Google is enhancing Search ads with AI-powered changes that aim to increase asset flexibility, improve performance, and deliver more relevant ad experiences.

Driving the news. Here’s what’s changing:

• Greater flexibility in RSAs:
  • Google’s AI now assembles and serves headlines, descriptions, and assets dynamically to improve performance.
  • In some cases, Google may omit certain content, like descriptions, if doing so leads to better engagement.
• New ways to use existing assets:
  • Headlines that weren’t used in RSAs can now appear as sitelinks if they’re predicted to boost performance.
  • Up to two RSA headlines may serve in the space previously reserved for sitelinks, linking to the final URL.
  • This allows advertisers to maximize the impact of their creative assets while improving user experience.

Why we care. Google’s AI is now optimizing responsive search ads (RSAs) by finding the best combination of assets to maximize engagement and conversions. Leveraging unused headlines as sitelinks and refining ad combinations in real time should help maximize the impact of your creative assets without extra effort.

This update works toward ads remaining relevant to search queries, improving visibility and performance while maintaining control over key messaging elements. Ultimately, it should help advertisers drive more meaningful interactions with potential customers and improve ROI.

The big picture. Google said it remains committed to maintaining asset relevance and respecting pinned elements within ads. The combinations report’s purpose is to help advertisers analyze which headlines, descriptions, and assets are appearing most frequently.

This global rollout reinforces Google’s effort to make ads more adaptable while ensuring they align with user search intent.

Bottom line. Google’s AI-driven ad flexibility could help you reach customers with more relevant, engaging messaging — optimizing performance while streamlining ad creation.

As of a few days ago, Google now allows advertisers to use fingerprinting to track users across devices and websites, collecting data points like IP addresses, operating system details, and screen resolution.

Why we care. Google’s decision to permit fingerprinting, a powerful user-tracking technique it banned in 2019, raises significant privacy concerns and has already drawn regulatory scrutiny. By allowing fingerprinting, Google gives advertisers a powerful way to track users across devices without relying on cookies, potentially improving ad personalization and attribution.

However, the move also raises legal and ethical concerns, as regulators, especially in the EU, may impose new restrictions or penalties. Brands must carefully navigate these changes to balance ad effectiveness with growing consumer privacy expectations.

The big picture. The reversal comes despite Google’s recent privacy-first initiatives, suggesting a prioritization of advertising revenue over user privacy protections.

Between the lines. The timing of the announcement — just before Christmas — and Google’s careful avoidance of the term “fingerprinting” in its documentation has raised eyebrows.

What they’re saying. The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) called the move “irresponsible,” noting that “fingerprinting is not a fair means of tracking users online because it is likely to reduce people’s choice and control.”

State of play:

• Advertisers must still comply with privacy laws.
• Users won’t be asked for explicit consent.
• Data collection includes device specifics and usage patterns.
• The EU is expected to scrutinize the policy change.

Bottom line. This represents a significant shift in Google’s privacy stance, potentially setting up conflicts with privacy regulators.

Welcome to our weekly Search Engine Land series – Everything you need to know about Google Ads in less than 3 minutes. Every Wednesday, I highlight a different Google Ads feature, and what you need to know to get the best results from it, all in a quick 3-minute read.

Let’s explore a powerful tool that can help your Google Search ads stand out and improve your click-through rates: keyword insertion. This is the closest thing we have to a “hack” in Google Ads, so be sure you’re not missing out on this tactic!

I’ll cover:

• What is keyword insertion?
• Why should you use keyword insertion?
• How to use keyword insertion
• Best practices for keyword insertion and common pitfalls to avoid

What is keyword insertion?

Keyword insertion is a feature that dynamically inserts the keyword that triggered your ad into your ad copy. This means your ad headline, description and/or display path can include the exact keyword that matches to the user’s search, making your ad more relevant and attention-grabbing.    

Think of it like a form letter where the recipient’s name is automatically inserted. The letter itself stays the same, but that personal touch makes it more likely to be read.

Why should you use keyword insertion?

The main benefit of keyword insertion is improved click-through rates. Because you’re inserting the keyword into the ad itself, users are likely to perceive your ad as being highly relevant to what they’re looking for – ergo, it increases the likelihood of them clicking.    

Keyword insertion also saves you time and effort. Instead of creating separate ads for each keyword variation, and potentially using dozens of ad groups to do so, you can use keyword insertion to automatically tailor your ad copy to many keywords with just one ad.

How to use keyword insertion

Keyword insertion is only compatible with Responsive Search Ads – not dynamic search ads, not display or video ads, not Performance Max or Demand Gen or anything other than standard Search.

To use it, you’ll need to add a special piece of code to your ad headline, description, or display path. The code looks like this: {keyword:default text}

Let’s break it down:

1. keyword. This tells Google Ads to insert the keyword here.
2. default text. This is the text that will be displayed if the keyword can’t be inserted, the “fallback” option. For example, if the keyword is too long for the character requirement.

You can also control the capitalization of the inserted keyword by adjusting how you write “keyword” in the code:

• Keyword. Sentence case (e.g., “Running shoes for women”)    
• KeyWord. Title case (e.g., “Running Shoes For Women”)    
• keyword. Lowercase (e.g., “running shoes for women”)    

Best practices for keyword insertion and common pitfalls to avoid

Here are a few important things to know when using keyword insertion:

• Don’t use misspellings as keywords. They might end up in your ad copy.
• Be mindful of competitor keyword targeting. Keyword insertion can and will insert your competitor’s name into your ad text, if your competitor’s name is one of your keywords. It’s your responsibility to make sure you comply with Google Ads policies and local laws. In fact, it’s always a good idea to review your ads and ensure they make sense with the inserted keywords and adhere to Google Ads policies.
• Keyword insertion is just one of the dynamic insertion tools available in Google Ads. You can also use location insertion and countdown insertion to further customize your ads with highly relevant messaging.

All in all, keyword insertion is a simple yet powerful tool to improve your Google Ads performance.

If you haven’t tried it yet, experiment with keyword insertion and see if it helps you drive higher click-through rates, higher Quality Score and lower costs.

SEO isn’t what it used to be. 

With AI-driven search results, increasing zero-click searches, and more competition for user attention, ranking on Google is tougher than ever. 

But search is still a major traffic driver – if you adapt. 

The key?

Treat SEO as part of a broader, integrated marketing strategy.

This article breaks down a simple framework to align SEO with your overall marketing funnel, ensuring you reach, engage, and convert your ideal customers effectively.

The evolving SEO challenge: Why optimization alone isn’t enough

Nowadays, it’s not enough to have a well-optimized and search engine-friendly website. 

The modern SERP is a busy and diverse space. Any coverage you crave has to compete with heavy ad coverage, AI Overviews, and a wide range of SERP features.  

Zero-click searches are also on the rise, with overall clicks declining while Google’s own properties gain more traffic. 

At the same time, an increasing number of platforms are competing for user attention. They’re designed to keep users engaged within their ecosystem rather than directing them elsewhere.

Often, the user experience here is solid, but as search marketers trying to drive traffic, it does make marketing and search marketing more complex and competitive.

That said, search remains the top source of traffic, and with Google leading the way in search, browsers, mobile, and video, marketers must rise to the challenge.

So this raises the question: what is the best way to do SEO in 2025, and what does SEO look like in 2025 and beyond?

Years ago, SEO was the main marketing tactic for many small businesses and could work on its own, with occasional support from PPC or remarketing.

SEO is still important, but for most businesses, it works best as part of a broader marketing strategy. 

While developing a unique SEO strategy is essential, it should be integrated with the customer journey. 

This reduces reliance on a single tactic, and based on what we’ve learned so far, an integrated approach is more effective in today’s omnichannel environment. 

Below, we outline a process for mapping out a marketing strategy using a simple funnel, showing how SEO planning fits into each step.

Customers and the continuum of behavior 

Any sensible marketing approach starts with considering the target audience.

How will you niche down and segment ideal customers? 

The temptation is often to go broad, as that gives you more scope. However, going broad results in bland, boring messaging that speaks to nobody. 

By niching down and laser-targeting your ideal audience, you can craft highly engaging messaging around the problems they must overcome and their goals. This kind of targeted approach works. 

The marketing environment evolves so quickly. It can be tempting to think nothing stays the same. 

But while change is constant, one thing remains steady: your customer.

People are still people. Most purchases will follow a predictable pattern of behavior. 

At its core, this process rarely changes, even while the environment keeps shifting and evolving. 

Search will give us some insight, but this does not always map fully to the customer journey.

If you were buying a kitchen, would you start on Google? 

