[Podcast] Google Search is Your Fastest Way to the Bottom (With Stacy Dally)

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Ryan

Putting all your eggs inside of the Google paid search basket might be limiting your growth. Hyperfocusing on a singular channel might be bringing some closer while alienating others. Today, we're going to take a bit of time to discuss Public Enemy's preeminent record It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. It's taught us about why, how, and where we go about our business traditionally on a day-to-day basis. We'll dive into that and more on today's episode of On the Record.

Today's topic doesn't require a lot of defining qualities. It's the idea of Google paid search, right? Or so based on our customers there. We invest heavily in that channel. But we're going to go today is a little different right. We're going to talk about it might be the fastest way to the bottom. So we got to unpack what that all means.

It starts with diminishing returns. We read in here costs are rising exponentially a lot of pay channels. Search primarily is the biggest culprit. What do you think, boss? In the way of diminishing returns on the invest dollar through paid search?

Michael

I mean, I think it's an exercise in risk management too, right? So, like, of course you need a strategy here. You should be here. Search is an incredibly unique channel in that we can start to read some of the intention of the user what they're searching for, and acquire them further down the funnel than some other channels.

But I think too often we rely solely on that capability, which then puts us at risk, where if we don't have any other channels established, if we're not making any investments to to grow acquisition through other mediums, it does put you at risk and it puts you at risk of the the rising costs. Yeah. If those costs rise above your cost per acquisition.

You, it risks the growth upside of your business and then you find yourself scrambling and I think that's, that's a bit of what we'll talk about today is not that Google the channel is is necessarily broken but the, the sole reliance on it and the amount of money that we're putting into it without investing elsewhere. That that may actually lead to the decline of a business.

Ryan

Yeah. I mean, Stacy, you love as much as I do a purchase ready intensive manual. Imagine someone goes for an adjacent term and you've been on it, and you're the first click available to you. The problem with that is it's not always as readily available as we need it to be. So I mean, just some generic thoughts on the topic itself and what it might mean to you even.

Stacy

Yeah, when Michael was just talking about how basically the need to diversify. One thing that came to my mind is at what cost? Like how do you decide to give up 100 of these high intent clicks to go to a different platform where you're going to pay less, but you're only going to get 10 in 10 clicks? Like how where is that line of where you decide, you know what?

It's worth it. It's it's the long game. I would just be interested to hear your thoughts a little bit on that.

Michael

Yeah. I think it's a bit of the reinvestment. Right. So it's not about, doing less on Google, but it's about where do you reinvest some of those profits. Right. So how can you start to carve out. Not every channel is paid right. Like we look at SEO. SEO takes a really long time to blow roll, man, right?

If you don't start early, you're nine, ten months in until value. I think social can be the same. Right. And until you build up enough of a following that you can get your content in front of the right people, and your audience will even help facilitate that. It's hard to, you know, all of a sudden, see that, that CPA or that can rise above, what you can afford, and then all of a sudden you're stuck looking elsewhere.

So I think it's about getting started on some of those other channels, having an avenue. And where are you reinvesting some of that profit that you're making off of Google? Early on, so that you actually have some profit around before Google gobbles it all up?

Ryan

Yeah. And the fragility of your lead gen or customer acquisition channel being primarily focused on a singular channel is is a very frightening moment for most marketers. I mean, we'll talk a little bit about it, but some legislation recently passed that might topple a monopoly. And if that happens and you say this is where 80% of my customers come from or my leads, that's a terrifying moment, because now you don't know where to go.

You're rudderless in the ocean. And that's a pretty frightening moment, you know. And then in response to that audience diversity, like, where do we go to get all the people we know that 80 some percent of the of the internet people are the users of it and say, are going to Google for their primary information, still leaving 20% of those folks elsewhere.

So, I mean, we should maybe talk a little bit about seeking out other channels in the way of which you might find folks that you thought weren't available to you.

