WEBVTT 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:35.000 Monica Niblack: You ready? 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:35.000 Andrew Coleman: Yep. 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:55.000 Monica Niblack: Okay. Hey, Andrew. Thank you so much for joining us today. 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:58.000 Andrew Coleman: Oh, happy to be here, Monica. 00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:56.000 Monica Niblack: I… 00:03:56.000 --> 00:04:13.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah, I'm here with Andrew Coleman, our co-founder and a long-time mentor of LQ Digital, so I am really excited to speak with him today, because he has some really good perspectives on what's going on in the world today, considering he has lived through. 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:30.000 Monica Niblack: And led, more importantly, through multiple tech transitions, as we are seeing in AI. So we look forward to having a conversation about, kind of, what's similar to when we were founding LQ back in the day, and kind of what's different, because there's definitely a lot of parallels. I think you and I are talking about on a. 00:04:31.000 --> 00:04:40.000 Monica Niblack: weekly basis that are really interesting and thought people would find interesting as well. So looking forward to it. 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:44.000 Andrew Coleman: Love it. Love it. As am I. It is kind of it's eerily similar. 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:45.000 Monica Niblack: Right? 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:47.000 Andrew Coleman: From 21 years ago. 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:51.000 Monica Niblack: Oh my God, those numbers. I don't like to think about that. 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:48.000 Andrew Coleman: And, uh… 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:58.000 Andrew Coleman: Yeah, exactly. Monica was our first woman hired on the agency business 17, 18, 19 years ago, so super. 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:56.000 Monica Niblack: Exactly. 00:04:56.000 --> 00:05:01.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah, 17. Don't date me too much. 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:00.000 Andrew Coleman: Okay. 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:02.000 Andrew Coleman: Okay. 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:16.000 Monica Niblack: But yeah, kind of on that, like, as we alluded to, we built… you built LQ during the rise of paid search, right? When we look at what's happening with AI today, kind of what feels familiar from that time when Google was up and coming and everything was changing? 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:21.000 Andrew Coleman: Yeah, I mean, I think it's the disruption, right? It's back then. 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:35.000 Andrew Coleman: all the advertising was done offline, you know, pick a vertical, I don't know, classifieds for employment, or real estate, or mortgage. You would go to the newspaper to look at what the current rates were. 00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:50.000 Andrew Coleman: Right? And you'd look at, you know, what was, you know, what was for sale in, uh, in Oakland, California, and you'd go to the newspaper. Find a job in Oakland, you'd have to go to the newspaper. Right? So everything was migrating from offline to, uh, to online. 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:46.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:05:50.000 --> 00:06:03.000 Andrew Coleman: So, complete disruption in the, uh, in the industry. And now, I think the same thing that's happening with what AI and these LLMs are doing. So, it's all on Google, but I think the journey is… is changing. 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:04.000 Andrew Coleman: Um… 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:11.000 Andrew Coleman: But but so I think there's a very, you know, very similar in this disruption that's happening. 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:13.000 Andrew Coleman: But it's also a little bit different. 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:20.000 Monica Niblack: How so? That's what I was going to ask you next. Thanks for reading my mind. We've worked together long enough. You do. 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:25.000 Andrew Coleman: I know. I know, because everybody's like, oh my gosh, you know, and I look back, and when this transition happened. 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:32.000 Andrew Coleman: There were 20, 30, 40 different companies trying to, you know. 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:33.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:47.000 Andrew Coleman: trying to get your attention right? Whether it was, you know, look at home gain, which the company that my co-founder Glenn and I started with, and we did deals. I think we had 110 different partnership deals that we cut. 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:35.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. Okay. 00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:59.000 Andrew Coleman: Right? LookSmart, iOne, Roadrunner, AOL, Yahoo, right? I can even go down the list of the ones that I can't even remember that failed, that fizzled out, but we didn't know who the winner was gonna be. 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:00.000 Monica Niblack: Right. 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:13.000 Andrew Coleman: Um, so you had to try to make a play on all of them. Uh, Backrub ended up winning, which Backrub, you know, turned into Google, right? That was, that was, uh, what Google was before. Um… 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:09.000 Monica Niblack: Google. That's right. 