AI search and cookieless advertising power content marketing

AI-powered search results and the oft-delayed end of third-party advertising cookies may lead e-commerce marketers to alternative forms of content marketing.

Sales on e-commerce stores depend on website visitors – no buyers, no orders. Two disturbing trends have the potential to reduce traffic to storefronts.

Double challenges

The first challenge is familiar. Web browsers will soon eliminate advertising cookies that track shoppers across websites.

Cookies help ad networks understand consumers in order to show them relevant ads, i.e. ads that they are likely to click on. In turn, more relevant ads lead to lower costs per click, better return on ad spend, and more sales.

As tracking cookies disappear, ad networks will lose signal, which means ads may become less effective and therefore more expensive. The impact of this signal loss could be similar to Apple’s 2021 change in the way it tracks consumers across mobile apps, making social media advertising relatively less effective. E-commerce marketers may have to spend more to get paid traffic.

Organic traffic can also be a problem. As of May 14, 2024, Google’s AI Review feature is available for many web searches. Bing has a similar feature, Copilot, and some in the industry believe that these search summaries will dramatically reduce organic traffic to many sites. Research firm Gartner estimated that organic traffic could decline by 25% within two years.

E-commerce marketers must find a way to compensate for the reduced number of paid and organic visits. One possible solution is alternative content marketing methods.

Content alternatives

For many marketers, content marketing is synonymous with search engine optimization. These people look at blog posts and even detailed product information as a way to gain search engine rankings.

However, taking a broad look at content marketing can open people to benefits beyond organic search by focusing instead on three alternatives.

Editorial bulletins

For many, email newsletters are the new blogs and a significant source of traffic.

For example, consider an online gardening supply store.

This store could start publishing a “Gardening This Week” newsletter. Every Thursday he sends out an email with five gardening tips, three of which are from the Internet. The other two link to the garden store’s blog – the one that once had a lot of organic search traffic. The store could “sponsor” its own newsletter and include a link to the product.

This bulletin would have at least three positive effects.

• It becomes an alternative source of traffic to the website.
• Knowing your email address helps you recover an abandoned cart.
• Showcasing a single “sponsored” product in an editorial context can increase sales.

Podcasts

In 2017, the Idaho-based farm and ranch retailer (where I was director of marketing and e-commerce) started an editorial podcast that would eventually run to 191 episodes.

The program was available on leading podcast platforms and broadcast on three local radio stations. At its peak, it reached 800,000 listeners per month. Whenever a product was mentioned in the podcast, sales of that product increased.

Around 2024, monitoring podcast performance has become easier, and using a podcast for content marketing can help e-commerce marketers with both traffic and sales.

Here’s how.

Imagine an online wine retailer starting a podcast interviewing sommeliers, winemakers and industry experts.

Episodes would appear on popular podcast platforms and social media sites such as YouTube. The host encouraged listeners to visit the store’s website and also offered a discount code for the wine mentioned in the interview.

On YouTube, the episode description will link directly to the wine retailer’s website and weekly offer.

Courses

Some sellers sell products that require assembly or use instructions. This gives you the opportunity to teach customers through courses, which is a form of content marketing.

Think of an online store that sells knitting supplies. The store could launch a comprehensive knitting course, teaching the basics of holding a needle and making advanced patterns. The course could be available on the store’s website, on YouTube in the form of a playlist, and on a dedicated portal, e.g. Skillshare.

For each lesson, the instructor can attach a list of materials with links directly to the store.

Mitigation

The effectiveness of marketing is never certain. Some of this uncertainty currently surrounds advertising performance and organic search traffic. Marketers interested in mitigating these challenges can explore alternative forms of content such as newsletters, podcasts, and courses.