Rhys Williams.
Change happens every year, but 2024 certainly had its fair share - elections, global conflicts, economic ups and downs, and notable cultural moments (did anyone have Australian breakdancing as a global discussion point on your bingo card to start last year?). It was also a year when it felt like AI became ‘mainstream’ and technology had an outsized impact on how businesses operate and connect with customers.
Amongst this backdrop, Australians have been grappling with uncertainty. This uncertainty has meant that every purchase feels more momentous, everything feels more complex, and that reduces confidence.
To help them overcome the pressure they’re feeling and gain confidence, Australians are doing more research. In fact, research from Ipsos for Google tells us that 81 percent of adult Australians feel more confident when they’ve done their research.1 And to conduct that research, we know Australians often turn to something they know and trust — Google.
How people search for this information is also changing, and it’s playing out across three key trends, with profound impacts for advertising.
Four new ways Aussies Search today
The first one I call the ‘Exactly-What-I-Want’ search, or people doing more specific and detailed searches. We’re seeing the volume of searches with five or more words in them grow 1.5 times faster than shorter queries, compared to the same six month time period last year. That is, people are doing more specific and detailed searches.1
The second trend we’re seeing is that people are searching and researching far and wide. On average, 57 percent of consumers now consult more than five sources of information across more than seven touchpoints in a single customer journey.2
A third trend we’re seeing is that Gen Z are power users of Search. They are highly engaged and searching out the information and topics that matter to them, with signed-in users aged 18-24 issuing more queries each day than any other age group.3
The fourth trend, and my personal favourite, is that people are searching beyond words. From Circle to Search and Google Lens using still and even moving images, we’re already addressing this change in consumer behaviour through our own products. I’ve turned to Circle to Search — which lets you search anything on your phone with a simple gesture — for checking out restaurant names suggested in an indecisive group chat. Plus I’ve used Lens for the very important purpose of checking if a wine is likely to be a good drop! And I’m not alone. At Google, we’re seeing nearly 20 billion searches a month globally using Lens, up from 12 billion only six months ago, and one in four Lens searches has commercial intent.4 This change is sometimes flying under the radar.
Recent AI-powered advancements in Google Search, including AI Overviews (which creates an AI-generated snapshot about a topic or question, along with key information and links to dig deeper) and new features in Google Lens, are changing the user experience and opening up new ways for people to ask questions and get helpful answers. In this way, Google’s AI is helping people do more with Search.
What this means for marketers
These innovations in Search are opening up new opportunities for businesses to connect with their audiences and potential customers, too. The AI that sits behind Google’s search innovations also power Google’s advertising campaigns and tools used by our customers, helping them better tap into these behaviours and engage people across their increasingly fragmented purchase journeys.
Advertisers can tap into off-the-shelf AI solutions like Broad Match, Smart Bidding, Performance Max and automatically created assets. And to ensure brands show up well in these new search formats, it’s important to keep up with Search best practices and build helpful, reliable, people-first content. AI is also helping us better gauge performance, so the start of a new year is also a helpful reminder to have a good look at your measurement across channels to make sure you’re making good decisions about your media based on like-for-like comparisons.
Marketers using Google’s AI-based advertising tools are reaching people across all the new ways they are searching. They’re getting powerful AI for awesome ROI. Google Search is of course about helping people find useful and relevant information, but equally important is that it’s helping Australian businesses connect with new customers and grow. As we kick off the new year, and if 2024 has been any guide, I can’t wait to see some of the new innovations coming out related to Search, and the clever ways brands use it to engage Australian consumers!
Rhys Williams, Managing Director, Customer Sales, Google Australia
Sources:
1. Google Internal Data, Global English, Nov 2022 - Apr 2023 vs Nov 2023 - Apr 2024.
2. Google/Ipsos, The Relevance Factor, March 2024, n=1,000 online shoppers 18+, Australia.
3. Google internal Data, October 2024
4. Google/Ipsos, The Relevance Factor, n=5,405, Gen Z online shoppers US, UK, AU, BR, CA, FR, DE, IN, IT, JP, MX, NL, SG, KR, ES, TW, TH, VN, Mar 2024