00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:35.000 Andrew Coleman: And, uh, but now really there's only three, at least domestically. I'm talking, I'm gonna, I'm only gonna stay in the US market for this conversation because internationally, I think especially if you go to China, there's a little bit of a different dynamic. But here there's three, um, and then there's a lot of aggregators going around those three. But those three is where the good news is you can focus on these oligarchs. 00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:21.000 Monica Niblack: Yes. 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:24.000 Monica Niblack: True, yeah. 00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:36.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:51.000 Andrew Coleman: And you don't have to try to go to, I don't know, maybe I shouldn't use that term. You don't have to necessarily go to 110 to figure out the winners. So the good news is I think you can focus a little bit better, you know, companies on those three. 00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:51.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:07:51.000 --> 00:08:08.000 Andrew Coleman: Um, but we also don't know what's gonna win. Very similar to Google. Go back to Google when they, you know, it was a CPM engine. It was not that different from what Yahoo and MSN and others were doing, uh, back at the time. 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:03.000 Monica Niblack: Right. 00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:24.000 Andrew Coleman: And then they eventually realized the the winning model was a cost per click. And they kind of got lucky is the more you bid, the higher up the page you went, the higher up the page you went, the more volume you got. So it ended up being the symbiotic relationship which allowed them to completely take off. 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:20.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:26.000 Andrew Coleman: Um, so… 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:45.000 Andrew Coleman: we don't know how that whole monetization is gonna happen with those, you know, the big three, whether it's Claude, or Gemini, or ChatGPT, and, you know, if you asked me this webinar a year ago, it was ChatGPT was by far and away the winner, and then if you asked me 6 months ago, I would have said Gemini was. 00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:47.000 Andrew Coleman: If you're asking me now… 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:52.000 Andrew Coleman: You know, Claude has kind of taken a little bit of a lead, at least in terms of my. 00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:51.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:54.000 Andrew Coleman: people I talk to. 00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:59.000 Andrew Coleman: Um, so we don't know, but the good news is you can only… you only have to try 3. 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:06.000 Monica Niblack: True, and each one seems to be kind of going a pretty different path with regards to advertising also, right? 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:07.000 Andrew Coleman: Yeah. 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:25.000 Andrew Coleman: Yeah, I mean, yeah, we it's it's that's I mean, this is yeah, the whole topic. I mean, it's really interesting and kind of my whatever crystal ball way back when was, hey, they're going to have to do a wraparound strategy on their, when I mean wraparound strategy is kind of what Google used to do is the ads. 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:12.000 Monica Niblack: That's a whole big topic we can dive into. Yeah. 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:25.000 Monica Niblack: Right. 00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:38.000 Andrew Coleman: were clearly delineated around the results, and the results were pure, and everything around it was, you know, whatever. Ads, you know, contaminated, if you will. And I think… 00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:28.000 Monica Niblack: They took over. Mm-hmm. 00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:35.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. Yeah. 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:51.000 Andrew Coleman: and that's certainly what ChatGPT is doing right now. Um, and I think it's really interesting that… I think we just came up with a study that said of the 75… 75% of the time of the… of the, uh, queries which we track. 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:42.000 Monica Niblack: Right. 00:09:51.000 --> 00:09:56.000 Andrew Coleman: ChatGPT is now testing ads. 00:09:55.000 --> 00:10:02.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. I think on 70% of the queries, we have seen an ad. That's right. It's it's a much larger number than I expected, frankly. 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:12.000 Andrew Coleman: Oh, and it's going up rapidly, right? And then, you know, Gemini is… you're seeing some embedded stuff happening there with what they're doing, which is similar to, uh… 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:04.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. Okay. 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:10.000 Monica Niblack: Right. 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:17.000 Andrew Coleman: Kind of what they did on the Google search engine results page. 00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:23.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. And I I would expect Gemini to accelerate quite rapidly soon based on some of the things I'm hearing. Mhmm. 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:22.000 Andrew Coleman: I agree. 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:24.000 Andrew Coleman: Yep. 00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:27.000 Monica Niblack: Kind of as someone who spends a lot of time now. 00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:43.000 Monica Niblack: in advertising and kind of talking with companies, right, more on sitting on boards, how do you think about what time… like, what technology they should be focusing on, how it's kind of moving from hype to something someone actually needs to invest in, right? Because I'm sure you get a lot of conversations with advising. 