, we are continuing to use AI to make searching more accessible and intuitive. Circle to Search lets you search what you see on Android phones with a simple gesture without switching apps. It’s available starting this week on Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro and the new Samsung Galaxy S24 series.
• And Lens now offers generative AI overviews. You can add text to a visual search to ask questions about anything you see and get AI-powered insights in the moment. In addition to Search, we are also seeing a lot of interest in our AI-powered solutions for advertisers that includes our new conversational experience that uses Gemini to accelerate the creation of search campaigns.
• Then there is Bard, our conversational AI tool that complements Search. It’s now powered by Gemini Pro, and it’s much more capable at things like understanding, summarizing, reasoning, coding, and planning. It’s now in over 40 languages and over 230 countries around the world. Looking ahead, we’ll be rolling out an even more advanced version for subscribers powered by Gemini Ultra.

Dig deeper.

• New Google SGE insights: Content formats, YMYL, product views
• 94% of Google SGE links are different from organic search results, study finds
• Google SGE impact by industry and emerging features

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7 signs links aren’t dead: Why to plan for them in 2024

Links have been an integral part of SEO since Google’s early days. However, recent comments from Google’s Gary Illyes have led some to believe that links are losing relevance.

While links may not be the single most important ranking factor, they are far from dead and should still be part of a comprehensive SEO strategy.

This article covers seven signs that links still matter in SEO and makes the case that quality backlinks remain important. 

Are links losing relevance in SEO?

Where did we get the idea that links are dead? Illyes, one of the most notable names in the industry, recently called out the prevalent overemphasis on link building. 

“I think they are important, but I think people overestimate the importance of links. I don’t agree it’s in the top three [of ranking signals]. It hasn’t been for some time.” 

Illyes would go on to say that it’s possible to rank well without links. However, the case study he cites to prove this theory appears to be circumstantial at best. Illyes references a website ranking well on Google without any links (internal or external). 

In this case, the content on the website was apparently so well done that it consistently held the number one ranking in Google. While impressive, this seems to be a rare occurrence and doesn’t provide substantial enough evidence that links are losing their impact.

There have been a lot of headlines across the web questioning the validity of links and hypothesizing that links are dead or dying. But each of these opinions comes with a wealth of opposition, making this a widely debated topic in the industry.

However, many SEOs still believe in the power of a quality link. It seems nearly impossible for a ranking signal that literally “stitches” the web together to disappear – especially when you factor in that links mattered before Google incorporated as a company.

7 signs links still matter

While the overall narrative says links are losing value, it’s important to consider what’s in front of us. Google experiments, Google documentation, Semrush studies, and more all show signs they aren’t going anywhere.

1. Google’s voyage into the AI-powered future relies on links and mentions

Google’s public Search Generative Eperience (SGE) documentation (which is something I recommend you read) states: 

“SGE places even more emphasis on producing informative responses that are corroborated by reliable sources.”

Why would SGE need to corroborate its AI-generated answers with other sources? In their documentation, Google acknowledges many known issues with their AI-powered search results:

• Hallucination: Like all LLM-based experiences, Google’s SGE may misrepresent facts and inaccurately identify insights.
• Misinterpretation during corroboration: SGE may misinterpret language that changes the meaning of the output. 
• Bias: The datasets that SGE is trained on can exhibit narrow representations of people or negative associations, leading to SGE producing biased results. 
• Opinionated content implying persona: SGE’s output is supposed to reflect a neutral, objective tone, but there are instances in which the output reflects opinions on the web, giving the impression of the model displaying a persona. 
• Duplication or contradiction with existing Search features: Outputs of SGE might be in contradiction with other SERP information, such as a featured snippet result.

With this, they’d want to leverage trusted, reliable sources to help combat these issues. This helps ensure they’re promoting helpful answers from authoritative sites that get that nod of approval from other reputable sources. 

Right now, SGE’s still an opt-in experiment. But as this technology continues to roll out and eventually becomes the default SERP experience, you’ll be glad you took the time to understand how it works and the importance links play.

2. Google’s ‘Mentioned in’ SERP feature

Google’s “Mentioned in” feature for the query “Timex.”

Snapshot of a piece on The Manual, which mentions and links to Timex.com.

The first of many signs that links aren’t dead is Google’s recent testing of a new “Mentioned in” SERP feature.

This feature, which I’ve seen mainly for branded searches, gives examples of publications where a brand has been mentioned and/or linked from. In August, Barry Schwartz also noted Google testing this for non-brand queries.

Highlighting mentions across the web is a quick way for users to assess a source’s credibility. In some cases, where the publications are well-known and authoritative, they also connect back to Google’s E-E-A-T focus, providing instant evidence of expertise within a specific vertical or subject area. 

In many of the “Mentioned in” examples I’ve seen, the publications highlighted are linking to the site. While I’ve yet to see this new feature become the default experience, it indicates that Google sees value in brand mentions (often accompanying a backlink) from a search experience perspective.

3. Agency clients see results from links

The most direct sign I can give you that links are not dead comes from internal trends I see at my agency.

We spend a lot of time planning SEO strategies for brands in competitive verticals. With larger-than-ever expectations on ROI, we don’t have time to waste on tactics that don’t pay off.

Our clients continue to invest significantly in digital PR and backlinking campaigns as part of their earned media strategy, with 87% of our earned media clients aligning with us that links are not dead.

