Luckily, there are some benchmarks I can use to guide your answer, but there are also plenty of factors that can mean your Google Ads cost will be lower (or higher) than these numbers.

But don’t worry. In this guide, I’m going to cover all of the variables involved in Google Ads pricing so you can understand how much Google Ads will cost for your business and how to set a realistic budget. 

Contents

• Typical Google Ads costs
• The average cost per click in Google Ads
• The average cost per lead in Google Ads
• How much the average business spends on Google Ads
• Factors that influence Google Ads costs
• How Google determines your cost per click
• How Google Ads bids and budgets work
• Other Google Ads cost considerations
• Other Google Ads costs to be aware of
• Key takeaways

Typical Google Ads costs

Let’s start by reviewing some average Google Ads costs overall:

• The average cost per click in Google Ads in 2026 was $5.42.
• The average cost per lead in Google Ads in 2026 was $66.69.
• The average starting budget to cover Google Ads costs for SMBs is $1,000-$2,500 per month.
• Most new Google Ads campaigns can cost around $20-50 per day.
• Our study of over 15,000 Google Ads accounts found that 24% of accounts spend under $1K/month, 39% spend between $1K–$10K/month, and 37% spend over $10K/month.

How much does a typical click cost in Google Ads?

Google Ads charges by the click, and how much that click will cost you varies, so here’s a breakdown.

What is the average CPC in Google Ads?

If you take the average CPCs across all different types of businesses and keywords in the US, the overall average CPC in Google Ads is $5.42. That’s on the Search Network. On the Google Display network, clicks tend to be cheaper, averaging under $1.

The key influence on pricing in Google Ads: keywords

In some ways, you can think of PPC advertising roughly along the same lines as traditional print advertising; you’d expect to spend more on a glossy full-page ad in a national magazine than you would for a classified ad in a local newspaper. In digital marketing, however, the pricing isn’t influenced by the format of the ad, but rather the intent of and competition for the keywords you’re bidding on. So you can expect to spend more on a high-intent keyword like “roof repair near me” than something lower intent like “how much does it cost to repair a roof.”

In super-competitive markets like legal and accounting, clicks can get much pricier. Keyword costs can also fluctuate, and I typically see changes in Google Ads costs across industries year over year. Let’s take a look at some CPC benchmarks year over year in Google Ads to give you an idea of how much click costs can fluctuate for your business.

What is the cost per click for long-tail keywords?

People sometimes like to point at the grand, show-stopping keyword categories above as a definitive example of how expensive Google Ads can be. The reality, however, is that these keyword categories only make up a small portion of total search volumes. Long-tail keywords actually account for the majority of web searches and are also often significantly cheaper than shorter keyword-rich queries and can have as much—if not more—commercial intent.

For example, if someone has an ant problem in their kitchen, “exterminator [their town],” is one search they might perform. “Exterminator” as a broad keyword will likely have a high search volume and may be pricey. But they might also search for “how to get rid of ants in the kitchen.” This is a long-tail keyword with potentially lower competition and associated costs. The intent may not be as strong, since they could be looking to DIY, but it’s still pretty strong, so they’ll likely be open to—or even click on—an ad for an exterminator.

This is the kind of opportunity that long-tail keyword targeting presents to advertisers. In addition to making up the vast majority of searches,

What are the most expensive keywords in Google Ads and Bing Ads?

As Google owns the largest paid search platform, I’ll focus on Google Ads first.

Listed below are the most expensive keyword categories in Google Ads, and the average cost-per-click of each. It’s worth noting that these are keyword categories, not actual keywords themselves—in some cases, the CPCs of keywords within each category may be higher than the averages stated:

The post How Much Does Google Ads Cost? appeared first on WordStream.

And brands are betting on it. From retro Pepsi cans to Spotify Wrapped, today’s marketers understand that even though we’re obsessed with newness, it’s the past that makes us feel safe. This isn’t just for legacy brands with global recognition. Small businesses can use nostalgia, too—through a local tradition, a familiar product, an old storefront photo, or a customer memory that already belongs to the community. But why does it work so well?

“Nostalgia hits hard because it reconnects us with the moments that shaped us,” says Willem Haen, Brand Consultant. “A brand doesn’t have to be perfect—it just has to have been there when great memories were made.”

In this article, I’ll walk through why nostalgia marketing works so well and how businesses of all sizes can harness it to build connections with customers.

Contents

• Why nostalgia marketing works
• When nostalgia works in marketing (and when it doesn’t)
• The nostalgia marketing playbook

Why nostalgia marketing works

Before nostalgia is turned into your favorite marketing strategy, it’s just a basic chemical reaction. Neuroscience, culture, and connection all play their parts—and together, they explain why our brains (and hearts) keep leaning back in time.

1. Familiarity feels safe for our brains

When we recognize something from our past (a logo, a melody, or a color palette), our brain fires up its reward system. That sweet hit of dopamine is small but powerful. It’s the same thing that makes us feel good when we hear an old song or smell something that reminds us of home. Recognition is comfort, and comfort is safety.

Why it matters for marketers

That quick flash of recognition is what makes nostalgia so effective in communication. When something feels familiar, people instinctively drop their guard and start listening with emotion rather than skepticism. It’s human. This means that nostalgic cues in marketing visuals or ads can make you appear more reliable and emotionally genuine—especially when consumers face choice overload.

“Nostalgia in marketing works because it taps into the brain’s efficiency bias,” said Goran Mirkovic, Head of Content at Multiplier. “Familiarity lowers cognitive load, which means people don’t have to analyze what they’re seeing; they just feel it. That’s why a brand like LEGO can bring back a 90s set and instantly spark joy. The memory does the work. You’re not asking people to notice your message; you’re inviting them to recognize themselves in it.”

Speaking of marketing for our brains…Get our free guide >> 26 Brilliant Ways to Use Psychology in Your Copywriting (with Examples)

2. It’s comforting

Every era has its escape. In the 2020s, with pandemics, conflicts, and unrelenting AI slop, it’s the past. We’re all desperate for simpler times. Not necessarily “better” times, but ones that feel easier to understand.

Nostalgia is comfort. When an ad hints at something we already know, it lowers friction and allows emotion to take the lead. That’s why older aesthetics like film grain, analog textures, and classic typography are everywhere (again). They act as emotional probes, telling our brains that “you’ve seen this before, it’s okay to relax.”

Why it matters for marketers

It’s the same psychological lever that drives recent trends like the Y2K revival or lo-fi filters on social media. People aren’t just consuming aesthetics—they’re looking for calm. Nostalgia marketing performs best in times of turbulence because it creates positive feelings that can (when done right) transfer to the brand itself.

3. It helps us connect with others

Nostalgia doesn’t just make us happy. It helps us belong. Remembering shared experiences—even ones we didn’t live through—creates instant connection. It’s why people comment “aww, childhood!” under old commercials or tag their friends in retro memes.

Why it matters for marketers

It’s a social emotion, not just a trip down memory lane. When people feel lonely or disconnected, nostalgia can help restore a sense of belonging by reactivating memories of meaningful relationships and shared joy. That’s why nostalgia-based campaigns often feel communal: they remind people of who they were with, not just who they were.

“Nostalgia creates emotional closeness,” says Barbara Houdayer, Head of Marketing at Caplena. “It gives people a sense of continuity—of belonging to something bigger than the present moment. That’s why nostalgia-led campaigns work. They don’t just remind us of a product, they remind us of the relationships and stories attached to it.”

When nostalgia works in marketing (and when it doesn’t)

Not every throwback lands. The difference between nostalgia that charms and nostalgia that cringes comes down to fit, freshness, and feeling. Here’s how to tell whether your idea will land or flop.

What this looks like in action

Pepsi’s Retro Cans 

For Pepsi’s 125-year celebration, the brand relaunched its old can designs with new colors and a clean typography. It balanced heritage with modern energy, reminding consumers where the brand came from while still looking fresh. It felt authentic because it had history as well as purpose.

Coca-Cola’s “New Coke” Revival

When Coca-Cola brought back “New Coke” during a Stranger Things collaboration, it leaned too hard on irony (New Coke was arguably a flop back then, too). The nostalgia was clever but hollow, and reminded people of the brand’s worst decision, not their fondest memories.

The lesson here: Nostalgia only works when it honors emotion, not embarrassment.

The nostalgia marketing playbook

Understanding nostalgia is one thing. Using it without looking desperate is another. Let’s talk about how you can do nostalgia marketing right—authentic, relevant, and creative.

Step 1: Start with emotion instead of era

Don’t start with the decade. Start with the feeling.

• What emotion do we want to reawaken?
• Is it safety? Wonder? Rebellion? That’s your anchor.

The most successful nostalgia campaigns don’t sell time periods. They sell feelings. LEGO’s “Mindfulness” campaign isn’t about 1980s bricks; it’s about rediscovering childhood joy in a grown-up setting. And Spotify Wrapped isn’t old at all—it just uses the same psychology as a yearbook: personal reflection, shared moments, and inside jokes.

For smaller businesses, this could be as simple as bringing back a seasonal special, reviving an old packaging style, or building a campaign around a memory your customers already share. A bakery might bring back a childhood pastry (like in the example below). A gym might run a 90s-themed class. A neighborhood shop might post old photos of the street it grew up on. The format can be small as long as the feeling is real.

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

Step 2: Filter it through fit, freshness, and feeling

Every nostalgic idea should pass the same three-filter test from earlier. Fit the audience, refresh the form, and protect the feeling.

AI throwbacks and template-made Y2K filters might look nostalgic, but they rarely feel it. Aesthetic nostalgia without emotional truth is nothing but decoration. The magic happens when the reference still connects to your brand’s present reality.

A recent trend showed brands sharing baby pictures of their employees with the caption “This is who…” and then something related to their current role.

This local restaurant jumped on the trend for their 40th anniversary with captions like “This is who’s making your favorite margarita,” “This is who gives you the best menu recs,” and more. This humanizes the business and its employees while building a real emotional connection with their restaurant patrons and relying on the nostalgia of seeing their favorite employees’ cute childhood photos.

Step 3: Remix, don’t rewind

Nostalgia works best when it evolves. It shouldn’t look like you’re trying to press rewind on the past—it should feel like you’re remixing it for today.

Brands today are learning that nostalgia marketing is all about letting old cues meet new formats. Think of Barbie’s 2023 campaign—not a return to pink plastic innocence, but a reclamation of it through irony, empowerment, and cinematic excellence. That balance between memory and reinvention made it feel fresh instead of dusty.

When a brand borrows nostalgia, it borrows memory equity. To keep it relevant, it has to add new value—updated visuals, humor that fits the current moment, or storytelling that mirrors the way people consume media now. A smart way to approach this is to treat nostalgia like a color in your palette, not the entire painting. It adds warmth, but your audience still needs to see who you are today.

This restaurant shared a video featuring some of its past history with new additions to highlight its 106 years in business.

Step 4: Keep it authentic (and test it)

Every successful nostalgia campaign has one thing in common: truth.

When nostalgia feels fake, it dies fast. The most effective examples tie the emotion back to something the brand genuinely represents—a shared value, a product lineage, or a customer memory that actually exists.

That’s why brands like Nintendo can lean on their past without sounding forced. They have credibility because they’ve been there. But even if your brand doesn’t have decades of history, you can still use nostalgia authentically. Borrow emotions, not logos. Tap into cultural moments your audience relates to—like growing up online, learning through YouTube, or the feeling of discovering new music before algorithms did it for you.

This is where small businesses often have an advantage. You may not have decades of national brand equity, but you do have proximity. You know the customers, the neighborhood, the local references, and the small rituals that bigger brands can only imitate. Use that.

Before launching a nostalgia-driven concept, though, test how it lands.

• Does it create joy, or does it remind people of something they’d rather forget?
• Does this memory feel shared or exclusive?

Step 5: Let people participate

The most powerful nostalgia doesn’t just remind people of the past—it lets them relive it. Brands can do this by turning nostalgic cues into interactive experiences: playlists, filters, visual prompts, or community-driven campaigns that invite people to share their own stories.

The reason Spotify Wrapped works so well (every year) is simple: it turns reflection into social currency. It’s a mirror that lets people broadcast their own story. The same is true for user-generated nostalgia campaigns. When people share their memories, they extend your brand’s reach organically—and with far more authenticity than an ad ever could.