Michael

Yeah, I think, you know, part of what drives up the costs, too, is your competition is able to see what you're doing. It's all very public. And so it's not just Google driving up costs, but if they're seeing that you're having success, a lot of that data is publicly available and they start investing. It will automatically drive up the cost.

But to your to your question, I think that that competition, is different in different ways. And so if we're able to find other channels where we can be a more powerful voice, maybe we're an early mover in it. Maybe we have a unique take. Those things are incredibly valuable to building. I think a longer-term commitment to finding new customers in a safer, manner.

Ryan

Sure. And, Stace, I want to get your thoughts. And there's this thought that the younger generations are treating social platforms like search engines. Right. I think we still have this belief that know Google's where it all lives and takes place. YouTube is a massive search and a TikTok is now, like, creeping up the ladder as one of the biggest search engines.

So where we invest and where search takes place, is it different from you from your perspective?

Stacy

Yes, even I'm not even that young and I still go to well, I'll go to Insta or TikTok to, to search if, a brewery is open or if they have an event or something like that. I'm not going to go to Google right away. And honestly, that is where because the instantaneous updates have been easier and social media more likely to happen to.

So I don't think that it's just the younger generation driving more of the search on, the social media platforms. It's also the businesses themselves, because for them to update their Google listing or, you know, like that, I don't even know how to do that. And I feel like I kind of know something about technology. Right? So let alone a small business owner updating their Google presence.

And, so I think like it it's kind of twofold. It's yes, the younger generations new tendencies, but also the ease in which social media allows for these updates.

Ryan

Yeah, 100%. And I mean, we're talking about, you know, attributable, you know, actions and this investment made this happen or whatever. Google is notorious for gobbling up attribution across the web and then informing our CAK, our LTV or the associated metrics. How much importance do you put on that? Because there's a belief that you're like, well, look at Google is going really well, right?

Why don't you spend a little more there? I got you, I said, Michael, I don't know. I think they're getting some stuff in from other places. So how would you discern what is right and maybe what's maybe a little misleading?

Michael

Yeah. I mean, I think if we're only listening to the Google reps, we, you know, they are, their interest is showing the value of Google. And if that's where we're building our attribution model off of it will be swayed towards Google. And it is designed with this view through attribution or, to to give more and more credit to their platform and take it away from some of these other channels that you may want to be investing in.

But you because of the way, we're leaning on Google through analytics, through paid we may be missing some of the opportunities because we're listening too much to the, the voices that say, spend more here. And I don't think Meta is innocent either.

Ryan

They're not no.

Michael

In their in their modeling. And so I think part of it is like you, you take some of that view through data. I don't think that means that you have to spend more. But it's another data point of what might be working. But validate it, look at it independently. I think, a lot of the big tech companies are very good at getting us to kind of believe that their model is more advanced.

But we do need to independently be vetting that. And I think when we do that, we start to see there are many, many places where our customers are discovering us, and we may be under investing in some key channels there.

Ryan

Yeah. No question. I think what's interesting right now is at Google, as we sit in, let's talk to our reps and such, this investment and broad match, for instance. Right. Google search as a whole is changing fundamentally. We're trusting algorithms to, in essence tell us where people are going and informing our bidding structure as well. So it's a matter of we're putting more trust into Google than we ever had before.

And I think that's good and bad, right? I mean, if I would say if Google's not getting it right, like, who is, but also at the same time it's a black box, the less you know, we've lost sight of the days of uploading the keyword list of 4000, input it and say, just go find these adjacent terms. Now they're saying landing pages fully pages.

Put that in and will surround it with the word cluster. For a paid media buyer this is frightening times, right? Like the robots are coming for you a little bit. Yeah. But in theory, supporting efficiencies within your spend. What do you think? Do we believe I mean, Stacey, do we believe it or we, we go elsewhere, perhaps.

Stacy

Well, one thing I wanted to tag on that you kind of alluded to earlier was this, landmark case that just came out a couple months ago, I believe the DOJ winning's antitrust case against Google. So what really came out of it is they deemed that Google is a monopoly. And so with that, there is a whole host of consequences.