Our SEO team is tasked each month with assessing and demonstrating the impact of backlinks. While the overall impact varies by client and vertical, we’ve seen only positive results from backlinking campaigns centered around high-quality, link-worthy content.

Additionally, sometimes, our clients have trouble implementing content and other aspects of our strategy due to a lack of engineering resources, code freezes, or other internal issues. 

It’s inconvenient when this happens, but we have seen that if our clients have trouble implementing on-site changes, we can still achieve ranking results for them with off-site backlinking strategies. 

While we always recommend pairing link acquisition with work from the other major pillars of SEO to maximize results, backlinks have proven to be a good way to build momentum while overcoming implementation hurdles.

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4. Semrush 2024 ranking study shows 40% of top 20 factors are backlink-related

Semrush 2024 study finds 40% of the top 20 ranking factors are backlink-related

Let’s take a moment to hear from a giant in our industry. Semrush publishes its ranking signal report every year. Their 2024 report summarizes: 

“Earning backlinks remains important in an SEO program. Earning backlinks from unique domains is still important, both at page and domain level. You may not always need a big number of links, but they can  help you build your topical authority over time and drive traffic to your pages.”

The 2024 Ranking Signal Report shows eight of the top 20 ranking signals related to backlinks.

Correlation isn’t causation, but this report is worth keeping in mind as you figure out where you fall in the link debate.

5. Google’s commentary on links

Another breadcrumb leading us to believe links aren’t dead is an alternative analysis of Illyes’s commentary over the past year.

Many in the industry see “I think they are important, but I think people overestimate the importance of links. I don’t agree it’s in the top three” and latch firmly onto the parts where Illyes mentions they’re not a top three factor, and that people overestimate their importance. 

But that gives little value to two critical things:

• Illyes states, “I think they are important.” Not only at Pubcon Pro in September but also earlier last year at February’s Pubcon, where he says, “Links are important, but not as important as people think.” I understand the “not as important as people think” being a critical part of what he’s communicating. But I think it’s foolish to discount the fact that he’s repeatedly telling us they’re important.
• In the context of their importance, Illyes gives us a hint at their overall weighting by saying they’re not a top three factor. It’s not illogical to deduce that “not in the top 3” indicates they’re still quite high. If they were not in the top 10, top 20, or even top 100 factors, I think we’d be hearing that from Ilyes instead of “not in the top three.” 

6. Google validates link importance in the ‘How Google search works’ documentation  

Our industry has learned a lot from Google’s documentation and from analyzing changes they make to their documentation over time.

Take, for example, Google’s recent removal of “written by people” in their support documentation, which showcases that content written by AI, not just “by people,” is acceptable.

Google’s wording, documentation, and content teach us a lot. Google directly calls out the importance of links in their “How Google Search works” documentation:

“One of several factors we use to help determine this is understanding if other prominent websites link or refer to the content. This has often proven to be a good sign that the information is well trusted.”  

We can anticipate that if Google makes notable strides away from leveraging backlinks to crawl and understand the web, they’ll start making tweaks to their documentation accordingly.

7. Google uses resources combating spammy links

If links aren’t important in the overall search landscape, why does Google work so hard to combat fake or spammy backlinks?

We’re all familiar with Google algorithm updates. These days, they seem never-ending.

Google noted 4,500 “improvements” in 2020, and in years past, Google’s own Danny Sullivan has confirmed 3,200 changes to its search system.

Many of these changes to Google’s algorithm are to defend against spammy links and protect the value of natural, high-quality links across the web.

If links are dying, why put time, energy, and resources behind protecting the legitimacy of links?

Backlinking as a strategy

Now that we’ve covered that links are alive and well, here are a few ways you can make content link-friendly for your SEO strategy:

• Create original, helpful, and authoritative content people want to link to. Assess trends and conduct keyword research to figure out what content your audience needs and be thoughtful about providing content experiences that align to your audience and beat what’s already out there.
• Leverage unique and proprietary data. Individual data you own is the best way to cut through the noise and content saturation. Conduct surveys, analyze your owned data, or present public data in a new way that provides more insight, better digestibility, or a different perspective. 
• Lean into what’s currently newsworthy or trendy. Following current trends in the news or pop culture will help your content gain attention on a local, national, or regional level.

Dig deeper: Modern link building starter guide

Let the resurrection begin

Links and backlinking strategies are anything but dead. We’re seeing it first-hand at my agency, and giants within the industry like Semrush agree. 

Sure, the overarching narrative seems to be that we shouldn’t worry about links much anymore, but many of our award-winning campaigns have included backlinking.

Until we see more concrete data showing they’re dying, we’ll keep moving onward and upward in our journey to get our clients linked and mentioned from relevant and reputable sources across the web. 

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7 paid media reporting tips when tracking is messy

The impending deprecation of third-party cookies presents a tracking nightmare for PPC managers.

With broken attribution models, how can you confidently report campaign performance and optimize ad spend? 

While perfect one-to-one attribution is impossible, all hope is not lost.

By shifting focus to longer-term trends and incrementality, capturing campaign data through UTMs, agreeing on a single source of truth, and having a plan for when tracking breaks, you can still glean actionable insights from PPC reporting.

With the right approach, paid campaigns can still demonstrate value and guide effective optimization no matter how murky the tracking waters get.

This article explores practical strategies to make paid media reporting work despite the messy post-cookie world.

7 key strategies for better paid media reporting

Follow these tips to prepare your PPC reports for a post-cookie world.

1. Include comparisons

Whenever preparing reports, context is key. One of the best ways to position current data is to show how it compares vs. previous data. 

Depending on your industry and how seasonality impacts results, you may want to emphasize comparing to the previous month or the same period last year (or both). 

Talk about where you see growth and where you see declines, and think about factors such as budget changes and messaging updates that may have impacted performance.

2. Show longer-term trends

Additionally, just reporting on shorter-term periods lacks significance and may either oversell success or raise unnecessary red flags about performance lags that are ironed out over a broader timeframe. 

For instance, you may find that looking at a one-week period in the middle of the month shows a drop in conversions, but your business tends to receive the most conversions at the beginning and end of the month. So once you factor in the entire month, data points to positive performance.

3.  Use multiple platforms, but agree on a source of truth

Much is made in our industry about discrepancies between platforms, which often leads to a complete distrust of certain platforms. 

For instance, Google Analytics events rarely match to conversions in Google Ads, for various reasons.

Look at the ratio of conversions between platforms, and keep an eye on if that changes over time. You might find that Google Analytics records 80% of the conversions you track with a Google Ads pixel. 

You can use this as a rough benchmark for what to expect. However, if you suddenly see the ratio drop to 50%, you may want to investigate potential tagging issues.

Within your organization or through conversation with your client, you should agree on a common source of truth for reporting. This may be an analytics platform, a CRM, or a CDP.

Agreement on a common source of truth doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re seeing these numbers as the end-all guaranteed accurate lead totals. 

Instead, you’re simply making sure you’re using the same data set when you present total leads/sales in reporting and can get ahead of potential questions if you only use ad platform reporting and your stakeholder only looks at Salesforce.

4. Capture UTM parameters

Maintain a system for adding consistent UTM parameters onto URLs for key dimensions such as source, medium, campaign, and keyword.

In turn, set up your CRM or whatever system you use to track leads to capture the UTM parameters attached to the initial landing page on which a user arrives. 

This will help to provide your own first-party data on the source for each lead or sale. Additionally, iOS may strip some personally identifiable parameters (such as Google’s click ID or a Salesforce ID) in Safari when a user comes via private browsing. However, UTM parameters should not be stripped.

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5. Incorporate coupon codes

Using a unique coupon code to tie to specific campaigns or users can be an additional route to tie performance straight to your paid media campaigns. 

You have two options here:

• Assign a general code with a landing page that’s only used for a particular campaign.
• Use URL parameters to dynamically populate a code that’s pulled through into a form field when a user submits a lead form or completes a sale.

6. Consider incrementality testing

Another way to measure the overall effectiveness of a digital advertising channel is via incrementality. 

Essentially, this involves setting up a test where a subset of users is exposed to ads and others are not and then looking to see if there was a lift in conversions for those who received ads.

There are a few ways to implement an incrementality test:

• Geography: Pick regions with similar populations and demographics to compare against each other.
• Time: Run ads for a set period that’s long enough to get the significance, and then turn ads off for the same amount of time, comparing results at the end. While this route can provide a clean way to test your entire geographic footprint, be wary about accommodating for seasonality.
• Audience split: Show ads to a test group and not a control group and compare performance between the two afterward.

7. Prepare for when tracking breaks

Inevitably, your tracking will break and you’ll overcount or undercount conversions. It’s important to have a plan in place for when this happens.

Tracking data via multiple platforms allows you to pull from a backup source when necessary. 

While we discussed agreeing on a main “source of truth” for reporting consistency, you can explain that you’re pulling data from (for instance) the ad platform itself for a particular month instead of relying on CRM data when there was an issue syncing leads to the CRM.

Next, annotate when the tracking issue occurred and when it was resolved. That way, when looking back on results one year later, you’ll remember why there was a gap in data.

Remember: Attribution in paid media has always been imperfect

Attribution has never been 100% perfect. While there are good efforts in place by ad and analytics platforms to integrate the data, offline interactions, cross-device activity and multitouch behavior have always made attributing conversions to a particular source messy. 

For instance, maybe someone who searched for your product and bought it already had a positive perception of it via word-of-mouth from a friend who wouldn’t be tracked in any analytics platform. 

Ultimately, the goal of ad platform conversion tracking isn’t necessarily to be able to tie every single conversion to an actual purchase or lead on a one-to-one basis. 

Consider conversion tracking more as directional data showing how metrics such as total conversions, conversion rate, CPA, and ROAS have changed over time. 

Our ability to track marketing data will get messier. So think through how you approach reporting to your business stakeholders. 

Make every effort to set up ad platform conversions, analytics events, CRM fields, and whatever else you’re using to track success. 

However, be transparent about the fact that the data you’re able to track doesn’t give perfect attribution and that whatever you report is a guide for optimization and measuring business success. 

Treat your data as directional and look at change over time, while looking to alternative methods to track success outside of what you can track directly in platforms. 

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Microsoft Search and News Advertising revenue up 8%

Microsoft reported its strongest financial quarter to date after becoming a $3 trillion company.

Search and news advertising revenue increased 8% year on year, excluding traffic acquisition costs that Microsoft pays to publishers. However, despite the rise in search and news advertising revenue marks a slowdown in growth in comparison to the previous quarter’s 10% increase.