“Nostalgia doesn’t have to be grand to work. As long as it’s shared, it can hide in the smallest details,” said Janine Bosshart, Team Lead Brand & Marketing at grape insurance. “That’s what nostalgia does when it’s done right, for the right audience; tying meaning, memory, and brand together in a way that just feels real.”

Step 6: Make it local

Big brands use nostalgia to tap into cultural memory. SMBs can use it to tap into community memory. That might mean sharing an old photo of your storefront, bringing back a discontinued menu item, referencing a local event people still talk about, or asking longtime customers to share their favorite memory with your business.

Source

The key is specificity. “Remember the 90s?” is broad. “Remember when this block had three record shops, and our lunch special was $5?” feels personal. For small businesses, nostalgia works best when it reminds people that your brand has been part of their real lives—not just their feeds.

Remember: The past is a tool, not a template

Nostalgia is powerful because it reconnects emotion, memory, and meaning. That’s three things algorithms can’t fake. But it’s not about living in the past—it’s about using the past to make the present feel warmer, safer, and more human. So if your new brand campaign looks like it’s from the 90s, make sure it doesn’t think like it too. Because the past only sells well when it helps people believe in the future.

The post Nostalgia Marketing: When & How to Use It for More Compelling Campaigns appeared first on WordStream.

This is called “query fan-out,” and it’s a critical component of AI responses (and, subsequently, getting more visibility, traffic, leads, and sales from AI search/GEO/AEO).

Surfer SEO’s query fan-out study found that you’re 161% more likely to get cited in Google’s AI Overviews if you also rank for fan-outs

While AI Overviews and AI search/AI response optimization (or GEO) are relatively new, I’ve already worked with a number of businesses of various sizes to get more visibility in AI search. A key component of getting that increased visibility is understanding how query fan-out works.

In this article, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know about query fan-out so you can improve your visibility in AIOs and AI search.

Contents

• What is query fan-out?
• Query fan-out examples
• How does query fan-out work?
• What does this mean for SEO and AI search optimization?
• Query fan-out optimization
• Query fan-out calculator

What is query fan-out?

Query fan-out is a process where AI tools like ChatGPT, Google, and Gemini take the question, prompt, or search term (query) that you entered and generate a series of sub-queries related to the initial query to help develop a comprehensive response.

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

Query fan-out examples

Let’s walk through a specific example: you want help from ChatGPT choosing the best CRM software for your specific needs. You type in “what’s the best CRM software for a small business?”

Rather than simply pulling up lists of CRM software, ChatGPT would look at queries it assumes will help provide a better response, such as:

1. CRM pricing comparison
2. CRM feature comparison
3. CRM reviews
4. CRM statistics

This helps give the tool a more complete picture of CRM tools so that it can provide a comprehensive, specific answer related to the initial query. It’s actually a bit like how you might research the topic yourself if you were trying to do a deep dive—digging into specific aspects of CRMs and the CRM market rather than just taking the first listicle you see as gospel.

We built the interactive query fan-out visualization below with some pre-loaded examples so you can see how the query fan-out process works:

How does query fan-out work? Query fan-out technique

Query fan-out works differently in different systems (ChatGPT, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, etc.), but there are multiple patents and research papers we can use to get to the root of how query fan-out works:

• “Search with stateful chat:” Google Patents — This patent states that the AI creates queries with intent diversity (comparing, exploring, buying), lexical variation (synonyms, paraphrasing), and entity-based reformulations (specific brands or features).
• “Systems and methods for prompt-based query generation for diverse his retrieval:” Google Patents — This patent shows how Google trains a “query expansion model” to offer “diverse intent interpretation” or different answers for different intents.
• “Query Expansion by Prompting Large Language Models” (Google Research Paper, May 2023): arXiv — Another prompting technique for expanding queries.

The query fan-out process is generally similar across platforms, but the volume and types of sub-queries run by each platform do vary.

👀 Looking for more ways to drive people to your site? Free guide >> 25 Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Website

What does this mean for SEO and AI search optimization?

What difference does it make to business and website owners that AI tools are using query fan-out to build responses for their users?

The existence of query fan-out means that you have to consider two things as you build your content:

1. You want to anticipate and service “fan-out queries.”
2. You want to format your content in a way that makes it more likely to be cited and potentially linked to in AI Overviews and AI responses.

Surfer SEO’s study found that the more often you cover and rank for a sub-query (or fan-out query), the more likely you are to be cited in AI Overviews. Here’s a visual representation of that across a series of simulated pages, where you can see the inflection points of how frequently your content is ranking for sub-queries versus how often it’s getting shown in AI Overviews:

Another important note: visibility in fan-out queries can help you to “jump over” resources that are ranking in traditional search to show up more prominently in AI search for queries you could never rank for in traditional search.

Surfer SEO’s study further found that while there is a high correlation between ranking well for fan-out queries and being cited in an AI response, a majority of sites being cited for a query in AIOs didn’t actually rank in traditional search results for that query:

And while there is some correlation between ranking higher in search results and being more likely to be cited for an AI response (if you’re not in the top 100, it’s very unlikely you’d be cited, and the top 10 rankings for a given query were responsible for a significant percentage–32%–of citations) there was an even stronger correlation in the data between ranking for sub-queries or fan-out queries:

Query fan-out optimization

So if you’re looking for AI visibility, there’s clearly value in optimizing for fan-out queries and ranking for them. How do you actually do it? So if we’re trying to get visibility for people looking for the “best CRM software” and we want to show up prominently in AI results, we need to be optimizing for not just the core term, but also the sub-queries.

First, how do we know what those are?

Use query fan-out tools

There are several tools that can help simulate query fan-out or even capture the actual fan-out of queries run by tools like ChatGPT in real time.

Dejan’s Query Fan-out Tool is very simple to use and gives you multiple ways to use it. Qforia from iPullRank is also free with an API key.

Previously, ChatGPT had actually exposed fan-out queries in a way that Chrome extensions were able to capture, but that stopped working with one update to ChatGPT.

David McSweeney shares a good framework for predicting likely query fan-outs in his tweet about fan-out queries from ChatGPT no longer being shared publicly:

The query fan-outs are probabilistic anyway folks.

If you know how to do SEO in any way, you already know what they are/were/will be for a given head term. It’s a little thing called topic/keyword research.

Stop tracking and obsessing over noise.

Want to pretty much replicate… https://t.co/zHlV8pGO5f

— David McSweeney (@top5seo) March 6, 2026

The Resoneo Chrome Extension is actually able to get query fan-out data if you switch the ChatGPT model to 5.4 rather than 5.3 instant.

Here’s a more in-depth breakdown of additional query fan-out tools:

Create fan-out friendly content

Once you have a list of fan-out queries to target, how do you put your page and your site in a position to rank well for those queries?

The good news is, many of the things you should be focusing on to perform better in organic rankings will help you rank well in fan-out queries, including:

• The link popularity and authority of your site.
• Your topical authority for the subject in question.
• Providing “information gain” in your content—unique expertise and perspective, proprietary data and research, etc.
• Having accessible, fast-loading pages that are resource-efficient for AI tools to consume.

Tactically, you also want to answer the fan-out queries directly and with specific formatting:

• Create self-contained content “chunks” of 100-300 words addressing specific sub-queries.
• Write content that stands alone when extracted. AI pulls passages, not full pages.
• Use clear, direct language at the start of sections.
• Provide definitive answers to questions, not hedging or vague statements.
• Add structured data for entity/relationship understanding.

Mike King, who built the Qforia tool, wrote: “Citation-worthy content must present facts clearly, avoid speculation, and include attributes like sources or structured claims (semantic triples).”

He also goes on to outline the importance of vector embeddings in AI search, specifically how, if you want to rank for a sub-query and be cited in AI, you have to be sure your “content chunk” is seen by AI tools as more relevant than other documents (or what’s already been cited).

If you want to get a sense of whether you’re on the right track with a specific passage, we built the tool below to help you determine if your passage is likely to “beat” a competitor passage or (better yet) the passage you see being cited in AI Overviews or in ChatGPT or other AI tools:

Query fan-out calculator

Use this query fan-out calculator we built to estimate your chances of appearing in AI results for a page’s covered topic. Plus get tips to improve your coverage.

Make optimizing for query fan-out part of your search strategy

As with many things related to AI search/GEO/AEO, the reality when it comes to query fan-out optimization is:

• Many SEO best practices represent the underpinnings of your opportunity to rank well in sub-queries (and subsequently in AI results).
• In addition to many general best practices, some specific best practices (content formatting, tone, content) are particularly important for ranking for fan-out queries.
• Some specific elements (relevance of specific passages) are much more important for AI search than for traditional SEO.

You can also check out our query fan-out resource library below if you want to dive deeper into specific tools, long-form articles, webinars, etc., on the topic of query fan-out.

The Query Fan Out Library

The definitive collection of patents, research, expert analysis, data studies, tools, and commentary on AI search query decomposition

Google Patents

The technical blueprints behind query fan out live in Google's patent filings. These documents describe the systems that decompose queries, route sub-queries to retrieval, and synthesize AI-generated answers.

US20240289407A1 — Search System with Stateful Chat-Based Interaction

Patent Google LLC · 2024

The closest public documentation of the fan out mechanism powering AI Overviews. Describes Google's architecture for decomposing a single user query into multiple sub-queries, routing them to different retrieval systems, and merging results into a unified AI-generated response.

WO2024064249A1 — Prompt-Based Query Generation for Search

Patent Google LLC · WIPO 2024

Details how an LLM generates reformulated search queries from an original prompt — covering intent diversification, lexical variation, and entity reformulation. Foundational to understanding how AI search systems expand a single question into dozens of retrieval sub-queries.

WO2024030443 — Generating Search Results Using LLMs

Patent Google LLC · WIPO 2024

Covers how large language models generate search results by synthesizing information from multiple retrieved passages, including how source attribution and citation ranking work in AI-generated answers.

US20240346256A1 — Response Generation Using a Retrieval-Augmented AI Model

Patent Google LLC · 2024

Describes the retrieval-augmented generation pipeline where queries retrieve augmentation information that gets injected into LLM prompts for grounded response generation — the mechanism that determines which passages become citations in AI answers.

US11769017B1 — Generative Summaries for Search Results

Patent Google LLC · 2023

Google's approach to generating summaries for search results using generative models. Establishes how the system selects, ranks, and synthesizes passages from multiple sources into a coherent summary — the output side of the fan out pipeline.

US11874863B2 — Query Expansion in Information Retrieval Systems

Patent Google LLC · 2023

Details query expansion techniques using machine-learned language models to enhance query relevance beyond traditional pseudo-relevance feedback. The technical precursor to LLM-powered query decomposition in modern AI search.

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Academic Research

The theoretical foundations behind query decomposition and retrieval-augmented generation, from the research teams building these systems.

Query Expansion by Prompting Large Language Models

Research Paper Jagerman et al. · arXiv 2023

The seminal paper demonstrating that LLM-generated query expansions significantly outperform traditional pseudo-relevance feedback methods. Provides the theoretical grounding for why AI systems decompose queries into sub-queries rather than relying on single-query retrieval.

FanOutQA: A Multi-Hop, Multi-Document Question Answering Benchmark

Research Paper Zhong et al. · ACL 2024

A benchmark of 1,034 fan-out questions requiring complex multi-hop reasoning across multiple documents, with 7,305 human-written decompositions. The most direct academic framing of the "fan out" retrieval pattern as a distinct information retrieval challenge.

Chain-of-Retrieval Augmented Generation (CoRAG)

Research Paper arXiv 2025

Introduces CoRAG for multi-hop question answering with explicit retrieval chains that dynamically reformulate queries at each step. Shows 10+ point improvements over single-query baselines — demonstrating why iterative decomposition beats one-shot retrieval.

DeepRAG: Thinking to Retrieval Step by Step for Large Language Models

Research Paper arXiv 2025

Models retrieval-augmented reasoning as a Markov Decision Process, bridging query expansion and decomposition. Achieves 21.99% accuracy improvements by having the system decide when and how to decompose queries during the retrieval process.

Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Large Language Models: A Survey

Research Paper arXiv 2023

The comprehensive RAG survey covering Naive RAG, Advanced RAG, and Modular RAG paradigms. Essential context for understanding where query fan out fits within the broader architecture of AI search systems.

A Survey of Query Optimization in Large Language Models

Research Paper arXiv 2024

Comprehensive survey of query optimization techniques in LLM systems, covering decomposition strategies, expansion methods, and rewriting approaches. Maps the full landscape of how AI systems transform user queries before retrieval.

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Data Studies & Empirical Research

Large-scale studies measuring how AI Overviews actually cite sources, where citations come from, and the real traffic impact of AI search.

SurferSEO: AI Overviews Study of 173,902 URLs

Data Study SurferSEO Research Team · 2025

The largest empirical study of AI citation patterns. Key finding: 68% of AI-cited pages don't rank in the traditional top 10 — proving that fan out optimization creates citation opportunities independent of classic ranking position.

Semrush: AI Overviews Study of 10M+ Keywords

Data Study Semrush Research · 2025

Analysis of 10M+ keywords showing AI Overviews peaked at 24.61% prevalence. Tracks zero-click rate changes and citation source distribution over time — essential data for understanding the scale of fan out's impact on organic search.

Ahrefs: AI Overviews Reduce Clicks by 58%

Data Study Ahrefs Research · 2025

Tracks the escalating click impact of AI Overviews over time. Key finding: citation sourcing from top 10 results has been declining — more citations are pulled from pages that wouldn't traditionally rank, underscoring the fan out opportunity.

seoClarity: Impact of Google's AI Overviews

Data Study seoClarity Research · 2025

Ongoing longitudinal tracking of AI Overviews across seoClarity's keyword database. Documents the rapid expansion of mobile AIOs and the shrinking overlap between traditional top-10 rankings and AI citation sources.

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Expert Analysis & Strategy

The practitioners and researchers leading the conversation on what fan out means for SEO strategy.

Query Fan Out: The New SEO Battleground

Mike King · iPullRank · 2025

The definitive practitioner guide to query fan out. King breaks down Google's patent filings, introduces his "Relevance Engineering" framework for optimizing passage-level content, and explains how semantic triples and cosine similarity scoring determine which pages get cited in AI responses.

Everything We Know So Far About AI Overviews

Kevin Indig · iPullRank · 2025

Continuously updated analysis of AI Overviews drawing on a dataset of 546,000+ AIOs. Documents citation patterns, appearance rates by query type, and the distribution of cited URLs across ranking positions — the empirical backbone for fan out strategy.

Query Fan Out Technique in AI Mode: New Details From Google

Search Engine Journal · 2025

Google VP Robby Stein's official explanation of query fan out mechanics: one user query expands to multiple related searches, with Deep Search issuing dozens to hundreds of background queries. The closest thing to a first-party confirmation of how fan out works.

Optimizing for AI: How Search Engines Power ChatGPT, Gemini, and More

Search Engine Land · 2025

Explains the multi-step query decomposition and fan out process across different AI search providers — Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity — with practical optimization guidance for each platform's retrieval approach.

A Reflection on SEO, GEO & AI Search in 2025

Lily Ray · 2025

Amsive's VP of SEO Strategy on why SEO isn't dead in the age of AI search, and how many AI visibility tactics — including fan out optimization — are evolved versions of existing SEO and digital PR processes rather than entirely new disciplines.

SearchPilot Podcast: Fan Out & AI Search

Will Critchlow · SearchPilot · 2025

Will Critchlow discusses the implications of query decomposition for enterprise SEO, including A/B testing approaches for measuring AI citation impact and how fan out changes the ROI calculation for content investment.

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Videos & Webinars

Watch experts break down fan out strategy in depth.

Query Fan Out — What It Is, How It Works, and What You Should Do About It

Video Mike King · iPullRank · 2025

King's comprehensive video breakdown of query fan out: what it is, how Google's AI systems decompose queries into sub-queries, and actionable steps for optimizing your content to get cited in AI-generated responses.

How to Optimize for AI Mode Using Query Fan Outs and User Context

Video Mike King · iPullRank · 2025

Practical walkthrough of optimizing for Google's AI Mode, covering how fan out sub-queries incorporate user context, and how to structure content so it matches the reformulated queries AI systems actually send to retrieval.

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Expert Commentary

Key social posts and threads from SEO practitioners breaking down fan out in real time.

Mike King on Qforia & Fan Out Analysis

X/Twitter @iPullRank · 2025

King announces Qforia, his tool for reverse-engineering query fan out sub-queries, and demonstrates how to identify which sub-queries your content is (and isn't) being surfaced for.

DEJAN on Query Reformulations

X/Twitter @dejanseo · 2025

Dan Petrovic breaks down how Google reformulates queries before sending them to retrieval systems — showing the gap between what users type and what the AI actually searches for.

Aleyda Solis on Locomotive & AI Search Visibility

X/Twitter @aleyda · 2025

Aleyda previews Locomotive, her AI search optimization tool that maps fan out sub-query coverage and identifies content gaps across AI citation sources.

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Tools for Fan Out Optimization

Emerging tools purpose-built for analyzing and optimizing content for AI query decomposition.

Qforia

Tool iPullRank

Mike King's tool for reverse-engineering the sub-queries AI systems generate from a seed query. Maps which sub-queries your content currently covers and where gaps exist — the most direct way to audit fan out coverage.

Locomotive

Tool Aleyda Solis

AI search visibility platform that tracks how your pages appear across AI-generated results, maps sub-query coverage, and identifies optimization opportunities for fan out.

SurferSEO

Tool SurferSEO

Content optimization platform whose research team produced the 173,902-URL study on AI citations. Their content editor can help structure pages to cover fan out sub-topics with appropriate depth and semantic relevance.

Stay Ahead of AI Search

Query fan out is changing how content gets discovered. Bookmark this resource library — we'll update it as new research, tools, and patents emerge.

The post Query Fan-Out: What It Is & Why It Matters for AI Visibility appeared first on WordStream.

The big theme of Google Marketing Live 2026 was integrating disparate AI features to make working between Google properties more fluid.

During the GML 2026 keynote, Google pros announced agentic commerce tools that follow shoppers across Google surfaces, a universal analytics experience that generates actionable insights from wherever you generate data, and much more. It’s clear Google is working to connect its many surfaces under one AI umbrella.

Here are the biggest takeaways from this year’s event.

Contents

• New contextual ad formats for AI Mode
• New Gemini-powered ads for Search
• Expanded features for Direct Offers
• New UCP-powered Universal Cart
• Integrated YouTube creator partnerships in Demand Gen
• Asset Studio updates
• More ad creative control with AI Brief
• New Qualified Future Conversions (QFC) metric
• New campaign type attribution for Demand Gen
• Expanded Google Analytics 360 as a unified measurement hub
• New Ask Advisor agentic marketing intelligence

How do your Google Ads results stack up to your competitors? Find out in Google Ads Benchmarks 2026: Competitive Data & Insights for Your Industry

The 11 biggest announcements from Google Marketing Live 2026

Google introduced a range of new and expanded tools and features at GML this year. These are our top picks, along with some early reactions from PPC pros.

1. New contextual ad formats for AI mode

Google introduced two new Gemini-powered ad formats that will appear when searchers use AI Mode. Each is designed to make product discovery more contextual and conversational.

Conversational Discovery ads

These ads appear as a natural part of the AI Mode response, written to answer the user’s query rather than interrupt it. Google uses Gemini to match the ad to both the query and the AI-generated response surrounding it, so the ad feels relevant to the conversation already happening.

Say you ask for fragrances to make your house smell like a fancy spa. Gemini then builds ad creative and copy to answer that query while highlighting the relevant features of your product.

Highlighted answers

When someone searches for recommendations in AI Mode, like “best apps for learning Spanish before a trip,” Google now serves a curated list of suggestions. Now, if your product or service is a strong match, your ad can appear directly on that list as one of the recommended options, rather than in a separate ad slot above or below the results.

2. New Gemini-powered ads for Search

Google also announced a pair of search ad upgrades during GML this year.

AI-powered Shopping ads

These are shopping ads with Gemini-written product descriptions that explain features in plain, helpful language based on what the user actually searched for.

Rather than showing a generic product title and price, the ad surfaces the specific attributes most relevant to that query. So if you’re searching for the perfect espresso machine, Gemini will instantly craft a custom write-up explaining the important features of each option and why it might be a good choice for you.

Business Agent for Leads

This new feature basically creates a custom AI agent within an ad. So a user can ask a question directly inside the ad and get a response pulled from the advertiser’s website. Then the user can submit a lead form that is pre-filled with their information.

By the time the lead reaches you, they have already engaged with your content and self-qualified to some degree. Google is currently testing this format in education, automotive, and real estate.

The general vibe is that these new ad formats can be a huge boon for marketers. But there’s some baggage from previous tech rollouts that weren’t fully supported. Adoption and acceptance will depend on how Google handles its advertisers in the coming months.

Source

Learn how your Google Ads are really performing. Get your Free Google Ads Grader report now!

3. Expanded features for Direct Offers

Google announced that it’ll be adding three upgrades to its Direct Offers pilot, which originally launched in January of 2026. Direct Offers highlight promotions at high-intent moments during a search session.

The expanded features let brands add more offer types and reduce friction for buyers:

• Promotion bundling: You can now upload a variety of promotions like discounts, giveaways, and local coupons, and Gemini will assemble the most relevant offer for each specific search.
• Native checkout: Retailers connected to Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol can now let shoppers complete a purchase directly from the ad, without being sent to a separate page.

• Travel expansion: Travel partners like Booking.com and Expedia will soon be able to surface special offers within AI Mode trip-planning results. If someone is researching a trip and your offer matches their plans, it can appear as part of that planning experience rather than as a separate ad.4.

4. New UCP-powered Universal Cart

UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol) is an open industry standard that lets agents, merchants, and payment providers communicate without custom integrations. It allows data like your inventory levels, pricing, loyalty benefits, and account information to flow between Google applications and surfaces.

During Google Marketing Live 2026, Google announced its Universal Cart, a persistent shopping cart powered by UPC that works across Google Search, the Gemini app, YouTube, and Gmail.

With a Universal Cart, shoppers can add products from any of Google surfaces, and the cart automatically tracks price drops and back-in-stock alerts on their behalf. When they’re ready to buy, they can complete the purchase directly on Google or head to the retailer’s site.

Google said the cart will integrate with Klarna and Affirm, giving shoppers a “Buy now, pay later” option.

In the coming months, Google says its direct buying capabilities will expand into hotel booking and local food delivery. So, users can book a room directly from AI Mode or order food from Google Maps.

5. Integrated YouTube creator partnerships in Demand Gen

When setting up Demand Gen campaigns, Google Ads will now surface relevant creator content that features your brand, including affiliate partnership videos. You can add that content directly into your campaign without leaving the platform.

Google’s data shows that adding creator assets to Demand Gen campaigns increases conversion lift by an average of 20%. For brands that have already worked with creators but haven’t connected those assets to paid campaigns, this makes that step much easier.

Google has been trying to sell YouTube as a conversion channel for a while now. Deeper Demand Gen integration and new features like Universal Cart may finally make it happen. It has a steep hill to climb with marketers, though.

Source

6. Asset Studio updates

Asset Studio, Google’s creative hub inside Google Ads, now integrates Gemini, Veo (video), and the new Gemini Omni model. It connects directly to Adobe, Canva, YouTube Studio, and other tools, so your existing assets show up in one library.

Another new feature for this year is built-in A/B testing that lets you swap creatives and measure incremental performance without duplicating campaigns.

For lean teams, this addresses a real production bottleneck. You can generate image and video variations, resize for different formats, and test what works, all without leaving Google Ads.

7. More ad creative control with AI Brief

AI Brief is a new feature that lets advertisers give Google’s AI a creative brief in plain language, including brand voice, target audiences, guardrails, and messaging guidelines. The AI interprets those inputs and generates ad guidelines, with previews you can review and refine before anything goes live.

This was one of the most well-received announcements this year. It directly addresses the most common concern about AI-generated ads: loss of brand control. You’re not approving individual ads, but you are setting the rules the AI follows when creating them.

