“Creating vs. Capturing” may be an old PPC debate, but AI is giving it a new twist. This week’s PPCChat discussion explored how advertisers should think about conversion credit in the battle between creating demand and capturing it. Here is the screencap of the discussion hosted by Sarah Stemen.
Q1: How do you define the distinction between “creating demand” (e.g., Social, Display, YouTube) and “capturing demand” (e.g., Search) to clients or stakeholders who want every dollar tied to immediate ROAS?
I always tell them we will hit a wall if there is a hard stance on what the ROAS should be. I say Google/paid search is pulling people into our eco-system. Paid social is pushing people into our system and you need both to growth in the end. @duanebrown
@duanebrown I agree! And it is a price we have to pay to grow. @runnerkik
I like to be plain with clients as we plan all their media. Capturing is about responding to a human action, requiring curiosity, interest, conversation. It’s not a passive scroll, no matter what Zuck would like us to think. @JuliaVyse
We do have to look at some of the “engagement metrics” I do love the new brand attributed searches! and lift studies so I try to feed good data to client @runnerkik
So much frustration on this point. I miss the old Google Analytics mutli-touch report @revaminkoff
Lift studies are a lifeline! And if you have evergreen running, you can often do a version of this yourself. @JuliaVyse
Lift studies take too long though and still require someone to be ok-ish with modeling @revaminkoff
Yes, if clients want the answer now and aren’t okay with modelling…can I interest them in a VERY expensive analytics platform? all of them are modeling to some degree @JuliaVyse
If they don’t know you exist, they won’t come looking (searching) for you. Applies to brand searches more than category* @alimehdimukadam
Q2: Last-click attribution usually gives all the credit to Branded Search, while Paid Social does the heavy lifting upstream, plus we’ve got Non-Branded Search, YouTube, and Demand Gen in the middle. Beyond standard models, what metrics (like blended CAC or MER) do you use to show Social’s true impact? And how do you explain Data-Driven Attribution to clients when every single platform claims credit for the same sale?
Blended CAC, MER, Cost per New Customer, NC ROAS. And a correlation between spends on social with branded search volume increase from search console – there is always a direct correlation. @alimehdimukadam
Picking one platform to be the source of truth is an important first step, because to your point, they often contradict each other. @revaminkoff
The constant claiming per platform is a real headache. If you’re an ecom biz with your own CRM you can use revenue as a point of truth, but if you’re in lead gen of any kind, content engagement, or using passthroughs (welcome to gov/edu) you just need to have a strong model and deep trust with your client. @JuliaVyse
@JuliaVyse I agree!!! So annoying. @runnerkik
I have bonded with many a reporting team over click attribution for omnichannel media. @JuliaVyse
Mix of looking at MER, showing what data shows up in GA4 and even running a test by turning off paid social and seeing what happens. @duanebrown
@duanebrown call it a holdout test and you can charge x5 more. @JuliaVyse
Q3: With Google leaning heavily into Demand Gen and Meta pushing Advantage+ Shopping (I don’t do Meta so I lean into the community here), the lines between creating and capturing demand are blurring. Are search engines becoming demand creators, or are social networks becoming demand capturers?
I will say I made my husband buy me things on tiktok shop…sooo and I didn’t realize I was doing that I just wanted things only on there. @runnerkik
My experience is that Meta has always been both, but as Google has expanded its editorialized content (from position 0 to Discover to now summarized results), it has become MUCH more of a demand creator and somewhat less of a demand capturer. apparently i can’t type today @ynotweb
I think it’s a bit like the streaming wars. Subscription leaders are looking for ad revenue, ad-supported platforms are looking for subscription dollars. I like to skip all the quarterly product announcements and focus on the searcher. People search from wherever they are comfortable right now. That could mean TikTok, Microsoft, YouTube, ChatGPT, or old reliable big G. Start there. @JuliaVyse
@ynotweb before they bought YouTube, they had the GDN. Demand creation is always in there somewhere. @JuliaVyse
The way things are going – search engine might be a thing of the past. Every query might end up being fed to a ‘discovery engine’ as the next evolution. @alimehdimukadam
@JuliaVyse yes, but it wasn’t absolutely forced on you as an advertiser. @ynotweb
@alimehdimukadam yes! until the AI bubble bursts, expect people to use their own personal crystal balls @JuliaVyse
@ynotweb truth. they are now putting all these products together, just like Meta @JuliaVyse
@JuliaVyse Even if the bubble bursts, the direction adopted by the firms is unlikely to reverse. we’ll see a rise in alternative engines and pockets of internet that remind us of pre-llm stuff – everyone will change except Craigslist @alimehdimukadam
Omgd @alimehdimukadam the day craigslist changes is the day the internet ends! @JuliaVyse
Demand Gen is ok but it can be a hit just as much as a miss. Demand Gen has a long way to go if it wants more Meta money. @duanebrown
Q4: If you were handed a brand-new account with ZERO market awareness, how would you split budget between demand creation and demand capture out of the gate? What signs tell you it’s time to reallocate?