But one of the big things, that came out of it, I think it was it was 89% of, of just general search is on Google, and then 95%, of search on mobile is on Google. So that's how they determined a monopoly. And in this ruling, I think it was 277 pages long. They said Google. Heck no.

Like, you can't do this anymore. And it's just now we have to figure out what can Google do. So I'm sure there'll be appeals for years and all that kind of good stuff. But the second half of this whole lawsuit is going to be okay. So how do we remedy it? What are we going to do? Are we going to do, ballot browser like they do over I believe in Europe and things like that because that could just change everything.

Right? Then it goes to your point of if we are so heavily indexed on Google and then this change comes, well now what? Like that throws everything out the window. And you know, these cases are so they're so hush hush. You can't talk. Well you can't imagine what's coming next.

Michael

Yeah. Yeah. How are you adjusting.

Ryan

I'm taking it with a grain of salt, quite honestly. So I was going to reference a data point from one of my favorite marketers of all time, Ran Fishkin. Shout outs around here. But it's interesting because we always believe that a query results in a click, right? That's why CPC came to life. It's like like your pay X amount of dollars for a click, and it'll just follow its path down the conversion pathway.

Rand study that they recently did a massive data set kind of distilled down into one singular thing. 65% of Google searches don't end in a click. That means that you either are able to see a generated AI here, right? So there's some generative responses that might say, I'm looking for a recipe. I didn't need to click a link to get the answer to that.

A basic answer can be populated off that query. So inside of my non-branded invested, which is usually a larger, part of a paid budget, might have to shrink or I might have to appreciate it in a different way, because all these queries I'm so excited about and these keywords have been upon. Yeah, might not end in a click like I've always thought that to be.

Marketers are probably blown away by that. So many queries, a landing page and they see best landing page. Why don't they take the click? Well, for a variety of reasons, we're not going to get to the human psychology of it as well. But we have to understand human behavior and the psychological effects on buying on clicking. We're going to a world in which zero click content is more of our story.

You go through a feed, you scroll, you get information you're not required to take a click to get the additional value. Right? Right. This idea that we can go through a sequence of six clicks to get to that page. And then the appetite for that behavior is is dying. It is especially with younger generations, it's in the moment and I don't even fault them for it, frankly, because we're able to bring that moment to them.

It's just done fundamentally different. That's why we're we're challenging Google paid search today. We have to do it. To what extent in to the future? I don't know, because we might say TikTok might open up a robust, you know, keyword, bidding structure in which I can go find terms and mash them to queries. And all of a sudden that's 15% of my search budget, you know, I mean, that's a world in which we could be fast approaching.

So yeah, Google shout out to you for, you know, getting us here, but it might be changing in front of our eyes as we speak.

Stacy

So do you think then your KPIs will change/ You're going to value impressions more.

Ryan

You're going to have to live a little more at the top of the funnel. I mean, we talked about how search is this incredible lower funnel, intense signal. I mean, you can't get any better than that. They're purchase ready. Give me what you have. But yeah, we might have to get back to maybe a little bit of a detach from from CPA back to CPC.

Right. And I don't think that we've lost either of those, but I think there could be more value on just starting the buyer journey a little more passively, as opposed to just grabbing on to every purchase radio signal. I mean, there's we all want that. The problem is martech is incredibly competitive. We go up against it every day.

It's hard to win in that arena effectively when you're under a role as model or any basic ROI structure. So, you know, times are changing. We've we've learned a lot from the transition and through the monopolization and maybe the tumbling of it. So we'll see where we go into the future. But it's a time for all marketers to have their antennas up I would suggest.

Michael

Yeah, yeah. Does it go back? I mean, do we do we reinvest in brand again? I don't know where people are coming from. Or you know, if we can't live in this multi-touch attribution model, where does it leave us and where do you, as a head of marketing, where do you start to, I guess diversify or reduce your risk?

