How to Leverage AI for Better Search Campaigns

March 2019

by Erica Garza

If artificial intelligence still seems like something out of a sci-fi movie, you may not be using it to improve your search campaigns yet. But AI is rapidly changing the way marketers gather data and publishers distribute relevant content, and it’s not going away anytime soon.

Learn about the latest applications of artificial intelligence and how to leverage them to improve your organic and paid search campaigns.

What Do We Mean By AI?

Though artificial intelligence has been around since the 1950s, new technology has made it a key player in the world of search marketing. According to Search Engine Land, “Because computing speed has already doubled 27 times, every extra doubling leads to new capabilities that are beyond imagination.” The latest applications of artificial intelligence that can revolutionize digital marketing include:

Creating and generating content
Content curation
Digital ads
Email marketing
Web design
UX
Chatbots
Searches

AI and Search Marketing

Users are refining the way they search all the time. This in turn affects how marketers create and optimize their web content. From gathering vast amounts of data quickly, to automating complex decisions to analyzing voice search, AI is changing the world of search marketing in both SEO and PPC.

Organic Search (SEO)

With Google’s RankBrain technology, AI can decipher the meaning of the content it crawls at a more rapid speed than a human can, including voice searches. The technology is capable of understanding intent from even the most ambiguous search queries, and uses data to consistently refine and improve the accuracy of its results. With insights, automation and personalization, AI can accomplish the following for improved organic search campaigns:

Identify content opportunities
Connect intent with content
Ensure content is crawlable
Perform technical audits
Optimize content
Research keywords
Plant internal links
Create content by persona
Publish the right content at the right time
Enhance user experience

Paid Search (PPC)

Artificial intelligence enhances paid search campaigns by taking vast amounts of data and using it to make complex decisions. AI can scan billions of combinations and data points, including dimensional, geographical, device and audience data, match types, bid modifiers and data from multiple inventory sources. This allows for better decision-making on marketing spend and improved understanding of keyword relationships. AI also drives PPC automation in terms of setting bids and budgets.

The Latest Trends

Beyond RankBrain technology, here are some of the latest trends in artificial intelligence affecting search marketing.

Visual Search

If you’ve ever envied a stranger’s jacket or accessory but didn’t have a chance to ask where it was purchased, visual search can help. AI can use an image to search for other identical or related visual assets and save users the frustration of dead-end searches.

Text Mining

Content Marketing Institute mentions that artificial intelligence uses text mining to “reverse engineer the Google algorithm” for targeted topics. With AI, a marketer can look at a broad search term and find out what words the top 10 or 20 pages all have in common, then come up with related topics quickly and efficiently.

Analyze Competitors

With AI, marketers and publishers can gather fresh content ideas that perform well and then decide which topics to pursue, based on competition and relevance, saving them time spent on research and decreasing the risk that content will under-perform.

Marketers should remember that new AI technology is always emerging. Look to Insticator for new ideas on how to leverage AI for more engagement and revenue because AI doesn’t just exist in the movies anymore.

Erica Garza is an author, essayist and copywriter with over a decade of marketing experience writing about hospitality, health and lifestyle products. Her work has appeared in Time, Health, Glamour, Good Housekeeping, Women’s Health, The Telegraph and Vice. She lives in Los Angeles.

References: