Adapting SEO Strategies for Google SGE // Navigating Ad Measurement Challenges // OutHorse Your Email in Iceland // American Travel Sentiment Study WAVE 81

In this episode of the Tradigital Tourism Insights, a podcast by Digital Relativity, host Pat Strader discusses the implications of Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE) on SEO strategies, predicting a drop in organic search traffic due to SGE's focus on AI-driven search results. He emphasizes the need for marketers to adapt to this shift and prepare for these changes. Pat also highlights the importance of content in SEO and advises marketers to delve deep into creating unique and useful content. 

The episode further examines the challenges marketers face when measuring ad success and resolving identity due to the deprecation of third-party cookies and increasing privacy laws. He suggests turning to alternative identifiers and prioritizing first-party data collection. The host also highlights the Inspired by Iceland campaign called "OutHorse Your Inbox." This episode also includes the American Travel Sentiment Survey findings regarding travel plans and perceptions. Overall, it provides insights and recommendations for marketers in the travel and tourism industry.

00:12 Introduction to Tradigital Tourism Insights

00:59 Understanding Google Search Generative Experience (SGE)

https://searchengineland.com/google-sge-links-organic-search-results-study-436275

03:16 Implications of SGE on SEO and Organic Traffic

https://www.authoritas.com/blog/research-study-the-impact-of-googles-search-generative-experience-on-rankings

10:15 Tech Spotlight: Ad Measurement and Identity Resolution

https://www.insiderintelligence.com/insights/guide-ad-measurement-id-resolution/

15:58 Destination Spotlight: Creative Campaigns in Travel and Tourism

https://www.visiticeland.com/outhorse-your-email/

https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/49342/outhorse-your-email

https://www.newsweek.com/iceland-trots-out-service-that-lets-horses-reply-work-emails-while-youre-vacation-1709730

https://www.digitaltrends.com/news/icelandic-horse-write-out-of-office-emails/

https://www.smartcompany.com.au/industries/tourism/icelandic-horse-write-out-of-office-email/

https://www.adsoftheworld.com/campaigns/outhorse-your-email

20:59 Research Roundup: American Travel Sentiment Survey

https://longwoods-intl.com/news-press-release/american-travel-sentiment-study-wave-81

