Search marketing
MarTech is your source for search marketing content. You’ll find a variety of up-to-date and authoritative resources, including the latest news, tactic-rich tutorials, the latest data to help you work smarter and make better decisions, and our enterprise SEO platforms buyer’s guide.
What you read here is written by our experienced in-house team of editors and research professionals, and subject matter experts from leading brands and agencies.
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More paid social ads won’t fix a creative problem
20 ads may all test the same idea. Better performance comes from changing the variables that give the algorithm something new to learn.
The risks of optimizing SEO for AI over users
Chasing AI visibility can lead to generic content, weaker differentiation, and declining trust. Here's what deserves your attention.
Why winning AI search isn’t enough to win B2B buyers
Confusing navigation, vague claims, and missing evidence cost you buyers. See how cognitive-load testing helps identify and address these barriers.
Why organic traffic can fall while revenue stays strong
Before overhauling your SEO strategy, look at branded search, high-intent visits, and pipeline data to see whether there's actually a problem.
ChatGPT sends less than 1% of Google’s traffic
ChatGPT visitors converted at a higher rate, but Google organic still drove 27 times as many conversions as all LLMs combined.
AI search is turning prompts into customer research
Longer, more personal queries reveal the needs, trade-offs, and situations behind intent — giving marketers a richer view of what customers want.
We analyzed 5,000+ Google Ads accounts: Seasonality adjustments backfire on Black Friday
...and how AI agents can help you get ready for BFCM 2026.
Your AI visibility score may be hiding a problem
Brand mentions and source citations often tell very different stories. Marketers need to know which one is weak before choosing a fix.
Google changed its content guidance. Don’t expect a reset.
The company wants more human review of AI content, but won't guarantee that following the rules will bring back lost search traffic.
AI usage surges 6X for local search, fragmenting the digital ecosystem
Local search behavior now straddles multiple platforms, with consumers traversing a 'verification loop' to find actionable information.
7 AI search myths busted by data
AI is changing search, but some of the loudest claims about traffic, content, measurement, and SEO jobs don’t hold up when you check the numbers.
What 714 suppression campaigns show about pushing down negative results
Starting position and top 10 placements decided the outcome, not publishing volume. Plus why Page 2 isn't far enough for AI Overviews.
How to build a visual SEO strategy for AI search
Move beyond optimizing individual images by connecting visual assets to authoritative entity data and keeping those signals consistent.
AI search is changing ecommerce forever
The catalog and product pages most online retailers publish were built for a bygone era, with six-word queries and a page of blue links.
Your site migration needs a paid search playbook
Google’s organic migration guidance is extensive. Paid search advertisers need clearer answers about what changes, resets, and recalibrates.
AI is telling consumers not to buy your product
Nearly 81% of consumers who use chatbots for online shopping have decided against a purchase based on AI guidance.
ChatGPT Ads are a tactical bet, not a platform strategy
Marketers have a short-term opportunity to test inexpensive inventory while keeping most of their resources on Google.
Why growing restaurant chains win at local search and AI visibility
Research finds a measurable digital visibility gap between expanding and shrinking restaurant chains across search, reviews, social, and AI.
Software buyers are moving faster than software sellers
AI is accelerating software decisions while quotes, approvals, and sales handoffs discourage buyers ready to spend.
Rapid AI changes mean GEO is a weekly job now
AI answers keep changing, so PR, SEO, and content need a shared view of what buyers ask, which sources get cited, and what moves each week.
OpenAI’s audacious ad revenue claim
OpenAI is making ChatGPT ads easier to buy. That's a long way from proving advertisers will spend the $100 billion it projects for 2030.
How to keep a crisis from defining your brand online
A reputation crisis can shape how your brand appears in search and AI for years. Learn how to contain the damage and build digital resilience.
Build content briefs around people, not keywords
Better content briefs start with the situations that drive people to search, then use keywords to support the journey, not define it.
What it takes for AI to find, trust, and act on your brand
A practical model for connecting the information, architecture, measurement and transaction capabilities AI discovery requires.
Business websites dominate Gemini’s local AI citations
Nearly 60% of Gemini’s local citations point to business websites, but recommendations can change dramatically when using identical searches.
Getting your brand ready for AI agent discovery
Being included in an AI answer isn't the same as being chosen. Here's what determines the difference.
AI visibility index shows which brands are disappearing
Some brands dominate Google yet barely surface in AI answers. Here’s where traditional authority and AI recall diverge.
A 7-step guide to running ads on ChatGPT
ChatGPT Ads work differently from other ad platforms. Here’s what early campaigns reveal about CPCs, targeting, measurement, and performance.
How AI, publishers, and social media are rewriting product discovery
Product discovery now spans AI, social, publishers, creators and communities. Here’s how brands can influence purchase decisions.
Why the F.A.C.T.S. model is the key to search everywhere optimization
Learn how to boost visibility across search, social, reputation, and AI using SOCi's F.A.C.T.S. model for multi-location brands.
Marketing artificial intelligence (AI)
How to measure marketing when AI owns discovery
AI is becoming the new top of the funnel. Learn how to update lagging analytics to capture brand demand, engagement and buyer intent.
5 strategies to remove negative search results in 2026
How to remove, deindex, and suppress negative content in Google and why AI search changes the reputation playbook this year.
Marketing artificial intelligence (AI)
The real risk in agentic commerce
As AI agents take over product discovery, marketers risk losing pricing power and customer relationships unless they own the underlying data.
ChatGPT has no clear brand leader in most categories
Semrush found only 15% of ChatGPT categories have a consistent brand leader, underscoring how difficult AI visibility is to sustain.
Your newest competitors aren’t other brands
AI forms buyers' opinions before they visit your website. Learn how to build authority across AI and the sources they trust.
Your best practices may already be outdated
AI is reshaping the assumptions behind decades of marketing strategy, making some familiar playbooks less reliable.
Before you refresh that page, run this test
Not every traffic drop is a content problem. Learn how to separate ranking losses, AI click theft, shifting intent, and declining demand.
Branded search is becoming a less reliable proxy for brand demand
Consumers aren't searching for your brand less. They're making decisions before they ever perform a branded search.
Why AI search makes trust your most important visibility signal
See how AI systems evaluate brands and why authority, reputation, and technical SEO increasingly influence who gets surfaced and recommended.
How AI discovery is changing everything marketers measure
AI-powered discovery is reducing the value of traffic-based metrics. Here’s what to measure instead to understand marketing performance.