LinkedIn revenue was also up 9%, with overall revenue in Productivity and Business Processes up 13% to $19.2 billion.

Meanwhile, total sales during the three-month period ending December 31, 2023, generated $62 billion for Microsoft, a year-on-year increase of 18%, with net income up 33% at $21.9 billion.

Success drivers. Microsoft’s success was driven by Office and cloud revenue which account for almost 60% of the company’s overall revenue. Additionally, the tech giant’s revenue from Xbox games and services wasw up 61% compared to last year, mainly because Xbox acquired Activision Blizzard, increasing the total revenue from gaming by 49%.

Why we care. Even though Microsoft did well overall, the money the tech giant make from search and news advertising didn’t increase as much in the recent quarter. LinkedIn revenue, on the other hand, remained steady, which could indicate that LinkedIn is delivering stronger results than other Microsoft platforms.

What Microsoft is saying. Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft, said in a statement:

• “We’ve moved from talking about AI to applying AI at scale.”
• “By infusing AI across every layer of our tech stack, we’re winning new customers and helping drive new benefits and productivity gains across every sector.”

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Earnings report. Read Microsoft’s full Q2 performance report for more information.

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Google launching Technical ad delivery support on AdMob inventory

Google AdMob is introducing Technical ad delivery to help publishers ensure that displayed ads adhere to regulations in the European Economic Area (EEA) and the United Kingdom (UK).

Technical ad delivery will be available by the end of March (an exact date was not confirmed).

Why we care. Publishers that don’t fully comply with EU regulations could be blocked or suspended from the IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF). Consequently, they would lose the ability to use a Google-certified Consent Management Platform (CMP) for serving ads in the EEA or UK.

What is Technical ad delivery? Technical ad delivery is a solution designed to help publishers, who have adopted the IAB Europe’s Transparency and Consent Framework v2.2, ensure ads comply with the European Union’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) when consent and legitimate interest for non-special purposes aren’t present.

What is a special purpose? This term refers to one of the defined purposes for processing of data, including users’ personal data, by participants in the Framework that are defined in the Policies or the Specifications for which Vendors declare a Legal Basis in the Global Vendor List and for which the user is not given choice by a CMP.

How technical ad delivery works. Technical ad delivery uses IP addresses exclusively for the technical delivery of ads and does not engage in other personal data processing operations permitted under different TCF purposes.

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No action needed. There is no action to take now as Technical ad delivery doesn’t require any implementation in the AdMob user interface. If you set up your CMP to call AdMob on traffic without legitimate interest or consent, AdMob will attempt to serve technical ad delivery traffic.

Eligibility. On AdMob, only non-Google waterfall mediation demand is eligible to serve using Technical ad delivery. (Waterfall mediation calls ad sources one-by-one, ordered by the average eCPM you’ve defined, rather than the amount the ad source is willing to pay.)

What is the TCF? TCF is a voluntary standard developed by IAB Europe that fosters collaboration between website publishers, app developers, and technology partners. It ensures a standardized user experience for privacy choices, allowing users to grant or withhold consent and exercise their “right to object” to data processing, based on practical requirements from Data Protection Authorities and legal principles.

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The fallacy of CTR as a KPI: Redefining PPC ad success

Click-through rate (CTR) is a cornerstone metric of PPC marketing. 

Calculated as the percentage of people who click on an ad after seeing it, CTR is often treated as a key performance indicator (KPI), commanding disproportionate attention and optimization efforts.

Google search interest in the topic of CTR far exceeds that of conversion rate (CVR), even though conversions more directly align with the health and success of a business.

This hyperfocus on CTR largely stems from outdated reasoning that deserves a closer look.

Reason 1: A high CTR indicates an effective and relevant ad

Since the launch of AdWords, Google has exalted click-through rate as a measurement of relevance, explaining:

“A high CTR is a good indication that users find your ads and listings helpful and relevant.”

But the changes Google Ads has made over the years have decoupled CTR from relevance.

The quality of impressions is declining as the quantity increases

Early on, advertisers had far more control over who saw – and didn’t see – their ad, meaning they could target ads to their ideal market while keeping everyone else from viewing an ad impression.

Google Ads has made several changes leading to inflated impression numbers from non-targeted audiences:

Expanded location targeting

Targeting a location no longer means you’re targeting people who are actually in a location. For location-based businesses, this irrelevant traffic skews CTR data.

A high CTR ad for “NYC Photography” targeted at NYC now reaches people nationwide who are “interested in” NYC. The specific “NYC Photography” headline underperforms in California and Texas. A broader “Photography Packages” headline wins more clicks. The ad with the highest CTR is the one that’s actually the least relevant to the studio’s target audience and offers.

Expanded match type definition

Google Ads has broadened its approach to match types, affecting how closely a user’s search needs to align with an ad’s keywords. This expansion leads to ads appearing for less relevant or related search queries, distorting the true effectiveness of CTR as a performance metric.

The exact keyword [luxury spa treatments] could now match against searches for “cheap spa days” or “home spa ideas.” Once again, the most relevant headline is unlikely to have the highest CTR when the search terms aren’t in true alignment with the keyword.

Limited search term data

Google Ads’ reduction in search term data transparency marks a significant shift from the past, where advertisers had fuller access to the actual queries triggering their ads. 

This change keeps advertisers from fully identifying and negating irrelevant or low-intent queries, increasing irrelevant impressions and clicks and introducing lurking variables affecting metrics like CTR. 