It depends on the product- does it solve a problem someone already has and knows they have or is it a new solution that needs to be educated about? @revaminkoff
oooh oooh! I know this one (hahaha because my latest client is this). We heavily invested in demand creation and brand awareness on paid social, but also brand search (for reasons) in paid search. Sure, we also allocated to actual paid search (which has since tanked), but a HUGE and I mean HUGE key to our success was starting with demand creation and awareness and then shifting to demand capture. Even though I’ve always preferred Google, they have lost the edge on this client and 75% of their actual sales come from paid social now. MOST of Google’s sales comes from BRAND search (which we limit because we’d rather capture some of that for free). @ynotweb
I’d say it depends on the category, but without that, I’d say heavy demand creation, light on capture. Tho I will say, if you’re in the Education space, like a university looking for new students, I might weight search a little higher as that is an area people have so much branding pushed on them they tend to like long conversational searches to make decisions. @JuliaVyse
I would start with a 75-25 split – 75 for awareness and 25 for remarketing, conversions, etc. And have different channels within that bucket like demand gen, meta, YouTube if needed. But like @revaminkoff mentioned, a lot changes on the product and category. For a local business like a dentist or a roofer – this would not apply – at least not in the same proportion and a whole lot of factors like serviceable area, geo, existing demand, competitors, all of that would come in play @alimehdimukadam
I’ve launched a few this year with 100% demand generation, but it depends on what we’re selling. Most ecom does fine if you just start selling. @DanThies
@JuliaVyse and @DanThies especially if you’re in a crowded market, capturing EXISTING market to actually increase brand awareness and sales is often still the best bet. But I’ll never underestimate demand creation/brand awareness to demand capture again. @ynotweb
As someone who has decades of SEO experience, I will also say that until you hit a tipping point of brand-awareness, you need to be doing this – ESPECIALLY if its a local service provider (whether its doctor/dentist or hvac/remodeler/contractor). Really there is minimal level where brand awareness boosts demand capture. @ynotweb
100% demand capture until we max that out for a new brand. I don’t want to create more demand, even if I can not even capture what is already other there. @duanebrown
@duanebrown that was my stance until this past year. @ynotweb
Q5: Wouldn’t be a chat unless we brought AI to the table…AI summaries on the SERP mean fewer people need to click through during the research phase. How is this zero-click trend changing your mix between paid search and paid social? Are you shifting top-of-funnel budgets out of search to focus purely on high-intent capture are things not looking as good from a performance POV?
It hasn’t had the same effect on all my clients evenly. In particular brick and mortar retailers have not seen the click decline the same way lead gen has. I’d say we always want a healthy brand awareness spend to act as a tentpole for our campaigns. @JuliaVyse
I’ve seen a few brands wake up to the fact that their organic search traffic and leads/conversions from that channel have dropped considerably – so the overall picture looks dim YoY but on the paid front things have not changed as much as we would imagine @alimehdimukadam
Same. I have some clients HIGHLY affected and some clients you can’t even tell. Some clients do awesome in paid search (though they are heavily leaning on high-intent capture rather than traditional ‘search’) and others are doing WAY better in paid social. No cut and dried rules. Sometimes you start with your gutt and sometimes the data says otherwise. @ynotweb
@alimehdimukadam we’ve had similar clients whose PAID search traffic has dropped considerably, some of it “overnight” (in May and its never recovered) @ynotweb
@ynotweb i would look into the search terms – if they were running phrase match and or broad match – a lot of informational queries would have dropped. @alimehdimukadam
PPCChat Participants
- Julia Vyse @JuliaVyse
- Reva Minkoff @revaminkoff
- Duane Brown @duanebrown
- Kammy Caruss @ynotweb
- Dan Thies @DanThies
- Ali Mehdi Mukadam @alimehdimukadam
- Sarah Stemen @runnerkik
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