How AI is hitting paid search, content strategies; where prices are headed; why Google is changing its LTV tune; and why interpreting media mix modelling requires human intelligence

Search and SEO is facing major disruption – with implications for brands across both performance media and mid-to-upper funnel content marketing. Google is countering the threat from Bing and ChatGPT with Magi, set to soft launch later this month. Billed as a “hyper-personalisation engine”, it will change how search works and the way content on websites needs to be written and structured, per Stephen Downward, Head of SEO at Atomic 212°. That’s on top of Google algorithm changes that call time on the days of 500 word blogs and average content. The key to ranking and traffic is now all about EAT: Expertise, Authority, and Trust – plus Google has added another E: Experience, which is why News Corp, alongside Atomic, created a vast trove of articles via masthead financial journalists to feed its new comparison site and take on Finder, says Downward.  Within paid search, prices will continue to climb, per Atomic Head of Performance Media Sascha Bonomally, which is why Google’s new rhetoric is around amortising the cost of its upfront click to lifetime value. Either way, Bonomally thinks advertisers now optimising clicks to products with best margin are making a mistake.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.