Key Takeaways
Marketing challenges:
- Average marketing budgets have decreased by 15% year-on-year
- Google Search CPCs up 40-50% for retailers in past 5 years
- Google drives 20% less organic traffic than 5 years ago
- 80% of Fortune 500 companies have integrated AI into workflows
- 64% of Gen Z have used TikTok as a search platform
Strategies for growth:
- Maximize existing headroom on Google
- Diversify organic sources
- Find growth opportunities within categories
- Do more with less
- Focus on value over vanity metrics
Maximizing headroom:
- Find realistic headroom in your space
- Identify growth opportunities on the SERP
- Leverage unpaid product listings (triggered on 71% of retail searches)
Diversifying organic sources:
- Recognize that audiences search in diverse ways
- Expand beyond Google to other search platforms
Finding growth opportunities:
- Discover exploding topics and new trends
- Map and plan seasonality
- Track keywords and categories
- Use AI to automate mundane tasks
Resource and spend management:
- Prioritize tech audits based on commercial impact
- Implement combined search reporting for PPC and organic results
Focus on relevance:
- Relevance is key to maintaining and stealing market share
- Quality of links matters more than quantity
Action Items
- Conduct a comprehensive analysis of your current SERP performance to identify headroom.
- Implement strategies to leverage unpaid product listings on Google.
- Expand your search presence beyond Google to platforms like TikTok.
- Use AI tools to automate content creation and mundane tasks.
- Develop a system for tracking and capitalizing on emerging trends and seasonality.
- Create commercially prioritized tech audits to optimize resource allocation.
- Implement combined search reporting to identify opportunities across paid and organic channels.
- Focus on building relevant, high-quality backlinks rather than pursuing quantity.
- Regularly assess and optimize your content's relevance to your target audience and industry.
- Consider requesting a free relevance report from Journey Further to identify areas for improvement.