https://covid19.milespartnership.com/

Transcript

Pat: 0:12

Hello and welcome to Digital Tourism Insights, a podcast by Digital Relativity. I'm your host, Pat Strader, founder and CEO 20 years of experience in travel and tourism marketing. And I invite you to join me each week for a quick look at industry trends, research, emerging technologies, and real talk on what works, what doesn't, and why. So grab a coffee, a beer, or a cocktail, there is no judgment here, and let's have some fun with an honest and irreverent look into the nitty gritty of travel and tourism marketing. Hey everybody. Welcome to episode two of tradigital tourism insights, a. A podcast. By digital relativity. It is Friday, January 26th, and we have a lot of information to cover today. So I'm going to jump right in. We're going to start today by talking about some trends related to search. Google search in particular. And this is all related to Google search generative experience. SGE if you're not familiar with this is something that you're going to be hearing about a lot and there's some important things that I think that we all need to come to an understanding about as it relates to this. So, first of all, let's just kind of look at. What is SGE again, this is all with Google. Uh, their search generative experience, and this is simply. A new approach to providing search results. So in. Traditional organic search is queering and database and pulling information out based upon. You know, the algorithms and all the different data points and it tries to provide you with the best possible answer. So SGE is rolling in Gemini Google's. AI a large language model. And it's taking the queries. And applying AI to them to give you some answers and it is wildly different. The results that is being. Realized seeing I'm not sure what the word is I'm looking for here. But the results in SGE and your regular Google organic search are quite, quite different. So, what does this all mean? It means a couple of things. One. SEO is always been in flux. I've been doing this since the mid nineties. And it has always, always been in flux, always changing. So there's nothing new about that. And in fact, one of the things that. I don't know concerns me. I'm not sure if that's the right word or not about SGE is that we've become desensitized. I think, as marketers to the changes. With Google search. Folks rely largely on creating content. Putting in some simple, long page types of things. Putting it out there in the wild, calling it a day. The things that are going to be coming down the pipe with SGE are much, much different. And the key point here that I want to hammer home to you is this. You are going to see a drop in your organic search traffic. Let me repeat that. You are going to see a drop in your organic search traffic. Just go ahead and mark it down. Know that that's coming. And the reason being is with s It's really not sending anybody to the sites. It's using information that. Is being found of course, on, on. Various websites and compiling that information, but it's answering right on. Within the results. Okay. So there's going to be less opportunity for people to actually navigate to your website. It doesn't mean that they're not going to see content. This is going to be in a different form, but I'm going to repeat one more time. You are going to see a drop in organic traffic. So. Where I'm getting at with this one, just to familiarize yourself with. SGE there was an article that was published January 5th. There was search engine land for anybody that's interested in SEO. A fantastic resource. And this is a synopsis of written by Danny Goodwin of a research study that was done by authority to us. I think I'm pronouncing that correctly. Which is a. A company, I believe they're in the UK. But they provide a number of different search SEO tools. And things of that nature. And so they have these vast amounts of data. They've done a very, very in-depth study. This occurred in December of 2023, they ran 1000 commercial terms through a handful of SGE enabled. Google accounts. Using the desktop service to assess the impact of Google's SGE. So here's what we found, and this is really fascinating stuff. I want to kind of read through my notes here, but I want to make sure that I get this correct for you. So. The article from authorities, this. Discusses again, the potential impact of SGE and in summary. It's finding a number of different things that are going to be different moving forward. For those of you that are relying on ranking reports or rank tracking ranking reports is very antiquated. But rank tracking is something that a number of different. SEO software and agencies use these things just to kind of keep their thumb on the pulse of how things are happening. But this is going to. This is going to completely. Completely change that if you do rely on this types of reports, you are going to see those things drop. Just be mindful of that. And don't freak out because it's going to happen. But the things that are fascinating about this. Is. That the percentage of decrease of what you're going to see in your organic traffic obviously is going to vary from. Individual company. On a case by case basis. Not sure if I'm saying that correctly, but you know, you can see a variety of different predictions. I'm seeing anywhere from 10 to as high as 64%. Decrease in organic traffic. Once SGE is fully in place. Which it is not at this moment, but it will be soon. And the fascinating thing too about this is the difference, the disparity. Between the results that are found through SGE or. Through organic traffic. I know it'd be a little repetitive here, but. 86.8% of the keywords analyzed in this study. With about 10 links per answer. We're in the results. Interestingly enough, only four of those 10 links were actually unique. So it was really relying. One. The SGEne. General sources information and the SGE results. And so. The SDG E content does not match any lengths from the top 10 Google organic search results. 