That said, I find that LinkedIn is the platform I hear the most failures from. Many, many people come to me and say they tested on LinkedIn, but they just couldn’t make it work. More often than not, it’s only because they tried to apply best practices and assumptions from other platforms onto LinkedIn, rather than adjusting for the unique channel that it is.

In this comprehensive LinkedIn advertising guide, I’ll review everything you need to know to get started.

Contents

• What is LinkedIn advertising?
• LinkedIn advertising benefits
• How to advertise on LinkedIn
• LinkedIn advertising costs
• LinkedIn advertising tips

What is LinkedIn advertising?

LinkedIn advertising is the practice of placing paid promotions for your business across the LinkedIn platform, which is a social media site and app that’s geared towards professionals, students, and businesses of all stages and industries. Advertising on LinkedIn is an effective way for both B2B and B2C businesses to reach prospective customers. LinkedIn has nearly 900 million active users, so this is a major paid channel you’ll want to consider when planning your marketing strategy.

 LinkedIn Ads can fill gaps in your marketing strategy! Learn more in this free guide to marketing gaps that cost you customers (and how to fix them).

LinkedIn advertising benefits

LinkedIn is one of the biggest social media platforms, so odds are, your ideal customers are on there and ready to see your business’s LinkedIn ads. After all, LinkedIn is the most trusted social network in the US.

Businesses trust and like this platform just as much as consumers, too. It’s been found that LinkedIn is the third most popular platform for small business marketing, with 48% of businesses currently using it.

Plus, LinkedIn Ads offers tons of different ad format options for you to reach your target audience. In fact, there are many to consider—even some that aren’t available anywhere else. With all that diversity, there’s a lot you can do to stand out.

As for lead generation, LinkedIn Ads can be beneficial in that regard as well. I’ve been in the advertising space for well over 10 years now, and for lead-generating ads, nothing holds a candle to LinkedIn. The targeting options are by far the best, and the results are the most accurate when trying to reach a certain persona.

Here are some other LinkedIn advertising statistics to consider:

• LinkedIn ads can increase purchase intent by over 30%.
• 80% of B2B advertisers use LinkedIn Ads (and B2C advertisers love it, too!)
• Businesses that post on LinkedIn each week get a 2x higher engagement rate than those that don’t
• LinkedIn generates up to three times more conversions than X and Facebook.
• 79% of businesses see LinkedIn as a very good source of leads, and 43% say they sourced at least one customer from LinkedIn.

Source

How to advertise on LinkedIn

Here are the four steps to run LinkedIn advertising for your business:

1. Set up your LinkedIn advertising account
2. Choose your campaign objectives
3. Test your LinkedIn ad types and formats
4. Set your target audience

Once you have these components all set, you can set your campaigns live and run LinkedIn ads! Let’s take a deeper dive into each step.

 Ready to get started on LinkedIn? Get help with our free, definitive guide to social media marketing (simplified!) >>

1. Set up your LinkedIn advertising account

You’ll run LinkedIn Ads directly within the LinkedIn Ads manager. You’ll need to have a LinkedIn company page created that will be attached to your ads. Once your initial simple sign-up steps are all set, the first thing you’ll want to do is familiarize yourself with the LinkedIn Ads account structure.

LinkedIn Ads has gone through a bit of a reorganization as of the beginning of 2026, and if you’ve been running LinkedIn ads (or have tried them in the past), you might still have the old naming convention in your accounts. Here’s how your LinkedIn ads will be grouped:

• Campaigns: This is the highest level of organization. There are some settings you can use at a campaign level, like campaign objective, budget, and schedule, but for the most part, this level is a container that houses your ad sets.
• Ad sets: Ad sets were previously known as campaigns. This is where the majority of settings live. Here, you’ll choose an objective (if you haven’t done so at the campaign level), find your target audience, select an ad format, choose your bidding strategy, and more.
• Ads: This tab is pretty self-explanatory. This houses all of the creatives you have in a given ad set or campaign.

Now that you know the basic structure of an account, let’s start getting into the details of setting up your campaigns.

2. Choose your campaign objectives

Each campaign objective in LinkedIn is unique and has been created to achieve specific goals. Here’s a quick rundown of each:

• Brand awareness: Reach an audience of users with a post. Designed to gain impressions.
• Website visits: Drive clicks from your target audience to a page on your website.
• Engagement: Increase social engagement on your LinkedIn posts, such as comments, likes, shares, etc.
• Video views: Get your video in front of more users.
• Lead generation: Generate leads for your business with a form housed on LinkedIn.
• Talent leads: Identify potential candidates interested in open positions.
• Website conversions: Drive users to your website and optimize for leads, purchases, or more on-site events that you’ve identified as valuable.
• Job applicants: Generate more job applicants for your company’s open positions.

It’s important you select the right objective because each comes with its own set of options. For example, not all ad formats or bidding strategies are available in every campaign type.

Additionally, if your KPIs for your efforts are tied to traffic and engagement, selecting a conversion campaign, for example, could cause you to severely underperform those goals.

Here’s an example of how engagement and website conversion campaign performance can differ. All of the audiences, bidding, targeting, and creatives are the same. The only difference is the campaign objective.

In this example, the LinkedIn platform is being much more selective with who it’s serving ads to with the website conversions campaign because it’s optimizing for those actions. That’s causing the click-through rate (CTR) to be much lower and the cost per click (CPC) to be much higher than the Engagement campaign, where it doesn’t have to be as selective.

If you need help selecting a campaign objective, check out this post for a more in-depth rundown.

3. Test your LinkedIn ad types and formats

LinkedIn has many different ad formats you can select from, and each has a different look and feel, and some have different placements they can show in.

Single image ads

These are likely the ads you see the most (or second most) in your personal newsfeed because they’re the most common on the platform. They leverage a single image along with some introductory text, a headline, and a call to action.

• Placements: LinkedIn Feed (desktop and mobile)
• Benchmark CTR: ~0.35% – 0.65% CTR
• Best practices:
  • Use clean, high-contrast visuals that stand out in the feed
  • Write strong copy that gets the user’s attention
  • Align your image and headline well so the ad unit flows well
• Single image ads specifications

LinkedIn video ads

Video ads are very similar to single image ads except the creatives you can use are, you guessed it, videos instead of images.

• Placements: LinkedIn Feed (desktop and mobile)
• Benchmark CTR: ~0.30% – 0.55% CTR
• Best practices:
  • Use video ads when you want to tell a more complex story than what a single image ad can support.
  • Have a compelling hook in the first few seconds to keep the user engaged and watching.
  • Assume the viewer will have their sound off for at least the beginning of the video.
  • Videos of any length can work, but most sources suggest a 30-second or shorter video.
• Video ads specifications

Carousel ads

Carousel ads allow advertisers to add multiple images (cards) to the same ad creative that the end user can swipe through. Each card can have its own headline and destination URL, so they’re highly customizable.

• Placements: LinkedIn Feed (desktop and mobile)
• Benchmark CTR: ~0.40% – 0.70% CTR
• Best practices:
  • Make the first card the most attention-grabbing so as to stop the user from scrolling, then use the rest of the cards to give the details.
  • Be creative with your story progression between cards. Highlight different products, create a single scene, showcase customer reviews. Don’t just put together 2-10 ways to ask for a demo request.
• Carousel ads specifications

Text ads

Text ads are a very small, throwback-style ad format that leverages only a very short headline, description, and a small thumbnail image.

• Placements: Right rail (desktop only), Top banner (desktop only)
• Benchmark CTR: ~0.02% – 0.08%
• Best Practices:
  • These ads tend to have high impression counts and very, very low CTRs. They’re great for remarketing to known audiences.
  • Test lots of variants to see what sticks and can stand out.
  • Be very direct in the short text space you’re given.
  • Use simple, single focal images like a logo or a single item. Large scenes will get lost and muddied.
• Text ads specifications

Message ads

Message ads operate similarly to a user-to-user message on LinkedIn. They show up in their inbox, so they can feel a bit more invasive than the other ad formats, so you need to earn that privilege.

• Placements: LinkedIn Messaging Inbox (desktop and mobile)
• Benchmark CTR:
  • Open Rate: ~40% – 55%
  • CTR: ~3% – 5%
• Best practices:
  • Focus on a single, clear CTA that is meaningful enough to warrant the perceived privacy invasion. A demo request is a bad idea for this ad format, but a special event invite or an offer for a significant discount could work.
  • Personalize the message with dynamic fields when possible
  • Keep your messaging conversational and not overly salesy.
• Message ads specifications

Conversation ads

Conversation ads are effectively Message Ads but souped up. They allow for more of a chat-like experience and give you the option for multiple call-to-action buttons that can help the user effectively “choose their own adventure”.

• Placements: LinkedIn Messaging Inbox (desktop and mobile)
• Benchmark CTR: ~4% – 6% (expect your metrics to vary based on your branching paths)
• Best practices:
  • Avoid decision fatigue/confusing options by limiting to 2-4 options
  • Use clear, action-oriented CTAs
  • Build your conversation branches based on how a user makes their way through your buyer funnel.
• Conversation ads specifications

Documents

Document Ads are one of the newer formats in recent years and, quite frankly, I’m a huge fan of them. This format lets you upload a document, a PDF, for example, and tease a portion of the document, maybe the first 2-3 pages, as the ad creative, then require the user to fill out a form to get access to the rest.

• Placements: LinkedIn Feed (desktop and mobile)
• Benchmark CTR: ~0.40% – 0.80%
• Best practices:
  • Design your first page to be compelling and easy to understand what the document is about.
  • Use strong lead gen messaging in the lead generation form you use to capture the user data.
  • I’ve found that using 10%-25% of an asset is usually enough to get someone to bite.
• Document ads specifications

Dynamic LinkedIn ads

Within Dynamic ads, there are three separate options: Follower, Spotlight, and Jobs Ads. Each is designed to do pretty much what the name says and uses the user’s information in the ad itself.

• Placements: Right rail (desktop only)
• Benchmark CTR: ~0.08% – 0.30% (varies widely by type)
• Best Practices:
  • Lean into personalization
  • Ensure landing pages match the personalized intent
• Dynamic ads specifications

With the exception of a new beta test, all ad sets only let you use one ad format. So if you want to test Image ads and Carousel ads, you would need to create two different ad sets. While this might not seem like a big deal, that means your budget will be separated by ad set.

If you have too many different ad formats being tested (and you’re not using campaign-level budget controls), you may run into an issue with having too little budget for each ad set.

4. Set your target audience

In my opinion, the targeting options on LinkedIn are really the bread and butter of the platform. The specificity we can leverage just makes this platform a no-brainer for many businesses we work with, but the targeting is only good if you know how to use it!

The first thing you need to know is the highest-level breakdown of how targeting works. In the image below, the biggest categorization is audiences versus audience attributes. As a shorthand, Audiences means a group of users you’ve put together by one method or another, and audience attributes are targetable characteristics of that user based on what LinkedIn knows about them from their profile, behaviors, etc.

Now that we have that out of the way, here’s a rundown of the majority of targeting options on LinkedIn Ads:

List upload targeting

This feature allows you to upload a CSV file of companies or individual users to target on the LinkedIn platform. You start by downloading the templates provided, add your information, and make sure your formatting is correct; then LinkedIn will try to find those users or companies based on the info you provided.

For users, you’ll add first and last name, email, and other fields (if you know them) like job title, company, etc. LinkedIn will then match the information you have to users on the platform and compile them into a list for you to target. Super slick and very easy.

These audiences (company or contacts) can be used for upselling, winning back lost accounts, or supporting an ABM campaign.

Predictive audiences

These audiences let you leverage LinkedIn’s AI and platform data to build audiences that are similar to your existing audiences or converters.

Predictive audiences let you select your source audience, then target location(s), then find new users LinkedIn believes are similar. This could be a good option for expanding your reach beyond your known contacts while honing in on their characteristics to maintain quality.

Retargeting

On the whole, retargeting is advertising to a list of users who have already engaged with your company in one way, shape, or form. LinkedIn gives tons of different ways you can do that.

The most common, and the retargeting you’ve likely heard of, is website visitors. Here, you’ll make a list of everyone who has been to your site before (or a subset of them based on certain pages, timing, etc.) and then use them as a targeting list in your account.

But there are other options for retargeting as well.

On LinkedIn, you can still use website audiences, but you can also retarget on all of the different sources above. If someone engaged with your video ad, submitted a lead gen form, responded to an event ad, or any of the other options above, you can make a list of them and target them in your campaigns.

Third-party audience lists

The last option I want to cover in the Audiences section is a third-party list.

These are still lists of users and can be companies or contacts, but the thing that sets them apart is their source.

Rather than downloading a CSV from your CRM and then uploading it to the LinkedIn Ads platform, you can simply integrate your CRM to automatically sync audiences. This is a huge time saver and can help keep your lists fresh so long as your CRM regularly adds new users and purges old users from those lists.

As you can see above, the most common CRMs are Salesforce, Dynamics 365, and HubSpot, but there is an option to request access to other CRMs if you want. You can get more information on this integration here.

Audience attributes

If you click around in the Audience Attributes section of the LinkedIn Ads campaign builder, you’ll quickly find there are A TON of different options to target. If I were to list all of them, this post would be 5x longer than it already is. So with that said, here is a selection of my favorite targeting options from most of the different portions of the Attributes lists.