The prominence of ads is increasing

Advertisers once had to fight to win the click, but it’s now more difficult to qualify the click.

Expanded real estate

When CTR was introduced as a measurement of ad relevance, ads on Google were confined to right-rail only, with just 95 characters of text.

Today, Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) have tripled to 270 characters. With the retirement of the right-rail, competing organic links are now pushed further down the SERP instead of appearing side-by-side.

With the inclusion of images, sitelinks and other assets, both branded and non-branded ads can now occupy the entire “above the fold” real estate of the SERP.

When 100% of the SERP is a single ad, it’s almost more of a challenge not to win the click.  

The function of RSAs

RSAs are designed to match search queries. Google describes this process:

“The more headlines and descriptions you enter, the more opportunities Google Ads has to serve ads that more closely match your potential customers’ search queries, which can improve your ad performance.”

This approach focuses on aligning with the search query rather than accurately representing your business’s products and services.

When there’s a mismatch between the query and your offer, the ad reflects back to the searcher what they want, which can drive additional clicks that don’t lead to sales.

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Reason 2: Increasing CTR improves ad rank and lowers advertising costs

Google promotes CTR as a consideration in Ad Rank, which determines the position of your ad and the cost you pay for the click:

“CTR also contributes to your keyword’s expected CTR, which is a component of Ad Rank.”

This raises two questions: what is the correlation between actual CTR and click costs, and is the juice worth the squeeze to decrease costs by increasing CTR?

Your actual CTR isn’t part of the ad rank equation

When evaluating CTR as a factor in ad quality, Google doesn’t use your actual click-through ratio (total clicks ÷ total impressions). Instead, it uses your “expected CTR,” which only considers “historical impressions for exact searches of your keyword.” 

The fact that only exact searches enter into this calculus is key. It means that your ad’s performance against inflated and irrelevant impressions has nothing to do with your real-time auction costs or position. 

It’s not a sale if you don’t need it

Marketers often optimize ads for CTR under the misconception that it saves money. Not only is this not how Ad Rank works, it’s simply the wrong approach to savings.

Imagine a model that did award lower click costs for higher CTR. Buying more clicks that don’t convert isn’t a good business decision, even if those clicks are discounted.

And yet, this is exactly what happened in paid search last year.

CTR increased 3% year over year while conversion rate dropped 10%, according to WordStream’s 2023 Google Ads benchmarks. The extra clicks weren’t converting!

The low conversion rates, combined with an increased CPC (despite a higher CTR), led to a whopping 20% increase in cost per lead year over year.

Kerri Amodio shared the results of her test designed to find the best CPL for her client:

The Test ads’ CTR was 8% lower than the Control group, costing them an extra $0.01 per click, and ultimately saving $10 per conversion. 

Reason 3: Post-click performance is outside the scope of paid search

Many folks in marketing will argue that the job of an ad is to win the click; it’s the job of the offer/landing page/lead gen form/sales team to close the sale.

Because the ads team often doesn’t control or even influence the post-conversion process, CTR is used as a success metric for performance that’s within their control.

It’s true that ad clicks don’t directly drive leads and sales, but the quality of the click (and the intent of the person doing the clicking) absolutely affects the likelihood of conversion. 

Using a post-click success metric such as conversion rate can help marketers evaluate the true contribution of an ad while looking only at CTR, which ignores the value of running high-intent ads in the first place.

Reviewing and optimizing for CVR is especially important in the landscape of RSAs, where an ad crafted to win an irrelevant click can boost CTR but result in fewer conversions.

In his SMX Next talk, Frederick Vallaeys shared Optmyzr data comparing CTR and conversion rates against the number of headline variants in an ad:

This data shows an inverse relationship between CTR and CVR and the number of headline variants and conversion rate.

Meanwhile, Google promotes the idea that varied headlines increase CTR and conversions, but supporting data is scarce.

Their documentation claims a 12% conversion increase from increasing ad headlines and following other recommendations. However, this is based on a two-day date range picked from the several years RSAs have been running.

So, is CTR just a vanity metric now?

While CTR is no longer the measurement of ad relevance and quality it once was, it’s still a useful metric.

CTR offers quick feedback on newly launched assets, which is especially valuable when budgets are small and conversions are slow.

It’s also useful to evaluate CTR when reviewing your ad against the Keyword Text segment to identify misalignment between keywords and ad text.

This data can help you make decisions about pausing or removing assets, creating new ad groups, or tightening/clarifying existing messaging.

Shifting to a conversion-focused PPC framework

In Google’s push to drive more clicks year over year, qualifying the click is better than winning it.

Improving your CTR ratio is often better achieved by decreasing the denominator than increasing the numerator, and a lower CTR is better than a high CTR where the additional clicks don’t drive conversions for your business.

By de-prioritizing CTR in your evaluation of your ads, you’ll be able to focus on messaging that appeals more specifically to your target audience, improving ad performance in the process.

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9 things to do when SEO is great but sales and leads are terrible

You’ve optimized your website for search. You’re getting lots of high-quality traffic.

But despite the uptick in visitors, your sales and leads remain lackluster.

It’s a frustrating situation.

The good news? There are strategies you can implement to convert that traffic into paying customers.

This article explores nine proven methods to help you turn SEO traffic into sales and leads.

1. Improve your site’s user experience (UX)

UX and SEO have been talked about for years and are intrinsically linked, but many sites still haven’t spent time improving UX. 

