Your customers do not search in one place. They scroll TikTok for somewhere to eat, ask ChatGPT to compare options, check Google Maps and the reviews, watch a YouTube video, and only then make a decision. At DNRG, we believe the way businesses approach digital marketing needs to reflect that. We call it Search Everywhere Optimisation.
Nothing has changed. Everything has changed.
People still want the same things they always have: the right plumber, the best holiday, a solicitor they can trust. What has changed is where they go to find them.
For years, digital marketing was sold in neat boxes: SEO here, Google Ads there, paid social somewhere else. Each channel had its own budget and its own report. That made sense when most journeys started with a Google search. It no longer reflects how people behave.
Google is still essential, but in many ways it has become the new Yellow Pages: trusted, familiar and no longer the only place people look.
Search has left the search engine
The data shows a market that is fragmenting, not one that is abandoning Google:
- Google’s AI Overviews now reach more than 2.5 billion people a month (Google I/O 2026), so the answer often appears before the click.
- Google’s own research found that almost 40% of young people looking for somewhere to eat go to TikTok or Instagram rather than Google Search or Maps.
- 37% of UK consumers have used ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Copilot to help them shop (Adobe, September 2026).
- AI-referred traffic to UK retail sites grew 149% year on year to August 2026, and those visitors converted 20% better than non-AI channels (Adobe).
- Organic search is still the biggest driver of website visits and conversions, even as AI becomes the fastest-growing channel ever tracked (BrightEdge).
Different audiences behave differently. Gen Z and younger millennials treat social platforms as search engines for food, places and things to do. Older audiences lean on Google and Facebook. Professionals ask AI to shortlist suppliers. And almost everyone checks reviews before they commit.
What is Search Everywhere Optimisation?
Search Everywhere Optimisation is the practice of making a brand discoverable, credible and chosen in every place its audience searches, then joining those places together into one connected ecosystem. We are not saying SEO is dead. We are saying the “search engine” is now many engines.
We think about it in four pillars:
- Search engines: Google, Bing and Google Maps, covering technical SEO, hub and spoke content, local SEO and Google and Bing Ads.
- AI platforms: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and AI Overviews, covering AIO, AEO and GEO so your brand is cited and recommended.
- Social and video: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, Pinterest and Spotify, both organic and paid.
- Convert and retain: website, landing pages, CRO, reviews, email and CRM, where interest turns into revenue and repeat business.
Underneath all of it sits authority. Outreach, digital PR, expert content and reviews build the trust and E-E-A-T signals that Google rewards and that AI platforms rely on when deciding which brands to recommend.
Google is clear about this. Its guidance on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content asks whether content demonstrates experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T), and whether it is written for people rather than to manipulate rankings. For a deeper dive, read our guide: What is E-E-A-T and how does it impact AI search?
We don’t decide where your customers search. Your customers do. Our job is to make sure you’re there.
From funnel to hourglass
The traditional sales funnel runs from awareness, consideration and research down to intent and purchase. Then it stops. The hourglass keeps going, into loyalty, advocacy and repeat business, which is often where the most profitable growth lives.
Each stage needs different content in different places. Awareness happens in social feeds, video and AI chats. Consideration happens in AI Overviews, comparison content and reviews. Intent happens in “near me” searches, Google Maps and paid search. Loyalty and advocacy happen in email, CRM and review platforms. Even before awareness, people are asking broader, earlier questions, and increasingly they are asking them to AI.
Why the ecosystem has to be connected
You can still run digital marketing the old-fashioned way: a Google Ads campaign here, a burst of social posts there, an email when someone remembers. Each channel can look busy on its own report. But if they are not connected, you miss the customer’s journey. A paid search ad might win the first click at the top of the funnel, but if that person then finds no reviews or ratings, no content answering their next question, no retargeting on the social platforms they use and no email to bring them back, the money spent on that first click quietly leaks away.
Google’s own research explains why. Its Decoding Decisions study on the “messy middle” found that between the trigger that starts a purchase and the moment of buying, people loop repeatedly between two modes: exploration, where they widen their options across search engines, social media, aggregators and review sites, and evaluation, where they narrow them down. In that loop, attention is fragile. One competitor’s video, a well-reviewed alternative or a timely offer in a social feed can pull someone away in seconds. Google’s experiments even showed that fictional brands could win shoppers away from established favourites by using principles such as social proof, authority and the “power of now”.
That is exactly what a connected ecosystem protects against. Reviews provide social proof. PR, expert content and E-E-A-T provide authority. Retargeting, email and CRM keep you present while people explore. A fast, persuasive website turns evaluation into action. And data joins it all together, so you can see the whole journey rather than one channel’s slice of it.
For reactive, urgent needs, such as a plumber, a replacement tyre or an emergency dental appointment, the priority is simple: be found the moment someone searches, and make it easy to act. But wherever there is a genuine buying process, with research, comparison and second thoughts, you need the entire ecosystem connected. Otherwise you are paying to start journeys that your competitors finish.
Not every business needs everything
How far Search Everywhere Optimisation needs to reach depends on how long and considered your customer’s journey is.
If you have a burst pipe or a flat tyre, you are not researching for a fortnight. You search “plumber near me”, check the map and the reviews, and call. The search universe is small: Google Search, Maps, reviews, Google Ads and a fast landing page.
Buying a car, booking a holiday, choosing running shoes or finding a specialist solicitor is different. These buyers scroll, ask AI, read reviews, watch videos and come back several times. Every touchpoint is a chance to be chosen, or forgotten.