• Company: In this section, the parameters you’ll be using to find your audience are based on the company (or companies) they work for and interact with. For this section, you can target users based on their company’s growth rate, the industry they’re in, their specific names, annual revenue, size as measured by employee count, and more. These types of targeting options are best when you might know the types of accounts you want to work with, but may not know the exact personnel involved. They’re also great when you do know the types of job titles you need, but might not be able to support folks in all industries.
• Demographics: Demographic targeting is pretty simple to understand. With it, you’re able to target users based on their inferred age or gender. To use either of these targeting options, you must first check a box to certify that you’re not discriminating based on either age or gender in your advertising and staying compliant with LinkedIn’s guidelines and any other protected characteristics.
• Education: If your target audience has a certain level of education, a special degree, or went to a specific school, you can use the Education section to narrow down to those targets and focus only on users who are right for your ads.
• Job experience: In total transparency, this is where I do the majority of my target audience building for my clients. That’s not to say the others aren’t useful, but for most of the companies I work with, this section is the lifeblood of our LinkedIn success. In this group, you’re able to target users based on their individual work history. This includes their job functions, how senior they are, their titles, the skills they need, and the years of experience they have in their current role. While everyone loves a job title-targeted campaign, I can attest that sometimes, the combination of job function and job seniority can make just as qualified of an audience at an often lower price.
• Interests and traits: The last group is focused on how people behave around the LinkedIn network. This can include the member groups that they opt into, the interests they express based on the content they engage with, or the traits they have that are noticed by LinkedIn. Those traits have a predefined list that’s relatively short, but could be super impactful if it hits exactly who you’re looking for.

My advice for using the audience attributes section

Unless you have a clear picture of your target audience, you likely will find the Audience Attributes section a bit intimidating to navigate and browse.

Instead of clicking into each section and seeing what’s predefined, I encourage you to simply start typing into the search box above the targeting options. Start looking for job titles, skills, and more that you believe are relevant to your audience and start from there. This can give you an idea of what’s available, and maybe open up some ideas you hadn’t thought of before.

LinkedIn advertising costs

Once you get your LinkedIn campaigns running, how much can you expect them to cost? Here’s a quick breakdown of LinkedIn advertising costs:

• On average, data shows LinkedIn Ads cost about $5-10 per click. In comparison, the average CPC in Google Ads is $5.42.
• For campaign budgets, LinkedIn suggests $25 for new advertisers and $50-$100 for existing advertisers.

Know that your LinkedIn advertising costs might fluctuate depending on your industry and which campaigns, ad formats, or audiences you’re using.

6 LinkedIn advertising tips and best practices

Before you go, I want to leave you with a few best practices to help give you some guardrails for your first set of campaigns on LinkedIn.

1. Keep audience size in check

From my experience, most campaigns that have a target audience size between 20K and 80K tend to do very well. That’s not to say that an audience that’s larger or smaller can’t perform well (larger usually for lower-ask CTAs like engagement, smaller usually for tougher asks like a free trial), but getting down to extremely small or up to extremely large folks can easily spend all of your money quickly with no return.

2. Avoid audience expansion and the LinkedIn audience network

Both of these options are expanding the reach of your carefully crafted campaign either from the audience or placement standpoint. Both can be a huge waste of money, so uncheck those boxes when you get to that portion of the campaign build.\

3. Manual bidding all the way

Speaking of things that can waste your money quickly: “Maximum Delivery” is the bid strategy that will absolutely do that. Instead, opt for manual bidding and set a very, very low floor. If you need more volume or when you start to see results, increase the bid and get more traction.

The screenshot below is an actual campaign in one of my accounts. I don’t care that LinkedIn suggests $27. My campaign is doing well and spending its entire budget at $15, so why increase?

4. Campaign objectives can make a huge difference

I showed you the difference in performance for a Website Visits campaign compared to a Conversion campaign in that section earlier, but I want to reiterate it here. The campaign objective you choose can have a massive impact on your outcomes. Make sure you’re choosing the right ones for the KPIs you’re being held to.

5. Create multiple ad variants

We advertising pros are constantly talking about “always be testing,” and that doesn’t stop here. Create 3-6 different variants of your ad to have running at any given point, and you’ll almost certainly see better results than you would with just one.

6. Bottom-of-funnel calls to action are almost always terrible

While we all want a sale in the end, asking for that in a first-touch LinkedIn campaign is a sure-fire way to see lots of impressions, maybe some clicks, and almost no conversions. Get creative and shift up-funnel to engage and entice your audience, then remarket to them with a lower-funnel CTA.

Get started with LinkedIn Advertising today

With the impressive benefits we covered, plus easy setup steps, I think every business should give LinkedIn Advertising a shot, regardless of what industry you’re in or which audience you’re trying to reach. The key is knowing what to do and what to avoid for a high-ROI campaign, like keeping your audience in check and choosing the most efficient bidding strategy for your goals. For more help with LinkedIn advertising, see how our solutions can maximize your approach!

The post How to Advertise on LinkedIn: The Complete Cheat Sheet appeared first on WordStream.

But marketing marches much faster now. To finish the second half of the year strong, we need to think about the shifts from the first six months and what they mean.

Many of the trends I’ve tracked from Q1 and Q2 are, of course, AI-motivated. It’s changing how people search, when you can influence buyers, and how you manage paid ads.

But there are some human-led trends emerging, too. LinkedIn is looking more like TikTok, for example. And big brands, in their ongoing search for authenticity, are tapping “regular people” with a few hundred followers as the next faces of their campaigns.

Let’s dig into eight of the biggest new marketing trends for 2026 and see how you can use them to keep your momentum for the rest of the year.

Contents

1. GEO success is actually built on SEO fundamentals
2. AI is changing the buyer journey
3. Context is the new audience targeting
4. PMax and Demand Gen become must-have strategies for small businesses
5. LinkedIn is becoming a creator economy
6. Big brands are courting small-time influencers
7. Content marketers are choosing sides in the battle of AI
8. Unique tools become a way to AI-proof your content

8 marketing trends you need to know to finish 2026 strong

The dust has settled on the first half of the year. Here’s what happened and how to stay ahead of the curve.

1. GEO success is actually built on SEO fundamentals

There’s been a lot of discussion around how to gain visibility in AI search. For a while, things like llms.txt files, specialized schema markup, and content chunking (the grossest marketing term since SEO juice) were the biggest priorities.

More recently, the prevailing wisdom has evolved to focus more on SEO fundamentals as the best way to get more AI citations and mentions. And some prominent voices in the space corroborated the shift.

Source

But the concept has really taken hold since Google released its first official guidance on how AI Overviews and AI Mode work in May. It clearly mapped the connection between how its AI systems surface answers to the way its algorithms surface links.

Source

“We’ve seen that about 80% of the time, what’s good for SEO is good for GEO,” said Nikiya Griffith, Director of Organic Growth at BX Studio.

“Our most successful strategic initiatives over the last year have been ones where SEO and GEO were approached in unison as one holistic strategy. Of course, you still need to devote time and attention to the considerations that are unique to GEO or SEO, but overall, we really see GEO as an extension of good SEO.”

Want to know which search engine optimization tactics actually work? Get How to Do SEO Right-Right Now !

How to leverage this trend

The new trend is to focus on the basics of good SEO as the foundation of your GEO strategy. 

In part, that means:

• Nail the SEO fundamentals: page speed, mobile usability, site structure, etc.
• Incorporate real-life experiences in your content
• Build local relevance and trust signals (for local SEO)

It’s worth digging into the details of this trend. Get started with this guide to responding to Google’s GEO guidelines.

2. AI is changing the buyer journey

We’ve all heard about how AI search is throttling website traffic (nearly 65% of Google searches end without a click).

But there’s another, possibly more troublesome, trend as more buyers use AI agents to find products and services. Brands are losing the influence they used to have in the middle of the buying journey.

Here’s why. People used to get a list of links when they searched for a lawn care service or yoga studio nearby. Now, AI gives buyers a complete set of recommendations that shapes their perception before they ever click a link.

“The biggest shift in local SEO is that discovery is rarely happening on your website first,” explained Dennis Wilson, VP of Product Management at LocaliQ. “It’s happening across AI-driven platforms, like ChatGPT and Perplexity. Potential customers, even your current customers, are forming and reforming opinions, and comparing options before they ever click.”

How to leverage this trend

The solution is to influence buyers BEFORE they head to search. Generally speaking, that means getting in front of them in the places they trust with relevant messaging earlier in their buying journey.

When you do it right, you can even influence how people search. For example, if you’re the only lawn care service in town that uses environmentally friendly weed control, you can teach buyers to search for that (and be the choice AI recommends).

I explored the origin of this trend and showed some of the specific tactics successful businesses use in this guide.

3. Context is the new audience targeting

Contextual ad targeting—placing ads based on the content around it—is becoming a preferred tactic for marketers. That’s helping marketers show ads that are more relevant to the moment, not just the person.

In part, it’s because of the growing data gap. It’s much harder to collect useful audience data than it used to be. 48% of global internet traffic is now cookie-less.

But an even bigger lever for this trend is AI’s superior ability to understand what’s on a page and match your message to it. It’s no longer about matching a keyword. LLMs can understand intent, semantic context, and nuanced meaning in real time. One study showed that the CPC for contextual ads was 48% less than for similar third-party cookie ads.

With audience targeting, you can show ads to college-educated travelers who have shown an interest in visiting Louisiana. A contextually targeted ad shows right as someone reads an article from their favorite food columnist about the amazing seafood on the Florida coast.

How to leverage this trend

To prepare for this one, audit your ads for contextual relevance, considering where they will likely land. Rethink your keyword and category lists so your ads match the intent and sentiment of a page. Be intentional with negative contextual targeting to keep your ads away from places you don’t want them. And consider adding engagement and relevance metrics, like view time and on-page actions, to your analytics mix.

Additionally, consider some of the contextual placements Google recently announced, like ads in Google AI Mode.

4. PMax and Demand Gen become must-have strategies for small businesses

Google continues to consolidate its advertising products into smaller buckets. This trend continued in early 2026. Two changes in particular are important for small and local businesses to understand.

First, in May 2026, Google announced that standalone Display campaigns will be absorbed into Demand Gen campaigns. The Google Display Network remains, but the way you purchase advertising inventory on it will change.

Display campaigns won’t be a standalone option moving forward.

Second, the Local Services Ads (LSAs) dashboard will sunset, and LSAs will move into the Google Ads interface. After the shift, you’ll run LSAs through Performance Max (PMax) campaigns.

The popular Local Services Ads are moving to PMax campaigns.

Together, these changes mean that many of the businesses that have been holding out on running Demand Gen and PMax campaigns will be pushed towards using them.

“Many small business advertisers have been using standard Display campaigns and legacy LSAs but have been more hesitant to try newer, fully-automated campaign types like Demand Gen and PMax,” said Susie Marino, senior content marketing specialist at LocaliQ. “Now, they’ll have to adapt their strategy to embrace these campaign types in order to still capture the ad placements they want.”

Free resource >> The Fool-Proof Guide to Smart Bidding (+How to Get Started Fast)

How to leverage this trend

There are several actions to consider. But generally speaking, this trend means you’ll see more AI and automated control over your ads, a broader pool of ad placements (for Display), and potential changes to your bidding options.

Get the full scoop on the changes to Display ads here, and the updates to Local Services Ads here.

5. LinkedIn is becoming a creator economy

Like TikTok and Instagram before it, LinkedIn is making intentional moves to turn its platform into a creator economy.

A creator economy is a space (usually digital) where writers, artists, educators, and others grow online audiences to earn money from their content.

Jenna St John, Head of Content and Ops at Grizzle, recently broke down the features LinkedIn has launched so far to make it happen (her whole article is worth a read):

• 2023: Thought Leader Ads
• May 2025: BrandLink (reopened to individual creators)
• March 2026: Top Voices 360
• June 2026: Creator Marketplace

That last one is a big step. It makes it super easy for B2B brands and advertisers to connect with a group of vetted, professional content creators.

That’s the pull that’ll help bring more sponsored content to your LinkedIn feed. The push comes from the tightening job market for content marketers (partly created by AI). Some freshly laid-off in-house marketers and highly qualified freelancers are finding it easier to generate revenue streams through B2B brand partnerships than by hustling for their next direct gig.

Source

The result will be more professional, higher-quality, more promotionally focused content on our LinkedIn feeds.

How to leverage this trend

If LinkedIn is investing in creator-led content, you can bet that’s what its algorithms will favor.

As Jenna succinctly put it, “Every product in that list above moves money, reach, and attention away from company pages and toward individual people.”

The natural reaction for B2B sellers is to find a LinkedIn influencer who works in your niche. But there’s an even better way to leverage this trend: find and foster budding in-house influencers.

The key here is to not just push employees to post about your business on their personal accounts. Instead, give them the tools, training, and encouragement to build their own brand. Help them curate and share your best content (blog posts, videos, etc.), but give them room to do so in their own voice. That will help keep their posts authentic and give them an incentive (a bigger following they can leverage for themselves) to keep going.

6. Big brands are courting small-time influencers

Big brands are betting on budding influencers with follower counts that wouldn’t have interested them in the past.

Micro-influencers (10K to 100K followers) have been a thing for a while. But this new crop of promising promotional YouTubers and TikTokers often have follower counts in the hundreds.

Brands find authenticity and relevance by working with budding content creators.

This trend is fueled by the evolution of social media algorithms. Discovery now plays a bigger part in what you get served, meaning you’ll see more creators you’ve never followed in your feed. And that’s the shift brands are leveraging here.

“The way that the algorithms work on social media now means the majority of what you see comes from someone you didn’t choose to follow,” said Paul Archer, the founder and CEO of Duel, a tech platform for brand advocacy programs, as reported by MSN.

The social platforms are backing this trend with new platform features. LinkedIn’s Thought Leader ads (mentioned earlier) and Google’s integrated YouTube creator partnerships (announced at Google Marketing Live this year) are good examples.

How to leverage this trend

Many of the big brand programs include influencer academies of sorts. Meaning, there will be more ready-to-sell, up-and-coming influencers that still have reasonable rates you can use to promote your business.

I like searching hashtags to find the right persona. Try tags like #DIYAustin or #YogaMomOrlando for locals in your field. Scroll through their account to make sure the vibe is right. And confirm what you get in exchange for what you give. Miscommunication is the biggest killer of influencer program success.

7. Content marketers are choosing sides in the battle of AI

There’s a very civil war brewing in the content marketing corner of LinkedIn. On one side of the trenches are marketers building complex, multi-skill AI content production processes. On the other are marketers who feel most of content creation belongs in human hands.

The pro-AI faction says that, with the right type of layered Claude or ChatGPT skills, you get a great result. It takes trial, testing, and iteration for it to wring out all of the common foibles found in AI content (overusing em dashes, the “it’s X, not Y” structure, etc.). And even more custom-built AI agents to ensure its creations sound like your brand.

