Landing consulting leads through AI-powered tools like ChatGPT is becoming a reality for many businesses. Recently, I discovered I was listed as a recommended Google Ads consultant when someone searched for experts in my area. This experience highlights a significant shift in how people find service providers—AI-driven search is complementing traditional search engines. To stay visible, businesses need to adapt by optimizing their content for AI platforms, making tools like HubSpot’s AI Search Grader and effective content marketing strategies more important than ever.
1. Lead generation from ChatGPT
This past week, someone contacted me looking for a Google Ads consultant. They mentioned they heard about me after performing a search on ChatGPT. I was curious how this worked, so I searched, guessing the prompt she used, “Google ads consultants in metro Detroit, Michigan.” Sure enough, I was presented on the list. But why?
I believe this example reflects a shift in online search behavior: People are relying on AI chat to provide recommendations. On a related note, HubSpot recently released an AI Search Grader that offers a score and optimization for your business in AI language models. A rise in ChatGPT searches is a new reason why SEO and topical content marketing are important for a business that wants to be found and listed on these AI chat platforms. These language models pull data from multiple sources to then be able to make recommendations.
In a recent study by Sonata Insights, it seems AI search has not disrupted the volume in Google searches. Maybe people are using AI as an additional source of data before making a decision. It could be a vetting out process similar to what happened with Yahoo, Bing, Ask Jeeves, and Google. Once trust is established that becomes your goto source for information.
The question I have about this is how brands will pay to sway an AI’s unfavorable opinion. And should they be able to? Google used the “ad auction” to solve this problem with search, but even that rewards big wallets.
If you compare this to human marketplaces like farmers’ markets, you can visually observe buyer behavior. “Look at the long line, that produce must be good.” Or you can randomly sample people leaving and ask what farmer they recommend. In any digital marketplace, we are going in visually blind and trusting a guide to help us weed through the noise and make a decision. Google and AI providers own the human behavior data so that they can learn/adapt, but the buyers can’t. Back to the farmer’s market analogy, Google can be on a roof looking down, observing the trends and behavior of the crowd.
In contrast, we are just one person driving up to the farmer’s market in our car and asking someone to give us the best fruit at the cheapest price. We are trading self-made data-driven choices for quick and convenient data-blind recommendations.
Read article on potential ways to optimize a business in ChatGPT
2. Tracking HubSpot lifecycle stages as conversions in Google Ads
Reading this article, I noticed it mentioned tracking CRM actions as conversions. I had never thought of doing that because I didn’t think it was possible, but I soon realized HubSpot has this if you are on professional or enterprise plans. If you are doing lead generation, this should be the primary conversion so that Google Ads can optimize campaigns around “contacts that became deals” and not “form submissions.” This is very cool, and I wish I had known about it earlier.
HubSpot knowledgebase: How to track CRM events in Google Ads
3. Marketing Data is Getting Harder to Quantify
Rand Fishkin, former CEO of Moz, describes the current challenges of SEO and attribution of click data. Things are more challenging, but in a good way, because it forces companies to think about the people they serve vs. the search volume and clicks a keyword might provide. For example, creating helpful content to better explain your product or service may not rank #1 in Google, but if shared with a prospect over an email or social post, they would find it beneficial.
Something to Consider
“The new marketing playbook doesn’t lend itself to the same ad monetization model or reliance on blue links to drive organic traffic. Marketers need to evolve their strategies from SEO to LMO (Language Model Optimization) to show up in AI search.” – Kip Bodnar, CMO at HubSpot
This first appeared in the August, 2024 edition of my 3 Things email newsletter. Click here to subscribe to future editions.