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:50.000 Monica Niblack: where people are talking about, what should we be doing? How should we be spending the limited capital that we have? How do you think about where. 00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:52.000 Monica Niblack: suspended and where to focus. 00:10:51.000 --> 00:11:02.000 Andrew Coleman: Yeah, I think when people talk about AI, at least in the LQ digital sense, I view it, there's two different pieces to it. One is AI internal processes. 00:10:56.000 --> 00:10:57.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:03.000 Monica Niblack: Right. 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:17.000 Andrew Coleman: improving efficiency, doing things better, yeah, exactly, what you're doing internally. I'm gonna focus this more on externally, like, okay, what… where should I put… where should I put my digital dollars, and how do I think about it? 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:07.000 Monica Niblack: Our whole LQ brain thing. Mm-hmm. 00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:13.000 Monica Niblack: Yes, that makes sense. 00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:18.000 Andrew Coleman: And. 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:23.000 Andrew Coleman: It's changing so fast. 00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:36.000 Andrew Coleman: what, you know, I would ask my, you know, company, what do you want to be an expert in? What do you want… where do you want to put your resources? Because you do have limited resources, and because it's changing so rapidly, you look at when Google rolled out. 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:56.000 Andrew Coleman: I don't know, hotels, right? You and I worked on all the Hawaiian properties together, whether it was Outrigger or others. And, you know, when hotels was coming out, they tried four different iterations of how they were going to monetize it until what they ultimately came up with. 00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:41.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. Yeah, I forgot about that. 00:11:56.000 --> 00:12:11.000 Andrew Coleman: So we were testing all along the way and you had to be in there and then you had to create, you know, technology to support, you know, your ads and you had to understand your RO, your return on ad sales and all these pieces and figure out is it worth it? 00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:13.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:20.000 Andrew Coleman: to do that. And so, even though the good news, there's only really 3 engines I would focus on the AI world. Um… 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:37.000 Andrew Coleman: Those are going to be continuously changing over the next 6 to 9 months to a year, and then every time a new version comes out, you might have to throw out your playbook and start over again. So do you want to focus on that? If you're a big company and you have marketing resources, I think. 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:38.000 Andrew Coleman: It's worth it. 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:46.000 Andrew Coleman: you could make the argument, I would say, that it's worth it to do that, that I'm gonna invest in it, but you gotta put dollars at it, you gotta put people. 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:42.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:46.000 Monica Niblack: Exactly. 00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:50.000 Andrew Coleman: And you can't just set it and forget it. 00:12:51.000 --> 00:13:09.000 Andrew Coleman: Or you can, you know, hire somebody that that's what they're looking at, and you can look at a, you know, alright, self-pitch, right? Uh, you can look at what's happening across multiple industries, and okay, hey, this is what they did on the hotels. I actually think that's gonna probably be pretty relevant to what they're gonna do in real estate, and lo and behold, that is what they… 00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:10.000 Monica Niblack: Yep. Yeah. 00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:25.000 Andrew Coleman: You know, they tested it here and then they roll it out elsewhere. So I think you get some of that benefit if you're not just looking in your market, but you're looking at what's happening in a in a broader spectrum. So I guess my point to the, you know, hey, do we want to throw do we really want to own this channel? 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:33.000 Andrew Coleman: Let's actually do it and invest in it and technology and people and continue to go after it. 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:48.000 Andrew Coleman: And that's really hard, because it's you gotta. You're gonna have to actually allocate your your P. And L. To it. And you're not gonna have a clear row as right. We didn't even talk about, though this whole, this whole attribution craziness. 00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:41.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:45.000 Monica Niblack: Well, that's… 00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:56.000 Monica Niblack: That's the thing that I was thinking about while I was listening, is I'd forgotten about all those days when you're right, we were testing just crazy things all the time, but what are the differences back then? It's like… 00:13:56.000 --> 00:14:12.000 Monica Niblack: attribution wasn't really an… right? People were more used to having to throw some stuff in the dark and knowing that at some point a number might come out, and that's what we're kind of going to learn, whereas I feel like it's really good the way we can measure everything and understand the value and how much it's evolved. 