Source

Team anti-AI (or, maybe more fairly, team “don’t automate the entire content process”) aren’t necessarily against any use of ChatGPT or Claude. But they say that when it comes to actually writing the thing, the probabilistic nature of AI means it can’t help but create content that’s comfortably in the middle (neither unique nor pushing any boundaries).

Source

How to leverage this trend

Whether or not you use AI isn’t the real question. It’s how you use it that matters here. We’ve detailed some ways it can be very helpful in marketing already. So let’s look at a few ways you shouldn’t.

First, don’t use it to mass-produce LinkedIn posts. Readers don’t want that, and neither does LinkedIn. In fact, it recently added a “Seems like AI slop” option to the post drop-down menu.

And second, don’t use it without transparency.

In general, consumers are becoming more concerned than optimistic about the use of AI. If you use it manipulatively, you’ll land on the wrong side of their fears.

Case in point. We recently stumbled on this comparison between WordStream and the publisher’s own marketing agents.

It’s absolutely full of wrong information, an incorrect timeline, and obvious AI tropes. There are dozens of these published on the same day.  Worst of all, it’s framed as a real first-person account. Duping potential customers is not a strong long-term growth strategy.

8. Unique tools become a way to AI-proof your content

As mentioned, Google and AI chatbots keep more of the search traffic for themselves. But building DIY tools is turning out to be a way to fight AI with AI.

Expect to see more DIY tools in blog and social content.

AI search platforms are great at summarizing the words on your website. But they can’t (or at least don’t) spin up a square footage calculator when you Google “how much will new hardwood flooring cost.” It will, however, share a link to your cost calculator.

How to leverage this trend

AI tools are, at least at this moment, one of the best new ways to extract a little more traffic out of stingy AI search engines.

The best part is that building them is now very accessible, thanks to AI (almost ironic). With a basic Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT account, you can quickly create a working calculator which you can then embed in a blog post.

You don’t even need to go super elaborate. Just focus on niche relevance. For example, we built a local SEO ROI calculator and added it to a local SEO tips blog article. It made the piece more useful overall and can be an AI visibility signal when people search “How do I measure the ROI of my SEO?”

If you’re not sure what to build, this guide from Ahrefs shows how to find “tool” keywords worth targeting.

Mind these mid-year trends for growth in 2026

Somehow this year feels like it’s moving even faster than previous ones. It could be that so much has changed in just the last six months.

The silver lining is that where there’s change, there’s opportunity for those who jump on it first. The trends I covered here are mostly still early-stage (or at least early-ish stage). Take the leap and get first-mover advantage over your competitors.

And if you’d like some help staying way ahead of it all, reach out. We’ll show you how we stay on top of these trends, work directly with advertising platforms, and build solutions into our systems so it all just works seamlessly for you.

The post Mid-Year Check-In: The 8 Biggest New Marketing Trends of 2026 So Far appeared first on WordStream.

So in this article, I’m going to equip you with over 50 unique September marketing ideas, along with real examples from businesses just like yours.

Contents

• September marketing ideas for any business
• More September marketing ideas (not about holidays)
• Highlight list of observances and holidays for your September marketing
• September marketing holidays and national days (full list)

Get social media posts ready for the whole year in our free marketing calendar template!

September marketing ideas for any business

These September marketing ideas based on holidays can flex to any industry or business need.

Just One Human Family Day

Just One Human Family Day occurs every September 12, and it’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s a day to remember that no matter where we come from, what language we speak, what we look like, what our abilities and beliefs are, or how we identify ourselves—at the end of the day, we are all just one big human family living on this planet, all deserving of compassion from one another.  You can incorporate this into your business marketing by:

• Share the collateral: Share the lyrics or the YouTube video of the song “We Share Just One Planet” on social.
• Do an earthly act of kindness: Reach out to someone and do something kind for them. Better yet, do something kind for the planet with them, like plant a tree or pick up trash.
• Wear the swag: Sport the t-shirt or stickers to show your support and post on social.

American Business Women’s Day

Women in business are a force to be reckoned with in today’s economy. This holiday occurs on September 22.

• Compile a round-up: Find 10 women leading the way in your niche and write a round-up of them in a blog post. Tag them on social when you promote the post—they might share with their audience!
• Run a stat-themed sale: For example, women started 49% of new businesses in the US last year. Send out a promotional email offering 49% off select products, or run a $49 special.
• Run a poll or quiz: Find some interesting stats about women in business and turn them into a poll or quiz or interactive post series for your followers. Like “What percentage of businesses are owned by women globally,” for example.

Hispanic Heritage Month

National Hispanic Heritage Month, which actually runs from September 15 to October 15, is a time to celebrate the history, culture, and contributions of Latinx and Hispanic Americans. Here are some ways to recognize it in your marketing:

• Recognize Latinx influencers: Do some digging to find Latinx influencers or historical figures in your niche or neighborhood. Depending on their level of celebrity, share information about them, interview them, or spotlight them on social.
• Mark your calendar. The independence anniversaries of Latin American countries is the reason behind its start date. You can share a different fact or stat about each country on its respective day.
  • September 15: El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras.
  • September 16: Mexico
  • September 18: Chile
  • October 12: Día de la Raza/Columbus Day
• Donate: Consider donating to the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, Latinos for Education, the Latino Equality Alliance, or other organizations dedicated to Hispanic community support.

Self-Improvement Month

It comes as no surprise that September is National Self-Improvement Month. It’s the second new year of the year when people get back into their routines after summer. Here are some ideas for marketing around this evergreen topic:

• Create a video with your own self-improvement tips.

• Share your favorite self-improvement books and ask your followers to comment back with theirs.
• Write blog posts on goal-setting or listicles like “X Ways to Improve Your [memory, credit score, leadership skills]” or “How to Improve Your [X] in 5 Minutes.”
• Run a 30-day challenge on Facebook or Instagram.

Looking for more ways to promote your business? Download our free guide 30+ Ways to Promote Your Business (On Any Budget!)

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

There are several ways to engage your audience and your employees with cause-based marketing in the name of childhood cancer awareness. You could:

• Post eye-opening stats about childhood cancer on social media.
• Register your company for the Great Cycle Challenge and get your employees out on their bikes. Not only will you be fighting kid cancer, but you’ll be promoting good health and friendly competition among your employees. Encourage photo sharing so your audience can follow along throughout the month.
• Host a fundraiser and sell T-shirts to support a particular child or the cause in general.

Food Safety Month

With September being Food Safety Month, this is an opportunity for health specialists and restaurants to promote their services, publicize their best practices, and reassure customers.

You could also tie it in nicely with the back-to-school theme, like with the example below:

Wilderness Month

National Wilderness Month celebrates the anniversary of the Wilderness Act, which was pivotal in the conservation of American land and the creation of national parks. Here are some ways to use it in your marketing:

• Share your favorite hiking trails and ask your followers for theirs.
• Post photos from your own wilderness adventures.
• Share some eye-opening stats or a quote by John Muir.

Back to School Month

So August is actually the official National Back to School Month, but who are we kidding? Any type of business can participate in the back-to-school season. You can:

• Partner with college student organizations or K-12 after-school programs.
• Host or participate in a back-to-school drive.
• Share a list of free online learning resources that pertain to your audience.
• Run student discounts or introduce fall plans if you’re marketing to college students.

We’ve got plenty more with these Easy Back-to-School Marketing Ideas That Work for Any Business.

Labor Day

If it weren’t for Labor Day, the first Monday of September would potentially be the worst Monday of the year. Here are some ideas to try out:

• For businesses that slow down during the summer, host a Labor Day promotion or sale to encourage as many existing customers as possible to come back.
• If you’re in a popular destination, brush up on your local marketing to make sure consumers visiting your town for the long weekend can find you. The higher your business ranks on Google Maps, the more customers you’ll attract.
• Send a Happy Labor Day message to your customers or employees.
• Run a Labor Day giveaway or contest.

For more awesome ideas, check out these Labor Day Social Media Posts, Promotions, & Marketing Ideas To Celebrate.

Patriot Day

This day is dedicated to the 2,977 victims of September 11. Here are some ways to show your support:

• Make it a day of service for your team.
• Display flags in and outside your store.
• Encourage your audience to take a moment of silence at the times of the attacks

NFL Opening Night

Opening night for the NFL falls in September. Celebrate the season opener with some creative marketing for your business. Here are some ideas:

• Engage customers on Facebook by asking about their favorite teams or running a trivia contest.
• Decorate your storefront, restaurant, or studio in team colors.
• Run a football-themed special.
• Offer discounts on game days or when your team wins.

First day of fall

The autumnal equinox (for the Northern Hemisphere) occurs in the last week or so of September, which means that the number of daylight and nighttime hours is the same. This celestial holiday (yay) marks the official end of the summer (sad).

But the first day of fall is a beautiful second new start granted to us each year—hence why September is the new January. So it’s a great opportunity to publish content around fresh starts and fall collections.

And since this day happens at the end of the month, you can run a countdown series all month long.

Source

You may also be interested in using any of these 157 authentic fall hashtags.

Positive Thinking Day

Positive Thinking Day falls on September 13 every year and never gets any less versatile. Any business can use this holiday for just about any reason: to cheer up, motivate, encourage, compliment, thank, help, inspire, or [insert any positive verb your heart desires here]. Dentists can connect this to smiles, physical therapists to recovery, interior designers to decorating, and the list goes on.

Working Parents Day

National Working Parents Day falls on September 16. If your audience includes working parents, humanize your brand and acknowledge their hard work. And don’t forget about your parent employees!

Good Neighbor Day

Good Neighbor Day, on September 28, is a good time to do some outreach across your Instagram, LinkedIn, or geographically local network. Acknowledge fellow neighboring businesses on social media to encourage a sense of community, or come up with a contest where followers or employees can nominate good neighbors for a grand prize.

Read a Book Day

National Read a Book Day is a creative way for preschools, tutors, and other education-oriented businesses to market themselves. If your business isn’t related to education, read a book related to your industry and share your insights and learnings on your blog or social media profiles.

This is also a good time to give back to your community by reading a book to children or the elderly. Volunteering is not only an honorable thing to do, it will also make you feel good and, as a bonus, likely increase brand awareness in your local market.

International Day of Charity

September 5 is the International Day of Charity. Choose a local charity to support and get your employees involved, whether in person or virtually.

Or, if you’re already supporting a charity, feature them on your blog or social media profiles and invite your followers to support them as well.

Give an update on your fall hours

If you have a seasonal business, make sure to reflect any changes in your hours on your Google listing. Additionally, you could share a post on your social media regarding your hours for this fall. After all, when it comes to local marketing, the details are key.

Send out a September newsletter

Our friends at LocaliQ share some great September newsletter ideas, but here are just a few:

• Run an email-exclusive summer clearance promo to boost engagement.
• Include an inspirational quote for Positive Thinking Day.
• Let customers know if you’ve changed your hours for fall.
• Provide some of your most helpful blog posts for staying focused in a September newsletter before the long Labor Day weekend.

Highlight list of observances and holidays for your September marketing

Here are just some highlights of the many holidays and national days of September. You can see a full list of days and dates at the bottom of this post.

• Addiction recovery
• Baby safety
• Better breakfast
• Childhood cancer
• Childhood obesity
• Disaster preparedness
• Fall hat
• Food safety
• Life insurance
• Library card
• Mortgage professionals
• Self-improvement
• Self-care
• Strategic thinking
• Suicide prevention
• Update your resume (international)
• Wilderness
• Patriot Day
• Labor Day
• Voter Registration Day
• No Rhyme (Nor Reason) Day
• Read A Book Day
• Grateful Patient Day
• Swap Ideas Day
• Hug & High Five Day
• Day of Encouragement
• Hug Your Boss Day
• Dance Day
• CleanUp Day
• Talk Like A Pirate Day
• American Business Women’s Day
• Family Health and Fitness Day
• Love People Day

Side note: Check out our Labor Day Instagram captions ideas.

Stand out this fall with these free and easy September marketing ideas

Hopefully these September marketing ideas and examples have given you some material to work with for your blog, social media profiles, websites, and other free marketing channels.

Ready for even more ideas?

For more monthly marketing ideas, browse our collection…

• Easy & Engaging August Marketing Ideas (With Examples!)
• Free and Effective October Marketing Ideas
• Simple Yet Superb November Marketing Ideas (with Examples)

September marketing holidays and national days (full list)

As promised, here’s the full list of September social media holidays, courtesy of National Day Calendar:

September 1

• No Rhyme (Nor Reason) Day

September 2

• National Tailgating Day

September 3

• Skyscraper Day
• National Housekeeper’s Week

September 4

• National Wildlife Day
• Eat An Extra Dessert Day
• Global Talent Acquisition Day
• Lazy Mom’s Day – First Friday in September
• Food Bank Day– First Friday in September

September 5

• Cheese Pizza Day
• Be Late For Something Day
• Tailgating Day – First Saturday in September
• World Beard Day – First Saturday in September

September 6

• Read A Book Day

September 7

• Beer Lover’s Day
• Grateful Patient Day

September 8

• Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Nurses Day
• Ampersand Day

September 9

• Teddy Bear Day

September 10

• Swap Ideas Day

September 11

• Patriot Day and Day of Service and Remembrance

September 12

• Just One Human Family Day
• Hug and High 5 Day
• Day of Encouragement
• Day of the Programmer – 256th Day of the Year

September 13

• Kids Take Over The Kitchen Day
• Celiac Disease Awareness Day
• Bald is Beautiful Day
• Hug Your Boss Day – Changes Annually
• Pet Memorial Day – Second Sunday in September
• Hug Your Hound Day – Second Sunday in September

September 14

• Parents Day Off
• Live Creative Day
• Sober Day

September 15

• Tackle Kids Cancer Day
• Online Learning Day
• IT Professionals Day – Third Tuesday in September

September 16

• Working Parents Day
• Mayflower Day

September 17

• Professional House Cleaners Day
• Constitution Day and Citizenship Day

September 18

• Air Force Birthday
• HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day

September 19

• Talk Like A Pirate Day
• National Voter Registration Day
• Dance Day – Third Saturday in September
• Gymnastics Day – Third Saturday in September
• Boys’ and Girls’ Club Day for Kids – Third Saturday in September
• Puppy Mill Awareness Day – Third Saturday in September
• Responsible Dog Ownership Day – Third Saturday in September
• CleanUp Day – Third Saturday In September

September 20

• Care for Kids Day
• Wife Appreciation Day – Third Sunday in September

September 21

• Miniature Golf Day
• International Day of Peace
• World Gratitude Day

September 22

• American Business Women’s Day
• Car Free Day
• Autumnal Equinox – Changes Annually

September 23

• Celebrate Bisexuality Day

September 24

• Punctuation Day

September 25

• Tune-Up Day
• Research Administrator Day

September 26

• Compliance Officer Day
• Situational Awareness Day

September 27

• Day of Forgiveness
• Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

September 28

• Drink Beer Day

September 29

• Coffee Day
• VFW Day

September 30

• Love People Day
• Women’s Health & Fitness Day – Last Wednesday in September

The post 58 Free & Creative September Marketing Ideas for Any Business appeared first on WordStream.