93.8% of the time. That's mind blowing to me. So th that is just further evidence that these are two completely different models. And we need to prepare, we need to start preparing for this. So how do we do that? There's still a lot of ambiguity out there. But one making sure that you're creating. Useful content. Wow. That's earth shattering information for you, right? You've been told that for years and years now. But it's just really important that you do. Create that unique. And. Useful content. So if your content strategy is. To go to Ted GPT and ask it to reishi 600 words about how awesome it is to visit your location. That's not going to suffice your. You're gonna, you're gonna really need to pay some attention here. Some of the other things too, that I think will really be helpful for this. You've heard lots of talk about rich snippets. In the past. And that's something that's been in place with Google for quite some time. Now that featured snippets, rich snippets. There's lots of different ways that we can describe this. Do you think that those are going to be persSGEnt? I'm basing that. Simply upon the fact that those snippets were already being pulled by Google based upon the code and the things around them. It was machine readable content, essentially. And so if AI, a robot is going to be the one, determining what shows up in these results, Let's make sure that we're presenting that information to the robots in a way that they can understand it. So really looking at those featured snippets and how you can optimize using things like schema. And so forth, a lot of CR or excuse me. CR. M C M S. Goodness gracious. It's Friday. A lot of the CMS systems have some tools that can be built in their plugins and so forth. But I do think that that's one of those things. Again, the unique content. And the on page, those things, those are things that we've always. Talked about, I don't think that that's going to change so much. It's not. It's not necessarily the signals. That are changing as much as the interpretation of the signals. So lots of things to unpack here. And. It was just way too much for us to cover here right now, but just know it is coming. It is very, very different. Then what we have known. Related to SEO in the past. So study up. Do your best because if you don't, you are you're gonna pay the price and you'll find a couple of links the show notes. So that you can go and read this article from search engine land. And again, you can see this full study. This is pretty in depth. There's a lot of really dense information here, but there are some great resources. And these things can really help you start to prepare. So Google SGE start to pay attention to it. It's coming. We are going to shift gears now, and we're going to take a look at the tech spotlight. And in this particular segment, we're going to be looking@someinformationthatcameaboutfromanarticlethatwaspublishedatinsiderintelligence.com. The title of this piece, a guide to ad measurement and identity resolution for marketers trends, tactics, and KPIs. Lots to unpack here. So we all know that understanding our audience is the key to successful marketing. We all also know you've just been hammered over the head with this, about the deprecation of third party cookies. As well as the increasing privacy laws. So marketers in general are facing new challenges. And accessing and utilizing consumer data. And so how can traveling tourism industry professionals adapt to these changes? So we're going to take a quick look at this. Again, all this information is going to be in the show notes for you. This is a great read. I really encourage you to go take a look at it, and I'm going to touch on just a few things here. Um, that I think are really important. So again, the importance to understand the value of first party data. This is nothing new. This has been a very hot topic for quite some time. Everybody's been hammering at home. You need first party data. Well, the time is here. And so this is data first party. Again, first party data is information that you collect directly from your customers. Gives you a lot of great insights into the behaviors, preferences, and things of that nature. That there are several different ways that you can collect this data. Many of you have been doing this for quite some time. We're going to talk a little bit more about how to make sure that make it actionable. But again, this is the information that you collect with. Say, travel guide requests, email signups, and things like that. Uh, really encourage users to regSGEr when they visit your website, you can gain some valuable information there. But you can do things like loyalty programs or membership programs, whatever the case may be.] so when we think about targeting and measuring your advertising campaign is this is where quote unquote privacy safe. I did the T solutions become really important. These include things like universal IDs. Seller defined audiences. Even utilizing things like data cleaning rooms. Which if you have, if you're not familiar with data clean rooms, this is going to be something that I think you'll start to hear a lot more about. And essentially it's just a, a storage location that. Is locked down because if you're not taking care of the data that you are capturing from folks, you're going to have some problems to deal with. You're going to lose trust. It's going to create issues and data, clean rooms are things. Uh, again, that I think that will become more and more part of your tech stack and conversation. Alternative IDs again, there's a lot of the great things in this article that kind of spell these things out. But these are privacy focused identifiers that allow you