Source

8. New Qualified future conversions (QFC) metric

This is a new metric that looks at signals like branded searches, video views, and site visits after ad exposure to predict profitable conversions up to six months out. It joins attributed branded searches, which tracks near-term intent signals after ad exposure, as an always-on metric in the Google Ads UI.

Google positioned QFC as a way for businesses with longer sales cycles to defend YouTube ads and upper-funnel spend before the conversion actually happens.

There are some questions about how effective this metric will be.

Source

9. New campaign type attribution for Demand Gen

Google is launching campaign type attribution, which shows the conversions that Demand Gen specifically contributed to, separately from other campaign types. Previously, Google de-duplicated conversions across campaigns, which made it hard to see what Demand Gen was actually doing.

This is the clearest apples-to-apples comparison tool Google has offered for Demand Gen performance. If you’ve been skeptical about Demand Gen ROI because the numbers felt blurry, this is what you’ve been waiting for.

10. Expanded Google Analytics 360 as a unified measurement hub

Google Analytics 360 is being rebuilt as a cross-channel measurement command center, powered by Meridian (Google’s open-source marketing mix model). It now includes performance data from TikTok, Pinterest, Snap, and other platforms in a single view, along with scenario-planning tools and conversational query support.

For marketers who currently juggle multiple dashboards, this is meant to consolidate cross-channel reporting into one place and connect it directly to budget planning.

Google is intentionally removing the technical friction for marketers to use data for better strategy. Several PPC pros noted how that’ll reshuffle who succeeds.

Source

11. Ask Advisor

Google is consolidating its various in-platform AI agents into one unified experience called Ask Advisor. It works across Google Ads, Merchant Center, Google Analytics, and Google Marketing Platform. The tool retains context across sessions and can take actions on your behalf, including launching campaigns, generating assets, and flagging optimization opportunities.

The practical benefit is reducing the number of tools you have to move between to manage a campaign. For small businesses without dedicated ops support, it functions as a persistent, knowledgeable assistant that can catch problems and surface opportunities you might not have time to find yourself.

AI wasn’t the biggest thing at GML 2026; it was the only thing

There wasn’t a single update that didn’t heavily incorporate agentic or generative AI during this year’s GML keynote speech. That’s not a surprise, but it is a reminder of where marketing is as an industry.

There’s a lot to be excited about. If Ask Advisor works as planned, it’ll make complex data more accessible and actionable for marketers who haven’t taken a four-week analytics course.

But there will be pushback, too. Consumers haven’t wholly embraced AI-generated creative yet. And many marketers are convinced that we’re not ready for 100% agent adoption.

Stay tuned as we dig deeper into the most important additions and expansions of AI in Google Ads.

The post Google Marketing Live 2026: Top 11 Announcements & Early Reactions appeared first on WordStream.

That’s not how it works anymore.

AI search engines don’t sort businesses into neat little boxes and hand users a tidy list. They synthesize answers. They pull in solutions the user never thought to ask about, and sometimes never would have considered on their own.

Ask AI how to whiten teeth, and the answer might include professional whitening, at-home kits, whitening strips, and charcoal toothpaste, all in one breath. That local dentist isn’t just competing with the clinic across town anymore. They’re competing with the drugstore aisle, YouTube, and a dozen self-serve solutions that all promise the same outcome.

So what does that actually mean for your business? And more importantly, what do you do about it? We’re going to break all of this down in this article.

Contents

• How AI search is changing (and broadening) your competitors
• Why is AI causing small businesses to lose visibility to the competition?
• How to position your business against AI-expanded competition
• A simple framework for AI-optimized competitive positioning

How AI search is changing (and broadening) your competitor set

Pre-AI search, it was pretty easy to understand who your competitors were and the best ways to stand out from them. You conducted a competitive analysis to identify top local businesses in your industry and the national chains serving your area. Then, you built your competitive positioning in response to those local competitors.

You controlled the narrative on your website, ads, and in marketing materials—and comparisons were mostly made with your direct local competitors. But with AI answers providing information about your business and sourcing competitors outside of your usual scope, it’s getting a little harder to control.

Here are the ways AI is impacting the competition and what that means for your business.

1. AI search expands your competitive set

Traditional search kept comparisons inside the category. Search “best HVAC company near me” and you’d mostly get local HVAC businesses. That made positioning pretty familiar:

• Better service
• Better reviews
• Better prices
• Better local reputation

AI tools work differently. They work at the problem level, not the category level.

A question like “What’s the best way to lower my heating bill this winter?” doesn’t just pull up HVAC companies. It surfaces smart thermostats, too.

Google promotes Nest thermostat as a tool that can help save energy over time. From the customer’s point of view, that’s a direct competitor to an HVAC service call, because both claim to fix the same thing.

That changes the game for how an HVAC company needs to frame its offer.

If your website only says “we do furnace repair and maintenance,” AI has very little reason to bring you into a broader conversation about energy savings. But if your content explains that heating bills often spike because of duct leakage, airflow imbalance, short cycling, or neglected equipment, now you’re something different.

You’re not just a vendor in a service category. You’re a trusted source that explains when a device-based fix helps, when it doesn’t, and when a system-level problem needs a real diagnosis.

That’s where AI visibility starts.

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

2. Your real competitors are often substitute solutions

A substitute solution solves the same problem through a completely different product, service, or approach. It’s not a new concept. Economists have been talking about substitutes forever.

What’s new is how visible these substitutes have become inside AI-generated answers.

A user who asks how to whiten teeth does not just see dentists. They also see consumer products framed as viable alternatives. Smileactives markets a range of whitening products for at-home use and claims users can see results quickly depending on the product and application. Suddenly, a local dental practice is in an implicit head-to-head comparison with a $25 kit from the pharmacy, even though the dentist never intended to compete in that frame.

If your website only says “we offer professional whitening treatments,” that message is too thin. It describes the service without making the case for it.

A stronger angle explains what AI can actually use:

• What level of staining doesn’t respond well to over-the-counter products.
• When gum sensitivity or enamel issues make professional supervision worth it.
• How results actually differ across methods, and why a one-time cosmetic goal is a completely different situation than long-term oral health.

That kind of content does two jobs at once:

• It helps buyers make a smarter decision.
• It gives AI structured reasoning it can pull from when someone asks the question.

This is the broader shift. Your business no longer just competes with providers that look like you. It competes with anything that sounds like a plausible answer to the same question.

3. AI often recommends DIY before professional services

AI systems are shaped by the internet they summarize, and the internet is packed with how-to content, tutorials, explainers, and step-by-step videos. That gives DIY options a massive head start.

A homeowner asking how to fix patchy grass may get a DIY-heavy answer before they ever see a single local lawn service.

You see the DIY option in the AI Overview ahead of results from a lawn care company.

That doesn’t mean DIY wins. It just means DIY often gets introduced first.

The mistake a lot of businesses make is writing content as if the buyer has already decided to hire someone or make a purchase. They often haven’t. They’re still weighing their options:

• Do it alone
• Buy some products and follow a guide
• Hire a pro for part of it, or hand the whole thing off

A smarter positioning strategy meets that indecision directly:

• Which lawn problems are genuinely DIY-friendly?
• Which ones usually fall apart without the right equipment, soil analysis, or timing?
• What’s the cost of getting the sequence wrong?
• Why does patch repair fail when the real problem is compaction, shade, or disease?

Answer those questions on your site, and you stop being invisible to the buyer’s actual decision process.

4. AI creates new competitors across entire industries

One of the least obvious effects of AI search is that it removes the walls between industries when the end goal is the same.

Personal training is a good example. A local trainer used to compare themselves mostly against other trainers or gyms. Now they also compete with fitness apps, digital coaching platforms, and creator-led workout channels.

Freeletics describes its product as a personalized training app powered by an AI Coach that builds plans around goals, feedback, and fitness level. If a person asks how to get fit at home, both a personal trainer and Freeletics fit the intent. From the AI engine’s perspective, both are legitimate answers to the same problem.

That means a trainer’s site needs more than generic language about customized workouts. Almost every option in the answer set will claim customization.

A stronger positioning angle would focus on dimensions that apps struggle to replace:

• Real-time form correction.
• Injury prevention for specific limitations.
• Accountability through live interaction.
• Adaptation for confidence, motivation, and adherence.
• Feedback that changes not just the workout, but the person’s execution.

These are not marketing flourishes. They are decision criteria. AI systems are more likely to include you when those criteria are stated clearly and mapped to real situations.

Why AI is causing small businesses to lose visibility to the competition

Most SMB websites were built for a different era of search. They describe services. They mention geography. They list reviews and trust markers.

Maybe a few FAQ pages and some blog content. That structure still works for local pack results and branded searches. But it falls short in AI-mediated discovery because it assumes the comparison starts inside the category.

It often doesn’t.

The buyer’s comparison starts earlier and wider than it used to. And a lot of SMB sites miss the real question behind the query. They just name the service they want to sell.

Look at the difference between these two pages:

• “Affordable HVAC repair in Dallas”
• “Why your heating bill is still high even after installing a smart thermostat”

The first describes an offer. The second enters the actual decision space the customer is living in, and the one AI is trying to explain.

Source

This is why many businesses feel like AI is skipping them. It’s not always about domain authority or ad budget. Sometimes the content just doesn’t give the model anything useful to work with.

AI needs substance it can extract:

• When an alternative works, when it breaks down
• What trade-offs matter
• Who should choose which path, and what’s the risk of making the wrong call.

If your site never answers those questions, AI has no reason to surface you when someone asks them.

What are the biggest challenges businesses are facing with their websites and SEO? Free download >> Small Business Website Trends Report

How to position your business against AI-expanded competition

AI is expanding your competition and making it harder to control the narrative around your business. How can you fix this? You need to position against substitutes directly instead of pretending they are irrelevant.

Here are four ways to do that.

1. Acknowledge alternatives openly

Businesses often avoid naming substitutes because they think that gives the alternative more oxygen. In practice, silence creates ambiguity. AI fills ambiguity with whatever it already finds elsewhere.

• If you offer whitening, write the comparison page: Professional teeth whitening vs. at-home whitening kits
• If you run an HVAC company, publish: Can a smart thermostat lower your heating bill on its own?
• If you sell lawn services, create: DIY lawn repair vs. professional lawn treatment: when each makes sense

Source

This kind of content helps buyers and gives AI a reusable structure.

2. Explain when DIY fails

DIY-focused content gets traction because it feels cheap, immediate, and empowering. That makes it attractive in AI answers. Your job is to explain the failure conditions clearly.

That means content like:

• When whitening strips produce uneven results.
• When thermostat upgrades fail because the issue is mechanical.
• When overseeding fails because the underlying problem is soil compaction.

Source

Good comparison content does not mock the DIY option. It explains its limits.

3. Position around outcomes, not service labels

Buyers care about outcomes first.

They want lower bills, better-looking teeth, healthier lawns, less pain, better sleep, more leads, stronger security, or faster recovery. Your site should reflect that. Service pages still matter, but outcome pages often make it easier for AI to understand and easier for buyers to choose.

Source

4. Create extractable comparison content

AI systems favor content that is easy to parse and summarize. Clear headings, structured comparisons, and concise explanations increase the chances your content appears in AI answers.

These formatting patterns are similar to what works in featured snippets and AI Overviews, which we break down in this guide to creating AI-optimized content for search visibility.

Need help figuring out what makes your business the best and how to position it to customers? Download our guide: How to Do a SWOT Analysis (With Examples & Reusable Template) >>

A simple framework for AI-optimized competitive positioning

If you want a repeatable way to apply this thinking to your content strategy, start with three questions every time you create a new piece of content.

1. What problem does the customer actually have?

Not what service they’re looking for, but what underlying problem are they trying to solve? Lower heating bills. Whiter teeth. A healthier lawn. Getting fit.

Starting from the problem instead of the service category forces you to think like your customer and like an AI, both of which lead to better positioning.

2. What substitute solutions exist?

Make a realistic list. Include products, apps, DIY guides, online tutorials, and adjacent services that solve the same problem differently.

If you’re not sure what’s out there, ask an AI, and it will tell you exactly what it’s recommending to your potential customers.

3. Why is your solution better for certain situations?

This is where you earn your place in the AI answer. Be specific about the situations where your approach wins: complex problems, safety-sensitive work, cases where long-term results matter, scenarios where guaranteed outcomes are worth paying for.