Ryan

I think that's the keyword, right? There is diversification, this idea that our pie chart of spend has to have a lot more little slivers inside it. I spent some some great time with our paid media buyer leave pages, and that's really the number one challenge in in 2025. It's not just a pie chart of a lot of colors and different channels as such, but effective spend inside of each of those channels.

Now, if I have a Roas model, I might have put it aside and give it a channel like TikTok, which is not a purchase ready channel, but give it credit for its attribution inside of the buyer cycle. Right? If I can get two touchpoints inside of that channel, there's a chance I can bring them through other channels or through branded search right into a purchase pathway.

So I need to value that click a little more, than I have in the past. Perhaps just knowing the channel now, each channel has its own measurement of success, so it gets a little more complex for marketers. You say, why now get more channels? Well that's fantastic, but it does become more scientific, more complex. But that's what marketers are built for in theory as well.

Michael

So yeah.

Stacy

Yeah, yeah. So good news for content marketers is what I'm hearing. No I is not going to come and take your job. Actually, Google is helping out and making sure that there is going to be job sounds like a lot more content the more that you diversify and on these different platforms, I think.

Ryan

So, I mean, that's the idea because you can't take a singular channel or a content strategy. And just like broad stroke across it, everything has to be unique to the channel. You go to TikTok with the Polish adverts. I mean, they're going to laugh at it. I mean, it has no business there. So pick your spots, but be very intentional.

Ad Break

Ryan

Bit of a stimulating stuff here. Yeah, yeah, some hard-hitting discussions. But now, as we do in these episodes, we start to turn the page in favor of how the music influences today's discussion. It's an interesting one, right? We're having an album that shows up in a way of which has, I don't know, it's some polarization, some some political underpinnings to it as well.

That's funny that legislation found its way to today's discussion because public Enemies, it takes a nation of Millions to hold Us Back was all about a specific audience, a specific outcome. They knew exactly who they were talking to. And it found its way to our story today because it said, if you go all in on Google, you probably get a singular thing.

This record, although incredible, produced a singular outcome, an audience that was ready to rebel against society or the general construct. So maybe unpack it in your way. Michael, this record is of our time, if you will, maybe how it correlates to the discussion today.

Michael

Yeah, I mean, I think it was intentional, in, in that, I mean, Chuck, the he had a message, he wanted to deliver it and he wanted to deliver it over and over and over again. It was a response to where society was moving. At that time. And, I think it was also working to his strengths.

Right. So he knew that he wanted to reach the broadest audience possible. But he also knew that to, to do that, he had limited resources, especially in making this record. So to do so, I feel like he he doubled down on this kind of singular message to make sure that it wasn't, obfuscated. And he delivered it.

And we're still talking about it, today. But that's to say it, I don't think Public Enemy as a brand necessarily grew out of this message. No, unfortunately. And I think that's part of the tie in to today's. And the discussion is, it was effective. It worked. We all know their name, but were they able to kind of find that next, gear? I'm not sure we could say that.

Ryan

Yeah. No, I'd have to agree. Stacey, your thoughts on, like, hyper-focus versus just wide. You know what I mean? We talk about the musical influence being very focused. We're talking about being very focused on a channel. Maybe. Your thoughts.

Stacy

Yeah I was kind of… when I was researching a little bit, I saw to your point, you said limited resources. I believe it was, seven days in $25,000. And. Yeah. And so with that, was that a was that all they had? Yeah. You know, I mean, or did they like, purposely like how much was it driven by.

This is all the time, all the money that we have, we have to do it. And so then we had to be super hyper-focused or sometimes it is the other way of like, okay, I guess we're, we're doing it. This is what's happening. Because this is all we got, you know, and so I just, when I saw that, I was just kind of curious of, like, I wonder chicken or the egg?

Michael

I believe that was what they had to work with. Because even at that time, like a small record label budget still in the millions, right. And so I this was truly using everything that they have, and throwing it at it.