Here are some key areas to focus on:

• Use white space to declutter your pages.
• Add in call-to-actions that stand out.
• Focus on your page speed – slow sites lose 90% of leads.
• Use responsive design to adapt to all devices.
• Keep your layout consistent.
• Reduce 404 errors.

You can, and should, test your site’s user experience from an unbiased source. You might know the nuances of your site and sales funnel, but your users do not.

Test, refine and test again. Over time, you’ll need to revisit your tests as visitor behavior changes.

2. Optimize for conversions

You have traffic, and it’s time to make sales. What is your conversion rate (CVR)? If you’re an ecommerce site with a 2.3% or higher CVR, you’re actually doing really well. 

Optimizing this metric will require you to review key sections of your site:

• Blog: Your blog may be a traffic magnet, but let’s turn those visitors into sales. Add call-to-actions in your article, create clear banners for products or services and push your product or service as a solution to the visitor’s pain points.
• Landing pages: If your landing pages aren’t converting, begin A/B testing them. You can add new CTAs, change the layout and copy – anything you can – to entice visitors to take action.
• Copy: If traffic is leading to product or service pages, it may be that your copy is not clear and concise. You’ll want to work with a copywriter to optimize and test these pages until conversions rise.

If your pages aren’t optimized for conversions, it can easily lead to SEO traffic that simply isn’t converting.

3. Optimize the first two actions on content pages that don’t target the right keywords

Are you leveraging the value of educational content? You should:

• Focus on the first two actions on the blog.
• Update the highest traffic pages as a test.

For example, you can add a “Demo” button to the top of the blog post with a strong call to action or provide a demo video above the fold. 

Transforming traffic into sales is possible with educational content, and it may be as easy as focusing on these two actions on your pages.

4. Improve content quality and relevance

Older businesses tend to have hundreds of blog posts that they never review or update.

What was considered relevant and quality content in the past may not be today. 

You’ll want to take an inventory of your articles, starting with those that get the most traffic, and start working through them with an audit.

• Does the article have the quality that you want from your business?
• Is the article relevant to the visitors who are landing on your page?

If you purge older content, try finding redirect opportunities to other content assets that may be higher quality yet still relevant.

Dig deeper: Improving or removing content for SEO: How to do it the right way

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5. Analyze and utilize data to improve sales

Data is only useful if you analyze it and use it to improve sales. You may have multiple forms of data to sift through:

• Analytics
• Server logs
• Heatmaps

If you begin sifting through server logs and see an uptick in 404 errors on your checkout page, you have the reason for your poor conversions. You need to dig into these issues.

For example, if you have a heatmap on your site, you may find that everyone is looking at the right side of the page, but you have a CTA on the left side.

Use this rich data to find where visitors are getting “stuck” in your sales funnel and begin making changes to address these issues.

6. Boost trust and credibility outside of social proof

Social proof is huge (more on that below), but what other things can you do to improve trust and credibility? You can:

• Add your professional license number.
• Post your clear warranty or guarantee information.
• Add logos or information about professional memberships or associations.
• Publish your awards.
• Add links to news articles or publications where you’ve been published.

Every industry has its own way to improve trust and credibility. A law firm can showcase their bar association, awards, settlements and other data showing that they’re a business people trust.

7. Focus on local SEO (when applicable)

Brick-and-mortar businesses may see sales and leads dwindle due to a lack of focus on local SEO.

Local SEO takes a more strategic and targeted approach to help businesses improve their visibility in Google’s local search results.

For example, a website for a sushi restaurant in Los Angeles that focuses on broad keywords (e.g., “sushi restaurant” or “sushi restaurants in California”) may struggle to:

• Rank in the search results because the competition is so high.
• Reach the right people.

That restaurant would be better off focusing on keywords like “sushi restaurant in LA” or even “sushi restaurant in Glendale.” These keywords may be easier to rank for and would put their site in front of their target audience.

Other ways to improve local SEO:

• Optimizing your Google Business Profile page.
• Ensuring your NAP information is consistent online.
• Optimizing content and pages for location-based keywords.

Local SEO can help ensure that when local customers search for your business, they find your site.

Dig deeper: Local SEO for new physical locations

8. Leverage A/B testing to maximize conversions

A/B testing can be an effective tool for conversion rate optimization (CRO). The goal is to test two versions of a webpage to see which one generates a higher conversion rate.

A simple change to your copy or even changing the color of a button can significantly impact conversions.

Through A/B testing, you can experiment with different variations of your pages, choose the best-performing version and maximize your conversions.

Even a well-optimized site can fail to convert if the layout, copy, formatting, and design are ineffective.

An SEO specialist can help you:

• Identify which page elements to test (e.g., headlines, CTA buttons, copy, layout, etc.).
• Create variants of your pages.
• Run the test.
• Measure and analyze the results.

A/B testing can be used continually to improve your conversion rates over time.

9. Enhance social proof to build trust and credibility

Consumers need more than just persuasive copy to convince them to purchase. Up to 87% of buying decisions start with online research, and 88% of consumers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations.

If your sales are suffering but your SEO is on-point, you may not be delivering the social proof prospects need to convert.