Generative AI reads the entire web’s picture of your business: where your name has appeared, what other sources have said about you, how you’ve described yourself across platforms, and whether all of those descriptions are consistent with each other. A well-optimized website is one input into that picture. For most small businesses, it’s the only input they’ve thought about.

The businesses that show up in AI-generated answers tend to have active profiles on platforms where their customers spend time, names that appear in third-party content, and information that stays consistent across every surface AI might check. They’ve given AI systems enough corroborated, coherent information to be confident citing them.

This article covers five AI search trust signals that most business owners underinvest in or ignore entirely when it comes to generative engine optimization (GEO)—and what to do instead to increase your visibility and get discovered in AI search.

Contents

• Earned media (but not the kind you’re thinking of)
• LinkedIn
• Google Business Profile
• YouTube
• Consistency across platforms

The 5 biggest AI search signals businesses ignore

Here, we’ll cover the biggest AI search trust signals businesses are ignoring when it comes to GEO—and what to do instead.

1. Earned media (but not the kind you’re thinking of)

Earned media in an AI search context has nothing to do with landing a feature in Forbes or hiring a PR firm. For a small business, it means any time your name, expertise, or opinion appears on a property you don’t own.

That looks like:

• A quote in a local news article about storm damage trends from a roofing company owner.
• A mention in a city-specific “best of” roundup.
• A guest post on a trade blog your customers actually read.
• An industry association listing or award mention.
• A customer success story published on a vendor’s website.

Source

AI systems use corroboration. A business saying it specializes in roof replacement on its own website is a self-reported claim. Three other sites citing that business in that same context is a much stronger signal. The more places your name and specialty appear together in third-party content, the more confident an AI is when surfacing you for related queries.

Here’s what that looks like in practice: A dental practice owner in Austin gets interviewed by a local parenting blog about kids’ dental anxiety. That article lives on a third-party domain, mentions her by name and specialty, links back to her practice, and stays indexed. That one piece of earned media does more GEO work than a dozen optimized service pages on her own site.

The barrier is lower than most owners assume. Here are some examples of earned media opportunities:

• Trade association newsletters need expert comments.
• Local news outlets quote business owners on topics they cover year-round.
• Industry publications run contributed pieces from practitioners.
• Vendors publish case studies about clients who got results.

None of this requires a PR budget or media connections. It requires making yourself available.

What to do

• Offer a short expert comment to trade association newsletters or industry publications in your vertical.
• Ask vendors, business partners, and satisfied clients whether they’d publish a brief case study or mention.
• Find local “best of” lists and make sure your business is submitted or nominated where eligible.

Get everything you need to know about showing up in AI search in our free guide: The AI Search Toolkit >>

2. LinkedIn

Many local businesses either ignore LinkedIn entirely or treat the business page like a bulletin board for announcements. Neither approach generates GEO signals.

An analysis of 325,000 prompts across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity found that LinkedIn is the second-most cited domain across all three platforms, trailing only Reddit. AI systems cited LinkedIn content in more than 13% of responses on average. For professional and local service queries, it ranks first.

Two surfaces matter here, for different reasons:

1. The business page is where you document what your company does in structured, consistent language. The About section, listed specialties, and regular posts build a pattern of topical signals AI can read. A landscaping company that posts consistently about lawn care, seasonal prep, and soil health builds topic associations over time that shape how AI understands and describes that business. Six months of posts on a theme does more than a perfectly written About section ever will.
2. The owner’s personal profile is often more powerful and more neglected. AI systems treat active LinkedIn profiles as credibility anchors for individual expertise. When someone asks an AI for a good plumber in a specific city, businesses whose owners have active, substantive profiles are better positioned to appear in that answer. Running your personal profile is a business decision, not a personal one.

Source

“Active” doesn’t mean daily posting or chasing virality. It means a complete and current profile, a few posts per month about something specific to the work, and real perspective rather than promotional copy.

A Semrush analysis of 89,000 LinkedIn URLs cited in AI search found that 75% of authors whose content gets cited post at least five times in a four-week period, and follower count matters far less than consistency and expertise. A plumber with 300 followers posting practical, job-specific content regularly is more likely to get cited by AI than a competitor with 3,000 followers who posts once a month.

What to do

• Write the business page About section in plain language that matches how customers describe the problem they’re trying to solve.
• Build out your personal profile fully: headline, summary, services section.
• Post from your personal account about specific jobs, decisions, or lessons from the work.
• Prioritize practical posts about your trade over promotional content.

3. Google Business Profile

Google Business Profile (GBP) is the signal most SMBs know about but underfill. Claiming and verifying the profile gets treated as done. That’s where most stop.

Google Posts are short updates that appear on the profile. Most SMBs post once at launch and never return. Consistent posting, even once a week, signals that the business is active and adds to the topical record of what the business does.

Photo and video recency matters more than most owners realize. A profile with current, relevant images tells both users and AI systems that the business is operating. An HVAC company that uploads photos from a recent installation job communicates something a competitor’s three-year-old stock photo does not.

Categories and service descriptions are typically set at initial setup and never revisited. A plumber listed only as “Plumber” misses “Water Heater Installation,” “Drain Cleaning,” “Emergency Plumbing,” and others that map directly to how customers search. Each missing category is a missed citation opportunity.

When you expand this business’s GBP services, it has an extremely comprehensive list.

Reviews and responses are an underused vocabulary signal. The words customers use in reviews expand the language AI associates with your business. Responses that reference specific service language add more structured text to your GBP record. A dental practice whose responses say “so glad we could help with your Invisalign treatment” is building topic associations with every reply.

Here’s what this looks like in practice: A family-owned HVAC company in Phoenix that adds a weekly Google Post about seasonal maintenance tips and responds to every review with a specific mention of the job type is generating far more AI search trust signals from their GBP than a competitor who set up their profile two years ago and never returned.

What to do

• Audit and expand your categories to reflect specific services, not just the broad trade.
• Post a short update at least once a week, even if it’s just a completed job or a seasonal tip.
• Respond to every review and use the response to add context about the job type.

Need help understanding the modern rules for SEO? Download our free guide >> How to Do SEO Right—Right Now!

4. YouTube

YouTube is the most underestimated GEO signal on this list, partly because it feels like a production commitment most small businesses can’t meet. That assumption is costing visibility.

YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world. Google owns it. And across AI search platforms, YouTube gets cited 200 times more than its next closest video competitor. The reason goes deeper than distribution: both OpenAI and Google trained their models on YouTube transcripts. 

A video where you explain how you approach a job generates a transcript, a title, a description, and a channel history. All of it is readable by AI, in a way your service page is not. When someone asks an AI how to know if they need a new roof, and a roofing contractor in their area has a two-minute video answering exactly that question, that video creates a citation opportunity the contractor’s service page does not.

The businesses showing up most consistently in local and trade-related AI answers often have the simplest production: phone footage, natural lighting, no script. What they have is specificity.

A lawn care company posting “why your lawn has yellow patches in July,” filmed in an actual client’s backyard, carries more trust signal than a polished brand video that says nothing about anything.

Think about what’s worth putting on video: 

• The three or four questions customers ask most before hiring you.
• A job shown in progress, like a roofing inspection, a dental cleaning, or a drain unclogged from start to finish.
• A decision explained: Why you recommended one approach over another on a specific job.
• Short local context: What older homes in this neighborhood typically need, what Phoenix summers do to HVAC systems, why certain soil types require specific lawn treatments.

What this looks like in practice: A solo electrician in Nashville posts a 5-minute video explaining how to tell whether a circuit breaker is failing or whether it’s a wiring issue—filmed on a phone in a client’s garage. That video, indexed on YouTube with a specific title and description, becomes a citable answer every time an AI handles an electrical troubleshooting question from someone in that market. His service page with the same information does not.

What to do

• Start with one video per month answering one specific customer question.
• Write specific, descriptive titles: “How to Tell If Your Circuit Breaker Needs to Be Replaced” beats “About Our Electrical Services” every time.
• Fill out the video description fully, including your location, services covered, and a link to your website.
• Organize videos into playlists by topic or service type so the channel has a clear structure AI can read.

5. Consistency across platforms

Every signal above is weakened if the information across platforms contradicts itself. This is the connective tissue that turns a collection of profiles into a coherent presence AI can confidently cite.

AI systems corroborate information before surfacing a business as an answer. A GBP that lists one city and a LinkedIn that lists another creates uncertainty. A website phone number that doesn’t match your GBP listing is a discrepancy. An AI dealing with contradictory signals about a business will be less confident citing it than one whose information is uniform across every surface.

Consistency goes beyond name, address, and phone number, though that still matters. It includes how you describe what you do, the categories and specialties you claim across GBP, LinkedIn, Yelp, and industry directories, your business hours after changes, and the photos and logo you use across profiles.

If you run a quick audit of your online presence, you’ll likely find at least three or four inconsistencies you didn’t know existed. For example:

• A car rental company with two locations listed under slightly different names.
• A dental practice whose website mentions Invisalign but whose GBP categories don’t.
• An HVAC company whose LinkedIn still lists the phone number from before they moved offices two years ago.

None of these feel like big problems until you realize they’re introducing doubt into every AI query about your business.

What to do instead

• Run a self-audit:
  • Search your business name in Google, ChatGPT, and Perplexity.
  • Look at what comes back. Note every platform that surfaces.
  • Check whether the description, address, phone number, and specialty language match across all of them.
• Standardize on one core business description paragraph and use it everywhere.
• Update any profiles that still reflect old addresses, phone numbers, or service areas.

You can also try our local citation coverage calculator to get an idea of where you stand:

Looking for ways to get more leads for your business (for free)? We’ve got you covered >> 14 Fast & Easy Ways to Get Free Leads (+Examples You Can Copy)

Stop ignoring these GEO signals and start getting found in AI search

None of this requires a marketing team or a budget. It requires consistency and specificity, which are things a single business owner who knows their work is better positioned to deliver than most large brands managing hundreds of locations.

The businesses that show up in AI answers are the ones that have given AI systems enough consistent, corroborated, specific information to be confident citing them. Your website is one input. The trust signals covered here are the rest.

AI-generated answers are not a temporary feature. The signal footprint you build across earned media, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile, YouTube, and platform consistency today is what determines whether AI is confident enough to cite you tomorrow.

The post The Biggest AI Search Signals You’re Probably Ignoring appeared first on WordStream.

Local service advertisers want to convert these searchers into leads fast, as with most local service inquiries, time is of the essence. Luckily, Google’s Local Services Ads (via Performance Max campaigns using a pay per lead goal) can come to the rescue.

They allow local service advertisers to shine on the SERP with a unique ad type that shows service offering options, ratings, and searchers can take action directly on the ad without having to click off—making lead generation a breeze. In this article, we’re covering everything you need to know about Local Services Ads (LSAs) to make the most of them for your business.

Contents

• What are Google Local Services Ads?
• What businesses can run Google LSAs?
• Google PMax Local Services Ads benefits
• How to get started with Google LSAs
• Tips for effective PMax Local Services Ads

What are Google Local Services Ads?

Google Local Services Ads are a special type of PMax campaign ad that allows service-based businesses to run ads meant to generate leads directly on the search results page. Rather than linking to a landing page like traditional Google Ads, LSAs are meant to drive calls, form fills, messages, or appointment bookings directly from the ad. Specific industries such as locksmiths, plumbers, garage door professionals, electricians, lawyers, real estate agents, and many more can take advantage of this Google Ads type.

When a searcher enters a local search query, they may see several trusted professionals in their area positioned right above the traditional paid search ads; these ads show a business number, hours, ratings, and reviews.

For example, an LSA might look like this:

Upon clicking on a local advertiser’s listing, Google prompts them to confirm the job they’re looking for as well as their service area. If you fit the job and serve that area, you’ll be matched to the searcher, and they’ll be able to review your qualifications, ratings, and Google reviews before contacting you.

If you’re not a good fit for their job or you don’t serve their region, then Google will save you the costs and burdens and will connect them to a more appropriate Local Services Ad.

Are you making the most of Google Ads? Find out using our free Google Ads Grader tool!

Local Services Ads industries

Local Services Ads are a dream come true for some industries. Today, Google fully supports Local Services Ads all across the United States for more than 80 industries, including:

Benefits of Google Local Services Ads

Still wondering if Google Local Services Ads are right for your business? Let’s review some of the benefits of this specific ad type.

Advertisers pay per lead–not click!

PPC advertisers know the pain of paying for a click that isn’t a good fit or doesn’t convert—especially for businesses with high average costs per click, like attorneys and dentists. Google’s Local Services Ads help connect the right job to the right advertiser and prevent the job mismatch that often happens when a user searches for broad terms for a very specific job or for an area outside your service zone.

Businesses running Local Services Ads are only charged for valid leads, and depending on the job and the market, these can end up being even lower than the average cost per lead for search ads in your industry. If you receive a lead that is either fraudulent, spam, or a poor match, you can even dispute the charge for credit.