Or, would you start to follow kitchen accounts on Instagram? 

To some extent, that depends on the customer profile.

As an example, I’d go to Google as I am a search guy. But my wife would start on Instagram (and she is the real decision-maker for this kind of purchase). 

To market effectively here, you must understand all the touch points and be present at each point along the journey, or you will miss opportunities to engage and educate your customers. 

The key to great SEO is to map that to an overall understanding of the customer segments and the various touchpoints to take them from click to customer. 

Funnel thinking 

The customer journey can often be represented as a funnel. 

While there are many takes on the continuum of behavior and the funnel, the classic funnel is always a variation of awareness, consideration, and decision.

In the chaotic world of digital marketing, you can bring some order to the chaos by using robust, time-proven marketing methodologies and frameworks. 

Funnel frameworks like AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) and AIEDA (which adds evaluation for online purchases) have long-shaped marketing strategies.

Modern models like REP and RACE refine these concepts for the digital landscape.

There’s no single “right” funnel. The best approach depends on your business. Start with a simple structure and add complexity only when needed.

At my agency, we use REP – reach, engage, persuade – a streamlined funnel that integrates these elements. 

REP provides a framework for tailoring tactics, platforms, messaging, and content to each stage of the customer journey.

Integrating SEO into a REP marketing funnel 

Much like RACE, which is actually PRACE due to its initial planning stage, REP also includes two additional steps that frame the core process.

It goes something like this:

• Prep: Identify a customer segment and strategize.
• Reach: Identify all the ways to reach those users.
• Engage: Document all the ways to engage, educate, and engage those users.
• Persuade: Convince these people to do business with you.
• Repeat: Continue to develop the lifetime value of the customer.

Businesses often offer a mix of products and services, so a funnel system can be applied at multiple levels – from the overall business to specific products, services, or customer segments. 

Remember, marketing planning is most effective as a group effort. 

Involving people from marketing, sales, operations, and customer service helps map the customer journey and identify all key touchpoints.

Step 1: Prep

Marketing to everyone is marketing to nobody. 

Identify a customer segment and be as specific as possible. Make sure to:

• Focus on a carefully defined niche – one that represents an ideal customer segment.
• Use the PVP (personal fulfillment, value to the customer, profitability for your business) framework to assess potential niches.
• Identify the key tasks your customer needs to complete.
• Determine their goals.
• Understand the pains or problems they need to overcome.
• Document these insights in a detailed customer persona.

The more you can understand your customer, the better results you will have.

Use the Value Proposition Canvas as a brainstorming tool to map out customer jobs, goals, pain points, etc.

Step 2: Reach 

Next, identify where you can find your customer segment at every stage of their journey. This includes exploring channels like:

• Print / direct mail.
• Display advertising.
• Native ads.
• Organic search. 
• Paid search. 
• Video platforms.
• Social media. 
• Online communities. 
• AI (chatbots, ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.).

Each search results page offers various types of content and opportunities, including links, images, videos, FAQs, and more.

Content marketing with SEO will open the door, but it will aim to maximize exposure across the page. 

Consider using SCAMPER to identify opportunities across different SERP features. 

At different stages of the customer journey, your audience may be found across various touchpoints. 

For example, you might initially capture attention with social media or native ads, but search could become more critical as the user moves down the funnel.

Document where your customer segments are found across each channel. 

This should be informed by the work you’ve done in Step 1.

Note: Each of these high-level platforms will need to be broken down into specifics. 

Social media is not just Instagram and TikTok. It also includes sites like Reddit and other online communities (Facebook groups, Discord servers, etc).

You can use Google here to help you identify where your people are hanging out and talking.

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Step 3: Engage

Once you know where your users are, think about how to engage them. 

Consider this across the marketing funnel, from awareness to engagement to persuasion. 

You need to get in front of your customers, grab their attention, and convince them that you’re the best option!

It’s also helpful to think about what you’re offering and where you can share it. 

For example, if you’re creating content around a common customer concern, how can you maximize its exposure? 

Should you focus on search, social media, or online communities?

Example

I am 50 this year and want to buy a pinball table as a gift for myself.  

It is a significant and expensive purchase, so I want to get it right. 

There are a handful of retailers in the UK and three or so big pinball manufacturers. 

My research started with a Google search, leading me to various discussion groups (on Reddit), and then leading me to various retailers. I am now in the middle of that process, in the consideration stage, mainly engaging on social media and email. 