This isn’t about being defensive. It’s about being genuinely useful to someone trying to make a good decision.

Positioning around the problem instead of the service category is what helps AI understand when to recommend you. And once AI understands when to recommend you, you’ll start showing up in conversations you didn’t even know you were missing.

Take on the AI-expanded competition with ease

AI search has quietly expanded what “competition” actually means. A dentist now competes with whitening kits. An HVAC company competes with smart thermostats. A lawn care business competes with YouTube tutorials. A personal trainer competes with a $15 app.

The businesses showing up in those AI answers aren’t always the ones with the best traditional SEO or the biggest ad budgets. They’re the ones that positioned themselves most clearly against the full range of solutions a customer might consider. That’s the shift worth internalizing.

Winning in AI search isn’t just about optimizing for keywords or climbing rankings. It’s about recognizing that when someone asks an AI for help, your real competition is every possible answer to the same question—not just the business down the street. And the best way to win that competition is to engage with it directly: acknowledge the alternatives, explain the trade-offs, and make a clear, honest case for when your solution is the right one.

The businesses that figure this out early will have a real advantage. The ones that don’t will keep optimizing for a competitive landscape that no longer exists.

The post How AI Expands Your Competitor Set & What to Do About It appeared first on WordStream.

To celebrate, we’re back and better than ever with more PPC data and insights for this year! We looked at over 13,000 search advertising campaigns across 23 industries running between April 2025 and March 2026 to bring you the freshest averages for four key metrics in Google Ads and Microsoft Ads—including click-through rate, cost per click, conversion rate, and cost per lead.

Plus, we’re sharing expert analysis and actionable tips to help you maximize your business’s search strategy with data-backed confidence.

You’ll also get a look back at the last 10 years of search ads benchmarks!

Let’s jump in before I get emotional. After all, I’ve been writing these benchmarks for the last five years; which is half the total years they’ve been alive and, like, 20% of the total years I’ve been alive (give or take).

Contents

• Key search ads trends: The big picture
• Microsoft and Google Ads benchmarks for every industry
  • Average click-through rate
  • Average cost per click
  • Average conversion rate
  • Average cost per lead
• What these search ad benchmarks mean for your business
• How Google Ads benchmarks changed over the years

On the go? Take this data with you! Download our free 2026 Google Ads benchmarks report here.

Key search ads trends: The big picture

Overall, year-over-year results from 2025 to 2026 were fairly stable. The differences between the numbers are much more mellow compared to our 2025 and 2024 reports, where we saw significant fluctuations, including a 12% increase in CPC and 25% increase in CPL.

In fact, perhaps the biggest highlight from our latest benchmarks is that, for the first time in five years, overall average cost per lead in Google and Microsoft Ads has actually gone down.

Here are the key search ads takeaways and trends for 2026 based on our latest data analysis:

• Metrics overall are quite stable year over year. This is a welcome surprise after years of flux and steeply increasing prices!
• That said, costs have gone up a LOT since we started these reports in 2016. CPC is over twice what it was 10 years ago ($2.32 versus $5.42), and CPL has increased by about 13%, with a $59.18 average in 2016 versus a $66.69 average in 2026. Factors such as inflation and competition have caused search ads costs to rise over time.
• In 2026, CPL went down for the first time in five years. This marks the first time we’ve measured a decrease in CPL since before 2020! The industries that did see increases in CPL aligned with those impacted by tariffs, including automotive and retail.
• Conversion rate increased for a whopping 87% of industries. This comes after a nice increase in CVR last year as well. Which is great news—with costs increasing, it’s heartening to know that the users engaging with ads are actually converting, making search ads a worthwhile investment for driving leads.

Over the last few years, we’ve seen a ton of new features, core updates, and more across Google’s platforms. The fact that average Google Ads metrics have mellowed a bit could indicate a more stable search landscape.

“Seeing an overall drop in cost per lead for the first time since before 2020 is a big signal that advertisers who’ve adapted to search platform changes are getting more stable and predictable results,” said Pepe Hernandez, a senior director of optimization strategy at LocaliQ.

Advertisers could be settling into a rhythm with a search environment that’s more automated by optimizing ads with AI Max and taking AI Overviews into consideration when planning campaigns.

“With campaign types like Performance Max and other AI-driven settings such as AI Max, it’s become a lot easier to generate leads at a lower cost,” said Brett McHale, Founder of Empiric Marketing.

Want to optimize your Google Ads results fast? Start with a free, instant account report using our Google Ads Grader!

Microsoft and Google Ads benchmarks for every industry

Check out the Microsoft and Google Ads benchmarks across all metrics and industries for 2026.

Click to enlarge

Average click-through rate

Driving clicks is your key to unlocking search ads success, as users need to click on your ads first before they can convert into customers.

The average click-through rate in Google Ads in 2026 is 6.64%.

Click-through rate directly connects to your business’s bottom line, as higher-performing ads are more cost-efficient and resonate better with your audience. So, you want to maintain a high CTR across your search campaigns.

“Click-through rate is vital to assess the relatability and relevance of your ads to your target audience,” said Colby Flood, Founder of Brighter Click.

To improve CTR, start by looking at your ad copy and creative to ensure your ads are as enticing and relevant as possible—you could even have Google’s automated features, like AI Max for search campaigns, help you do this.

“Test out different ad copy styles, or let AI Max try, and see what shifts yield the right kind of clicks and conversions,” said Stephanie Scanlan, Vice President of Customer Success at LocaliQ.

“A shift in language can bring you more consumers ready to click on high-dollar products,” Stephanie said.

The industry with the highest click-through rate was Arts and Entertainment, at 12.75%. This was followed by Finance and Insurance and Travel, at 9.83% and 9.82%, respectively.

The industry with the lowest click-through rate was Automotive—Repair, Service and Parts, at 5.56%. This was followed by Dentists and Dental Services and Health and Fitness, at 5.66% and 5.81% respectively.

Average click-through rate: YoY

Our clients are seeing fairly stable CTRs year over year. This is in contrast to market trends, which show lower click-through rates not just for organic results but even for paid ads. We attribute this to optimization tech in the LocaliQ platform.

“Our clients are seeing greater improvements than the broader industry. This outperformance is driven by our platform’s focus on campaign optimization strategies such as Smart Bidding, AI Max, intent‑based keyword management, and visual‑first creative,” said Katie Ashafa, a senior director of optimization strategy at LocaliQ.

Industries that saw the biggest improvements in CTR year over year were Education and Instruction (up 31.71%), Beauty and Personal Care (up 18.21%), and Finance and Insurance (up 18.01%).

The industries that had the biggest drops in CTR performance year over year were Health and Fitness (down 19.08%), Career and Employment (down 10.50%), and Restaurants and Food (down 9.89%).

“Specific industries will continue to see ebbs and flows based on what is happening in the world. The increase in the Beauty and Personal Care category is expected as influencer culture on consumerism has reached an all-time high,” Stephanie said.

“Likewise, with economic concerns brewing in news reports, we’re seeing more people searching for finance or insurance help.”

Average cost per click

Cost per click is the first budget-related metric advertisers focus on when assessing campaign performance. You want to shoot for a super high click-through rate whenever you can, but also be mindful of how much you’re paying for clicks.

The average cost per click in Google Ads in 2026 is $5.42.

The whole point of pay per click advertising is to, well, pay for clicks! If you’re paying for every single one of the (hopefully) many, many clicks your ads bring in, you’ll want those clicks to run you the lowest price possible. This will stretch your Google Ads budget further—which is why maintaining a low cost per click is so important.

However, when you work to lower your cost per click by, say, culling costly keywords from your keyword lists, consider that a higher average CPC can be worth it if it’s getting you closer to your conversion goals. This is dependent on your business’s advertising objectives, of course, but it’s not crazy to keep higher CPC campaign assets running if they’re converting well.

“Focusing too much on cost per click can lead you to cheaper clicks that don’t convert. I pay close attention to conversion rate and cost per lead in relation to CPC,” said Cliff Sizemore, Senior Marketing Manager at LocaliQ.

Managing your cost per click is where it becomes very apparent how much of a balancing act PPC can be!

Industries with the lowest CPCs included Arts and Entertainment ($1.63), Restaurants and Food ($2.05), and Travel ($2.14).

Meanwhile, industries with the highest CPCs included Attorneys and Legal Services ($9.87), Home and Home Improvement ($8.33), and Dentists and Dental Services ($8.00).

Average cost per click: YoY

Education and Instruction saw the biggest decrease in CPC in 2026—down 22.79%. Runner up was Beauty and Personal Care, which saw a 18.95% decrease in CPC, followed by Automotive — For Sale, with average CPC down 5.81% for that industry.

In contrast, Real Estate was the industry with the biggest year over year CPC increase, up 27.27%. Personal Services and Health and Fitness both had a CPC increase of about 23.41%.

Average conversion rate

Your average conversion rate is an indicator of how effective your business’s ads are at turning clicks into customers. You can track tons of different meaningful actions (on your site or offline) as conversion events in Google Ads and Microsoft Ads. A conversion rate tells you how frequently users who click on your ads complete those tracked actions.

The average conversion rate in Google Ads in 2026 is 8.18%.

This PPC metric is crucial for measuring the pace of leads moving through your sales funnel. Basically, a high conversion rate is something all accounts should strive for, since it indicates that your ads are working as intended.

Animals and Pets (16.22%), Automotive—Repair, Service, and Parts (15.51%), and Education and Instruction (13.14%) were the three industries with the highest CVRs.

Finance and Insurance (2.64%), Furniture (2.99%), and Career and Employment (3.05%) were the three industries with the lowest CVRs.

Average conversion rate: YoY

One of the industries with the lowest overall average CVR this year also saw the biggest decreases in CVR compared to 2025. Career and Employment CVR dropped by 29.42%. This industry was followed by Automotive—For Sale, which saw a CVR decrease of 22.56%, as well as Business Services, with its CVR down 5.65%.

Beauty and Personal Care saw the biggest year-over-year CVR increase, up 32.34%. Followed by Personal Services (up 26.69%) and Animals and Pets (up 24.10%).

This is the second year in a row Career and Employment has dropped year over year in terms of average conversion rate. Unemployment rates have slightly increased over the years compared to when our benchmarks first started, but an unstable job market doesn’t mean businesses in this industry should give up on advertising.

Career and Employment brands tend to face many advertising restrictions, so it can be easy for those taking advantage of the campaign and targeting types they can use to be positioned ahead of competitors that are quick to throw in the towel.

Source

Average cost per lead

The “bread and butter” of any Google Ads performance report, and the metric businesses care about most, is cost per lead.

The average cost per lead in Google Ads in 2026 is $66.69.

I first started coining the cost per lead as the “money metric” for search ads back in our 2023 benchmarks report, and I still stand on that. Cost per lead links your ad performance back to your business’s bottom line, as a measure of how much it costs to acquire a conversion from your ads. In other words, your cost per lead tells you if you’re getting the most “bang for your buck” with search ads.

“Cost per lead is an important in-platform metric for measuring paid search success. But it’s even more important to track search leads to the down-funnel pipeline and revenue. High lead volume means nothing if those leads aren’t converting into revenue,” said Kevin McClary, Head of Performance Marketing at Gorilla 76.

Cost per lead is just one of many metrics that tell a complete story about your campaign performance. You want to squeeze the most out of your ads with the least amount of spend, but in many industries, advertisers can run campaigns with a high cost per lead and still turn a profit.

The industry with the lowest cost per lead in Google and Microsoft Ads in 2026 is Arts and Entertainment at $26.84. This is followed by Automotive—Repair, Service & Parts, at $29.96, and Restaurants and Food, at $30.57.

On the opposite end, the industry with the highest cost per lead in Google and Microsoft Ads in 2026 is Attorneys and Legal Services, at $131.63. This is followed by Furniture, at $106.70, and Real Estate at $102.51.

Average cost per lead: YoY

Industries that saw the highest year over year increases in cost per lead included Automotive—For Sale (up 13.90%), Health and Fitness as well as Career and Employment (both up 7.26%), and Automotive—Repair, Service, and Parts (up 5.12%).