Plus, the Google Local Services Ads average cost per lead is about $60—which is significantly lower than the search ad benchmark average cost per lead of $66.69.

Find out how your search costs can compare to your current LSA costs using our latest search ads industry benchmarks!

Gain trust with the Google Verified badge

When eligible, the Google Verified badge will automatically appear on your LSAs, adding an extra dose of credibility. Before October 20, 2025, LSAs used to have multiple different badges (like the Google Guarantee) depending on their industry and level of verification. However, that has since changed, and all LSAs now have the Google Verified badge instead.

This Google Verified badge is meant to provide a more consolidated, cohesive, and transparent LSA experience for both users and advertisers.

Expand the reach of your paid search ads

You’ll notice that Google Local Services Ads sit above the paid search ads and the organic listings.

That’s because Google Local Services Ads aren’t meant to replace your traditional search ads or even your organic local listings.

Some searchers still turn to Google and expect to visit your website before deciding if you’re the best provider for their business. Even if they don’t convert via LSAs, their prime position on the SERP and user reviews may change how people convert later on.

Easy management with PMax

LSAs have moved directly into Google Ads under Performance Max campaigns with a new pay-per-lead goal. That means you can run LSAs without having to leave Google Ads (as they were previously in a separate dashboard). Most advertisers are already taking advantage of the fully-automated PMax campaign type. So now, you can work with LSAs using PMax campaigns (when assigned a pay-per-lead goal), which is a campaign type you might be already comfortable and familiar with.

How to get started with Google Local Services Ads

Ready to try out Google LSAs? Here’s how to get started.

1. Confirm your eligibility

Google’s Local Services Ads are only available for certain industries (which we outlined earlier). To find out if you can connect with your customers through Local Services Ads, first confirm your business type and location here.

If you’re eligible, you’ll be guided through creating an account to manage your Local Services Ads. Local Services Ads are managed separately from the ads you create in Google Ads, so you’ll need to create a new account.

2. Create your business profile

To run LSAs, you’ll need a Google Business Profile account and link it to your Google Ads account. Your Local Services Ads business profile will determine which jobs are matched to your business. Be honest about what kind of services you can perform as well as which areas you want leads in, as you’re agreeing to potentially pay for any match leads from your Local Services Ads.

From your business profile, you can edit:

• Your weekly budget
• Your business hours
• Your service areas
• Your job types

3. Add your license and insurance details

If you’re a licensed and insured professional, you’ll need to submit proof. Be sure your paperwork is up to date, and then provide your general liability insurance details as well as your related professional licenses.

If your city or state requires additional licenses, you can add them here as well to ensure you’re compliant in those regions.

4. Complete a background check

Before Google starts sending people into its users’ homes, offices, and cars, it wants to be sure its users are safe and can always trust the Local Services Advertisers covered under the Google Verified badge. For this reason, Google requires businesses and their fieldworkers to pass a background check.

There is no cost for these background checks, and you can manage them here.

5. Manage your leads

Once your business profile is complete and linked to your Google Ads account, you’ll be able to have a PMax pay-per-lead campaign created in your account. Once this is up and running, you can see the leads your campaign yields in the leads reporting section of the Google Ads platform.

Remember that leads aren’t necessarily booked jobs! Be sure to follow up with your inbound leads. After selecting an individual lead, you can review the details of the lead, including the job type and location, as well as listen to the recording of the call.

How to make your PMax Local Services Ads more effective

These two quick tips for running Google Local Services Ads with PMax campaigns can make a big difference in ROI.

1. Be mindful of the locations you target

Each pay-per-lead PMax campaign running LSAs includes the usual settings, like location targeting. Of course, having the right location settings on your LSA PMax campaign is critical, since the point of this ad type is to reach local searchers.

For example, if you serve multiple locations, be sure the locations you choose to target are in close proximity to your main prospect hubs (i.e, where you’ll have a higher likelihood of benefiting from the proximity ranking factor).

2. Keep your Google reviews up

Keep in mind that reviews on your regular Google Business Profile appear on your LSAs, so the more positive reviews you have on your Google Business Profile, the nicer your PMax LSAs will look. This reputation management checklist can help ensure you have a well-rounded approach to advertising your services on Google Ads. 

Use Google Local Services Ads today to book more jobs tomorrow

Google LSAs are quick and easy to create and manage, so incorporating this ad type into your marketing strategy is a win-win for your service business. Just be sure to carve out time to properly set them up and manage any leads your LSAs bring in.

To recap, here are the steps to get started with Google LSAs:

1. Confirm your eligibility
2. Create your business profile
3. Add your license and insurance details
4. Complete a background check
5. Manage your leads

The post The Ultimate Guide to Google Local Services Ads appeared first on WordStream.

The problem isn’t your ranking. It’s the keyword you’re focusing on.

Type that query into Google today, and you’ll get a complete AI-generated answer at the top of the page, showing you quick step-by-step instructions, tool recommendations, DIY videos, and common mistakes to avoid. Basically, everything a homeowner needs to handle the faucet problem by themselves.

Now you find yourself in a situation where you own a page that ranks first for a query that no longer requires a plumber.

This is the real SEO problem most small businesses are facing right now. AI has started absorbing entire classes of informational keywords, and many businesses are still investing in them as if nothing has changed.

This is already visible in the data. When AI Overviews appear, organic click-through rates can drop by over 60%, even for top-ranking pages. At the same time, more than 80% of searches now end without a click at all, meaning users get what they need directly on the results page. And for queries with AI summaries, about 1 in 4 searches ends without any further action.

But not every keyword is affected equally. Some have been fully claimed by AI. Some are changing shape. And some still drive calls, bookings, and revenue because they require a real business to finish the job.

This article gives you a framework to tell them apart: a three-tier system for classifying your keywords based on how much AI has claimed them, a step-by-step audit to find your most valuable SEO keywords right now, and concrete examples from five SMB industries showing exactly which keywords are worth your time.

Contents

• Why you need to evolve your SEO keyword strategy
• The 3-tier framework to guide your keyword strategy now
• How to find SEO keywords for the AI search era (step-by-step)
• What this looks like in practice: Updated keyword strategy examples
• What to do once you’ve found keywords worth targeting
• A simple pressure test for any keyword

Why you need to evolve your SEO keyword strategy

Most small businesses experience traffic drops and assume the same thing: something went wrong. Maybe rankings slipped. Maybe Google changed the algorithm. Maybe a competitor overtook them.

Sometimes that’s true. But more often now, it’s nothing from above. The keyword just stopped behaving the way it used to. That’s the part that’s easy to miss.

But the role that the keyword plays in the journey has quietly changed. And unless you separate those changes, it all gets lumped together as “traffic loss,” which leads to the wrong fixes.

Some queries have been fully claimed by AI

There’s a category of keywords that no longer really belong to websites. These are classic informational queries: “what is,” “how to,” “why does.”

A few years ago, these were the backbone of most content strategies. You’d write a clear explanation, rank for it, and bring people into your site early in their research. Now, when someone searches “what is a dental crown” or “how to fertilize your lawn,” they often get a complete answer before they even see a list of results. Structured, readable, detailed enough that most people don’t need anything else.

So even if your content is technically winning that keyword, it’s no longer controlling the outcome. You’re part of the source material, not the destination. Traffic loss in this category isn’t something you fix with better optimization. It’s a structural change in how the query gets answered.

Some queries are partially affected

Not everything collapses that cleanly. There’s another layer of keywords where AI does a decent job summarizing the space, but doesn’t fully resolve the decision. These are the comparison and research queries: “best CRM for small business,” “dental crown vs. veneer.”

You’ll still see an AI-generated summary. It might list a few options and outline pros and cons. But it doesn’t settle the question.

AI Overviews are already reducing click-through rates for many of these queries, but they haven’t killed them entirely. It doesn’t know your budget, your constraints, or your specific situation. So people still click. They open a few tabs. They look for examples. They try to validate what they just read. Fewer of them may make the jump to your website than before, but the ones who do are much closer to a decision. That’s why these keywords still matter.

Some queries still require a business

Then there’s the third category, and this is the one most businesses should be paying the most attention to.

Search something like “emergency plumber Austin” or “dental crown cost Chicago,” and the intent is immediately different. The user isn’t trying to understand a concept. They’re trying to solve a problem. AI can provide context, explain what to expect, and outline typical costs. But it can’t actually complete the job.

At some point, the user needs to call someone, book an appointment, or show up somewhere in person. These keywords still behave much closer to how search used to work. Clicks still matter. Visibility still leads somewhere. Ranking still has a direct connection to outcomes.

Why this distinction matters

If you treat all keywords the same, this change is almost impossible to diagnose. A drop in traffic from an informational query looks identical in a report to a drop from a transactional one. But the underlying cause and what you should do about it are completely different.

One category is gone for good. One is evolving. One is still fully in play. And until you separate those three, it’s easy to keep investing in areas where the return has quietly disappeared while underinvesting in the ones that still drive real business.

The easiest way to find keywords? Try our Free Keyword Research Tool!

The 3-tier framework to guide your keyword strategy now

Here’s the simplest way to think about your keyword strategy now:

The mistake most businesses make is overinvesting in Tier 1. That made sense before. It built traffic. It fed the funnel.

Now, it often produces visibility without outcomes.

The change is simple:

• Reduce effort on Tier 1
• Refocus on Tier 2 and Tier 3
• Judge keywords based on business impact, not traffic

How to find SEO keywords for the AI search era (step-by-step)

Most keyword audits still start from the same assumption: improve rankings, improve results. That used to be true. Right now, you can rank first, bring in consistent traffic, and still get nothing from it.

So the point of this audit isn’t to find where you rank or which keywords you’re missing. It’s to answer one uncomfortable question:

Does this keyword still require someone to contact a business, or can it be resolved entirely on the search results page?

Step 1: Pull your existing keywords (start with what already gets traffic)

Before you open Ahrefs or Semrush, go into Google Search Console and look at what’s actually driving traffic. Not the pages you think should work, but the ones that are pulling in clicks right now.

This is usually where the disconnect starts to show up. You’ll find pages that look like clear wins in your reports: they rank well, they bring in traffic, they’ve probably been highlighted in monthly updates. But when you think about what they actually contribute to the business, things feel off. The phone isn’t ringing. Nothing downstream reflects the traffic you’re seeing.

Most teams interpret that as a conversion problem. More often, it’s a keyword problem hiding behind good-looking numbers.

Step 2: Check what Google actually shows (not what the tool says)

Once you have your keyword list, search each one manually and look at the results as if you were the customer. Not through a tool. Not through a report. Just a clean search.

Take “how to fix a leaky faucet.” A few years ago, that query would give you a list of articles. Now, in many cases, it gives you the answer immediately: a structured explanation, steps, a video. All before you see a single organic result. At that point, your ranking barely matters. The user has already solved their problem.

Ask yourself one question while you’re looking at the results: if I were actually trying to solve this problem, would I need to click anything here? 

If the answer is no, that keyword has effectively been claimed.

Get updated tips for your SEO strategy with our free guide >> How to Do SEO Right—Right Now!

Step 3: Classify the keyword (This is the core of the audit)

As you work through your list, you’ll notice that keywords in the same general topic can behave very differently from each other.

Take the dental example:

• “What is a dental crown” gets a clean, structured explanation that covers definition, materials, and process. There’s no urgency to go further.
• “Dental crown vs. veneer” still shows a summary, but it’s not definitive. You’re comparing options, weighing tradeoffs. That creates space for clicks.
• “Dental crown cost Chicago” is different again. You’re not learning anymore. You’re trying to figure out what this is going to cost you, locally, and who to call.

All three sit close together topically. All three behave completely differently.

Step 4: Pressure-test the keyword (this is where most people get it wrong)

Don’t rush the classification step. A lot of keywords don’t fall neatly into one tier, and small wording differences can change everything.

For example, “dental crown cost” might still nudge someone to book an appointment, especially if the results are vague or location-dependent.

But “average dental crown cost” is much easier to satisfy with a single price range on the results page. If you group those together, you end up making the wrong call about both.

Look at the actual results and think about what the user is trying to do, not just what the keyword says on the surface.

Step 5: Quantify the gap between traffic and value

Once you’ve classified your keywords, compare what the data shows against what the business is actually getting. This is usually where the biggest gap appears.

The keyword bringing in 1,200 visits a month is generating zero leads. The one with 90 visits is generating 14. That’s not a conversion problem. That’s a keyword strategy problem.

Step 6: Identify where your time is going

Zoom out and look at your content as a whole. What you’ll usually find is that a large portion of your site is built around informational queries, because that’s what SEO rewarded for years. Those pages were easier to rank, easier to scale, and they drove visible traffic growth.

The question isn’t “how do we improve these pages?” It’s “what role do these pages actually play now?”

Some still matter. They support other pages, establish expertise, and may get cited in AI-generated answers. But they’re no longer where your growth comes from.

Step 7: Decide what to do with each page

By this point, the next steps tend to become clear without needing a rigid checklist.

• Some content you keep as-is, because it still serves a purpose even if it’s no longer a direct driver of leads.
• Some content you improve, especially Tier 2 queries where better positioning can still influence an undecided buyer.
• Some content you stop investing in entirely. Not because it’s bad, but because the return is no longer there.

You’re not trying to win every keyword anymore. You’re trying to focus on the ones that still require you.

What this looks like in practice: Updated keyword strategy examples

Across almost every small business category, the same thing is happening: there’s a layer of content that used to attract traffic and signal authority but now gets absorbed before it can do anything useful. Right next to it, there’s a layer of keywords that still drives real business but gets a fraction of the attention.

Plumbing company

A plumbing business will almost always have content around basic fixes. Things like “how to fix a leaky faucet” or “why is my sink dripping.” These pages used to make sense. They brought in traffic, they positioned the business as helpful, and occasionally they led to calls.

Now, in most cases, they get resolved before the user ever needs a plumber. The answer is right there. The steps are clear. The problem feels manageable. So the business ends up ranking for a query that actively removes the need for its service.

