Jarrod Allen, Associate Director, Strategic Media Solutions at .monks discusses the transformative impact of AI on marketing, particularly focusing on the shift from traditional SEO to generative engine optimisation (GEO).
He explores how AI is changing consumer behaviour, the importance of understanding audience language, and the challenges marketers face in measuring success in this new landscape.
The conversation also touches on the future of agentic commerce and the need for authenticity in AI-driven marketing strategies. This is a rapidly evolving field and this conversation represents and important touchpoint in the evolution in search for brand and marketing.
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Transcription (Edited):
Darren Woolley:
Hi, I’m Darren Woolley, founder and CEO of Trinity P3 Marketing Management Consultancy and welcome to Managing Marketing, a weekly podcast where we discuss the issues and opportunities facing marketing, media and advertising with industry thought leaders and practitioners. If you’re enjoying the Managing Marketing podcast, please like, review or share this episode to help spread the words and wisdom from our guests each week.
AI is having a major disruptive impact on all aspects of business and particularly marketing. One area that’s been significantly changed in the past 12 months is SEO, search engine optimisation, with the rise of GEO, generative engine optimisation. Some have predictably predicted the death of SEO, while others are spruiking the opportunities of focusing on GEO.
To help us navigate our way through the disruption and better understand the role of AI search, please welcome to the Managing Marketing podcast, Associate Director, Strategic Media Solutions at MONKS, Jarrod Allen. Welcome, Jarrod.
Jarrod Allen:
Thanks for having me, Darren. I sort of joined the industry in the era of digital. I do really think that AI is transforming kind of everything; it’s really impacting how we operate processes and platforms. A particular area that I’ve been looking at is this topic of generative engine optimisation, which I think really is going to become a new key tool when it comes to branding and marketing.
The Evolution of the Search Ecosystem
Darren Woolley:
For as long as the internet’s been around, and particularly Google, they dominated search and SEO with over 90% of all search terms. SEO was very much the domain of getting your keywords and then backlinks. Google always said they couldn’t tell you what to do with SEO because then people would hack it, but it seemed that that happened anyway.
Jarrod Allen:
Yeah, it’s interesting you say that. I think what we’re seeing now is even more secrecy because you’re not just looking at Google’s algorithm. You’ve got to start factoring in how all these different LLMs are operating—ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity—all of these have a slightly different algorithm and they’re changing all the time.
A lot of these are black boxes, but we have interestingly seen the rise of these AI search platforms in the last 12 months. We’re starting to see this whole new ecosystem of content that’s becoming super important in the world of GEO. While content’s always been key for SEO, how we really see GEO is this increased importance on how others are talking about you versus how you’re talking about yourself.
Usage Data and Monetisation
Darren Woolley:
It is interesting how quickly the uptake’s been with people using generative AI and AI search. I read recently that ChatGPT has got the biggest penetration into the market, probably because they were the first ones that sort of came out.
Jarrod Allen:
One of the things that frustrates me most at the moment is no one clear source of truth where I could sit down and look at the total usage here in Australia or globally of what percentage share of search and market do each of these different platforms have. Depending where you look, I’ve seen Google still has 92% to 98% market share, which is inclusive of traditional search as well as Gemini and AI overviews.
Darren Woolley:
Another piece of data I saw showed that in people that were actually using the professional end, the high-cost version was actually less than 5%. The paid version was less than 20% and 80% of people were using some sort of free version of a lot of these LLM chatbots.
Jarrod Allen:
Absolutely. And look, if you’re not paying for it, you are likely the actual source of payment; they’re using your data somehow. We have started to see the monetisation of these platforms as well. Perplexity has always had some kind of beta testing for ads, and ChatGPT formally announced their advertising programme this year. It will be interesting to see how that landscape of paid ads within these AI platforms evolves. Over time it will become part of the general user behaviour.