To build trust and credibility, showcase your:

• Reviews: Embed them on product pages and highlight positive reviews on your homepage.
• Testimonials: Showcase these prominently on your landing pages. Include photos, videos and names for each testimonial.
• Awards and recognition: Add award badges to your pages to let prospects know that industry experts and associations trust your business.
• Case studies: Add these to your site to show prospects the results you’ve delivered for other customers or clients.
• Influencer endorsements: Highlight celebrity or influencer endorsements. Their opinions can easily sway prospects.

An SEO specialist can help ensure your social proof is optimized and displayed prominently on your page.

Work cross-teams to adjust your sales funnel

SEO can drive traffic to your site, but once a prospect lands on your page, it’s up to your content and UX to convert them.

Optimize content for each stage of your sales funnel.

Great SEO doesn’t automatically translate to higher sales and conversions.

Even with great SEO, sales and leads can suffer if the other puzzle pieces aren’t in place. The above strategies can help improve your conversion rates.

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Yelp rolls out live support consultations for advertisers

Yelp is rolling out scheduled support consultations for advertisers to ensure their questions are answered in a “timely manner”.

While options like online FAQs, email and chat are effective for many queries, some advertisers prefer the value of speaking with a live representative for more personalized assistance, the platform told Search Engine Land.

The news coincides with reports of dissatisfaction with Google Ads’ support, which has been described as hitting “an all-time low” by frustrated advertisers.

Why we care. If the insufficient support from Google Ads is a concern, considering Yelp as an alternative platform is worthwhile due to the additional help and assistance it offers advertisers.

Scheduled consultations. Yelp now lets advertisers schedule consultations with their customer service team without waiting on hold. This makes it easier for advertisers to connect with customer support and set up consultations at a time that suits them.

What Yelp is saying. Nicole Lund, Director of Local Business Product at Yelp, told Search Engine Land:

• “We want advertisers to be able to get in touch with us as quickly as possible to help answer any questions, without having to wait on hold.”
• “Advertisers are managing a lot and don’t always have time to wait on hold to speak with someone, which means business owners would sometimes delay calling us for the support they needed.”
• “Not only have we heard that scheduled consultations are helping them get their questions answered quickly, but it’s helping to drive more success with their ads as we’re able to help business owners better optimize and adjust their ads when it’s most convenient for them.”
• “We’ve also anecdotally heard that the convenience of scheduled consultations is making their advertising experience even more positive, in turn making it even more likely that they’ll proactively engage on Yelp longer term.”

Yelp’s AI plans. In addition to new support feature, Yelp is increasing its use of AI to offer advertisers additional insights into their campaigns, including AI-powered smart budgets. This new feature utilizes AI to provide advertisers with personalized ad budget recommendations, by taking various unique factors about their business into consideration, such as rating, category, listing age, region, and more.

Google’s approach. While Yelp is enhancing its live support offering, Google has faced criticism for providing inadequate assistance to advertisers. Google acknowledged these concerns to Search Engine Land and said it is investing in AI to improve its advertiser Help Center. However, the search engine notably hasn’t confirmed additional investments in live support, despite advertisers requesting it.

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Deep dive. Read Yelp’s announcement in full for more information.

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Google search CPCs up 19%, pushing ad spend up 17%

Spend on Google search ads in the U.S. rose by 17% year-on-year in the final quarter of 2023.

Google click growth remained steady at 8% year-on-year, while cost-per-click accelerated to 9% during the same period, according to a the Tinuiti Digital Ads Benchmark Report.

Why we care. The increase in Google search ad spend suggests that people are feeling more confident in digital advertising after a rocky start to 2023, when CPS dropped. However, it’s important to know that because more advertisers want ad space, it might cost more and be competitive.

Device matters. The report also found that mobile is continuing to lead the way in terms of generating Google search ad clicks:

• Mobile search ads: Spend was up 19% year-on-year, clicks were up 10%, and CPC was up 9%.
• Desktop and laptop search ads: Spend was up 15% year-on-year, clicks were up 2%, and CPC was up 13%.
• Tablet search ads: Spend was up 4% year-on-year, clicks were down 13% and CPC up 19%.

PMax uptick. 91% of retail advertisers running shopping ad listings with Google included Performance Max campaigns in their strategies during the peak of the holiday shopping season in Q4 2023. Comparatively, a year earlier, 80% of retailers had incorporated PMax campaigns. However, despite steadily increasing throughout 2023, the adoption of PMax campaigns seems to have reached a plateau.

Rise of Temu. In the final week of 2023, 90% of retailers recognized Temu as a top competitor in Google Shopping auctions. This level matches Amazon’s consistent presence over the last two years. Although Temu wasn’t seen in these auctions until late 2022, its visibility increased sharply in the first half of 2023 and continued to rise throughout the year.

What is Tinuiti? Tinuiti is the largest independent performance marketing firm specializing in Streaming TV and dominating the triopoly of Google, Facebook, and Amazon. Managing $4 billion in digital media and boasting a workforce of over 1,000 employees, Tinuiti is a significant player in the digital marketing landscape.

Report methodology. The Tinuiti Digital Ads Benchmark Report utilizes anonymized performance data from advertising programs managed by Tinuiti, totaling over $4 billion in annual digital ad spend. The data is based on active programs with consistent strategies. All figures represent same-client growth and are not meant to officially reflect any specific advertising platform’s performance or the experiences of every advertiser.

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Deep dive. Read the report in full for more information (please note, this is a gated report).