Compare that to queries like:

• “emergency plumber [city]”
• “burst pipe repair cost [city]”
• “licensed plumber near me same day”

These don’t get resolved in the search results. They lead to action. The user isn’t trying to learn anymore. They’re trying to fix a problem they can’t handle themselves.

That’s the difference.

Get everything you need to know about showing up in AI search in our free guide: The AI Search Toolkit >>

Real estate

Real estate sites are full of educational content.

• “How to buy a house.”
• “What is a mortgage?”
• “Steps to selling your home.”

All of these topics can now be summarized cleanly in a few paragraphs. AI lays out the process, explains financing, and answers the basic questions most buyers have early on. That doesn’t mean the content is useless. It just means it no longer drives the outcome.

Now look at queries like:

• “homes for sale in [city]”
• “real estate agent near me”
• “how much is my home worth [city]”

No AI Overview for this query (yet)!

These are not informational in the same way. They’re situational. They depend on location, timing, and context. At some point, the user needs a person to move forward.

That’s where the click still matters.

HVAC business

HVAC companies often invest heavily in educational content around systems.

• “How does central air conditioning work?”
• “types of HVAC systems.”
• “what size AC unit do I need?”

These are all logical topics. They help explain the service and build credibility. But they’re also exactly the kind of queries AI handles well. The answers are structured, repeatable, and easy to summarize.

Now contrast that with:

• “AC installation cost [city]”
• “emergency HVAC repair near me”
• “HVAC company [city] reviews”

Here, the user isn’t trying to understand the system. They’re trying to solve a problem or make a decision. And that decision can’t be completed without involving a business.

Dental practice

Dental sites follow a similar pattern.

• “What is a dental crown?”
• “How long does a root canal take?”
• “are veneers better than crowns?”

These topics still have value, but they’re increasingly being answered directly in the search results. The user gets a clear explanation without needing to visit a site.

But when the query shifts slightly:

• “dental crown cost [city]”
• “same day crown dentist near me”
• “best dentist for veneers [city]”

Now the stakes are different. The user is no longer just learning. They’re evaluating options and preparing to act. That’s where the opportunity is.

Car dealership

Dealership content often leans into financing education.

• “How car financing works.”
• “What credit score do you need to buy a car?”
• “lease vs. buy.”

All of these are now easy for AI to summarize. The process, the terms, and the tradeoffs can all be explained in a few lines. But that doesn’t replace the moment where someone actually needs a car.

That shows up in queries like:

• “used cars under $15k near me”
• “car dealership bad credit financing [city]”
• “best used car dealerships [city]”

These queries don’t end in understanding. They end in action.

What to do once you’ve found the right keywords

This is the part most people get wrong. They see traffic dropping on research queries and assume those keywords aren’t worth targeting anymore. So they either double down on volume or abandon the space entirely. Both are mistakes.

AI now handles the first layer of the query: summarizing options, explaining the basics, giving the user a starting point. So if your content is doing the exact same thing–listing options, repeating definitions, staying neutral–there’s no reason to click. AI already did that job.

It’s not just about finding the right keywords; it’s about using them in a way that adds value and earns the click.

To do that, you need to:

• Narrow the problem
• Add real-world constraints
• Show actual numbers where possible
• Make decisions easier, not just more informed

In other words, your content needs to do the part AI stops short of doing because that’s the only part left that’s worth clicking for.

A simple pressure test for any keyword

If you strip everything else away, it comes down to one filter: If the query can be fully answered without a business, it’s not a growth keyword.

That sounds obvious when you read it. It’s much harder to apply in practice, because a lot of content still feels valuable even when it doesn’t lead anywhere. It ranks. It brings traffic. It shows up in reports. But if someone can search that query, get what they need, and move on without ever contacting a business, it’s not contributing to growth in the way most teams expect.

That doesn’t mean you remove it. It just means you stop treating it as something that will drive results on its own.

Before you commit to a keyword, run it through two questions:

1. If someone searches this, will they eventually need a provider to complete what they’re trying to do?
2. Is there any realistic path where they don’t need to contact a business at all?

If the second answer is yes, that keyword has likely already been absorbed. It doesn’t make it useless. It just means it shouldn’t be at the center of your strategy.

Build the right keyword strategy for the AI era

What’s happening to SEO right now isn’t random, and it isn’t temporary. It’s a structural change in how different types of queries get handled.

Some keywords have effectively been removed from the click economy. They still exist, and they still get searched, but they no longer create the same path to a website. Some are still in play, but they require different content to earn attention. And some haven’t changed at all, because they still depend on a real business to complete the job.

The problem is that most strategies treat all three the same, measuring success through rankings and traffic without asking what those numbers actually lead to. That’s why so many businesses feel like SEO is working on paper and failing in reality.

The fix isn’t more content or better optimization. It’s being more selective. Fewer keywords, better aligned with actual outcomes.

The post How to Find Keywords That Still Drive Results in the AI Era appeared first on WordStream.

A lot of that work moves faster nowadays. Routine tasks like early copy drafting, consumer data mining, and visual creation that once took hours can now be done in minutes. It’s estimated that 10–15% of a marketer’s time can already be automated with current technology, and 60% of jobs across the US economy contain 30% or more automatable work, or about a day and a half every week.

That does not mean that every task belongs outside human hands. Not at all. It just means that a surprising amount of low-leverage repeat work no longer needs to start from zero each and every time.

Contents

• Decide which tasks should and shouldn’t be automated
• 17 tasks you can automate now
• When to leave things in human hands

Before you automate anything, know what should stay human

It’s important to remember that you should still keep things like strategy and final messaging close. The same goes for brand voice, factual judgment, compliance-sensitive claims, and anything public enough that a weak output would be painful to clean up later.

A simple rule that helps is: the more visible the output, the more human review it needs. That is why the best candidates for automation are in and around the core decision. First tries. Sorting. Summaries. Cleanup. Pattern spotting. Structured drafting. The “marketing meh” stuff.

Your most public-facing work should be human-led.

If your website traffic is flat, it could be an AI visibility problem. Get The Complete AI Search Toolkit: Practical Strategies to Get Found by AI

17 tasks you can automate now

The strongest candidates tend to repeat, follow a pattern, take time without much original thinking, and stay easy to review before anything important goes live. That is also the filter for the list below. These are the parts of marketing that quietly eat the week away from you. So, let’s try to avoid that, shall we?

1. Pulling weekly campaign summaries

Most weekly summaries follow the same shape: what moved, what mattered, and what needs attention next. Start with clean source data, generate a rough readout, then tighten the interpretation yourself.

Tool tip: ChatGPT (or other LLMs) works well here because it can turn raw notes or performance inputs into a first-pass summary quickly.

2. Summarizing meetings and call notes

This work becomes big fast when nobody owns it properly. Use a transcript (or decent notes) as the source, then turn that into a recap organized around decisions, open questions, and next steps while the conversation is still fresh.

Tool tip: Notion AI Meeting Notes is made for transcription, summaries, and action items inside a shared workspace.

3. Sorting search terms into themes

A raw search term report is only half useful until somebody groups it into patterns. Decide the grouping logic first, then sort by intent, product area, or pain point so it becomes easier to find negative keyword opportunities, ad group problems, or content gaps.

Tool tip: Google Ads Search Terms Insights groups all your queries into categories and subcategories with performance data attached.

4. Clustering customer feedback by topic

Reviews, support chats, survey responses, and open-text feedback are full of patterns that are easy to miss when you read them one by one. You can now pull them into one place, group them by recurring friction points, requests, or objections, then look at the language people keep repeating.

Tool tip: Caplena is built for analyzing open-ended feedback at scale, which makes it a strong fit for clustering themes with precision, understanding what creates delight or friction, and making decisions backed by quantified customer insights.

5. Tagging and routing inbound leads

Lead handling gets messy when the rules live in different people’s heads. Define the categories first, then automate the repetitive tagging and routing around source, urgency, segment, or owner, while reviewing the exceptions on a regular basis.

Tool tip: Zapier has lead-routing automations built for rule-based workflows across forms, CRMs, and inboxes.

6. Updating CRM notes after sales calls

This task always looks small until the data quality slips and every downstream handoff gets worse and worse. Use call notes or transcripts to draft structured summaries around need, status, objection, and next step.

Tool tip: Gong is built around conversation intelligence, including note-taking, call summaries, and CRM updates.

7. Writing social media caption drafts

A lot of teams lose quite a lot of time here in tiny increments. Start with the real source asset, generate rough options by platform, then rewrite the best social media captions in your voice so the final line still sounds human.

Tool tip: Claude (or other LLMs, although many see the current iteration of Claude as the better tool for creative writing) is a strong fit for early drafting and simplification when you want rough options before a human polish pass.

Want more ways to put social success on autopilot? Download The Definitive Guide to Social Media Marketing (Simplified)

8. Repurposing blog posts into other formats

Believe it or not, a good blog post can actually keep working after publish day. Use the full piece as the source, then turn it into a newsletter intro, a social draft, or a sales follow-up asset, and then just edit for channel fit.

Tool tip: Writer is designed for teams creating on-brand assets at scale, which makes it useful for repurposing work like this.

9. Drafting ad copy variations

Even strong marketers get sleepy after rewriting headline five (again). Now, you can just use the audience, offer, and core problem as the foundation, generate several rough angles, then cut hard and refine.

Tool tip: Jasper’s ad copy generator is built specifically for producing multiple ad variations from a short brief.

10. Creating meta titles and meta descriptions

This is small work with a bad habit of showing up late. Start with the target keyword and a brief page summary, draft several options, then choose the one that matches the content and gives a searcher a reason to click.

Tool tip: Grammarly offers dedicated AI tools for meta titles and meta descriptions, which makes it a practical fit for this narrow task.

11. Building first-pass content briefs

A weak brief drags the whole draft down. Use the topic, audience, and business goal to generate a rough outline with likely subtopics, useful questions, and possible angles, then refine it with editorial judgment.

Tool tip: Perplexity (or other LLMs) is useful here because it surfaces sources quickly during the research phase before you shape the brief yourself.

12. Refreshing old blog posts with optimization ideas

Older posts usually need sharpening, not blind rewriting. Use the current article as the source and pull out thin sections, stale references, weak metadata, or missed opportunities, then turn that into an edit checklist.

Tool tip: Semrush SEO Writing Assistant is helpful during refreshes because it evaluates copy while you revise it.

13. Drafting FAQ sections

A lot of FAQ sections feel padded because they were built from assumptions instead of real questions. Start with what people actually ask in chats, sales calls, or search, draft rough Q&A starters, then trim and rewrite them so the section adds clarity.

Tool tip: Grok (or other LLMs) can turn source material into structured question-and-answer starters quickly.

14. Turning webinars into content assets

Webinars trap useful material all the time. Work from the transcript or detailed notes, pull out the strongest explanations or moments worth expanding, then repurpose those into rough follow-up assets for content or social.

Tool tip: Descript is useful here because it is built around transcript-based editing and repurposing recorded content.

15. Drafting nurture email variants

Email flows rarely live as one perfect version. Define the audience and the job of the email first, then generate rough variants and edit for pacing, voice, and clarity.

Tool tip: HubSpot’s AI email writer is designed to generate draft emails inside a broader marketing and CRM workflow.

16. Creating internal recaps for stakeholders

Most stakeholders do not want the whole dashboard, no matter how hard you worked on it. They just want a useful readout. Start with the raw update, organize it around progress, issues, and decisions, then add your interpretation before you send it.

Tool tip: Microsoft Copilot is useful for turning meeting notes, emails, and documents into short internal summaries across Microsoft 365.

17. Compiling competitor messaging snapshots

Competitive review is worth doing and easy to postpone because it gets tedious quickly. Use the same comparison frame each time so your notes stay consistent, then summarize the patterns in headline approach, offer framing, and CTA language.

Tool tip: Gemini (or other LLMs) is helpful for this research-heavy task because it returns answers with linked sources you can inspect.

When to leave things in human hands

This is worth repeating because it is where quality slips the fastest. Here’s your rule of thumb.

Speeding up support work is helpful
Handing off judgment is where things get shaky

Remember: Keep strategy close. Keep final messaging close. Keep brand voice, factual review, and compliance-sensitive claims close. The more public the output, the more that last human pass matters.

Start with the tasks that keep coming back

The fastest wins usually come from the work that repeats every week and never feels important enough to rethink. That’s why it keeps stealing your precious, precious time.

Here are your next steps to start automating your marketing tasks:

1. Pick one or two tasks from this list.
2. Build a better process around them.
3. Tighten the review step.
4. See what time comes back.

Most teams do not need a dramatic reinvention. They just need fewer manual tasks standing between good thinking and finished marketing. Now go get your time back.

Here’s a recap of the full list of tasks you can automate now:

1. Pulling weekly campaign summaries
2. Summarizing meetings and call notes
3. Sorting search terms into themes
4. Clustering customer feedback by topic
5. Tagging and routing leads
6. Updating CRM notes after sales calls
7. Writing social media caption drafts
8. Repurposing blog posts into other formats
9. Drafting ad copy variations
10. Creating meta titles and meta descriptions
11. Building first-pass content briefs
12. Refreshing old blog posts with optimization ideas
13. Drafting FAQ sections
14. Turning webinars into content assets
15. Drafting nurture email variants
16. Creating internal recaps for stakeholders
17. Compiling competitor messaging snapshots

The post 17 Marketing Tasks You Can Stop Doing Manually appeared first on WordStream.

In this post, I’m going to cover what’s changing and when, talk about why this change is taking place, then get into the tactical changes you should be making and understand what you should expect from this shift.

Contents

• What’s changing
• Timeline of shift from Display to Demand Gen
• What to expect with this change
• What advertisers should do now to prepare

Google Display to Demand Gen campaigns: What’s actually changing

When you create a new campaign in Google Ads, the first thing you do is select a campaign objective.

If you select “create a campaign without a goal’s guidance,” you can see all of the available campaign types.

Moving forward, the display option will no longer be available.