to still access that first party data. That's given to you by the customer, but it's anonymized. So, you know, assets such as email addresses and things of that nature can be. Um, uh, not anonymized. I'm not sure if I said that right or not. But they can be hashed. This that's just a term that's used that takes data and encrypts it, but it comes with an identifier so that you can still. Um, access and utilize the information that's stored within that quote-unquote container. But adapting to the changing landscape of ad measurement. And identity resolution. And this is, this is, this is tough. This is hard work. But, you know, there are some SGEps that you can begin taking. Many of you already have, uh, to continue to create targeted and personalized campaigns gather that data. And all of the great information that can become actionable to really help. Um, further customize your campaigns really pinpoint. Targeting and hone in on the accuracy so that you were serving. Information to people. That they are intereSGEd in. And a way that they wish to consume it. So. Again, just kind of going back through and, and some of the. Important pieces that kind of jumped out to me. I was just looking at these alternative ID solutions, uh, ID 2.0, this is something we. Um, Leah digital relativity use the trade desk. This is an identifier. Uh, that they have developed and is doing quite well, but there is a number of other ways that you can. Gather that information. And then, you know, start to working tours, what you're going to do with it. Yeah, these are things that many of you are already doing with say the web collection forms, user registration, building out further engagement with your social media, encouraging people to interact and share information with you. So I really encourage you to head on over to insider intelligence.com. Uh, to just search for guide, to add measurement, you should be able to find it quickly. It's also, I'm going to provide the link in the show notes, but I'd love to hear from you with questions that you have about this. It is a lot to unpack. Again, nothing new. We've been talking about this for awhile. But, uh, I do feel. Feel that. It's kind of slipped off the radar. Dar, and it's going to jump up. Uh, very soon and catch a lot of folks off guard. So if you're not thinking about it, get in there. And if you are unfamiliar with some of these topics, Good check out this link. It's a really great read. And it's time to shift focus. We are going to take a look at our destination spotlight. This may eventually end up being called campaign spotlight. I'm not really sure. I Welcome your input on that though. So, The whole point purpose of this particular segment is just simply to shine the light on some some interesting and fun campaigns that we have seen and traveling tourism. Throughout the world. And intend to just as a way to share some really creative ideas inspire us. And just to start to think about things, because man, there are some really smart and creative folks out there. In the travel and tourism space and marketing. And I just love some of these examples. So I'm going to kick this one off. I absolutely loved this campaign. This is from a may of 2022. But before I dive into what the campaign is, let me ask you a question. I want you to think about this for just a moment. If you were given a piece of research, That told you. That 41% of people check their work emails while on vacation. And 14% of those individuals review their emails five to six times every day. So think about that for a second. And how would you attack that? How would you handle that? As it relates to presenting, traveling tourism options to folks. Well, And this particular example again for may of 2022. So it's not exactly fresh, but it is awesome. Nevertheless. This is from inspired by Iceland and it is called out orders. Your email, this was a campaign developed my. Uh, Saatchi peel Iceland and S S and K for inspired by Iceland. And the whole premise of this campaign was designed to encourage travelers to disconnect from work and fully experience their vacation while they're in Iceland. So to kind of kick this off. And before we dive into some of the numbers, I'm going to let you take a little, listen to this TV spot. You're going to find the links to all of these things in the show notes, but, uh, this is really great. Nothing ruins your vacation. Like work. Thankfully Iceland has created. The perfect solution. Porsche email, a revolutionary service. When I spent the courses, right. Real out of office replies. So you can relax. We got trained in corporate buzzwords. We were both. We'll never know the difference. I'll toss your inbox and free up your vacation. Porsche email. Dot com to try for yourself. So we've got a number of different things to unpack with this. I mean, first of all, you're combining animals and cuteness with humor. And you're presenting some information in a way that is very unexpected and I absolutely, I love this campaign. But they literally train these horses. How to use the hump on keyboards and, and respond. And it is absolutely hysterical. And just truly fantastic, but, you know, There's several components to this that I think are really important for us all to keep in mind one. This campaign is based on research. They took the numbers that problem solved to try to solve this into. That's very measurable, trackable. And was successful. And so the campaign earned 3.7 billion impressions with a 6.8 million. In earned media and a hundred percent positive press sentiment. That's just crazy. 