Clicks versus Higher Conversions
Darren Woolley:
Is it okay to think of GEO in the same way as we think of SEO? How would a marketer who was getting quite a lot of traffic to their website before with SEO go about looking at GEO?
Jarrod Allen:
There’s been a few people that have gone out and been like, “this is the death of SEO”. It’s not. SEO and GEO are so closely related. Naturally, if you want to show up in any kind of AI search, you need to have that really strong and robust SEO practice.
When you look at traditional SEO, you’ve been focusing on what’s Google’s best practice, versus the world of GEO where you’re focusing on multiple different environments. Instead of trying to drive people towards a link and a click, you’re actually now trying to build a branded prompt. How do you get referenced and then recommended by an LLM?
What we’ve seen is that AI search drives about 75% fewer click-throughs, but the people that do come through have around a 4.4 times higher conversion rate. You’re probably going to get less people through your website, but the people coming through are more likely to convert because they’ve done a lot of that upfront decision-making within the LLM.
Conversational Search Intent
Darren Woolley:
When you’re asking for something transactional, you’re less likely to get an AI summary. When you’re asking for information or an answer to a problem, that’s where the AI summary comes up. Are keywords still an important part or is it more just topics that the AI is linking for?
Jarrod Allen:
People are searching differently and particularly when you are using an AI LLM, people are able to have that conversational search. You ask one thing and then you ask further refining questions to get this more qualified and tailored answer.
Broadly speaking, we’re trying to understand all these different types of search intent—research, inspirational, decision-making, purchase intent. It moves away from what the keyword specifically says to what’s the actual intent behind what someone’s searching for.
Darren Woolley:
People used to do shorthand Google searches, like “pitch consultant Sydney”. Whereas now it’s “can you recommend…?” and that then becomes more like a question that the AI will answer.
Jarrod Allen:
One of the key recommendations we have is really focusing on the language your customers and your audience are using and trying to build that into your content. If you’re wanting an LLM to reference your brand, you need to be incorporating the language that your ideal customer is actually using. It’s a lot easier for the LLM to match that content together.
Measuring Success and Sourcing Content
Darren Woolley:
What should marketers be thinking about and what are the challenges they should be putting to their agency around measuring success?
Jarrod Allen:
The very first thing is understanding visibility in AI search. Across a key prompt for your category, how often are you showing up? If you show up 70 times out of a hundred, you’ve got a visibility of 70%.
There are a heap of different platforms that have emerged for this, like Peak, Adobe’s LLM Optimiser, and Profound. These tools let you understand visibility and sentiment, but more importantly, you can understand the content sources they’re pulling to generate their answers.
Different industries perform differently, but generally, Reddit is a key source, along with YouTube and LinkedIn for B2B. If you see you have low visibility because the LLM is pulling information from Finder and Reddit, that gives you a playbook to build content that lives across those spaces.
Agentic Commerce and the Human Element
Darren Woolley:
MasterCard have just announced they are introducing agentic commerce and the ability to have AI go and purchase for you. Where do humans fit into this?
Jarrod Allen:
We’re starting to get to the point of having industry-wide protocols that are actually going to enable this agentic future. I assume there will be set buying parameters, like only buy this product if it hits a 25% discount. Marketers will need to ensure their overall strategy makes them the considered brand so they are discovered and recommended in that AI search space.
Darren Woolley:
How can brands avoid the fake trap? We’ve seen a rise of AI generated users and what some call “AI slop”.
Jarrod Allen:
We view AI as something that should be used to augment a real human rather than replace one. To do that properly, you need to set up the correct guardrails and governance. Generally, our understanding is that AI-generated content ranks lower within these LLMs than human-created content. Humans creating content is still paramount here.
Darren Woolley:
Exactly. Jared, we’ve run out of time. SEO is not dead, but GEO is different to SEO. The benefit is if you get it right, you’ll get better qualified visitors to your website. Before you go, what’s your preference for an LLM? What’s your go-to?