To clarify, this does not mean that the Google Display Network is going away. Not even close. Google generates far too much revenue from the GDN.

Instead, the most direct path to the GDN will be Demand Gen.

 Is your Google Ads strategy prepared for the switch from Display to Demand Gen? Find out with a free, instant account report using our Google Ads Grader!

Timeline of shift from Display to Demand Gen

The announcement was made in May of 2026, but it will take until January of 2027 for the ability to create standalone Google Display campaigns to go away. That’s seven months, including the ever-coveted holiday season for you to get your accounts ready.

After that time, all remaining Display campaigns will be automatically migrated to Demand Gen campaigns, but Google has yet to give a date for that shift.

What to expect with Display migrating to Demand Gen

Everyone’s experience will be different, but here are the broad strokes of what we’re seeing and what could happen for your account.

More AI, less manual control

Demand Gen campaigns rely on more automation from Google, which can mean a few things.

First, performance may be a bit better with more data points being fed into Google’s machine learning. There may be better audience expansion and creative optimization compared to previous Display campaigns.

But there will also be less manual control and greater volatility in performance. Many of the controls from traditional Display campaigns are being carried over, but some will go away. There are going to be fewer levers to pull in Demand Gen, but on top of that, the lean into automation means there may be bigger swings taken by the bidding algorithms. It could take longer for the system to get its bearings and return the results you’re needing.

Creative continues to grow in importance

Demand Gen is more creative-driven than a traditional display campaign is. There are more visuals that can be leveraged and more placements they can show in.

Here’s a quick view of some spacing options for YouTube placements just on mobile. Not to mention the desktop variants plus the other four networks you can target with Demand Gen (Discover, Gmail, Maps, & GDN), that’s a ton of different formats your ads can take.

Be sure you’re putting effort into making strong creatives that will stand out on all Google platforms to see the best results.

What should advertisers do now?

While there is a decent amount of time between now and January, I expect it will come sooner than you think. So it’s in your best interest to begin planning and making moves in your account as soon as possible.

 When major platform changes pop up, you can’t risk any account mishaps. Download our free guide to six common Google Ads mistakes to learn how to catch and fix them fast!

1. Tinker with Demand Gen if you haven’t already

One of my favorite things about the Google Ads platform is that you can create all sorts of draft campaigns, tinker with settings, and get a general understanding of a campaign without ever having to launch it.

If you’ve not used a Demand Gen campaign until now…this is your time to start tinkering.

Head into the platform, create a new campaign, and don’t use a goal’s guidance. This will offer you the most settings in later stages. (If you eventually want to use a goal’s guidance for your campaigns, that’s totally fine. This is just a learning phase.)

From there, familiarize yourself with all aspects of Demand Gen campaigns.

Here are some key things to pay attention to as you’re tinkering:

• Understanding how your campaign goal will impact your bidding options.
• Take note of your current conversion performance and what that means for available campaign goals.
• Note that audiences are made of combinations of custom segments, remarketing lists, Lookalike audiences, interests, and different options for demographics.
• Content targeting like placements, topics, and keywords lives in the Content section of the left hand navigation at the ad group level and isn’t found in the campaign builder process. This is also the section where you’ll exclude placements you want to avoid.
• Ad groups house the network targeting, not the campaign level, and by default new ad groups are opted into “All Google Channels” but do NOT include the Google Display Network.
• Ad creatives can have different formats like single image, single video, and carousel. They include text, images, and videos along with logos and calls to action and have quite a few more moving pieces than regular Responsive Display Ads and banners.

Needless to say, Demand Gen campaigns are quite a different beast than Display campaigns, so it’s good that you know where all of the controls are before you start spending funds.

2. Take inventory of your existing display settings

If you’ve been running Display campaigns for a long time, you’ve likely added at least a few negative placements to keep your ads from showing on sites that don’t perform well or aren’t aligned with your brand. Additionally, maybe you’ve found some specific placements, audiences, in-market segments, or something else that does perform well that you want to make sure you retain with this changeover.

Make an inventory of all the learnings you have from your existing campaigns, whether positive or negatives, then use your new knowledge of Demand Gen campaigns that you definitely gained from the previous step and find how to employ those learnings.

3. Try replicating your existing Display Campaigns in Demand Gen

The smallest step you can take with this changeover is to turn your existing Display campaigns into a Demand Gen type, but still have almost all the same targeting, ads, etc.

For this step, you can either create a new campaign from scratch, or you can test out Google’s new migration tool. You can do this from the Campaigns tab by checking the box next to the campaign you want to update, click Edit, then select Update to Demand Gen. This will remove your existing Display campaign and create a new Demand Gen campaign that uses the previous campaign’s data and settings.

I recommend starting with a low-stakes campaign to start, test how the process works and make sure you don’t find any errors, then begin updating your higher-value Display campaigns if this is the route you want to take.

For those of you doing this manually and not using the migration tool, you’ll have more work to do, but you can retain your existing Display campaign and adjust its spending to accommodate the new Demand Gen version and slowly lower the budget over time in favor of Demand Gen once you’ve got your feet under you.

Just be sure to pay attention to the network settings at the ad group level. Here’s where you’ll get to choose which platforms you want to leverage. To only replicate a previous Display campaign, choose the “Let me choose” option, then check the box next to GDN only. Leave all others blank.

4. Test expanding into more Demand Gen capabilities

Once your new campaign has been running for a while and you’re seeing good results, it might make sense to expand into some of the other features of Demand Gen.

The one that comes to mind first is network coverage. Google has lots of inventory available through Demand Gen campaigns, not just the Google Display Network. Check the box next to a few of these on your top-performing campaigns and see if you can get more incremental results at a decent rate.

5. Develop new KPIs

With placements, targeting, creatives, bidding, and other factors all being different, it’s going to be tough to compare these campaigns to Display in the long run.

Instead, I would encourage you to develop a new set of KPIs to benchmark against and improve upon. If you’re beating your old Display campaign KPIs with Demand Gen, then that’s wonderful. But if you’re not, don’t assume Demand Gen can’t work for you. Evaluate where you’re falling short, test and iterate, and work on getting back to levels you’re happy with and seeing success from.

Be ready for the switch from Google Display to Demand Gen campaigns

Google transitioning Display campaigns into Demand Gen isn’t a surprise. Just like many of the other changes they’ve made in the past, this will likely frustrate those who have been advertising for a long time and are set in their ways. For the most part, you’ll be able to replicate your Display strategy within a Demand Gen campaign, so start with that. Then, if you feel comfortable, maybe take the rest of the Demand Gen features for a stroll and see how you do. You might be pleasantly surprised by the results you get.

For more ways to maximize your campaign results during this transition, see how our solutions can help!

The post Google Display Ads Migrating to Demand Gen: What You Need to Know appeared first on WordStream.

Everything I just mentioned will remain true for the foreseeable future. However, with Google’s latest announcement, Local Services Ads are moving into the Google Ads interface–and getting a few more updates to how they’re built out and managed. I’m breaking down everything you need to know in this article.

Contents

• Google’s latest Local Services Ads update: What’s changing
  • Timeline and businesses impacted
  • Why this change is happening
• How to run Local Services Ads with PMax campaigns
  • What to do if you’re currently running LSAs
  • Steps to prepare
  • How to set up new LSAs going forward
• Google Local Services Ads update FAQ

Google’s latest Local Services Ads update: What’s changing

To fully understand this update, let’s first refresh on how LSAs currently work. Businesses that fit into one of over 80 service category choices have to verify their business through their Google Business Profile and run LSAs through the Local Search Advertising dashboard.

These ads show exclusively in Google Search and Google Maps results, and allow viewers to contact a business to book a service, request a quote, and so on directly on the ad without having to click off to a landing page. These ads reduce friction for both the user and the business. Plus, you only get charged once a potential customer completes a lead action from your Local Services Ad.

With the change Google is rolling out, LSAs will now live directly within the Google Ads interface, rather than the separate LSA dashboard (and the LSA dashboard will be sunset).

Hard to tell from this screenshot, but the LSA dashboard is actually waving “bye-bye” here.

But that’s not all. LSAs will also not exist as their own standalone campaigns. Instead, running LSAs will be done via Performance Max (PMax) campaigns specifically using a new pay-per-lead goal. So, now, to run Google Local Services Ads, you will have to set up a PMax campaign and assign it the pay-per-lead goal.

Unlike traditional PMax campaigns that charge per click and show across multiple different Google property placements, the pay-per-lead PMax campaign will create and run LSAs solely on Google Search and Maps (eligible placements for LSAs will remain the same).

Here’s a breakdown of what’s changing with this Google Ads Local Services Ads update:

• Local Services Ads dashboard will be sunset. Existing LSA campaigns advertisers are running will be automatically migrated to PMax campaigns with a pay-per-lead goal set within Google Ads. Any historical data from the LSA dashboard will need to be manually backed up before a business’s LSA campaigns are migrated to a Google Ads account. Individual advertisers will be alerted in their LSA dashboard as well as via email ahead of when this happens.
• Your Google Business Profile will be integrated with your Google Ads account. Advertisers have had the option to link their GBP to their Google Ads account for a while now, but now this will become a required, automated part of running LSAs through Google Ads.
• How you bid on LSAs could be impacted. Bidding strategies that were available to old LSA campaigns are not supported in Google Ads, so manual bidding and industry-level Target CPA bidding are being deprecated. Instead, advertisers previously on those strategies should use Smart Bidding with their PMax pay-per-lead campaigns, and would have a campaign-level target CPA applied across all vertical categories (if they were using industry-based target CPA bidding).
• Your LSA budget increments switch from weekly to daily. Previously, LSA campaigns would be bound to a set weekly budget, but those don’t exist in Google Ads—which functions off daily budgets and monthly spend limits. Therefore, when your LSAs transition, the new PMax campaigns they live within will have an assigned calculated daily average and monthly spend limit (you can edit this whenever once your campaigns have migrated). Learn more about Google Ads budget calculations
• Better Business Bureau (BBB) callouts on LSAs are being deprecated. Local Services Ads will no longer have the option to highlight BBB accreditation. Instead, advertisers are encouraged to add structured callout assets (such as business hours, specialties, or accepted payment methods) to their PMax LSA campaigns to help them stand out.

Here’s what will stay the same:

• Where your Local Services Ads appear. LSAs will continue to only show in eligible Google Search and Google Maps placements.
• How you pay for your LSAs. Advertisers will continue to only be charged each time an individual lead comes in from their PMax Local Services Ads.
• How LSAs are targeted. Local Services Ads created via PMax pay-per-lead campaigns will allow targeting through service categories and areas (along with other campaign settings you select).
• How you collect and track leads. The lead actions you enable and track through LSAs will remain the same in the new PMax format. Plus, past lead data will automatically transfer to Google Ads where you can access it in the Lead Manager interface within the platform.

Could your account benefit from the new PMax LSAs? Find out with a free, instant account report using our Google Ads Grader!

Google PMax pay-per-lead LSA transition timeline and businesses impacted

Local Services Ads are only available to verified businesses within the many service industries specified by Google. The transition from LSAs running under the LSA dashboard to LSAs running under Google Ads platform Performance Max pay-per-lead campaigns will roll out gradually as follows:

• August 2026 is phase one of the migration. Google will automatically upgrade current LSA campaigns to PMax pay-per-lead campaigns within Google Ads for select home and storefront service advertisers in the United States. In the announcement, Google lists these industries as the ones it will be starting with next month: Plumbing, HVAC, electrical, appliance repair, house cleaning, lawn care, roofing, pest control, and moving.
• Late 2026 is when the migration will expand. Google will continue to roll out the update to broader advertiser groups, including service-area businesses without physical storefronts and accounts with custom bidding or booking configurations.
• Non-US accounts and all remaining business categories will transition in 2027. The update will be complete by next year.

Google’s aiming for minimal campaign downtime for advertisers during this transition. Your Google Business Profile account administrator will receive advance email alerts 14 days before your migration date, and you’ll be reminded directly in your current LSA dashboard, too.

Why Google Ads LSAs will be migrated to PMax pay-per-lead campaigns

I think for most advertisers this change is welcome, as it is consolidating this campaign type into the main platform for easier management.

“No more hopping back and forth between LSA and Google Ads accounts,” Google Ads Product Liaison, Ginny Marvin, posted on X.

Source

How to run Local Services Ads with PMax campaigns

Here’s how everything with LSAs will work from here on out.

What to do if you’re currently running LSA campaigns

If you currently have LSA campaigns, Google’s system will automatically transfer your entire campaign setup to Google Ads. In the announcement, Google states that your “targeted locations, service types, business categories, budget limits, ad schedule, and business photos will move over seamlessly without requiring your manual input.”

Once that happens, you’ll no longer be able to access your old Local Services Dashboard. Instead, you will be brought to the Google Ads interface upon signing in. So, the first thing you’ll want to do after reading this article is save your old LSA reports now to get ahead of any potential historical data losses. You can do that by following the steps to manually download your LSA campaign reports here. It’s also a good idea at this point to make sure your current LSA campaigns and Google Business Profile are updated and optimized, so that eventually your newly generated PMax campaigns start off on the right foot.

Next, keep your eyes peeled for when it’s your business’s turn to get an automatic migration applied to your LSA campaigns. You will know ahead of time via email and LSA dashboard banner notification when your account will migrate. At this point, you can sit back and let Google do all the transfer work automatically. Then, next time you sign in, you’ll be brought to the Google Ads interface rather than the LSA dashboard.

After your LSAs are automatically migrated, you can navigate over to campaign overview in Google Ads to see your new PMax campaigns that contain all your original LSA content and settings (minus your bidding strategy and budget shifting depending on your old setup). From there, navigating your campaign refinement is similar to any other standard Google Ads campaign, so this resource on how to run Google Ads might be helpful, or check out our article on how to track, analyze, and optimize Performance Max campaigns.

The Google Ads home screen looks like this, but when you click Campaigns on the left-hand side, you will find a table view of your new PMax pay-per-lead campaigns along with any other Google Ads campaigns you may be running.

