AI, digital assistance future of search engines

If a consumer searches your competitor’s brand do you show up?

If not, you’re missing out on the next generation of opportunity. That’s the assessment of Christi Olson, Bing “Search Evangelist” for Microsoft.

She noted that 72% of brand ad clicks had a non-brand conquest term in the user journey. What that means is that how your business appears in search results, not only for your own brand but for competitive brands, can mean the difference between gaining or losing sales, attracting the newest generation of consumers or losing out.

“Search has shifted quite a bit over the past 20 years,” Olson told the audience at PBM’s NEXT Conference here. “It started as queries, and today it’s looking at context, your demographics, the sites you’ve visited, what you’ve done. The future of search is headed toward AI (artificial intelligence), digital assistance and mobile on the go.”

Fully half of searches today occur on mobile devices, and the language of search is changing. The implication for companies looking to reach these consumers with a relevant marketing message is profound and requires being where consumers are at each stage of their potential purchase journey. She noted that marketing messages need to be more people focused and aimed at engaging people with the activities they are interested in. She cited the recent popularity of Pokemon Go as one example of the role that app-based content and social gaming play in today’s consumer lifestyles.

Olson also stressed the critical importance of social media as a path to engaging consumers, a significant contrast from previous generations. “I grew up in the physical world and speak English,” she said. “The next generation is growing up in the digital world, and they speak social.”

Sharing a personal story about the recent birth of her first child, Olson highlighted her own path to getting information about necessary purchases. Rather than reading books, magazines or other information sources more common to previous generations, she described a quest for knowledge that began by asking friends on Facebook for the child gear “they absolutely could not live without.”

“One of the things you have to understand about your consumer is how they engage,” Olson said. “What you need to know as a business owner is, how do you message them at each stage of the purchase journey. You have to have a different messaging strategy to ensure you’re talking to them at the right time and you’re adjusting your message as they engage with the product.”