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No, Google has NOT announced SGE isn’t going to happen

Two sentences in a Google blog post seem to have convinced more than a few people in the search community that Google’s Search Generative Experience “isn’t going to happen.”

Specifically, SGE won’t launch. It will never be more than an “experiment” in Labs or become part of the default Search experience for all (or the vast majority) of users.

I just don’t buy it. Here’s why.

What is at issue. When Google announced Circle to Search, Elizabeth Reid, Google VP, Search, wrote in a blog post:

• “This week’s launch of AI-powered insights for multisearch is the result of testing we began last year to see how gen AI can make Search radically more helpful, with SGE in Search Labs. We’ve gotten lots of useful feedback from people who’ve chosen to join this experiment, and we’ll continue to offer SGE in Labs as a testbed for bold new ideas.”

These two sentences led to a fairly elaborate interpretation shared by Ross Hudgens, CEO of Siege Media, (in the same post, he even states he is possibly reading too far into it). It reads, in part:

• “This language makes SGE sound like it is a breeding ground for many different SERP features, instead of an all-encompassing one that we first saw when it was announced.”
• “But we know these words are carefully chosen, and we also know Google is unlikely to announce things one way or another.”

Fishy. Yes, it’s debatable whether SGE, in its current form, will graduate and become the default Search experience. We don’t know Google’s product roadmap or if SGE is even “delayed.”

However, the idea that SGE won’t be released partially or fully – soon or maybe ever – took hold on social media.

To me, though, this looks like the equivalent of putting a cup in the ocean, finding no fish inside the cup and claiming there are no fish in the ocean.

To be clear. Google has not announced SGE may not launch.

Google also has never announced when or if SGE will launch. SGE has to this point consistently been referred to as an experiment.

SGE had an “end date” at one point – December 2023 – but that was removed in December. That “end date” also had zero meaning.

Hopefully, it’s all clear now that the above interpretation (and resulting rampant social media speculation) is based entirely on something Google didn’t say. Which is a sentence I can’t even believe I just wrote.

What we actually know is that Google will “continue to offer SGE in Labs.”

SGE experimentation. Meanwhile, we’ve reported from two separate analyses (from BrightEdge and Authoritas) that SGE is shown for over 80% of queries for users who have opted into SGE. Also, SGE experimentation is ongoing, according to a separate analysis of a billion queries by BrightEdge.

All of this data and ongoing experimentation should be enough proof that SGE isn’t dead. All we know with certainty is that Google has not launched SGE – everything else is unfounded speculation at this point – again based on two sentences of a blog post.

All that said, Google’s earnings call is tomorrow. It will be interesting to see whether SGE is mentioned.

What Google has actually said about SGE. Google has not stated that SGE “isn’t going to happen.” Let’s review:

During the Alphabet Q3 2023 earnings call, Oct. 24, Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai said:

•  “I’ve been pretty pleased with how the user feedback has been on SGE. We are rolling it out to more users. Through it all, we’re making sure the product works well and we are generating value for our ecosystem and that Ads transitions well.”
• I think I view this as, with AI, the opportunity to evolve Search and Assistant over the next decade ahead. And I think as we’ve always seen, when you continue to invest and build great experiences, you can get value on the other side.

Interpretation: Google is thinking about the next 10 years. So maybe stop trying to extract meaning from two sentences of a blog post. Also, Google is trying its best to figure out how to make more money here – or at least not lose any more money. And it seems they still haven’t figured it out yet.

• “We are still in very early days in terms of how much we have rolled it out. But we have definitely gotten it out to enough people, both geographically, across user segments and enough to know that the product is working well. It improves the experience.”
• “But there are areas to improve, which we are fine-tuning. Our true north here is getting at the right user experience we want to, and I’m pretty comfortable seeing the trajectory. And we’ve always worked through these transitions, be it from desktop to mobile or from now, mobile to an AI-enhanced experience.”

Interpretation: Google thinks SGE improves the Search experience, as imperfect as it was at the time. Also, Google definitely went all-in on mobile-first – that happened. Pichai seemed fairly serious about making Search an AI-enhanced experience.

During the Alphabet Q2 2023 earnings call, July 25, Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai said:

• “This quarter saw our next major evolution with the launch of the Search Generative Experience, or SGE…”

Interpretation: Pichai positioned SGE as an evolution of Search then and I doubt that has changed.

In an interview with Platformer, Dec. 6, about the newly-launched Gemini model, Pichai brought up SGE multiple times, including this:

• “Our fundamental vision is that people come to search to experience the richness and the diversity of the web and the content ecosystem. So even though with search generative experience we can expand what we do, we’re actually designing the product in a. way so that people can go explore. And I think that’s what users want. I view it as a fundamental value proposition of search, so that’d be part of our goal as we evolve the product.”

Interpretation: Google seems to think of SGE as part of the “fundamental value proposition of search.” All I’m not 100% certain about is whether the product Pichai is referring to in the quote above is Search, SGE, or both.

Dig deeper. Google CEO on SGE and Search evolution: ‘We’ll get it right’

False. Were Search Engine Land going full Politifact, we would likely rate this story as “False” if not “Pants on Fire.” While many in search marketing may want the delay or even death of Google SGE to be true, there is no evidence to support this “interpretation” at this time.

Spreading around the idea that SGE isn’t launching and that Google said as much is harmful because misinformation is so easy to spread in our industry. You’re better off preparing for generative search experiences – which aren’t going anywhere.

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