The world of search marketing is about to be turned on its head thanks to the rise of AI-powered search. Google, the reigning king of search advertising with a massive $175 billion ad revenue stream in 2023, won't go down without a fight.
Even if its search dominance starts crumbling, its web crawling and indexing capabilities will still be a crucial data source for any AI upstarts looking to dethrone it.
For the travel industry, this AI search revolution means big changes are coming. Forget scrolling through pages of boring blue links - the new battleground will be getting your content featured and cited in the AI's direct answer snippets.
The usual search engine optimization (SEO) tactics might not cut it anymore. Travel brands will need to figure out how to signal relevance to AI engines and outmaneuver competitors' domain authority.
Some early tips? Sprinkling in quotes, stats, and citations could boost your visibility. But those are likely short-term band aid fixes. The real long-term play is optimizing your content with structured data to help AI crawlers deeply understand what you offer. Think Schema.org markup, rich results like carousels, etc. It's gonna be an ever-evolving game of tweaking and testing to stay on top.
On the advertising front, those little blue ad links are living on borrowed time too. Google knows its ad cash cow is at risk, so you can bet your bottom dollar that sponsored listings will start getting injected directly into AI answer snippets.
We're already seeing this on Bing's Copilot. Paid search as we know it may be headed for obsolescence - the future is wider AI ad integrations across Google's services, guided by automated algorithms and user data mines.
But wait, there's more! When an AI result covers a hotel, airline, or other travel business, it won't just regurgitate facts. It'll also digest and summarize opinions and reviews from across the web. So if too many folks are griping about your resort fees or lobby lines, that negativity will be front and center in the AI's output. Yikes.
In this brave new world of AI-powered travel search, simply optimizing keywords and website health won't cut it anymore. Success will hinge on coordinated efforts across marketing, social media, operations, and customer experience teams. Actively shaping positive sentiments, glowing reviews, and a stellar online reputation will be just as important as traditional metrics.
After all, what's the point of visibility if the AI is telling folks to avoid your subpar business?
As an industry vet, I've seen travel marketing yo-yo through countless tech revolutions over the decades. But this AI tsunami feels different - a fundamental paradigm shift in how we'll need to operate and win at the moment of search inspiration and purchase intent.
Those who get cracking on an AI-readiness game plan today will be better positioned to ride the coming tidal wave. The procrastinators, well...they might just get beached.
Early Research on AI Search Result Composition
The article cites some interesting early research on the typical makeup of AI-generated search result content:
- For travel queries, Google's AI (SGE) featured an average of 4.3 unique domains in its answers, with only 62% of those links coming from the top 10 organic results for the same query.
- For travel queries answered by Perplexity AI, the average number of website links cited was 5.28. The overlap between domains referenced by Perplexity and Google SGE for travel queries was 60% - higher than the 20% overlap seen in general e-commerce queries.
- Of the top 10 displayed domains across Google SGE and Perplexity for travel queries, 5 were leading metasearch engines and OTAs like Expedia, Booking.com, etc.
The Importance of Embracing AI Ads
The article drives home the importance of preparing for the new era of AI-integrated advertising experiences:
- Google knows user clicks on traditional ad links will decline as more AI-powered answers take over prime search real estate. Their ad revenue golden goose is at risk.
- To secure this revenue stream, Google plans to directly inject sponsored ad placements into the AI's own summarized answers, much like Bing is already doing with its Copilot.
- Travel marketers should start gaining experience with Google's Performance Max campaign model, which leverages search intent to automatically place ads across Google's network using machine learning optimization.
The key takeaway: Getting ahead of the curve on this automated, AI-driven ad paradigm will be crucial for visibility as traditional search ad formats get displaced.
Source: Phocus Wire