Even within one business, journeys differ. Someone with a speeding offence wants a solicitor quickly. A company facing a multi-million-pound commercial litigation case will research for weeks. Same firm, same website, but two completely different content strategies. That is why we build Search Everywhere Optimisation service by service and product by product.
The right content, in the right place
Every surface rewards a different type of content:
- SEO: hub pages for each core service, supporting spoke and cluster pages, local pages, technical health and outreach.
- AIO, AEO and GEO: answer-first copy, FAQs, comparison content, structured data and the third-party citations AI models trust.
- Social and video: short-form video, carousels, creator and user-generated content, and paid creative for Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest and Spotify.
- Paid search: Google and Bing Ads, Shopping and retargeting across the journey.
- Website and CRO: fast, focused landing pages with proof and clear calls to action.
- Retention: email and CRM journeys, review generation, loyalty and referrals.
Producing content at scale must never clutter your website. We plan the architecture first: clean navigation built around service hubs, with guides, FAQs and comparisons in a dedicated resources structure, linked contextually. Visitors get a simple journey, while search engines and AI get the depth and authority they need.
The same principles apply to AI search. Google’s own advice on how content can perform well in its AI experiences on Search, including AI Overviews and AI Mode, comes back to unique, genuinely useful content, a good page experience and solid technical foundations. There is no shortcut: the brands that get cited are the ones that have earned it.
Data: what separates a great campaign from an average one
A good marketer understands the principles of marketing, knows their ideal customer and knows how to attract them. That is the foundation, but it is no longer what sets campaigns apart. What separates a great campaign from an average one is data, and the people who know how to use it.
Everybody searches differently. Age, gender, life stage, location, communities and interests all shape where people look, what they type or ask, and what persuades them. A 24-year-old in Bristol looking for somewhere to go this weekend and a 58-year-old in Surrey planning a family holiday may want similar things, but they will follow completely different journeys. Treat them as one audience and you will speak convincingly to neither.
The questions that drive growth
Data analysts turn raw numbers into answers to the questions that matter commercially:
- Who is this customer, and which segment do they belong to?
- Why did they buy, and what nearly stopped them?
- When will they buy again, and what will prompt it?
- Where is the cross-sell or upsell opportunity?
- Which channels, messages and creative bring in the most valuable customers, not just the most clicks?
Most businesses already collect the data to answer these questions. They just rarely join it together. Phone calls, web forms, online sales, CRM records, email engagement, analytics and ad platform data all hold part of the picture. Analysts connect them into audience segments, customer lifetime value, lookalike audiences and attribution that shows which activity actually drives revenue. Done properly and with consent, in line with UK GDPR, this first-party data becomes one of a business’s most valuable assets, especially as privacy rules tighten and platform tracking becomes less reliable.
Hyper-personalisation is now the expectation
Customers no longer just appreciate relevance; they expect it. McKinsey’s research on personalisation found that 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalised interactions, 76% get frustrated when that doesn’t happen, and faster-growing companies generate 40% more of their revenue from personalisation than their slower-growing peers.
That means generic adverts, one-size-fits-all emails and content written for “everyone” are scrolled past. Search Everywhere Optimisation has to be laser-focused: the right message, creative, offer and channel for each segment, at the right moment in their journey. You cannot do that on instinct alone.
Why this is where an agency earns its place
Few in-house marketing teams have dedicated data analysts, the tools to join every data source together, or the benchmarks that come from seeing results across many businesses and sectors. At DNRG, analysts work alongside our SEO, content, paid media, CRO and email specialists, so every campaign is shaped by who your customers really are, not who we assume they are.
Search Everywhere in practice: real DNRG results
This is not theory. It is how we already work with clients across sectors, joining channels together and measuring what matters. A few examples:
- Celestial: a multi-channel approach that transformed lead generation for a drone show company, cutting cost per lead and increasing conversion rates.
- Winter Wonderland: a multi-channel campaign across Meta, Google Ads, TikTok and Klaviyo email, plus Pinterest, Spotify, programmatic and YouTube, that delivered a 10.45x return on ad spend.
- BS3 Live & Kings of Leon: building awareness and driving 234k clicks and a 5x ROAS to help Ashton Gate successfully host its first-ever BS3 Live concert.
- Chase Lane Plates: the bottom of the hourglass in action, turning an idle customer database into an email channel delivering a 45x return on ad spend.
You can see more of our work on our case studies page.
Why “we’ll just do it ourselves with AI” rarely adds up
AI has made it easier to produce content. It has not made it easier to produce the right content, in the right places, measured properly and joined up across a dozen platforms.
At DNRG we invest more than £65,000 a year in the platforms and tools needed to research, create, publish, track and report at scale. Very few businesses have the budget for that stack, or the specialists to run it every day. AI makes our specialists faster. It does not replace the judgement that comes from running campaigns across many businesses and sectors.
Internally, we keep deep specialists in SEO and AIO, content, outreach and PR, paid media, web and CRO, and email and CRM. Externally, our clients buy one joined-up strategy, measured by how often they appear in the discovery moments that matter, and how that turns into revenue.
Five questions to ask about your marketing
- Do we know where our customers search, by age, device and stage of the journey?
- When someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini or Google’s AI Overview about our category, are we mentioned?
- Do we have content for the earliest questions, not just the “buy now” searches?
- Are our channels joined up, or does each supplier report a different version of success?
- Do we look after customers after the sale, turning them into reviews, referrals and repeat business?
Search hasn’t been reinvented. How we approach it has to be. If you’d like to see where your audience searches, where you’re visible today and where your competitors are winning, talk to DNRG about a Search Everywhere audit.