My initial search was:

• Best pinball tables.

The results for this term include all manner of opportunities:

• Manufacturers.
• Pinball forums.
• Pinball groups on Reddit.
• Videos.
• SERP features.

The one thing missing here was content from any UK pinball retailers. 

There is a huge opportunity here for the UK pinball retailers to throw some content out there:

• Blog posts.
• Videos.
• Be active on discussion boards like Reddit.

As a pinball retailer, it would not be too difficult to map out the myriad jobs, goals, and problems of trying to buy a pinball table. 

They probably have those conversations daily with bewildered customers (just like me). 

This could then be used to drive traffic, social sign-ups, and email sign-ups and maximize visibility across search results. 

The same content could be promoted or repurposed on social media. 

Once you start to look at this from your user’s perspective, enlightened by the work you did with the value proposition, you will see that there are myriad opportunities in search and beyond. 

There is also a humanistic element to this. 

I’ve received some excellent advice and help from one of the UK retailers, and I will try to give them my business. 

The point is that your customers are people, and people buy from people.

Document all of this in the template and move on. 

Step 4: Persuade

The final step is to close the deal and get a sale. 

In the marketing and SEO fantasy world, a sale works like this:

• User searches.
• Clicks on your link.
• Browses website.
• Buys.

Sure, for tiny purchases, like drain unblockers or other low-stakes and low-value items, this may be true (and most of those kinds of business go to Amazon as it is so convenient). 

For most businesses, though, a purchase will happen after several engagements with the company across multiple platforms. 

It can be tempting to think of SEO as a primarily upper- and mid-funnel tactic.

However, lower-funnel content like case studies, testimonials, and reviews is also essential, and all of this can have a strong SEO component. 

I wrote an article about the power of case studies and testimonials for SEO nearly 10 years ago, but the advice is just as applicable today. 

As a customer, you may have concerns or objections before making a purchase. 

A case study can demonstrate how others have overcome these challenges, easing doubts and helping move the decision forward.

This is where multi-platform marketing comes in. 

A well-crafted case study can be:

• Promoted through native ads.
• Optimized for organic reach with dynamic Google search ads.
• Amplified via display marketing, email, social media, and remarketing. 

The goal is to reach a specific customer segment at a key stage in their purchase journey and persuade them to take action.

The steps to follow here should be to identify:

• Customer concerns.
• Relevant platforms.
• Tactics (i.e., remarketing).
• Sales conversion strategy.

For example, visiting a case study that features a 24-hour 10% off pop-up can often be the final push a customer needs to make a purchase.

Document the above in the template and move on. 

Step 5: Repeat 

For many businesses, real profits come from increasing customer lifetime value, which requires a solid strategy – often driven by marketing.

In some cases, the initial sale may be at a loss, with profitability coming from repeat purchases. 

Returning to the pinball example, this could include spare parts, maintenance products, services, trades, and additional purchases.

At this stage, it’s crucial to identify all possible ways to reach customers and upsell effectively.

At a minimum, this will likely involve:

• Content marketing.
• Social media.
• SEO.
• Email marketing.

Smart marketing maximizes exposure by repurposing content across multiple platforms, ensuring efficiency and reach.

SEO in 2025: An integrated marketing approach wins

Modern marketing is multichannel. Successful SEO is informed by credible brand exposure in multiple places. 

The best approach for SEO in 2025 and beyond is to carefully integrate SEO into your marketing plan. 

This approach will allow you to:

• Reach cold prospects.
• Engage them where they are present.
• Nurture them into customers.
• Build an engaged customer base that buys time and time again. 

Then, be sure to establish clear SEO goals and KPIs to track and measure your success and iterate across other customer segments. 

The traditional marketing funnel doesn’t reflect how users actually search and engage with content today—and it’s hurting your SEO.

With access to more data than ever before, marketers now have a better framework for driving organic traffic: the spiderweb. By structuring your content strategy around interconnected, high-value pages, you can drive faster rankings, more organic traffic, and better user experiences.

Join Think Spiderwebs, Not Funnels For Remarkable SEO Results with Ryan Brock to learn:

• Why traditional funnels waste organic traffic opportunities
• What Gartner and leading researchers say about the modern buyer’s journey
• How to shift your content strategy to improve rankings and engagement

Don’t let outdated SEO strategies hold you back. Sign up today!