A funny thing happened this year, as the Open Web celebrated its 25th anniversary. People began to bypass the same open web for their searches, choosing from searching an ever-expanding world of information to getting the answers they needed from specialized, closed gardens. On the web, we’ll see more specific and transactional “shopper/performer” searches with a smaller set of possible results within apps. All I call DTA is search, and now you can access the app directly.
56% of U.S. consumers search for something they want to buy either directly on Amazon or start their search on Walmart (37%), YouTube (25%), Instagram (19%), and TikTok (19%). , what you want to see, what you want to do. In fact, search engines currently account for just 14% of all product searches. Three in ten consumers say they prefer to search online marketplaces instead.
Even Tubi, the fast-growing free ad-supported TV streaming service owned by Fox, understands that discovery means search. And search can be a discovery that keeps customers within the app so they don’t stray into other entertainment sources while searching. When Tubi’s 74 million users, who obviously don’t mind receiving ads, want to find something to watch among his 50,000+ movies and TV shows, they use traditional search engines that crawl all the streamers. You can find something that meets your viewing needs without using it. Feel the itch through the GPT-4 mobile features Tubi is testing.
The way we search and what we are looking for has changed dramatically. why We are looking, so how do we find things? And that means every platform is now a competitive search engine.
For example, TikTok is the search engine of choice for more than half of Gen Z (51%) and drives purchasing decisions more than any other platform thanks to the video format of its results and more relevant and personalized answers. influence. It’s worked so well that TikTok was hoping to roll out an online shop this fall that would outperform Amazon and Walmart on Black Friday, offering 50% off purchases through product search.
Following Tubi’s lead, many other sites that were previously entertainment venues, shopping services, or just “sites” are now leveraging AI-powered search to become “search engine candidates.” This keeps users in the right place without losing them to traditional search functionality. search engine.
OpenAI’s Chat GPT (which already has 180.5 million users and has made many headlines for its boardroom intrigue) is even a search engine in its own right. Use Bing to search the web without leaving the app.
Amazon also plans to launch an AI-powered search engine on mobile. The company claims that 78% to 80% of searches are done on mobile, but the conversion rate on mobile is much lower than on the web. The company is looking to AI to boost mobile conversions and improve the customer experience.
Walmart and Instacart are also improving their search capabilities. Walmart uses AI to understand the context of your search, so if you type in “toddler birthday party,” it will conveniently assume you need decorations, party supplies, and food. We’re also exploring ways to leverage large-scale language models to create condensed review summaries and key product features for shoppers. Meanwhile, Instacart has added conversational search tools that allow consumers to ask open-ended questions such as “What do I need to make fish tacos for dinner?” Other retail media players are also rushing to add his AI, including Shopify, Chinese retailer JD.com, and Carrefour. Other sites like Indeed are adding AI to searches for services like job searches, Etsy is adding AI to customize search results for handmade goods, and Shutterstock lets users fully customize stock images. We are adding AI to image search. The list goes on. The strategy today seems to be to keep users glued to whatever site they are visiting and to keep them curious about their open web searches. Of course, the idea is to make search a completely different aspect of the web experience, a kind of competition to compete with open web search engines that have so far been very good at providing the kinds of returns desired by users. It will be a side door. Quality alone doesn’t have that much of an impact. Previously, there were all new ways to search.
Everything, that is. any businessnow a search engine.
Replacing traditional search engines turns out to be very easy, as evidenced by the hundreds of public comments on articles that claim otherwise. Comments include, “It’s so easy. Just open Safari, Edge, DuckDuck, or Firefox and you’re good to go.” “I wonder if the tech fix guru wants to change his stance after reading so many comments about how easy it is to switch?” And that’s probably what most people are saying. “Why do you want to switch?”
Engagement with the media is no longer about getting information or looking for insight, as it once was with newspapers, magazines, and libraries; it is now more like a transaction, about buying something or taking action. A series of micro-moments for doing things. Consumers using mobile phones and computers are trained to do so, rather than passively waiting for it to be delivered. search products, services, entertainment, etc. But they don’t do it as big a percentage on the open web as they used to. The implication, of course, is that as marketers, we need to develop strategies and media plans to reach customers we couldn’t find before.
As more companies optimize their pages for open web search engines, consumers are turning to other sites for signals. (A recent and ridiculous example: A Manhattan restaurateur named his restaurant “Thai Food Near Me” in hopes of getting his listing on search engines. It seems to be a tactic that doctors, plumbers, barbers, and psychics have also tried.)
Bottom line: Search is now ubiquitous and an essential way for brands to transact in the new media landscape. There, the marketing funnel no longer recognizes the chain of events leading up to purchase intent, and all of the marketing happens at the same time, sometimes in reverse order. , and in a matter of moments on the app you need to know where the consumer is to make a purchase.
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