Ryan

Yeah. It's not let's not forget 25 K back in 1988 is a little different than in today's money as well. So we might be talking about $100,000, but still being extremely resourceful. And I think we're talking about that with Google search. Right, is that you have to be extremely efficient and resourceful in that. And I think that's what's interesting about today's conversation is that they were that yet they're able to do this, had the seismic impact based upon a very focused investment.

And I think that's maybe the advocacy we can make for Google search like it's still prevalent. It still has its place. But how you go about it, it's probably a bit different than we've thought in the past. And one of the things I really appreciate about this record is the underpinning of this rebellious nature. Right? Like marketers, inherently, I think at their best are slightly rebellious, and how we approach the channel just needs to change, right?

And maybe Google tells us to go bra, but we say broad plus my uploaded list of keywords, right? Like they're going to be the tried and true mechanisms they're going to suggest. But maybe we can challenge the channel itself, our account reps, if we're lucky enough to have them to say, yeah, what if I wanted a differently? You have everybody over there.

What if I zig when they zag? May. That's part we can learn from what public any taught us here this record too.

Michael

Yeah, absolutely.

Stacy

And to your point too, it's not like we can just buy Google. Because, I mean, even this album is still the top rated hip hop album according to rolling Stone. Like, I mean, of all time. So it's like, okay, we're not going to throw it away. We're not gonna just throw Google away. But to your point about being hyper, we're doing this specifically on Google, but then we're also it's this and more.

So it's we want don't want to lose sight of like Google is still like, yeah, the king or queen or whatever. I mean, they're still on top and they're probably going to be there for a bit. Now. It's just this longer game of SEO or whatever other platform you want to invest in, and making sure that when their time, when their crown gets knocked off, that you're not going to get knocked off with it.

Ryan

Yeah, that's somewhere Chuck D's celebrating is that Google Crown is now laying on the floor. Right. The anti-establishment is is showing up here. And I think we can all appreciate that a little bit as well.

Michael

Yeah.

Ryan

Google has been great. And it's led us to a lot of, you know, growth accelerators in our business, but also at the same time, we're handcuffed to it as well at this point in time, too. So I think there's an opportunity for it to get better. And I think a quick delineation too is we're I'm a paid search today.

Right. Google organic Search is your best friend yet to this day, right? If you can find your way to rank with just a great content you produce, that's your way to to growth. And we ourselves are making a concerted investment on content at scale, a high frequency focused on our ideal customer profile. So, I mean, organic is still viable.

It's the paid channel that we're really considering, like, man, can it be different? Can it be better? Because I think marketers are asking it to be better. I don't know if Google is listening to us quite yet. And what do you think? Are they listening to us or are they still being where they are?

Michael

I think they're trying to figure out how they continue to deliver value, and I think that's what we've seen. They realized that there wasn't a direct correlation to click to conversion, and it wasn't close enough that they could, at scale, justify charging what they're charging. Yeah, but if they're able to prove that they're part of your, attribution model and they're able to grab a larger pie of that, that's where that argument really came from.

And so I think they're always trying to justify their existence. I think it's a healthy relationship that marketers are asking them to justify their worth. And I think a lot of these changes are in response to the landscape's changing. People aren't they're paying maybe too much for it. And Google needs businesses to thrive in order to continue to have budget to invest in it.

And so I do believe that they are adjusting and trying to course correct constantly so that they are still relevant, because they know just as well as you that TikToks on coming up. They sure do. Instagram searches is, not irrelevant. They bought YouTube to, to prevent that, style, which is, I believe the second largest search.

Ryan

It is. Yes. Yeah.

Michael

So I think they're constantly innovating, and they're constantly pitching back to marketers what their value is. But I think we also have the ability to say, I don't know, it's not working. Right.

Ryan

Yeah, I think there's a point in it. I mean, they've tried to roll out I mean, there at first there was these half page takeovers that were supposed to hit our browser. Right. You query something, here's a wealth of information. Our ads get pushed below it. I think Google quickly realized, I think our billions in ad revenue might take a bit of a hit.

