The French have a wonderful expression, Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. That is, “the more things change, the more things stay the same.” I asked AI about this, and it pointed out that this idea – that things may seem different but be the same or similar has a long history. We live in a technological age. AI (Artificial Intelligence) is clearly in HYPE mode. Be afraid, be very afraid! AI is changing everything! It’s coming for your job, your company, your cat, your car, your 401k…. Now, we are seeing the rise of AEO – Answer Agent Optimization. What’s that?
Welcome to “Marketing Philosophy.” It’s where we investigate philosophy to understand marketing and marketing to understand how customer think, pause, get confused, trust their friends, mistrust their family, and use ChatGPT to decide on the best course of Freudian therapy for their cat. What could go wrong? I’m Jason McDonald, and let’s investigate AEO and why you should pay attention.
Watch The More Search Changes, The More It Stays the Same : Why Marketers Should Pay Attention to AEO on YouTube!
Customer Search. Marketers Optimize
Customers have always searched. From the first man or woman who went looking for berries over that hill, and then came back to the camp with a word-of-mout recommendation and five star rating for the berry hill over yonder, people have searched for companies, products, and services. I’m old to remember when “search” meant the Yellow Pages.
Need a Plumber? Go to Page “P,” and presto – AAA Plumbing popped up as #1 in “organic” Yellow Pages results. Need a trust and estate lawyer, flip over to page “T,” and presto – up popped AAA Trust and Estate Lawyer, Inc. Need a wedding planner? Go to page “W” and “presto” – you guessed it AAA Wedding Planning. That crude naming your company “AAA” was a kind of optimization. That pattern was:
- Customers Search > Platform is Yellow Pages > Optimization Strategy is name your company “AAA.”
That was “The Directory Era.” The era of the Yellow Page and let your fingers do the walking!
Next, came what we might call The Search Engine Era. Lycos and Webcrawler, Alta Vista and Google, Bing and Oblivion. Google won. Google became the dominant platform. Customers continued to search but now by keywords / search terms. Need a plumber? Search “Plumber near me.” Presto! Google ranks the top plumbers near you based on a complicated algorithm. Need a Wedding planner? Google “Wedding planners in San Francisco” and “presto!” find the top wedding plumbers.
- Customers Search > Platform is Google > Optimization Strategy is SEO > Rank on Google > Get Click > Get Lead > Get Sale
Optimization? Heck yeah! Marketers invented or worked with SEO (Search Engine Optimization). You may be familiar with it. You may have an SEO consultant or agency. They are busy optimizing your website, building links, getting reviews on Google so you rank high on Google. That’s what SEO was all about.
SEO isn’t dead. It’s not going away (yet). But it is being transformed, massively. PAY ATTENTION.
Before we talk about AEO (Answer Agent Optimization). Let’s look at this from a customer perspective. What is the “value” that AI brings to the search problem?
Before it was Google search -> ten links -> back and forth -> browse / read / evaluate -> Choose company -> make inquiry.
Google just did the ten blue links. The customer did the browsing and deciding. The customer task was “time consuming.” Ok, ha ha not that time consuming but still.
AI basically is super Google. Let’s try this. Let’s compare; ask AI –
- Google search: wedding planners in San Francisco vs.
- Google AI mode: I am planning a wedding in San Francisco. My girlfriend and I are kind of hippies, so we want an outdoor venue, a guitar band, maybe a taco stand, and a very liberal, generic priest. Identify the top five wedding planners in SF who might fit this vibe.
- Vs. ChatGPT.
Watch ChatGPT build this out. It is doing the browsing and selecting work FOR ME. It is my VIRTUAL AGENT. It’s faster, better, easier than Google. It’s the proverbial 10x improvement. Hence, consumers are MASSIVELY shifting to AI – ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Google AI overviews, etc. Who will win? I don’t know. I thought Alta Vista was going to win the search wars, but Google did.
A Massive Shift is Occurring in Search: To AI-based Search
That’s not the point. The point is a MASSIVE shift in customer behavior is occurring. If the Tsunami hasn’t hit your industry yet, it’s coming. Because the value is there.
Contrast that with previous hypes. Remember when everyone was goo-goo- ga-ga for Pinterest? Like people were going to look for plumbers on Pinterest? no, that’s not an actual thing. Or the Metaverse? Let’s all say a non-denominational prayer for Mark Zuckerberg and the Metaverse. Like in “Mean Girls,” sorry, Zuck, the Metaverse is not going to happen. So people get numb to the hype and then when the Black Swan, Russian Revolution, Covid Pandemic happens we are “caught off guard.”
Don’t be about AEO. It’s a big deal.
Customers Search > They ask ChatGPT > ChatGPT recommends.
Questions –
- Is it recommending YOUR company?
- How would you know?
- Are customers using it? Yes, no, maybe, growing?
The Pattern Repeats
Customers Search via a platform; marketers “optimize” for that platform. Let’s talk about euphemisms. “Optimize” is a euphemism for manipulate, cajole, persuade, put your best foot forward, etc. We “optimize” our websites to the top of Google. And we are going to “optimize” our websites to the top of AI answer engines like Chat or Google Gemini.
Customers Search. Marketers Optimize.
Your AI To-Dos (If You’re not Already)
There’s a lot of hype about USING AI in marketing. I know, I wrote a book about that. “AI and Marketing.” But here we are focusing on your customers. How do they use AI.
- Do your customers use AI Answer Agents? Already? If so, how much (pro tip: use Google Analytics to see referrer data from ChatGPT).
- Will they use AI Answer Agents? This is the more important question. In 2000, not everyone used Google. Just the cognoscenti in Silicon Valley. (Got I love that word, Cognoscenti). That’s kind of where we are with AI today. It’s moving from the cognoscenti to the smart people (that would be you, me)…. and now to the masses. Today is not the future.
- What questions are they asking of AI? Here, distinguish between early stage and late stage questions (just like good old keywords on Search).
- Does your business appear? (There are tools emerging for this. AHREFS has a rather expensive, but interesting tool).
- Do your competitors appear?
Here, you have a double game. You need to learn the basics of how AI Engines Work. That’s step one: educate yourself. Again, AHREFS has created an informative video that is the basics of AI and AEO for marketers. The second step is then deploying an AEO strategy – this is similar to SEO, but not exactly the same.
The more things change…
Customers Search > via a platform > marketers optimize.
The smart marketers start that optimization strategy early. Like yesterday.
Marketing Philosophy.
Thank you for watching. This has been marketing philosophy. You can find show notes on our website, or reach out to me if you are looking for digital marketing consulting in SEO, Google Ads, social media, and of course AEO.