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:14.000 Monica Niblack: But I think it also does. 00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:22.000 Monica Niblack: make it harder when you're testing some of these new things, because everyone is looking at that outcome instantaneously, and the, like. 00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:27.000 Monica Niblack: at least we see this at a lot of our clients, right? Like, the appetite becomes… 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:32.000 Monica Niblack: They want to decide so instantly that it can almost make it hard to get some of those. 00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:43.000 Monica Niblack: tests and when things aren't in their infancy. So, if you're trying out the really early stuff, like, you gotta be kind of a little bit more willing to take some shots in the dark and see what's gonna happen. 00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:36.000 Andrew Coleman: Yeah. 00:14:43.000 --> 00:15:00.000 Andrew Coleman: Yeah, I mean, and you know, we got so used to being able to calculate your ROAS, whether it's last click attribution or a multi-touch attribution or whatnot. And now you're at a zero-click world, right? To me, you know, they're just doing the research here. It feels very similar to… 00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:53.000 Monica Niblack: Touch, or… yeah. 00:14:54.000 --> 00:14:56.000 Monica Niblack: Right, yeah. 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:11.000 Andrew Coleman: You know, when Facebook started doing advertising and the social and Facebook, if we remember the platform, I could not believe how horrible. 00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:06.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:15:11.000 --> 00:15:21.000 Andrew Coleman: you know, it was… it was throwing darts and trying to understand and having to do lift analysis and things like that. It's almost like you gotta go back to… 00:15:21.000 --> 00:15:37.000 Andrew Coleman: Gosh, I don't even remember what year it was, uh, that, that you had to start really, um, using a little bit more feel, unfortunately. Right. And using a little bit more indirect correlation analysis to, to try to figure out what type of ultimate lift you're having. And that's. 00:15:26.000 --> 00:15:27.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:49.000 Andrew Coleman: exactly where we're going, and, you know, we're looking at, you know, we just had a conversation the other day of, like, ChatGPT and their ad engine, and we have support, uh, from them, but it still is terrible! I mean… 00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:41.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:54.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah, I think we've stumped the support teams quite a few times. 00:15:51.000 --> 00:15:53.000 Andrew Coleman: Yeah. Okay. 00:15:53.000 --> 00:16:10.000 Andrew Coleman: So some of these things that we're just so used to having, you know, with a few clicks on the, on the, you know, platform of Google or Bing, they just not are so far away from that. So you have to build your own internal technology to support. 00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:56.000 Monica Niblack: Huh? 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:17.000 Andrew Coleman: your ability to do these things and rapidly test and and try to get this insight into what effect it's having. 00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:18.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:26.000 Andrew Coleman: And again, this kind of goes back to like, are you going to invest in that resource or are you going to use somebody that has seen it, you know, and can give you some guidance on your way through it? 00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:34.000 Monica Niblack: Well, I think on that kind of comment, like the whole — we talk about this story a lot, but the whole thesis is like with the zero-click world that you mentioned. 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:45.000 Monica Niblack: customers are still there. I mean, I'm there… I personally am there more than I've ever been before, right? I was on the airplane the other day, and Wi-Fi wasn't working, and it… I realized just how… 00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:37.000 Andrew Coleman: Right. 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:46.000 Andrew Coleman: Right. 00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:54.000 Monica Niblack: Like, I can't do anything without it now, right? But, you know, as AI changes how customers discover, as we all kind of research differently. 00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:57.000 Monica Niblack: As a board member, kind of… 00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:12.000 Monica Niblack: what makes you believe it starts to that? That chain starts to become a business risk or opportunity like, how do you find that difference? Because I think we all intuitively understand it a bit. But how do you think about it as a board member? And maybe kind of what questions would you ask? 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:08.000 Andrew Coleman: Yep. 00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:20.000 Monica Niblack: if you're on a board? Because a lot of people don't know marketing the way you do. Like, how would you kind of approach that? Just what early? 00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:19.000 Andrew Coleman: Yep. 00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:31.000 Andrew Coleman: I mean, I'd start with, you know, why did Willie Sutton rob the banks? Because that's where the money is. So you got to figure out where your customers are, right? So that's where I'd start. 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:29.000 Monica Niblack: Mmhm. 00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:39.000 Andrew Coleman: So I kind of break it up into two different pieces. So one is you got to figure out where are they doing and where they're doing their discovery. 