If you're forcing my lead pages, you know, not in some term down to the, you know, the second fold of the page. So they themselves, you can see they're learning in real time. They rolled back that as soon as I think they heard everybody around the advertising sector say, I'm not paying what I used to pay. If I'm on the second or third fold, well, they course correct.

So I think to my earlier point maybe are listening to the market or so or perhaps third is more fiscally responsible or you know it's a cash grab. Hard to say, but I think they're listening.

Michael

I think they know they need to stay relevant. And I think staying relevant is really hard. And so I think that's what we've seen over the years, is they have been very adept at driving the story of how marketers drive their own value. And I think the more that we distance ourselves from that, the probably better off we are as to be an objective kind of observer of where we want to spend our, our money. But right now we're very beholden to Google.

Ryan

Well, yeah, I, I'd like to say that our own paid media budget probably reflects a blend of 70% on paid search. Right. And it it meets our standards. But into the future. All three of us know that that will not be in perpetuity. Right. We're going to have to pivot. And perhaps that's today. Perhaps that's tomorrow. That's for maybe a future episode as well.

Michael

Yeah. Well, I think that's how we got here.

Ryan

That's I think it's. So this gives us an opportunity to pivot the discussion against this record again, as one of which has a variety of opinions on the matter. And I think it's one of the reasons we chose it as well. Right. It's it touches the edges of comfort and much of like the topic does today. Michael, this is of our generation.

Take me through personal experiences with this record or how you felt maybe revisiting it for the first time in a while.

Michael

I think, it definitely was revisiting. I was very familiar with this. I don't think this was ever in my collection.

But it was certainly in the discussion. They Public Enemy, they definitely had kind of their own lane, in the music industry at the time. And I think they commanded it well, but I was a little bit too young to really get on board. But revisiting it, it is quite fascinating. It's a very polarizing album.

It's nice to see the, the intensity at which he's approached this topic. And I think we can actually learn a lot of that singular message and how the value of that is. And that's really what catalyst like kind of catapulted them into relevance was, you know, exactly why you turn this record on and you know exactly what you're going to get out of it.

That's not always the case. But but it was very clear from the beginning, what his message was. And that's really even in, in culture, that was, that was the space that at least chuck the embody the Flavor Flav a whole nother, beast. But yeah.

Stacy

Yeah, yeah. I was going to ask Ryan, was this in your collection? I mean, what where was this? Yeah, top of the list. Middle or or not even in the collection, I guess. I don't even know what makes the cut.

Ryan

But, yeah, I would suggest, like, Michael had to come back to it a later. I was a little too young to appreciate it in the very moment, but I knew and I was aware of it because I think any young boy that was trying to find themselves was a little bit rebellious at heart. They didn't know what it might be.

Chuck D had this incredible voice that you couldn't ignore. So if you even heard 15 seconds of, you're like, oh, that's new. Yeah, that's that's unusual. Like it caught my attention to the point where, you know, for my love for hip hop at a later date. I probably didn't give it a attributable respect back in the day. But now looking back, it was that rebellious spirit that kind of led me even to in a career marketing.

Right. You have to be a bit unconventional, a bit unorthodox. So I think I probably subconsciously appreciate it more now going back and like, oh man, if you would have been at a certain age, that record would have hit you. And it was like, wow, this is revolutionary. But you know, everything is a timepiece. And I think it got back to it today.

Stacy

So it's not quite the origin of your rebel rebellious?

Ryan

Not quite sure, but that's my mother, she might say. She might say yes, but we'll say.

Stacy

Okay, fair, fair, fair.

Ryan

You're feeling I'd states that we found that this predates your, your existence, but you had to listen to it for the sake of this podcast. I think you found some value in that. In that exercise.

Stacy

Definitely, I enjoy it. I like hip hop. So this was right up my alley. I didn't even necessarily hone in exactly on the message. Just even just easy. Let's just start throwing it on, you know, in the background, whatever. I was like, all right, let's go. Like, this is one that I can get behind.