In contrast, industries with the biggest year over year decreases in cost per lead were Travel (down 39.35%), Beauty and Personal Care (down 34.95%), and Physicians and Surgeons (down 29.54%).

What this data tells us about how to improve your own Google Ads performance

You’ve got the latest data, you’ve got context on how results in the search landscape have evolved, and now, you’re ready to apply everything to your strategy. Here’s everything you need to know to tackle your search ad campaigns in 2026 based on our findings.

1. Prioritize which search ads metrics you measure based on your goals

Our search ads solutions for our customers analyze much more than just the four metrics we’ve consistently covered in these benchmark reports. We’ve kept our search ads benchmarks focused on CTR, CPC, CVR, and CPL because they’re core metrics that provide a strong high-level view of campaign performance.

However, there are a ton more key performance indicators advertisers can, and should, consider when analyzing their accounts.

To accurately measure and optimize your search ads results, you’ll want to prioritize your metrics based on your unique business needs and goals. That way, you’re considering data points that matter most when making adjustments in your account.

“I usually tell people to try not to over-focus on any one metric. For example, CTR and CPC can look good on paper, but they don’t mean much if traffic isn’t converting. Especially in niche or lower-volume spaces, efficiency might matter more than volume,” said Varun Penatsa, Senior Digital Marketing Manager, Demand Gen, at Freshpaint.

Try playing around with the reporting capabilities within the Google Ads and Microsoft Ads platforms to see what additional metrics you could be sleeping on that could easily get pulled into a custom report.

“We encourage clients to evaluate the effectiveness of their entire paid ad strategy, rather than over‑indexing on individual, top‑of‑funnel metrics,” Katie said. “For example, if click-through rate declines but the clicks driven are higher quality and convert at stronger rates, that lower CTR alone does not warrant concern,” Katie said.

Google Ads reporting has improved exponentially since 2016, so tailor your view to the metrics that give you the best insight into your business’s bottom line!

2. Don’t be afraid to make regular changes in your account

Many small business advertisers have been running search ads for a few years now. It can be easy to hit cruise control once you feel confident in your account structure, but you’ll still want to regularly monitor and optimize your account. The data we’ve collected over the last 10 years puts into perspective just how much the search ad landscape can change from year to year, so don’t be surprised if your strategies from years prior are no longer effective.

Just be sure to allot time for a consistent account health check and be ready to pivot as needed. There’s nothing wrong with flexing your approach to search ads according to factors like the current economy, audience trends, and more.

Most PPC campaign changes take 30 days to stick, so it’s recommended to audit your campaigns monthly at a minimum.

This example small business campaign has been running since 2018, but it still has changes recorded as recent as last month.

3. Supplement your search ads campaigns with automated features

Automation is the name of the game in Google Ads in 2026. For instance, Performance Max and Demand Gen campaigns both allow your ads to appear within the Google Ads search environment in addition to other placements. In other words, these campaigns give you more visibility for the same amount of effort. Try incorporating these fully automated campaign types into your account to balance your manually controlled search campaigns.

Also, you may want to expand your standard search campaign capabilities with automated features such as AI Max and Smart Bidding. AI Max can help your ads reach valuable, meaningful SERPs beyond what you’ve set up to target. Additionally, Smart Bidding is a go-to strategy for most advertisers looking to maximize their bids and budgets.

“Many accounts now lean on features like PMax and AI Max, which make it easier for the advertiser to take advantage of AI,” said Navah Hopkins, Ad Product Liaison at Microsoft.

“AI-powered ad campaigns tend to have higher conversion and relevancy rates. With automation, while there might be fewer clicks to the site directly from a standard search campaign, business is still happening at a profit,” Navah said.

Source

4. Nail down your account basics

Many advertisers end up with results that fall behind the average performance in their industry because they let account basics slip. We recently analyzed over 15,000 Google Ads accounts and found that the foundational parts of campaigns have a huge impact on performance.

“Despite how much AI is involved in targeting and optimization now, the fundamentals haven’t changed when it comes to improving conversion rates over time,” Brett said.

In fact, adding just one negative keyword to your search or campaigns can triple your conversion rates.

The most effective accounts nail down their structure and focus on fundamentals like CTR and Quality Score to drive strong Google Ads results.

“Platforms are rewarding tighter alignment between keywords, ads, and landing pages,” Pepe said.

Is your account’s foundation rock solid? Find out, and get tips to strengthen your strategy, with our free guide to the perfect Google Ads account structure!

5. Get more granular with your targeting optimizations

In PPC, it’s all about quality over quantity when it comes to clicks and leads. To keep up with the pace in your industry, you’ll want to put your efforts toward audiences that are more likely to turn into customers.

“Being more intentional about your target audience, content on your landing pages, and thinking about the user journey can make a difference in your ability to drive a higher ROI,” said Katy Towe, a senior director of optimization strategy at LocaliQ.

Also, don’t let a high CPC keyword stop you from sourcing your best quality conversions.

“These benchmarks showcase that it isn’t about putting your ads and marketing efforts in front of all searches but the right searches,” Stephanie said.

“Our ability to optimize for conversion value demonstrates the growing need to tailor your campaigns to who your consumer is for your business. In recent years, it was about casting a wide net. Now, we can get much more granular on targeting with custom audiences, remarketing lists, interest and demographic lists, and lookalike audiences,” Stephanie said.

These types of optimized targeting lists ensure you’re showing ads to audiences better set out to convert. Plus, changes we’ve seen in the Google and Microsoft platforms emphasize putting your ads in front of more specific audiences.

“Advertisers should focus on showing their ads to a precise audience, with the right language, at the right time, and at the right cost,” Stephanie said.

6. Use data to inform your campaign optimizations

While you don’t want to constantly make changes within your Google Ads account, you do want to make regular optimizations to improve your campaigns. Try deploying different ad creatives, targeting, or bidding tests on a consistent basis to see what makes the biggest impact for your business.

“Get test ideas by asking yourself, ‘Do certain products or services yield a better conversion result at a certain time of the day or week? Have I crafted the right message for my ideal audience?’ Then take the data from the experiments to make decisions on the next steps and optimizations for you to make,” Stephanie said.

Try adding some power words from our study of top-performing Google Ads.

It’s also important to pull the right data so you can understand how your optimizations are contributing to campaign improvements.

“If you’re only tracking how many leads your campaign drove, you’re missing the point. You need to know which of those leads actually turned into customers, and that needs to feed into how you’re bidding—not just how you’re reporting,” said Katia Hausman, Vice President of Paid Media Products, LocaliQ

For example, with conversion value tracking, you can collect data on the worth of each action a potential customer takes after seeing your ad.

“The biggest standout here is the CPC and CVR increases coupled with a cost per lead decrease. This is especially important as platforms are shifting and brand and performance marketing converge. If there ever was a proof point to pivot to conversion value tracking, this is the proof point,” Navah said.

How Google Ads benchmarks changed over the years

Here at WordStream and LocaliQ, we believe in practicing what we preach. Many of our dedicated experts working with businesses that use our digital solutions reference these Google Ads benchmarks frequently when talking strategy—myself included when I was on our support team back in the day. The benchmarks have always been one of the most accurate ways to gauge an account’s performance.

“This report helps guide us to accomplish the client’s overall goal. We use trends and benchmarks to help us know if we are on the correct path to success, or if we need to pivot,” Pepe said.

Over the years, dozens of trusted industry publications have agreed that our benchmarks were the best resource for this use.

In fact, our benchmarks reports have yielded over 2 million total visits and more than 196,000 backlinks (so far).

However, the numbers we would reference back when our benchmarks were just taking off look a lot different than the norms on Google Ads now. And, when I say they “look different,” I mean in more ways than one… Check out how our report’s design has evolved!

Here’s a look back at the average search ads performance from our first benchmarks report in 2016:

• Click-through rate: 1.91%
• Cost per click: $2.32
• Conversion rate: 2.70%
• Cost per lead (which we called CPA, or cost per action, back then): $59.18

This data is such a blast from the past! Since then, averages across the board have roughly doubled or tripled.

For one, more businesses have gotten into PPC since then, so overall averages have naturally increased as more ads appear on the SERP and competition increases. Now, nearly half of all small businesses we recently surveyed in our small business trends report are using paid search advertising, and that’s been trending upwards year over year.

But we have seen other reasons for general increases over the years. For example, we reported in 2024 that Google admitted to having raised search ad prices to meet revenue goals during its antitrust trial.

Source

There are many other factors behind why overall performance averages in Google and Microsoft Ads have fluctuated over the years (does “COVID” ring a bell to anyone?), and that’s why we’ve been so dedicated to consistently running back this report each year. When you’re comparing your current Google Ads account performance to industry averages, we understand that having the most up-to-date information is crucial.

Google Ads Benchmarks 2026: How to take action in your account now

Thinking back on 10 years of Google Ads benchmarks just brings a tear to the eye. We started releasing this data to inform business owners and advertisers with tangible advice that empowers confident account management decisions, and 10 years later, that’s still our MO. With these benchmarks as a guiding light, you can set your business ahead of industry competition and focus on optimizations that make an impact on your account.

For more help making the most of your search ads, see how our solutions can maximize your campaign strategy!

About the data

This report is based on a sample of 13,474 US-based search advertising campaigns running between Apr 1, 2025, and March 31, 2026. Each subcategory includes at minimum 52 unique active campaigns. “Averages” are technically median figures to account for outliers. All currency values are posted in USD.

The post Google Ads Benchmarks 2026: Competitive Data & Insights for Every Industry appeared first on WordStream.

But you don’t want your Father’s Day message to be like a pencil with two erasers…pointless. (Get it!?)

You want it to resonate with your audience, communicate something important from your business, and be sensitive to those who may find Father’s Day difficult.

So we’re sharing Father’s Day messages that will hit those marks you can use in your social posts, email marketing campaigns, and more.

Contents

• Father’s Day email greetings
• Father’s Day social media messages
• Father’s Day messages for SMS
• Father’s Day quotes
• General Father’s Day messages
• AI-generated Father’s Day wishes
• Tips for your Father’s Day messages

Father’s Day greetings for email

Copy, paste, and customize these Father’s Day email messages.

Promotional email

Say thanks to the dad or father figure in your life.

We’ve got plenty of gifts for dad as part of our Father’s Day sale!

Stop in before Father’s Day or shop with us online for 30% off your purchase.*

You don’t want to miss this

Business logo
Business contact information
*Terms and conditions

📣 Speaking of promoting your business… Free guide >> The 30+ Best Ways to Promote Your Business (With or Without Money)

Event email

Looking for something fun to do with your dad or the father figure in your life this Father’s Day? Join us for our Father’s Day event!

On DAY from TIME-TIME, you can enjoy:

• Specifics of event here
• Specifics of event here
• Specifics of event here

Don’t miss this opportunity to make fun memories!

Let us know you’re coming here.

Business logo
Business contact information
*Terms and conditions

Father’s Day opt-out email

We know Father’s Day can be a difficult time for some. If you prefer not to see Father’s Day emails from us this year, we invite you to opt out below.

Button: Opt out

You’ll still hear from us about other events, promotions, and announcements.

Thinking of you,
Business name

Business logo
Business contact information
*Terms and conditions

Father’s Day wishes for social media

Use these Father’s Day messages on social media.

• Whether you’re a dad or like a dad, we want to wish you a Happy Father’s Day. Your love is the greatest and most precious gift in the world
• Happy Father’s Day to all those celebrating a special person in their lives. And to those struggling today, just know we’re thinking of you.
• We don’t say it enough, so say it extra today: Thanks for everything you do, dads.
• Happy Father’s Day to our dad (and father figure) customers!
• Cheers and beers! Father’s Day is here
• It’s not a dad bod. It’s a father figure

Source

Get copy-and-paste social media posts ready for Father’s Day and more holidays in our free social media template!

Father’s Day messages for SMS

Use these messages in your SMS marketing this Father’s Day:

• One for you, one for dad! Stop in for BOGO [product name] today through Father’s Day.
• Our Father’s Day sale is happening NOW! Don’t miss out. Check out our great deals [link]
• Looking for Father’s Day gift inspo? How about [product/service]? Get it 30% off TODAY ONLY [link]
• Happy Father’s Day! Stop in today for a special treat.
• Don’t forget Dad! We’ve got everything you need for a fantastic Father’s Day! [link]

Father’s Day quotes

You can use these Father’s Day quotes on social media, in your emails, and more.

