Picture the whole of Google. Every search, every day.
Now picture the tiny corner where someone types "buy" and means it.
That corner is where most advertising budgets are spent. And it's smaller than you think.
Under 1%
When SparkToro and Datos analysed 332 million Google searches, just 0.69% were transactional: someone ready to buy, right now.
Not 10%. Not 5%. Less than one in a hundred.
AI search is no different. In Google's AI Overviews and ChatGPT, buying prompts are the smallest category of all, at 2% to 3%.
So what's everyone else doing?
Deciding.
Comparing. Checking. Asking questions. Reading reviews. Watching videos. Working out who they trust.
About one in seven Google searches is someone researching a product or service. Over half are people looking something up. And by the time they finally type a buying search, the decision is usually made. They're not shopping around. They're collecting what they've already chosen.
Your ads are waiting at the till
Pay-per-click was built for that tiny corner. It's brilliant at catching someone at the checkout.
But it's not there for the weeks of research that came before. And on Google today, that research is increasingly answered by an AI summary that sits above the ads. On those searches, paid click-through rates have fallen 68%.
So the bulk of your budget is waiting at the till, while your competitors are walking customers around the shop.
Win the pond, not the corner
The brands winning search right now aren't outbidding anyone. They're simply the best answer while buyers are still deciding.
They answer the questions customers actually ask. They do it on video, in articles, in images and in podcasts, so search engines and AI find them everywhere. And they keep it fresh, so the answers stay right.
That's premium content. Not more blog posts. One production, made properly, turned into a library that owns the research space in your market.
When you own the research, you don't need to fight for the 1%. The 1% comes looking for you by name.
Stop fishing in the corner
Little Orchard turns a few days of production into a quarter of premium video, articles and imagery, built around the questions your buyers ask before they buy.
Email info@littleorchardmedia.com and we'll show you what your buyers find while they're deciding, and how to make sure it's you.
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