How AI Is Changing The Paid Search Game

For decades, search engine marketing has been a go-to strategy for businesses looking to connect their products with their audience at the zero moment of truth when they are ready to make a purchase. As AI tools become more proficient and accessible, they’re changing the efficiency and intelligence of SEM more quickly each day.

Whether it’s more precisely targeting consumers, optimizing search campaigns, or creating unique user experiences, AI is a tool for SEM that businesses can’t ignore.

Let’s take a look at the way that AI is reshaping SEM into an even more powerful tool that helps businesses maximize their ROI.

ADVANCED TARGETING AND PERSONALIZATION

One of the most powerful aspects of AI is its ability to analyze massive amounts of data in a relatively short amount of time. This allows the AI to look back at a user’s behavior and more effectively predict the intent behind their search. Using that information, AI can better target customers and provide more relevant ads that can result in higher engagement and improved conversions.

Similarly, AI excels at creating lookalike audiences — users who are similar to your existing customer base — which can expand the reach of your campaigns to people you may not have even considered.

Newer AI tools also play well with their older cousins: voice assistants like Alexa and Siri.

The way people search and interact with Siri is vastly different than when we type a question on Google. With voice assistants, people conversationally ask a full question. On Google, we often ask a fragmented, disjointed question.

AI is able to parse through the data of a voice search, identify relevant long-tail keywords and phrases, understand the intent, and deliver a more targeted ad. A human being just can’t compete with that!

PERSONALIZED EXPERIENCES

Consumers are demanding greater personalization in the types of ads they are served and want their interactions with brands to feel more authentic. That’s great for brands in the short and long term!

In the same way that AI can analyze data to better target customers, it can create personalized experiences based on a person’s interests and needs. Instead of serving the same, repetitive ad to a user over and over again, AI can adjust the content being delivered to users that is more relevant to their interests.

More personalized experiences are great for conversions, but it’s also great for building long-lasting relationships with your customers. As you think about incorporating personalization into your campaigns and landing pages, think beyond the keyword. Think about the intent of a user’s search (just like AI is doing) and you’ll be leveraging AI to its full potential in SEM campaigns in no time!

SMARTER KEYWORD MANAGEMENT

Instead of relying on the old methods of keyword searching (and often competing with other marketers who did the same research as you), AI makes the entire process much simpler and more efficient.

AI automates the process of discovering new keywords and phrases, and thanks to its ability to analyze data quickly it can predict which will have higher engagement and it can refine campaigns in real time. While a person is still needed to help filter out dead ends and errors in this system, AI helps optimize SEM much more quickly and efficiently — that means a higher ROI at the end of the day!

Ultimately, AI helps free up marketers from the day-to-day mundane tasks of managing SEM campaigns. That means they can focus more on analyzing the performance of campaigns and optimizing campaigns for maximum ROI.

To learn more about how AI can be incorporated into your SEM strategy, the team of FDS can help! Contact us today and we’ll help you develop a plan to get the best out of your marketing campaigns.