00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:55.000 Andrew Coleman: And in your market, it might be now, it might not be now. And you can also there's tools out there that you can determine. Are they people researching on Claude, your your target, your ICP is targeting on Claude or are they targeting on Gemini or are they. 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:53.000 Monica Niblack: Yep. 00:17:55.000 --> 00:18:06.000 Andrew Coleman: Kind of older folks like me and, you know, started at ChatGPT and maybe never moved off ChatGPT. I have other people have it. So I think that's where I would start. 00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:19.000 Andrew Coleman: Um, and then… I would think about… you gotta look at your own internal metrics. Where… where is your current volume coming from? And this is kind of getting at a little bit of the threat. 00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:21.000 Andrew Coleman: right of saying, Hey. 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:25.000 Andrew Coleman: What do I need to go after this now, or should I be a fast follower? 00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:36.000 Andrew Coleman: So, and I kind of think about, like, I don't know, I just, just the other day, uh, we do a lot in financial services, so I went to, uh, Google. 00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:48.000 Andrew Coleman: And I typed in current mortgage rates, since there's… it's really interesting right now what's happening in the market with the interest rates, and I haven't seen what the Fed did today, but, um… 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:44.000 Monica Niblack: Uh, yeah. 00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:54.000 Andrew Coleman: The 40% of Google's page. 00:18:54.000 --> 00:18:56.000 Andrew Coleman: was… 00:18:56.000 --> 00:19:02.000 Andrew Coleman: Their AI generative solutions. So all of a sudden, if you were traditionally, you know. 00:18:58.000 --> 00:18:59.000 Monica Niblack: Uh-huh. 00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:09.000 Andrew Coleman: Five years ago, seven years ago, it was 40% paid ads and 60% SEO. 00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:19.000 Andrew Coleman: results. Now, 40% is the generative answers. It's AI, right? And then, everything is pushed down. There's only one paid ad. 00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:11.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:22.000 Andrew Coleman: On the first page of… 00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:24.000 Andrew Coleman: of Google. 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:33.000 Andrew Coleman: So, if this is where you are, and every time you go to Google, I bet you if you did that search, you're gonna have a different, uh, result. 00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:33.000 Monica Niblack: Yep. 00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:42.000 Andrew Coleman: And then I went to ChatGPT and I typed in I typed in current mortgage rates. 00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:52.000 Andrew Coleman: And it was amazing because the two citations, there was just a whole bunch of data. And then the bottom, there was a big ad. It reminded me of. 00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:58.000 Andrew Coleman: Gosh, when we, we own the keyword real estate on Google for a dollar CPM. 00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:17.000 Andrew Coleman: And we were the only ad on the first results page, and this was 2000, uh, at Homegain, the place we were at before. Like, that's where you're at at ChatGPT now. And then I did the same thing on Gemini, and it was really interesting, because then Gemini had two big citations. 00:20:01.000 --> 00:20:03.000 Monica Niblack: Mm-hmm. 00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:08.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:32.000 Andrew Coleman: that were actually pictures that you could click on. And so that, you're like, okay, it's a whole new world out there. Um, so I guess I'm going back to, if I was on the board, I'd say, where are you getting your volume today? If you are hyper… 00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:26.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:36.000 Andrew Coleman: Um, coming from… 00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:50.000 Andrew Coleman: SEO directly or indirectly, there's a threat to your industry and to your business. So, when I say indirectly, let's just say you're getting most of your leads from an affiliate, I don't know, pick a finance affiliate that. 00:20:49.000 --> 00:20:56.000 Monica Niblack: Bank rate. Let's just go with that first one that popped into me. Well, that's not the right one. Okay, we'll pick someone else. I won't pick on anyone. 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:53.000 Andrew Coleman: Okay. Well, Bankrate's actually doing really well. 00:20:54.000 --> 00:21:04.000 Andrew Coleman: Pick, pick a, pick a, pick someone else. I'm a little, a little obscure. They're doing really well on, on some of the, at least I've seen them do really well on some of the AI LLMs. 00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:06.000 Monica Niblack: I was talking to them earlier today, so that's what stuck out in my head. But yeah. 00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:15.000 Andrew Coleman: But some of these other, I guess, obscure top 10 list type of affiliates, top 10 antivirus survivors, those guys are getting hammered. 00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:10.000 Monica Niblack: Exactly. 00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:18.000 Andrew Coleman: on their SEO results. 00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:19.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. Okay. 00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:33.000 Andrew Coleman: Um, and so if this is where most of your volume was coming from, that's a real threat as more and more people leave Google, or even not leave Google, just because how Google's actually, you know, changing their search engine results page. 00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:32.000 Monica Niblack: I mean, we saw that. 00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:41.