Ryan

So it's so unique. I mean, it took again listen to a for a for a few more times at a later date to appreciate the the radical dichotomy within the group. Right. You hear Flavor Flav, you have to divorce yourself from the modernized pop culture version. Everybody thinks of them is a caricature. I think to be polite might be the way of looking at it.

And then it's a juxtaposition against Chuck D. This stern, steady, powerful man. You're like, how did the two coexist?

Michael

Yeah, but.

Ryan

Perhaps they were the counterbalance to one another. As I listen to the record, I'm like, man, he's not a clown. Actually, he's actually softening the density. That is Chuck D, right? Like that. That made sense in the moment, I think. Fast forward to today. You're like, wow, that that makes little to no sense. But I was fascinated by and similarly Terminator dark, Terminator X, excuse me, the DJ like brought some really interesting kind of overlays to the music with these like high pitched like deejay scratch that show up in almost all the records like it has this angst kind of nature to it.

Right? Like you feel the tension that Chuck is kind of trying to permeate out into the audience. Like, we need to change. There's a reason for change, and we are that change that comes through on every track.

Michael

Yeah, I was.

Ryan

Shocked at the continuity of that message throughout that album, so I can see how it's had staying power. It probably wouldn't be in my top ten, admittedly, just because, again, it's timeliness in my life didn't line up perfectly. But boy oh boy can I appreciate its staying power, especially in today's society.

Stacy

So absolutely sounds like we need to do an episode on everyone's top ten, because I think we've been identifying some that aren't, but maybe you got to flip it on its head.

Ryan

That's the After Hours podcast. Our crew has been telling us that that's a great relevancy. So all right, that gives us to this, takes us to this point. Then we like to leave the listener with a couple. Actionable is right. We've gotten on this rabbit hole, this road relatively tactical. So we can talk about it in that way. Michael, what might you suggest to a listener who's spending a lot of money in paid search, or…

Michael

I don't think there's a better time than right now to diversify. And that that would be my main, kind of takeaway. And I don't think, the diversification has to be drastic. It doesn't mean dropping Google. But I do think opening up and exploring other channels, figuring out what is your message on some of these other platforms, how can you show up as a company is valuable because the last thing you want to do is be on your back foot where you don't have the resources to invest, and you're having to start from zero 100%.

Ryan

So you're you're kind of key takeaway.

Stacy

Yeah, I would say this is a great time for younger marketers to kind of get in the game and use this as an excuse to get their ideas heard, pitch their different content strategies and all that kind of good stuff. This is a great time to do it because everyone knows Google is starting to. There's a little shaking that's going on there, so get in there. Don't be. Don't be shy. This is a great time for it.

Ryan

Yeah. I mean, it's a little bit of a revolt, right? I think that's exciting for marketers. We're always seeking out something that's, cutting edge progressive, if you will. I think you both kind of hit the nail on the head. Right. This is a time to to reevaluate. You're always on channels. Maybe should always be on. Right. Maybe we should flicker the switch occasionally and say, let's spend money elsewhere.

Let's run those small tests and see if we can scale those tests into something meaningful. So I would challenge anybody who has a meaningful investment into any paid channels. Spread a little more thin. We all know you have to spend a little bit to at least get statistically significant, but it's the time in which we need to do so.

And I think it is the dawn of a new era. You again, you leverage the good but also challenge what's what's next. So yeah. Yeah, absolutely. This is a hard heading one today. This has got some depth and some teeth to it I like that Stacy. As always thank you for your opinions on the matter. I loved your takes on the record and frankly, the legislative, kind of dish.

Stacy

My husband's an attorney. Okay.

Ryan

That's right. You have any insight to that? So that was an advantageous moment, Michael, as always, thank you. A wide array of knowledge, which we are very appreciative of. And, as always, we thank our listeners for your time and your attention. An interesting episode today. We think that there's some things that you can apply to your business and things that you should take away, and maybe some things to consider.

So, and as always, find us on your favorite podcasting platform. We're back. We're often with content. It sounds a lot like this. So, we want to thank you again for your time. And, this is On the Record brought to you by Leadpages.