Many changes occur in digital marketing every year. During his 10 years in the industry, at the beginning of the year he noticed a sudden increase in requests for SEO and his PPC collaboration.
What will be different in 2024? There's an elephant in the room: AI.
Both the organic and paid sides of Google are rushing to implement AI. From Search Generative Experience (SGE) to Gemini (formerly known as Bard), his SERP results, both paid and organic, are evolving almost daily.
This is causing anxiety for both paid and organic marketers, and as I explained in my recent presentation at the MarTech Spring Conference, there is an increased emphasis on paid and organic teamwork. Masu. (Registration required).
We've already covered the important reports that SEO and PPC teams need to run (and share) to help each other succeed, so we won't go into too much detail here. However, there are other important initiatives that paid and organic teams need to incorporate into his 2024 collaborative strategy so that everyone can survive the early stages of AI. they are:
Let's take a look at each one and why it's important to understand them correctly.
1. Collaboration
Collaboration (including its closely related communication) is at great risk in 2024.
In addition to the usual benefits of collaboration (shared learning, strategic alignment, covering gaps, discovering anomalies or new patterns), SEO and PPC teams can reduce the risk of silos and respond to rapid change with different agendas. You can work on it.
One of the trends we've seen over the past year or so (and one that's being driven by Google) is a focus on the first-party perspective.
Over time, AI is sure to flood the SERPs (both organic and paid), so use EEA principles on the organic side and power product reviews, testimonials, and case studies to support your landing pages. It will be important to do so.
Exchanging insights across your team about what resonates helps keep your messaging and branding fresh and consistent.
Another element of collaboration as SERPs evolve is communication about algorithm changes.
- PPC helps cover organic dips as new algorithms are rolled out.
- SEO teams can continue to ramp up their PPC efforts when new competitors enter the auction and/or when engagement costs exceed the point of viable ROI.
2. Adjust funnel intent
It's more important than ever to consider a full-funnel strategy.
Customers don’t think about individual channels or tactics, but they will respond if presented with the right message at the right time. When building your 2024 marketing program, it's important to ensure alignment at each stage of the funnel.
This is a chart that my agency uses to plan and ensure the entire purchasing process is covered.
Without a unified approach agreed upon by all involved teams, it is impossible to understand the scope of the funnel.
Whatever format you prefer, you should create touchstones that your team can share and monitor to reduce gaps and redundancies in your funnel.
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3. Education and awareness about the changing SERPs
Let's look at it in detail. There are many considerations in 2024.
On the paid side, we're all keenly watching the rollout of advertising on SGE, as we're confident Google will find a way to monetize advertising. Little is known about what this will look like, so the following is important:
- Stay in close contact with your SEO specialist.
- Stay up to date with industry updates.
- Monitor click-through rates
See how advertising and SGE algorithms collide and what campaign types include them (everyone assumes P-MAX, right?) and add them to your ad inventory. Assessing the impact of your SEO efforts and collaboration becomes more important.
With regard to organic SGE, we may see even greater changes. SGE is even more of a black box than traditional search algorithms, so no SEO can confidently say it can optimize content for SGE.
As SGE rolls out, some brands will win and others will lose on the organic front. PPC teams need to be prepared to either pick up slack or (in the best case scenario) shift budget to other initiatives where the intrinsic benefits allow.
Continuing to optimize for users and focusing on top-of-funnel content is a great starting point for monitoring impact on SGE.
4. Share your learning outside of Google
In 2024, paid and organic collaboration will need to extend to platforms beyond search engines as search behavior becomes more fragmented.
Forums like Quora and Reddit are gaining traction on the B2B side (and in SERPs too), and organic social results from LinkedIn, X, etc. continue to pull in query results as well (and we're not even talking about TikTok). percentage of young users currently using it as their primary search platform).
This opens up opportunities for collaboration beyond search engines. For example, your founder posts a viral organic post on his LinkedIn, or your brand happens to dominate an interesting topic on Quora.
Both offer testing options for paid teams. Examples include thought leader ads on LinkedIn and contextual campaigns on Quora.
Conversely, if your paid campaigns targeting specific interests or placements on social platforms are working well, you can signal to your SEO team that they should rely on “hidden gems” that cover the same topics. Masu.
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When change is rapid and intense, it's easy to keep your head down and focus on what's in front of you (for example, what you can control). But this is also a time to be a great teammate.
No matter what changes come in 2024, teams will be stronger if both the paid and organic sides of your company are on the same page about how to deal with them.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily those of Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.