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah, to your point, like, we were looking at some of the formerly top content partners and affiliate, and you can just look at their traffic for the last two years. 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:42.000 Andrew Coleman: Right. 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:56.000 Monica Niblack: And you can just see, like, cut in half. And I think… but what I think is really interesting, and let's keep it in the mortgage parallel, because it's a good one, is I think I've talked to 3 or 4 mortgage startups in the past year, and they used to all go to, we want to do Google. 00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:58.000 Andrew Coleman: Yeah. 00:21:56.000 --> 00:22:11.000 Monica Niblack: And at some point, I had to be like, no, you don't. Like, you have no brand, there's only so much inventory in that space, and Bankrate is gonna outbid you all day long, right? There's just… you can't compete there, because I know the guys who are buying there, and I know they have way better coverage. 00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:13.000 Andrew Coleman: Yep. 00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:27.000 Monica Niblack: way better brands, and their… their auction is just, like, stacked against you at this point. But, to your… when it starts to take over that much, like, a lot of our studies have shown that what gets you shown in traditional SEO and what gets you shown in the generative stuff up top, not the same. 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:17.000 Andrew Coleman: Yep. 00:22:27.000 --> 00:22:38.000 Monica Niblack: So, right, suddenly you do have a way, if you can be nimble enough, to go break into Google, where you actually… unless you just wanted to hemorrhage cash, you weren't gonna compete against the big guys in the market. 00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:32.000 Andrew Coleman: Right. 00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:38.000 Andrew Coleman: Right. 00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:54.000 Andrew Coleman: For sure. Right. And this kind of gets into that attribution discussion of, hey, maybe you want to cut a deal with a content provider, you know, like, a Forbes or somebody like that, that it's a little bit of pay to play. 00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:41.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:22:49.000 --> 00:22:50.000 Monica Niblack: Right. 00:22:54.000 --> 00:23:09.000 Andrew Coleman: In order to get up on that citation. But you can't actually, you know, do a direct correlation of where that clip came from. So I feel like the game is changing a little bit. And really, you know, even with this generated, you know, answers on Google. 00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:05.000 Monica Niblack: Mmhm. 00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:24.000 Andrew Coleman: is that citations are becoming really, really important. So you got to look at your industry and who the Llms are anchoring against to determine. Okay, this is where I need to be. And this is how I can get presence on these on these Llms. 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:14.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:45.000 Andrew Coleman: And I think that, and I think that's the opportunity. But also then the challenge is they come up with another three months or six months later, they come up with another version and they might, you know, it's no longer about Yelp or Reddit, it's about whatever, Trustpilot, right? So you got to understand where they're… 00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:43.000 Monica Niblack: Right. 00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:47.000 Andrew Coleman: They're taking their signals from. 00:23:47.000 --> 00:24:06.000 Monica Niblack: So, yeah, agree completely. Obviously, not… most board members didn't found marketing agencies, so you are in a unique place where you find yourself way, you know, at a way better advantage to understand what's changing. So, when you think about, kind of, your role as board members on board seats, I feel like we're frequently talking to. 00:24:07.000 --> 00:24:23.000 Monica Niblack: People who don't quite know as much about it. And they're asking us questions. And you know we've done. Panels for these guys. So they can understand. What do you think is kind of one or 2 questions that you would ask someone who's a little bit less familiar with marketing, but sitting on a board to understand if. 00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:25.000 Monica Niblack: companies are on the right track. 00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:34.000 Andrew Coleman: Yeah, I think I'd be curious, right? So that's where I'd start. So, but by being curious, look at your industry and I don't know, saying, okay. 00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:30.000 Monica Niblack: Mmhm. 00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:53.000 Andrew Coleman: we're pitching a company that does CMMC compliance software, whatever the heck that is, right? I'm not going to go into it. But it's like, okay, where do you think people are going, and how is it… how is the data being shown up? So as a… as a CEO, I'd kind of go look at, okay, how… 00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:42.000 Monica Niblack: Mm-hmm. 00:24:53.000 --> 00:25:04.000 Andrew Coleman: You know, what are the engines doing today? What is Google doing today? And so I would start with that is like, what's the user journey? 00:24:58.000 --> 00:24:59.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:14.000 Andrew Coleman: Right? And how is that maybe changing? And then the second thing I would do, and we talked about is I look at your internal metric, you know, where are your leads currently coming from? 00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:15.