• by Duncan Smith , Op-Ed Contributor, March 13, 2024

Google is disabling cookies, AI is taking over the internet, and advertising budgets are under more scrutiny than ever. In today's marketing landscape, it's not just about reaching consumers -- it's about connecting with them in measurably meaningful ways that resonate with their interests, needs and aspirations.

With the disappearance of whatever insight cookies did deliver -- coupled with AI-generated content fast becoming the first point of interaction -- brands are at greater risk of working at arms' length from their consumers while being required to deliver more cost-effectiveness than ever. 

To ensure that every dollar of spend counts, advertisers must think beyond attention and seek to regain the audience’s engagement by embracing new techniques.

To do this, relevance has always been the ultimate metric for success. Today, we have the ability to deliver that relevance with absolute agility and more accountability than ever. 

Why relevance and agility are the key to sustained success

Since their inception, cookies have been used to deliver cost control as much as they have to truly target audiences with better content.

Their disappearance will force a change in how success is measured for digital media. Trying to find new ways to replicate what a 30-year-old technology has done feels like a fool’s errand.

So if you are chasing mass awareness and brand impact, for instance, you should think more about where your audience is the most engaged -- not just how you can rent their attention for a couple of seconds (or, more likely, turn that attention into annoyance).

Most times that won't be answered by a paid placement at all. And this is good news, as it will require quality content and a combination of new techniques to really reach consumers.

In fact, recent data shows that America’s top brands are increasing investments in earned media as part of an ideal marketing mix. 

And if earned is where it’s at, relevance is the only way to make anyone read your content, ensuring it’s tailored to your audience’s interests, and importantly, aligned to your brand and to the story you’re telling.

How to unlock valuable insights that drive relevant engagement and loyalty

Leveraging real-time insights will help you stay on top of trends and your audience’s changing desires.

With the ability to shift strategies based on current demand, your brand can show flexibility and a deep understanding of what matters to it -- which builds customer trust and longer-term brand relationships.

It starts with your earned and owned content. For too long, SEO has been hidden at the bottom of the marketing toolbox -- seen as more of a hygiene factor than something that drives value. Too much importance has been placed on domain rating, authority, and volume of links over other metrics like relevance. 

But with Google’s most recent updates, link relevance now has the strongest correlation to greater organic visibility.

Proprietary tools use natural-language understanding to read content. This not only optimizes all content for relevance, but also measures topic relevance of backlinks and onsite content -- all of which can then be used to create stronger marketing collateral from end to end -- onsite and offsite; owned, earned and paid.

How brands can thrive in this new era of marketing

If you want your brand to stand out in 2024 and beyond, you need to seriously evolve your use of media, extracting more demonstrable value from organic disciplines and delivering measurable engagement beyond attention alone.

Newer services such as Digital PR can help by delivering engaging content that resonates with target audiences -- improving trust, awareness, understanding, all the while earning those powerful links that turbo-charge your brand’s visibility. It can also help brands and advertisers avoid the growing consumer skepticism driven by AI-created content.

It's not really the scale of the attention you can capitalize upon, but what you do with it that counts. Ensuring your brand is delivering the most relevant content to every one of your audiences, in the moment and increasingly in those earned and owned spaces, is what will lead to greater (and more measurable) success today.