16.8% increase in travel intent by us travelers in particular, and more than 2000 out horrors emails were spent. The campaign also contributed. To 391. Thousand tourists flying into Iceland's airport there. I can't pronounce this. I'm not even gonna try., but just some really fantastic numbers here. Very successful campaign. And this service is a great example of how. A very creative and unique approach based upon. Research and data can really effectively engage folks and drive results, but, just really a super fun campaign. And again, some really fantastic numbers that are available here. You'll find links to all of this in the show notes. And you know, again, this is a segment too, that I'm really gonna rely on you all to help me find some examples. So if you see some things that you feel are. Or really creative and effective. You see some maybe case studies or whatever. It might be about some really effective campaigns in the travel and tourism space. I want to know about them. Please share them with me. You can tweet, or I guess it's ex you can send me a message on X app, pat straighter. You can also. Text or call and the number is(209) 300-5017. You can text that number. You can drop me an email T T i@digitalrelativity.com. But in the meantime, go and out horse your inbox and get out there and find some data and some great campaigns. And this week's research Roundup. We are going to take a look at the American travel sentiment survey, wave 81. provided to us by Longwoods international and miles' partnership. You can find a link to go download this. In the show notes, you got to provide your email address. Aside from that, it's free. And just really, again, grateful for Longwood's and miles for providing this. In this most recent study, which was conducted January 10th, 2024. We do see a slight increase of folks that are concerned about COVID. Impacting their travel decisions, but you know, a couple of the other things that I think are really important to look at here is the survey does provide specific percentages of respondents. And their travel plans. 14% report not having any trips planned. 16% are planning to travel within the next month. 18% in the next one to two months and 35%. In three to five months. So. What do we do with that? I think that there's a number of different things that you can be doing to help with the short term is just really starting, you know, inspire people to travel. Last minute deals, flexible booking options, I think can be something really, really important to look at there. But I think that when you look at those percentages, it's going to give you some. Ideas about how to approach different groups and timing when you approach and when you're in market inflation. This is something that is, you know, we've seen a slight increase in this particular wave. Nothing new in the sense of this has been top of mind for a lot of folks. For quite some time, of course, it's a hot button topic. Just in general. But I think that as marketers could focus on all inclusive packages, we can allow people to lock in rates. Things like that that can help provide budget certainty for travelers. And, when we look at the Perceptionist, the survey reveals that. They cations are highly anticipated, and this is not new information. We know this and that travel is seen as a way to strengthen bonds with friends and family. And marketing campaigns that we can create that evoke the emotional benefits of travel. The creation of those memories, I think could resonate well with potential travelers. Again, this is nothing earth shattering. These are all things that we've talked about, but the overall, the. Numbers related to the perception of travel. Are are quite encouraging. 32% value making experiences or acquiring material belongings this again, nothing or shattering. We've seen this quite a bit. Just continue to capitalize on that. Your. You're helping to evoke. Creation of memories through experiences 29% appreciate traveling more now after COVID 19. So I think that, you know, that's showing that well, another 29% feel the travel means more to them now after experiencing the pandemic related travel restrictions. So. I think that there. There are some things that we should be concerned about, you know, concerns about inflation concerns about gas prices. But there's really encouraging numbers here. And, and I think that there's a lot of positivity that we can take from this. One other thing that kind of stood out to me here. Was just respondents reporting service levels and reporting that same level of service before the pandemic. And so I think that there really could be a huge opportunity. In placing high value on communicating, improving service locals. And I think that that could be a competitive advantage. And it should be communicated, you know, and the things that you're putting out there with your marketing materials. So overall, um, there are some. You know, continuing trends with this, we're seeing a little increase in a number of these different topics. I'm not, I'm not gonna read through this for you because I think that you need to go in and spend some time looking at it yourself. And I just wanted to share a few thoughts with you about it. And if you have any. Research or reports or anything that you find are useful. Please, please let me know. And I look forward to. Sharing little bits and pieces of information that can hopefully help everybody as you're working on crafting your strategies and your tactics. That's all for today's episode. I hope that you found one small piece of information to help you along your marketing journey. If you have any questions over a topic that you'd like to hear covered or a great example of travel and tourism marketing in the wild, I'd love to hear from you. Just drop me an email, tti at digital relativity. com. That's tti at digital relativity. com. You can text 209 300 5017. That's 209 300 5017. Or message me on X at Pat Strader. I'm your host, Pat Strader, signing off, and I invite you to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and join us next time as we continue to explore the future of travel and tourism marketing.