The document discusses the importance of adopting an AI-first approach in search engine marketing (SEM) to enhance performance and customer experience. It highlights the challenges and opportunities of integrating AI technology within marketing strategies, emphasizing automation, personalization, and data-driven decision-making. Various insights and strategies for leveraging AI in aspects of search and content creation are provided, alongside predictions for the future impact of AI on industries.

2. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
JIM YU
CEO & Co-Founder, BrightEdge
SEM AND THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY:
How to Utilize an AI First Approach to Drive Continuous Performance

3. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
POWERING SEO AND CONTENT MARKETING SINCE 2007
ABOUT BRIGHTEDGE
OFFICES CUSTOMERS &
COMMUNITY
MISSION
400+ employees in
8 offices globally
Partnering with 57 of Fortune 100
2000+ global customers
6,000+ certified customers
TO INSPIRE AND
DELIVER THE BEST
PERFORMANCE FOR
OUR CUSTOMERS BY
BECOMING AN
INTEGRAL PART OF
THE DIGITAL
EXPERIENCE

4. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
WE’RE ON AN
AMAZING AI JOURNEY
TOGETHER

5. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
DATA CHALLENGE AUTOMATION IS CRITICAL PERFORMANCE & ACCOUNTABILITY
THE SHIFT TO AI FIRST SOLUTIONS
What we are seeing and hearing from our customers and market
TO ACCELERATE AND
SCALE SEM CAMPAIGNS
EFFICIENTLY

6. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
SEO CREATES THE PERFECT AI STORM

7. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
BUT AI IS NOT EASY
• Need to utilize data correctly
• Massive tech infrastructure
investment
• Choose the right models to
get the right outcome

8. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
EVALUATION PURCHASECONSIDERATIONAWARENESS
THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY HAS BECOME
MORE COMPLEX AND FRAGMENTED

9. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
of all website traffic
originates from organic
search and has been steady
for the past 4 years
51%
Source: BrightEdge Research
SEARCH IS STILL AT THE HEART OF
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
of digital buying journeys
begin with search
65%
Source: Forrester
of consumers report that
they use search at every
stage of the customer journey
90%
Source: Forrester
of businesses say that
improving the customer
experience is their top priority
72%
Source: Forrester

10. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
INSIGHTS AUTOMATION PERSONAILZATION
AI AND SEARCH CAN HELPS POWER CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCES THAT PERFORM
EVALUATION PURCHASECONSIDERATIONAWARENESS

11. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
HOW TO UTILZE AN AI FIRST FIRST APPROACH TO
DRIVE CONTINUOUS PERFORMANCE

12. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
21 MILLION HORSES
1900 1960
3 MILLION HORSES

13. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
AI: THE 4TH INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION
• PwC predicts that AI will add $15.7 trillion to
GLOBAL GDP ANNUALLY by the year 2030.
• $60 billion will be spent by brands on
AI TECHNOLOGY by 2025
• 75 percent of executives say AI will be
“ACTIVELY IMPLEMENTED” in companies
within the next three years
$15.7 TRILLION
$60 BILLION
75 PERCENT

14. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
AS MARKETERS AI IS NOT HERE
TO TAKE OUR JOBS

15. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
VIEW POINT 1:
Technology as a substitute for people
MOSTLY EMPLOYED
MOSTLY UN EMPLOYED
skilllevel
TECHNOLOGY IMPROVES OVER TIME
past futurepresent
• AI will replace people
in our industry

16. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
VIEW POINT 1:
Technology as a complement for people
MOSTLY EMPLOYED
MOSTLY UN EMPLOYED
skilllevel
TECHNOLOGY IMPROVES OVER TIME
past futurepresent
• AI is here to help us
perform and scale

17. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
AI IS ALL AROUND US AND HERE TO HELP

18. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
INTERPRET & LEARN
VOICE
RECOMMENDED
ENTERTAINMENT

19. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
WHAT IS AI
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The science of making machines smarter, which in
turn augments human knowledge and capabilities.
MACHINE LEARNING
Application of artificial intelligence (AI) that
provides systems the ability to automatically learn
and improve from experience.
DEEP LEARNING
The next generation of machine learning that
employs multiple layers of learning from massive
data-sets.

20. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
THE ROLE AI PLAYS IN SEARCH
• It interprets the meaning of the pages
it crawls
• RankBrain helps Google interpret intent
from short queries
• It learns what users respond to and
recommends relevant result
• Much the way a human would listen
and make suggestions
Interpret, Learn, Recommend
LEARNER PARAMETER
MODEL

21. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
84.4% OF KEYWORDS HAVE UNIVERSAL CATEGORIES
Based on ~50m unique keyword results from January 2018
Source BrightEdge Research 2018

22. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
GOOGLE IS USING
AI TO MATCH
SERP LAYOUT
TO INTENT

23. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
GOOGLE IMPROVES CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE WITH AI POWERED SERPs
1. Standard
2. Taller Organic Cards
3. Local 3-Pack
4. Quick Answers
5. Shopping/PLA
6. Rich Snippets
7. Site Carousel
8. Site Links
9. Site Image Carousel
10. Top Stories / News
11. AMP
12. Google Flights
13. People also ask
14. Category
15. Images
16. Videos / Trailers
17. Live
18. Top sights
19. Reviews
20. Blogs
21. Knowledge Panel
22. Carousel
23. Apps
24. Google for Jobs
25. Recipes
26. Scholarly Research
27. Weather
28. Game Scores
29. Twitter Tweets
30. Discover more places
31. Send to Google Home
32. People also search for
33. See results about
34. Widgets
35. Found in related search
36. Quotes
37. Events

24. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
“AI touches every single one of our main
projects, ranging from search to photos to ads
… everything we do.”
— Sergey Brin, Google co-founder

25. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
GOOGLE’S RECENT AI-FIRST ANNOUNCEMENTS
• Google Duplex enables Google Assistant to carry out tasks for
you, like making an APPOINTMENT OR RESERVATION
• Gmail will start suggesting what to WRITE IN RESPONSES
• Google maps will AUGMENT REALITY with
pedestrian navigation
• Google News will PERSONALIZE YOUR NEWS
• Google Lens will enable you to DIGITIZE ANALOG things
and find them online
• Google soon offering its NEURAL MACHINE TRANSLATION
(NMT), AI-powered translation

26. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
HOW TO UTILIZE AI TO ACCELERATE
CONTINUOUS SEM PERFORMANCE:
INSIGHTS
1 2 3
AUTOMATION PERSONALIZATION

27. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
MACHINE LEARNING HAS THE BIGGEST
IMPACT IN SEARCH TODAY

28. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
UTILIZING SUPERVISED MACHINE LEARNING
• Series of equations – data set
• Linear predictive modelling
• Run programs to build algorithms to fit data
• Human (supervised) input used to train and
add variables and train algorithm for outputs
USE CASES:
Detection and classification Regression

29. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
UTILIZING UNSUPERVISED MACHINE LEARNING
• Algorithm can analyse data and group based
on common characteristics
• Algorithm teaches itself and learns how to
group things together based on relevancy
USE CASES:
Clustering Association
AI constantly reads the firehose of the web for you

30. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
At L’Oreal, SEO is in everything
we do.
With AI we don’t have to go into
the trenches to mine the data.
We improved Kiehl’s presence on
Quick Answer box by incorporating
step-by-step machine learning
recommendations.
We also enabled Corporate
Marketing to optimize their
backlinking strategy amidst
competition with celebrity brands.

31. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
VOICE IS THE NEW
FRONTIER IN SEARCH
Voice is bringing SEO back to life

32. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
Character
Mode
GUI
Web
Mobile
VUI
`70s `80s `90s `00s Present
Source: Eric Enge, Duane Forrester
VOICE IS THE NEXT GENERATION INTERFACE

33. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
Of google home voice
search answers cited
a website source
Of google home voice
search results came
from quick answers
Of smart speaker users
perform local searches
at least weekly
70% 41% 76%
Source: Katie Pennell

34. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
INSIGHTS
MAKE BETTER-INFORMED,
DATA-DRIVEN DECISIONS

35. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
GOOGLE LENS
TURNS OBJECTS
INTO SEARCH
QUERIES

36. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
CONNECTING
INSPIRATION TO ACTION
Ecommerce and
visual search convergence

37. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
I can spend 6 hours a day mining
data for bugs and opportunities …
or I can run my AI report in the
morning and have 2 tickets filed
before I finish my coffee.
This speed to opportunity discovery
– whether it be page titles or low-
quality redirects – allows me to
both build a stronger business case
and dive deeper to find more
insights before lunch.

38. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
• Understand underlying need in
customer journey
• Identify content opportunities
• Define opportunity space in
competitive context
• Map intent to content
• Use structured data & markup
• Invest in more longtail content
• Ensure content can be crawled and
surfaced easily by all user-agents
7 TIPS FOR AI
INSIGHT FOR SEO

39. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
Market Analysis
Site Analysis
Competitive Analysis
Customer Intent
SERP Performance
SEO and PPC Spend
USES FOR AI INSIGHTS FOR SEO

40. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
DATA MIND
We invested in data mind to
help marketers apply AI
We launched insights –
powered by AI – to deliver
better customer experiences

41. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
AUTOMATION
AUTOMATE LABOR-INTENSIVE TASKS

42. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
WHY AUTOMATE?
5
8
12
21 21
6
10
18
22
28
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Micro (0-49 pages) Small (50-99 pages) Medium (100-249 pages) Large (250-499 pages) Extra Large (>500 pages)
Typical Time Investment for Keyword Research
Average (Low End) Average (High End)
Source: Paul Shapiro, Catalyst Media

43. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
ADWORDS SMART BIDDING:
Automated bid strategies powered by machine learning

44. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
SITE PERFORMANCE
Landing page optimization
• Page recommendations
– updates for quick answers
• Revenue
– for keywords and keyword groups
• Missing titles and descriptions
• SEO and PPC channel performance
– monthly visits

45. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
1. Break down tasks into sub-tasks,
then score their potential for
automation from 0-10
2. Use rule-based automation to handle
simple but time-intensive jobs
3. Find the right balance between
human labor and automation
4. Feed ML algorithms with the right
quality and quantity of data
5. Focus on UX and speed monitoring
and alerts - engagement rates will
only increase in importance
5 TIPS FOR USING
AUTOMATION IN
SEARCH

46. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
USES FOR AUTOMATION IN SEM
Site Audit
Content Creation
Content Optimization
Cross-channel distribution
Tagging
Linking

47. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
PERSONALIZATION
TO CREATE USEFUL AND
RELEVANT CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES

48. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
MAPS/ASSISTANT INTEGRATION
Opens new opportunities

49. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
NEWS FEED
PERSONALIZATION
IS A SIGNIFICANT
OPPORTUNITY

50. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
PERSONALIZATION
Optimizing for the customer experience
• Capture and satisfy
customers by optimizing
customer experience with
content personalization
• Map content to key
customer moments
that matter

51. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
TIPS FOR
PERSONALIZATION
IN SEM AND
CONTENT
MARKETING
1. Create content by persona,
customer journey stage, and
delivery mechanism
2. Enhance user experience and
conversion through personalization
3. Use semantically specific pages to
associate query and intent
4. Use personalization and audience
lists to nurture leads across search
and social
5. Use AI to help publish content at
the right times on the right
networks

52. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
USES FOR PERSONALIZATION IN SEM
Pattern recognition
Predictive analysis
Moment and Customer Journey Marketing
Inspirational campaigns
Transactional and conversion rate optimization

53. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
EVALUATION PURCHASEAWARENESS CONSIDERATION
POSSIBLE AI-FIRST CUSTOMER JOURNEY
CHATBOT
INTERACTION
AI AUGMENTED
VISUALS
AI FOR
BOOKING
REPURCHASE
AI FOR
UPSELL
AI VOICE
QUERY
DISCOVER CONNECT PERFORM

54. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
BRIGHTEDGE
BRINGS AI TO
EVERY MARKETER
1st Party Data
GSC, Web Analytics
3rd Party Data
Backlinks
We analyze
every week:
• Terabytes of SEO data
• Billions of urls
• 100K+ locations
globally

55. @JIMYU @BRIGHTEDGE
GETTING STARTED ON
YOUR AI FIRST JOUNREY
GET FAMILIAR WITH THE BASICS
IDENTIFY YOUR FIRST USE CASE
LOOK AT YOUR CURRENT TECH STACK
EXPAND AND PRIORTIZE USE CASES
BALANCE AND BLEND HUMAN CAPITAL

56. END