The last thing you need to do is be patient. Google says that most transferred LSAs will start running right away once an account is migrated, but it’s important to note that it can take up to two weeks for the migration process to fully complete and campaign performance to stabilize.

How to prepare for your account’s LSA to PMax transfer

To recap, here are the steps to prepare for the Google Ads LSA migration to PMax.

1. Look out for email and banner notifications informing you of your account’s upcoming transition date. Download historical LSA performance reports before your migration.
2. Check your current LSA and GBP setups. Ensure everything is up to date and aligned with your business’s overall advertising strategy for a smoother transfer experience.
3. Once your campaigns have migrated, check settings like budget and bid strategy to ensure your new PMax campaigns are set up how you want. Then, wait two weeks before any major optimization changes.

Note that if you’re working with a marketing partner (for example, if you’re a LocaliQ customer) to run your Google Ads campaigns, this transition will be managed for you, and these steps are already taken care of.

How to set up new LSAs going forward

If you don’t currently have any LSA campaigns running, the new setup process is pending. But you can continue to set up new local Business Profile accounts and campaigns through http://g.co/localservices temporarily.

“You can’t create new campaigns with pay-per-lead goals directly within Google Ads at this time. If you need to set up additional campaigns or local accounts, please continue to visit g.co/localservices. Campaign creation will become available later,” the official Google announcement states.

Here are some additional steps you can take to future-proof your local advertising strategy for your service-based business.

1. Check that your business is in an industry eligible for LSAs here.
2. Create a Google Business Profile and follow the prompts to verify your business here: https://business.google.com/us/business-profile/
3. Link your Google Business Profile to your Google Ads account.
4. Become familiar with PMax campaigns in Google Ads, so you’re ready to create new pay-per-lead PMax campaigns when the option becomes available.

For now, this site above is still available for businesses that want to start new or expand with LSAs. Eventually, creating new PMax pay-per-lead campaigns will become an option within Google Ads instead.

Google Local Services Ads update FAQ

If you have more questions about the new PMax-powered LSAs, I’ve got you covered.

What’s happening to the Google Local Services Ads dashboard?

The Google Local Services Ads dashboard, along with any historical data held within it, will be fully sunset by 2027.

Which industries will be most impacted by this LSA update?

Only service-based businesses eligible to run Local Services Ads will be impacted by this Google Ads update.

Do I need to re-verify my business to run LSAs on Google Ads?

No, if your business is already verified via Google Business Profile, you will not need to re-verify once your LSA campaigns have transitioned to PMax.

Will my PMax LSAs still display a Google verified badge?

Yes, all Local Services Ads for eligible businesses in select verticals will still include a Google Verified badge—so long as the business passes the required business registration and representative checks.

Where will my PMax Local Services Ads show?

Although Performance Max campaigns are known to show across multiple Google placements and properties, pay-per-lead PMax LSAs will continue to only show in Google Search and Maps results.

Can I still view my LSA dashboard’s historical data once this update is rolled out?

No, you’ll have to download your historical LSA campaign performance reports. This resource from Google walks you through how to manually save your historical reports. However, your past customer lead history (like contact details, call recordings, etc.) will automatically transfer to Google Ads, where you can access it in the Lead Manager interface within the platform.

How do I know when my business’s LSA campaigns are migrating to Google Ads?

There are no set release dates for this update for specific businesses, but Google will be rolling out this change for some industries by early August 2026, and all accounts will have transferred over by the end of 2027. You will know ahead of time by email notification as well as a banner notification in your current Local Services Ads dashboard.

Can I still manage my Google Business Profile outside of Google Ads?

You can still access, edit, update, and optimize your Google Business Profile organic assets directly within your Google Business Profile account. However, if you want to run ads based on your Google Business Profile, it will have to be done directly in Google Ads by way of pay-per-lead PMax LSAs. Any changes you make to your Google Business Profile will be automatically synced into your Google Ads account so your PMax LSAs stay updated.

Do I need to do anything else to prepare my LSAs for this transition?

No, the migration will happen automatically, so there is no action needed to be taken by advertisers. It’s a good idea to double-check your campaign settings before and after your account transition, though, to see if everything is carrying over how you like.

I’m not currently running LSAs; should I start?

If your business collects leads and is in one of the eligible industries, you should absolutely run LSAs by way of pay-per-lead PMax campaigns. LSAs can be lower cost, stand out in search results, and make it easy for viewers to turn into leads.

How local businesses can tackle the upcoming LSA update

If you’re concerned about how this Google Ads update will impact your local service business, don’t panic! Remember, here are three steps to ensure your automatic transition from LSA to PMax campaigns goes smoothly:

1. Check your current LSA and GBP setups. Ensure everything is up to date and aligned with your business’s overall advertising strategy.
2. Keep an eye out for email and banner notifications for your upcoming transition. Download historical LSA performance reports before your migration.
3. Once your campaigns have migrated, check settings like budget and bid strategy to ensure your new PMax campaigns are set up how you want. Then, wait two weeks before any major optimization changes.

For more ways to maximize your local advertising strategy, see how our solutions can help you navigate whatever Google updates get thrown your way!

The post Google Local Services Ads Meet PMax: What You Need to Know appeared first on WordStream.

That reaction is becoming more common—and it’s not an accident. Now that AI tools are making it easier for us marketers to produce content at scale, they’re also making it easier for content to sound like slop. And that sameness has a cost: AI-generated text can heavily reduce trust.

This is important to remember because people don’t always stop and analyze exactly what they’re reading—but they do adjust how much they trust you. So when your content feels generic or templated, people can tell (and people will remember).

This article will help you identify the signs that make your content sound like it was written by AI, what readers trust when it comes to your content, and how to do a quick audit of your content to make sure it stands out from the AI sameness.

Contents

• 14 signs your content sounds like AI
• What customers trust instead when reading your content
• A quick audit to make sure your content doesn’t sound like AI (+how to fix it)

14 red flags that make your content sound like it was AI-generated

A lot of websites lose conversions simply because nothing pops. When everything sounds familiar, there’s:

1. No reason to keep reading
2. No reason to trust what you’re saying
3. No reason to choose you over anyone else

AI makes this even worse by smoothing out all your uniqueness—turning your content into a polished facade that lacks clarity, specificity, and intent.

Warning: these are signals, not “proof.” AI learned how to write by training on human content, so, naturally, most of these patterns show up in human writing too. The difference is the frequency. When these things stack, the result starts to feel generic. And that’s the tell. What I’m saying is that, contrary to popular belief, em-dashes do not equal AI-generated (Charles Dickens probably didn’t have ChatGPT).

Now, let’s jump into the list.

1. Every sentence follows the same rhythm

What it looks like: Line after line with similar length, structure, and pacing.

Why it shows up in AI writing: AI models optimize for predictability. Consistent sentence structure is a safe output.

What it signals to readers: This wasn’t written with intent. It was pre-packed and assembled like Swedish furniture.

What to do instead

• Break the rhythm up intentionally
• Shorten one sentence dramatically
• Let emphasis drive structure (instead of symmetry)

Source

Free guide download >> 135 of the Best Words & Phrases for Marketing with Emotion

2. Lists that don’t actually build

What it looks like: A list where each point feels interchangeable. You could rearrange them, and nothing would change.

Why it shows up in AI writing: AI generates items independently rather than developing a progression.

What it signals to readers. No clear thinking behind the structure.

What to do instead

• Order points by importance or sequence
• Make each item depend on the previous one
• Then remove anything that repeats the same idea

3. Claims without constraints

What it looks like: Broad promises with no boundaries or tradeoffs.

Why it shows up in AI writing: AI avoids specificity unless prompted—it defaults to safe generalizations.

What it signals to readers: Low credibility. If everything sounds possible, nothing feels believable.

What to do instead

• Add scope (“for teams under 20 people”)
• Add limits (“works best when…”)
• Show where it doesn’t apply, too

Source

4. Headlines that could belong to anyone

What it looks like: An all-in-one headline that sounds fine but could sit on literally any competitor’s site without changing meaning.

Why it shows up in AI writing: AI pulls from common headline patterns that appear across thousands of pages.

What it signals to readers: No differentiation. Meh.

What to do instead

• Add a specific outcome
• Add a clear audience
• Add something that can’t be copied without sounding off

If you need help crafting better headlines, try these headline formulas.

5. No real examples anywhere

What it looks like: A page full of claims, but nothing concrete to anchor them.

Why it shows up in AI writing: Examples require context. AI defaults to generalization.

What it signals to readers: This hasn’t been tested. Or worse: it hasn’t been thought through.

What to do instead

• Show one real, human use case (like this)
• Include numbers, even rough ones
• Replace one abstract claim with a specific scenario

This real estate agent’s blog uses a real listing as an example.

6. Everything sounds equally important

What it looks like: Every benefit, feature, or claim is given the same exact weight.

Why it shows up in AI writing: AI doesn’t inherently prioritize. It expands evenly across ideas.

What it signals to readers: No clear value hierarchy.

What to do instead

• Decide what matters most
• Emphasize that clearly
• Let secondary points stay secondary

7. Repeating the same idea in slightly different ways

What it looks like: Multiple sentences that feel like variations of the same statement.

Why it shows up in AI writing: AI expands ideas to sound complete, often through paraphrasing.

What it signals to readers: Filler.

What to do instead

• Cut repetition aggressively
• Replace one repeated sentence with a concrete detail
• Ask yourself: Does this add new information?

Source

8. No tradeoffs, no tension

What it looks like: Everything is presented as positive. No limitations, no downsides. Just vibes.

Why it shows up in AI writing: AI avoids negative framing unless explicitly instructed.

What it signals to readers: This isn’t realistic.

What to do instead

• Acknowledge where your product isn’t ideal (practical)
• Clarify who it’s not actually for (personal)
• Show awareness of real-world constraints (relatable)

9. CTAs that don’t really explain what’s next

What it looks like: Buttons or prompts that require interpretation. Read more?

Why it shows up in AI writing: Generic calls to action are widely represented in training data.

What it signals to readers: Uncertainty. Friction.

What to do instead

• Be explicit about the next step
• Reduce ambiguity
• Show what the user gets immediately

Source

Need help crafting the perfect calls to action? Get our free guide: The 42 Best Call to Action Phrases Ever (& Why They Work)

10. Writing that avoids specifics

What it looks like: No numbers, no timelines, no proof, and no concrete outcomes.

Why it shows up in AI writing: Specifics require source grounding. AI defaults to safe abstraction.

What it signals to readers: Low confidence.

What to do instead

• Add one measurable outcome
• Replace one vague claim with a number
• Define what “better” actually means

11. Generic phrasing that replaces real meaning

What it looks like: Phrases that sound familiar but don’t add clarity.

Why it shows up in AI writing: AI leans on widely used language patterns that appear across (literally) every industry.

What it signals to readers: You’re relying on language instead of thinking.

What to do instead

• Replace one generic phrase with a concrete description
• Ask yourself: What does this actually mean in practice?
• Write the explanation you’d give out loud, in person

Source

12. Over-explaining simple ideas

What it looks like: Basic concepts that could have been communicated cleanly and without incident in a single sentence, but are instead carefully elongated across multiple sentences, as though the idea itself might feel neglected if it were delivered too directly or without the word “streamlined.” Good thing we don’t do that here.

Why it shows up in AI writing: AI tends to expand for completeness, even when it’s not needed.

What it signals to readers: This is trying to sound smart, not useful.

What to do instead

• Cut explanations in half whenever possible
• Keep only what adds clarity
• Trust the reader to follow along

13. No visible decision-making

What it looks like: Content that presents conclusions without showing how they were reached.

Why it shows up in AI writing: AI gives you results, not reasoning, unless explicitly prompted.

What it signals to readers: Lack of depth.

What to do instead

• Show why something works
• Explain key choices
• Add a short “because” behind one claim

Source

14. It feels like it could have been written by literally anyone

What it looks like: Nothing in the copy reflects a point of view, experience, original thought, voice, or constraint.

Why it shows up in AI writing: AI generalizes across multiple sources rather than committing to a single perspective.

What it signals to readers: No ownership. No accountability.

What to do instead

• Add a clear stance
• Reference real situations
• Let the writing reflect actual experience

Get everything you need to know about showing up in AI search in our free guide: The AI Search Toolkit >>

What do readers trust instead when they’re reading your content?

If all of the patterns above create doubt, the opposite builds confidence because it feels considered.

When you make specific claims

Clear scope, defined outcomes, and measurable results signal that something real sits behind the words. Instead of broad improvements, you can see what changes and by how much.

When you show that you’re thinking

You can follow the logic. You understand why something works, not just that it does. That doesn’t require long explanations. Just intention.

When you signal effort

There’s a noticeable difference between something that was generated and something that was written. AI can produce clean sentences, but it struggles to show judgment. Your copy doesn’t need to announce itself. It just needs to feel like someone took the time to think it through.

When it reflects quality

Clear language signals clear thinking. Not complexity or polish. Precision.

A quick audit: Does your content sound like it was written by AI? Let’s solve it

Use this as a 5-minute audit. You don’t need to fix everything all at once—just start with one page.

Make your content stand out from AI-generated copy

AI didn’t introduce generic marketing copy. It just made it easier to produce—and harder to notice. That’s the real shift here. The more content people see that feels interchangeable, the more they rely on subtle signals to decide what to trust.

Remember that your content shouldn’t try to compete with volume. Instead, it should feel like someone (not something) actually took the time to write it. That’s how you win.

Here’s a recap of the 14 signs your content sounds like it was written by AI (so you can avoid it!):

1. Every sentence follows the same rhythm
2. Lists that don’t actually build
3. Claims without constraints
4. Headlines that could belong to anyone
5. No real examples anywhere
6. Everything sounds equally important
7. Repeating the same idea in slightly different ways
8. No tradeoffs, no tension
9. CTAs that don’t really explain what’s next
10. Writing that avoids specifics
11. Generic phrasing that replaces real meaning
12. Over-explaining simple ideas
13. No visible decision-making
14. It feels like it could have been written by literally anyone

The post 14 Red Flags That Make Your Writing Sound Like AI (+How to Fix It) appeared first on WordStream.