• “A father is neither an anchor to hold us back nor a sail to take us there, but a guiding light whose love shows us the way.” – Unknown
• “My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person: He believed in me.” – Jim Valvano
• “No man stands taller than when he stoops to help a child.” – Abraham Lincoln
• “A father is someone you look up to no matter how tall you grow.” – Unknown
• “My father didn’t tell me how to live. He lived and let me watch him do it.” – Clarence Budington Kelland
• “My father gave me my dreams. Thanks to him, I could see a future.” – Liza Minnelli
• “A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty.” – Unknown

And, we had to include a couple of funny ones:

• “A father carries pictures where his money used to be.” – Steve Martin
• “Raising kids may be a thankless job with ridiculous hours, but at least the pay sucks.” – Jim Gaffigan

Source

😌 Free guide >> The 130+ Best Words & Phrases for Marketing with Emotion

General Father’s Day wishes for any business or occasion

Here are some more general Father’s Day greetings you can adapt for any of your marketing needs around this holiday.

• From all of us at [Business Name], we wish you a very Happy Father’s Day!
• If Father’s Day is hard for you, just know that you are loved and cared for.
• Wishing everyone a very Happy Father’s Day!
• Thanks to all the dads and father figures giving their time, support, and love. You’re appreciated!
• Dad, you are rad! Happy Father’s Day!

Source

AI-generated Father’s Day messages

To round out our list, we asked AI tool ChatGPT to come up with some messages you can copy and paste.

• Happy Father’s Day to all the dads, grandpas, stepdads, father figures, and mentors who show up with strength, support, and love every day. We appreciate all that you do
• Here’s to the dads who fix things, teach lessons, crack jokes, and make life better along the way. Wishing you a relaxing and well-deserved Father’s Day!
• Father’s Day is a chance to celebrate the dads and father figures who make a difference every day. From big moments to everyday support, we’re grateful for all they do.
• Wishing you and your family a wonderful Father’s Day weekend from all of us at [Business Name].
• Still searching for the perfect Father’s Day gift? We’ve got you covered. Stop by this week to find something Dad will actually love
• Celebrate Dad with something special this Father’s Day! Shop our Father’s Day favorites before they’re gone.
• Father’s Day is almost here! Whether you’re shopping for Dad, Grandpa, or another father figure, we’ve rounded up gifts and favorites perfect for celebrating the occasion.
• Shop now before Father’s Day and make his day extra special.
• Cheers to all the amazing dads out there
• Celebrating the father figures who make life better every day
• Father’s Day favorites are here
• Give Dad something he’ll actually use this year
• To the dads who always show up — today’s for you
• Big thanks to all the hardworking dads in our community
• Making Father’s Day gifting easy this year
• Don’t forget Dad this Father’s Day
• Weekend plans: celebrating Dad
• Here’s to dads, mentors, coaches, and role models everywhere

Quick tips for your happy Father’s Day messages

Before you schedule your Father’s Day greetings, here are some tips to keep in mind

• Be sensitive. Father’s Day can be a complicated or sad time for some. Keep that in mind as you plan your marketing campaigns around Father’s Day and schedule your messages.

• Use inclusive language. Many people can act as a father figure—stepfathers, uncles, brothers, fathers-in-law, and other trusted adults. That’s why it’s so important to use inclusive language where appropriate in your Father’s Day messages.
• Adjust your message. Depending on where and how you’re using your Father’s Day greeting, you may need to make tweaks to what we’re sharing. Customize these ideas and examples for your needs and the specific channel you’re sharing it on so it’s most effective for you.
• Stay on brand. It’s always important to keep your brand guidelines and brand personality in mind when selecting or creating marketing messages for your business. And Father’s Day is no exception.

Here are some Canva templates you can customize for social media to stay on brand:

[Facebook] [Instagram] [X]

Make Father’s Day memorable

Use these Father’s Day messages and greetings for memorable marketing. Just remember our tips: be inclusive, be sensitive, and stay on brand. And, to all the dads and father figures reading this: Happy Father’s Day!

Want more messages for your marketing? We’ve got you covered:

• Spirited 4th of July Messages & Greetings for Your Customers
• Back-to-School Messages for A+ Marketing
• Perfect Labor Day Messages & Greetings for Customers & Employees
• Halloween Greetings & Sayings for All Your Marketing Needs
• Thanksgiving Greetings & Messages for Customers, Comrades, & Coworkers
• Ready-to-Go Black Friday Messages & Email Templates
• Perfectly-Worded Christmas & Holiday Greetings
• Happy New Year Wishes & Images (Plus a Creative Word List!)
• Genuine Thank You for Your Order Messages, Templates & Images
• Valentine’s Day Messages for Your Clients (with Email Templates!)
• Memorial Day Messages for Your Customers, Coworkers & Community

The post 46 Father’s Day Messages & Quotes for All Your Marketing Needs (+Templates) appeared first on WordStream.

OTT ads, or over-the-top ads, show up when people watch their favorite content on streaming apps, YouTube, and more. Not only do OTT ads get you in front of a huge audience, but they also offer modern features, like interactive experiences, that help you capture leads, gather data, and convert viewers into customers.

In this guide, we’ll show you five OTT advertising examples that make use of traditional marketing techniques and modern ad platform features. Then we’ll dig into the details of OTT as an advertising platform so you can run high-performing ads of your own.

Contents

• 5 outstanding OTT advertising examples
• What is OTT advertising?
• What are OTT devices?
• What are OTT services?
• What is OTT advertising?
• What are the benefits of OTT advertising?
• How is OTT advertising priced?
• Tips from OTT video examples

5 outstanding OTT advertising examples

OTT advertising gives you several ways to engage and convert customers that traditional television ads don’t. Let’s look at a few examples to explore how you can take advantage of these powerful features.

The best aspect of all of these OTT ads is that they’re available to any business, big or small. Meaning, a local dentist or car dealer can easily copy the strategies of these big brands.

Looking for more conversions? Download 14 Super-Fast Ways to Boost Conversions

T. Rowe Price: OK to email

Advertising during your audience’s favorite shows has always been a good option to capture attention. But T. Rowe Price uses an innovative feature of OTT advertising to turn viewers into actionable leads.

The brand did it by letting viewers get more information sent directly to their email inbox simply by tapping the “OK” button on their ROKU streaming device.

Source

Why this OTT advertising example works

This ad removed friction for the viewer. They don’t have to go to a different device or stop enjoying their program to take the next step in their path to purchase. Reducing friction is a great way to improve lead generation and conversion rates.

Ring Camera: Add to cart

TV-era marketers would absolutely drool over this OTT advertising example. In it, Ring created a shoppable ad experience by including a way for viewers to add an alarm system to their Amazon cart right from their viewing device.

Source

Why this OTT advertising example works

Immediate gratification is a powerful emotional driver in consumer marketing. This ad gives viewers the immediate satisfaction of placing a product they just saw in their shopping cart (putting it one click away from shipping). This type of OTT ad would be a perfect pairing for your limited-time sales promotions and sense of urgent advertising.

Volvo: Ad Selector

Most businesses, regardless of size, can benefit from segmenting their audience. Doing so makes it possible to send super-relevant messages to groups of people who share common characteristics, needs, and interests.

Volvo appealed to three different market segments by creating three separate video ads. Then it used the Disney platform’s Ad Selector feature to let viewers choose which option they prefer.

Source

Why this OTT advertising example works

Volvo’s ad worked for two reasons. First, it made the ad experience much more relevant for each viewer. And second, it gave the brand a way to gather valuable first-party data about its audience. If most people chose the “Skater” option, Volvo could double down on that audience in its social media and display ads.

Maybelline: Binge Ad

Binge Ads are a type of OTT ad offered by several streaming services that allow brands to sponsor an ad-free episode for viewers. They typically show up after someone has watched two or three episodes of a show in a row.

Beauty brand Maybelline used this type of OTT ad on the Peakcock app to promote its Super Stay Coffee Addition lipstick line.

Source

Why this OTT advertising example works

Building brand awareness is as important as it’s ever been. And giving your buyers something valuable is a good way to generate positive awareness for your brand and products. It’s the backbone of many organic social media and SEO strategies. Now, you can apply it to OTT advertising.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital: In-Stream ad

Great storytelling is the heart of an effective ad. That goes doubly true for video ads people will see as they’re watching an entertaining or educational video on an OTT service.

In this example, the Och Spine Center at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital used its YouTube In-Stream ad to tell the story of how they helped a patient recover from a debilitating spinal tumor.

Source

Why this OTT advertising example works

The ad tells a compelling story in just 30 seconds. That’s brief enough to keep people from skipping, but still enough space to create a connection with the hospital’s target audience. These types of customer stories are fantastic topics for in-feed video ads.

Now, let’s get into the details of OTT advertising so you’re fully prepared for success.

What is OTT?

OTT (over-the-top) is video content delivered via the internet rather than traditional cable or satellite. It’s called “over-the-top” because the content goes directly to viewers over their internet connection, bypassing the traditional TV provider entirely.

Here’s a little more behind the name. The actual term for a cable box is set-top box. Because back in the day, when TVs were big clunkers and cable boxes were small, they sat on top of the TV. But even when screens became flat, and cable boxes got placed elsewhere, the term set-top box remained.

Memories, anyone?

Streamed content, on the other hand, does not require a cable box because it’s delivered via the internet. It bypasses, or goes over, set-top boxes. Hence, the term over-the-top.

What are OTT devices?

Basically, any device that displays video and connects to the internet is an OTT device. This includes:

• Smartphones, computers, tablets, and laptops.
• Connected TVs
  • Smart TVs (Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV).
  • Regular TVs using a device (Roku, Amazon Fire TV Stick, Chromecast).
  • Regular TVs using gaming consoles.
  • Wi-Fi Blu-ray players.

Is OTT the same as connected TV?

OTT and connected TV (CTV) are sometimes used interchangeably. They are not the same, though. CTVs are just one device on which you can watch OTT media.

What are OTT services?

OTT services are the apps that stream over-the-top content to your device.

There are several OTT services and apps out there, and they follow various models.

Transactional video on demand (TVOD)

• This is where you pay for individual pieces of content.
• Examples of TVOD streaming services include iTunes, Google Play, Vudu, and Vimeo.

Advertising-based video on demand (AVOD)

• Here, you can access streamed content for free, but with ads.
• Examples of AVOD streaming services include TubiTV, YouTube, and Hulu Ads.

Subscription video on demand (SVOD)

• For those who don’t want to see ads, you can pay for a subscription to see ad-free content.
• Examples of SVOD streaming services include Disney+, Hulu+, Amazon Prime Video, and Netflix. (Note: many of these services now show ads at the lower paid tiers).

Multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs)

• These are streamed content providers where you pay for a combination of both streamed and broadcast content.
• Examples of MVPDs include DirecTV, Sling, and YouTube TV.

To recap: You watch OTT (streamed) content (Schitt’s Creek) on an OTT device (iPhone) through an OTT streaming service (Netflix).

What is OTT advertising?

OTT advertising t is the practice of showing ads to consumers when they’re watching streamed (OTT) media. You can do this in a few different ways:

• Programmatic: Here, automation is used to serve OTT ads across multiple networks through demand-side platforms (DSPs) like Rocket Fuel, MediaMath, AppNexus, TubeMogul, and more. (This guide to programmatic advertising explains it in-depth)
• Platform direct: This is where you would purchase ads directly from the provider of the OTT device (such as Roku or Amazon Fire TV from our connected TV illustration).
• Publisher direct: Here, the exchange happens directly with the OTT service provider (our OTT streaming services above).

Source

What are the benefits of OTT advertising?

There are many reasons advertisers, especially at local businesses, are turning to over-the-top ads as an effective means of generating revenue.

The OTT audience is growing

More people are watching TV through streaming services than ever before, while fewer are watching traditional cable.

Cord-cutters now make up nearly half of all US internet households (about 56 million homes), with another 12% who never had cable to begin with. The OTT streaming market reflects that shift, growing from $221 billion in 2025 to a projected $264 billion in 2026.