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah, thank you. 00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:23.000 Andrew Coleman: So, to understand what the opportunity and the threat are, because you gotta be… you gotta look around the corner, because this is coming. Google's not going away, don't get me wrong. 00:25:23.000 --> 00:25:34.000 Andrew Coleman: But it's losing market share, so if it goes from, whatever, 93% market share, it's down to 80 in the 80s now, and might drop. 00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:49.000 Andrew Coleman: you know, to 50% or 60%. But that's half your business came from Google. And it's changing how the you know the AI is is the search engine results page. So that's where I would. I would tell. 00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:58.000 Andrew Coleman: companies to be curious, look at, try your, whatever your, your market is, and, and just play, right? And just kind of try to get an understanding of it. 00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:09.000 Monica Niblack: And I like what you… another thing that you had said was go back to how the… it's marketing, right? It's still marketing. How does your customer behave? Just think about your customer. Yeah. Mm-hmm. 00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:05.000 Andrew Coleman: Right. 00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:25.000 Andrew Coleman: Right, exactly. Yeah. And it, you know, shoot, you know, how you, how are you using it today? It's like, you know, I started using AI for travel. I don't know what, what everybody did. I did two things I used it personally for was travel. Hey, find me a really cool Bohemian place when I'm going to Budapest. 00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:17.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:39.000 Andrew Coleman: And I want to be walking distance to so-and-so and blah, blah, blah. Right? That and fix-it things, like, oh, my dishwasher broke, and how do I, uh, replace the, uh, you know, whatever, the filter on it? 00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:26.000 Monica Niblack: Yep. 00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:39.000 Monica Niblack: Yep. 00:26:39.000 --> 00:26:54.000 Andrew Coleman: And and now it's migrating more to what you're saying is like, all right. How do I do it to better, you know. Perform my my daily tasks. So kind of again, be curious to say, Okay, what do you think my customers are going to be doing? And how is that journey gonna. 00:26:54.000 --> 00:26:58.000 Andrew Coleman: change over time. And and then. 00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:08.000 Andrew Coleman: you know, figure out, okay, how do I, how do I then get there, right? Do I decide to allocate resources to do it myself, or should I, you know, find somebody to help me get me there? 00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:02.000 Monica Niblack: Right. 00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:23.000 Monica Niblack: Makes sense. Okay, one final question to you. You've been a founder, right? You built through a major tech shift when we found it, when you founded LQ and we thrived as a result. And now you advise a lot of leaders. So what's kind of the one piece of advice you would give someone trying to lead through all these changes right now? 00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:26.000 Monica Niblack: What would be your simple reminder to them? 00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:34.000 Andrew Coleman: Uh, well, I'd say go start with be curious, and then the other thing. 00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:35.000 Andrew Coleman: Um… 00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:44.000 Andrew Coleman: It's so different now, because we got so used to, like, last-click attribution. I know if I spend a dollar, I get a dollar out. 00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:47.000 Monica Niblack: I remember those days. They were easy. 00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:53.000 Andrew Coleman: It's still kind of happening, so my biggest advice is you got to be a little bit comfortable with uncertainty. 00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:54.000 Monica Niblack: Mm-hmm. 00:27:53.000 --> 00:28:04.000 Andrew Coleman: So, you're gonna have to test some things, and you're gonna have to go into a little bit more of a leap of… I don't wanna call it a leap of faith, but you gotta look at… 00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:20.000 Andrew Coleman: Okay, I did this. Did my direct-to-site increase? You got to start thinking about it a little bit differently, and you have to be okay with going to your CFO and saying, I'm not sure I can tell you exactly what my ROAS is on this investment. 00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:31.000 Andrew Coleman: hard. It's hard for me, right? I think, you know, for LQ, we were, you know, a little bit late to the game on social because we couldn't draw that direct correlation initially. 00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:23.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah. 00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:33.000 Monica Niblack: Yeah, I remember that. 00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:46.000 Andrew Coleman: And so I wouldn't want other people to make a mistake that, you know, quite frankly, LQ made of being late to the game and really pushing hard on some of the social channels. And so that's kind of the parallel that I see here. 00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:50.000 Monica Niblack: So be curious and be okay with uncertainty because you got to just… 00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:50.000 Andrew Coleman: Yeah. 00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:52.000 Andrew Coleman: Yeah, you… 00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:52.000 Monica Niblack: Keep leading. Makes sense. 00:28:56.000 --> 00:28:58.000 Andrew Coleman: Absolutely, Monica. 00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:00.000 Andrew Coleman: All right, thank you.