OTT ads offer better targeting

With traditional cable TV advertising, the only way to target is by choosing a designated market area (DMA). There are just 210 DMAs across the entire U.S., meaning you’ll inevitably be reaching locations you don’t need (or want) to.

But with OTT advertising, you can target:

• Zip codes (much like with PPC geotargeting)
• Devices
• Demographics
• Behaviors

Local businesses can target OTT ads for their markets.

OTT advertising works without third-party cookies

Not only is streamed content becoming more popular, but it also provides opportunities for cookieless targeting. Here’s how:

• First, there’s contextual advertising—which does not require cookies because you’re targeting categories of TV/video content rather than individuals.
• Second, streaming subscription services collect sufficient first-party data from users (through registration and logged-in activity) to enable effective targeting.
• Third, there are still ways to report on the effectiveness of your OTT ads using IP addresses and timestamps.

OTT video ads have high completion rates

Viewers cannot skip OTT ads, install ad blockers, or change the channel (they’re only on one). And when served an ad, they complete watching it 95% of the time.

Short, unskippable OTT ads have a high completion rate.

Yes, they could leave the room, but with consumers viewing content on mobile devices (on the train or in the car, for example), this is less likely.

How is OTT advertising priced?

To help you get even more familiar with this form of video marketing, here are some OTT pricing models and metrics to understand:

• CPM: Cost per thousand impressions.
• CPV: Cost per view, meaning how much you’ll pay for every time a video ad starts.
• CPCV: Cost per completed view. Here, you only pay for ads that have finished playing all the way through.
• VCPM: Cost per viewable impression, which is when the ad is viewed for at least two seconds.
• CPH/CPS: Cost per hour, cost per second. Here, you pay for the total time 1000 viewable impressions generate.
• CPE/CPI: Cost per engagement/cost per interaction, such as with a lightbox ad.

Tips from OTT video ad examples

When you pay attention to OTT ads, you’ll see a few best practices show up in the best ones. Use them to make your next ad more successful.

Target your personas

When you know your audience well, you can use language, images, and topics that resonate with the individuals in your audience. Be sure to consider all of your customer personas when coming up with OTT video ad scripts and ideas.

If you’re not sure which segment of your audience to target, just ask them.

Be relatable

For the most part, traditional TV commercial ads feel “distant” from us. We feel like a brand is advertising to us. With online video ads and personalized targeting, viewers expect more relatable and personable content.

Market with emotion

This is a best practice for any form of marketing, but video is the most effective medium for marketing with emotion. Use emotional images, emotional music, and emotional words to have a memorable and meaningful impact on your viewers. Can I say emotional one more time? (Yes.)

And yes, humor is an emotion.

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Use voice-overs

It’s a best practice with social media video ads to make it so that the message is communicated without the sound on. This is true for OTT ads, but you also have to remember that even though people can’t skip your OTT ad, they can tune out, switch to a different device while it’s playing, or go in the other room. So it’s important to have a voiceover in your ads that conveys the message with sound, as this will still afford your brand some form of exposure to your viewer.

Copy these OTT advertising examples

OTT advertising gives you the audience attention of traditional TV ads with the advanced targeting, tracking, and conversion tools of modern digital marketing. The examples and tips we’ve included in this guide will give you a great start on trying out this valuable channel.

When you do get started, remember what the best brands do with their OTT ads. They use interactive features, focus on storytelling, and get to know their specific audience so their messages are extremely relevant. With those ideas in mind, you’ll generate the best ROI from your OTT ads.

The post 5 OTT Advertising Examples (+Over-The-Top Ads Explained) appeared first on WordStream.

In my years as a PPC consultant, clients were always looking for tips, hacks, and tools to help them save money. Lucky for me, I had a trick up my sleeve that would almost always deliver budget-saving results: ad scheduling.

Ad scheduling is one of my personal favorite underrated moves to make when maximizing a campaign’s performance. While it sounds limiting to set your campaign’s ads to show only at certain times, it actually makes the most sense, as most businesses have certain times of the day or week where their potential customers are most active online.

In this article, I’m going to uncover the money-saving magic, as well as the finer details, of ad scheduling. I’ll talk about what ad scheduling is and how it cuts costs while boosting conversion rates. Plus, I’ll walk through the steps for how to set up ad scheduling in Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, and Meta Ads.

Contents

• What is ad scheduling?
• Ad scheduling benefits
• How to set up ad scheduling in:
  • Google Ads
  • Microsoft Ads
  • Meta Ads

What is ad scheduling?

By default, all ad campaigns across platforms are due to run 24/7. Ad scheduling is the practice of limiting your campaigns to run only on certain days of the week and hours of the day. This way, you can ensure your ads are only showing during specific days/times that you know you’ll get the highest return on ad spend.

Ad scheduling saves you money by only showing your ads on the days and times they perform best.

For example, I can look at my data to identify that Mondays between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. are my best converting times. But on the opposite end, I spend on clicks on Sundays at 3 a.m. that are not converting. Therefore, I may want to adjust my ads to only run on weekdays from 9 a.m.-5 p.m., and not on weekends when I know this will be wasted spend.

If you’ve been in the PPC game a long time, you may also know ad scheduling by its old name from many years ago, when it was called “dayparting.”

Want to learn even more money-saving tips? Found out where you can save spend with our Free Google Ads Grader!

Why use ad scheduling?

Ad scheduling in Google Ads is assigned at the campaign level for any campaign type. This even includes automated campaigns, like Smart or PMax campaigns, which is a huge advantage. Why? While these automated campaigns do the heavy lifting for you, you’re not able to control much since they run on their own via Google’s algorithm. With ad scheduling, you can still regain at least some control over the campaign’s behavior. In fact, some campaigns, like PMax, may prompt you to assign a schedule in the setup process.

Additionally, being able to set this solely at the campaign level, regardless of campaign type, will help unify your ad groups and make things easier to manage at a high level.

Plus, even if you want to run ads 24/7, you can still leverage ad scheduling through bid adjustments. Both Google and Microsoft Ads allow for this. You can use this feature to pay more or less per click during specific hours on certain days, depending on how you’d expect to perform.

So, one workaround would be to set up an ad schedule that would still be inclusive of all hours and days. Then, add on schedule sets of what days or hours you’d want to bid up or down on to manage those separately. Or, even if you still wanted to leverage ad schedules to stop running 24/7 you can still apply bid adjustments on a more restrictive ad schedule. However, with any bid adjustment, they will only be taken into account if the campaign is on a manual bid strategy.

So, though the requirement is to have a manual bidding strategy to try out this loophole, it’s truly not one size fits all, and there are opportunities for bid adjustments for every account type!

An example of an ad schedule bid adjustment in play with a campaign’s location targeting.

How to set up ad scheduling in Google Ads

Before you set up scheduling in Google Ads, there are three things about time zones you need to know:

1. Google ad schedules default to the time zone your account is set to.
2. Once you set up your Google account, the time zone you set cannot be changed later on.
3. You can only choose one time zone.

This means that if you’re running Google ads in multiple time zones, you’ll need to stretch your ad schedule to cover both zones. So if you want your ad to show on both the east and west coast from 1-4 p.m. in both time zones, you’ll need to do the math and set your ad schedule for 1 p.m.-7 p.m. This isn’t ideal if you don’t want to run past 4 p.m. on the East Coast. This means that, in some cases with Google ad scheduling, wasted spend is unavoidable. But if you do the math, you can mitigate this as much as possible, and still see a return that’s well worth it.

One possible workaround would be to create separate campaigns and adjust those ad schedules zones accordingly, but this account structure gets hairy, and you’ll still need to do the math.

Now that you have that in mind, here are the steps to set up ad scheduling in Google Ads.

1. View your historical data

The key initial step to setting up a strong ad schedule in Google Ads is to analyze your historical data. You can do this by navigating to “where and when ads showed” under the reports section of the platform, or go to “ad schedules” under the audiences, keywords, and content section.

Either way, Google Ads will show you a view that includes a few different insights, like:

1. Ad schedule: Where you click into to actually set up or adjust a new or current ad schedule assigned to your selected campaign.
2. Day and hour: A combination of data with both information on best/least performing days and times together.

2. Consider additional scheduling factors

Aside from using data to see what historically works, you also need to take into account other factors that might not be accounted for in the data.

For example, if you know your business is only open on weekends or vice versa, you can adjust your ad schedule accordingly.

3. Select your schedule

Once you identify what days and times you want to schedule your ad, you can navigate over to the ad schedule subsection to set it up. Click the blue edit pencil, and Google will provide a drop-down with any and all available options for days and hours.

With this, you can even take it a step further and break up your ad schedule. You could set ads to run in the morning, take a pause during lunch hour, then enable them again in the afternoon. I encourage you to play around with different combinations to see what options you have and what you think would work best for your business.

For more cost-saving Google Ads tips, download our free guide to 6 easy ways to save money on Google Ads now!

How to set up Microsoft ad scheduling

As with Google Ads, Microsoft Ads also allows you to apply an ad schedule to any campaign type at the campaign level. But overall, Microsoft gives us more flexibility with ad scheduling. How? Not only does it allow us to set at the campaign level, but it can also be set at the ad group level.

Another major advantage of Microsoft Ads schedules is that your ad schedule dynamically adjusts to the time zone of the viewer. That’s right, while it may take more finesse to incorporate all time zones into your scheduling plan on Google Ads, over on Microsoft, the platform does the heavy lifting.

One thing to note here is that if you’re leveraging Microsoft Import to copy your Google Ads components over to Microsoft, then you’ll quickly find that you’ll want to manually manage your ad schedules between platforms since you’ll most likely be setting them up differently.

Microsoft also has two different spots where you can create and adjust ad schedules. The first being the campaign level settings, and the second being the actual ad schedule section on the left-hand panel.

Once there, the setup is essentially similar to Google Ads, where you can layer and select individual or groups of days/times that you prefer to run. Just like we talked about with Google Ads, you may want to hop into the Ad Schedule section for Microsoft and evaluate the day and hour data sections.

How to set up ad scheduling in Meta Ads

Not to be confused with Facebook Ad Set start and end dates, ad scheduling on Meta Ads shares similar spend-restricting qualities with Google and Microsoft. However, it’s only an available option when leveraging a lifetime budget instead of a daily budget.

Once you’re in a Meta campaign’s ad set that’s leveraging a lifetime budget, simply click into the “Show More Options” portion of the Budgets & Schedule section of the ad set editor.

From there, you’ll be able to select what days or times you’d like to show, just like in Google and Microsoft. Since Facebook can show to such large audiences, this is a great tool to ensure you always show at the right time: when it’s worth your money!

Save time and money with ad scheduling for your small business

On top of saving money, ad scheduling can be incorporated into your digital marketing strategy according to your business’s unique needs. There’s a place for ad scheduling for every small business, whether you are active on one or all of these three platforms, or want to continue running 24/7 while leveraging bid adjustments. Just keep the important details mentioned above in mind so you can get the highest return on ad spend. For more ways to maximize your paid campaigns across platforms, see how our solutions can help!

The post Ad Scheduling: How to Set It Up Right In Google, Meta, & Microsoft Ads appeared first on WordStream.

That’s why I’m sharing June marketing ideas to help your business create campaigns that make a seasonal splash this month.

And thankfully, June has tons of great themes, causes, and holidays to make your summer marketing campaigns hot! After this post, you’ll be set up for free and easy June marketing wins so you can stay connected with your customers and attract even more of them.

Contents

• Marketing ideas for June holidays
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion marketing ideas in June
• June national awareness causes and themes
• June national day highlights
• Full list of national days/holidays

Marketing ideas for June holidays

Let’s kick off our full list of June marketing ideas with two major holidays in June: Flag Day and Father’s Day.

Flag Day

Celebrated every June 14, Flag Day is a great way to continue to celebrate America, after Memorial Day has passed and July 4th is still a few weeks away. It commemorates the day that the stars and stripes were adopted for the flag. Here are some marketing ideas for this day:

• Incorporate an American flag theme into your offerings: American flag cookies, jewelry, clothing, and more.
• See if you can find a creative way to incorporate stars and stripes into your content.
• Offer discounts on red, white, or blue products you offer, whether that clothing, paint, or, in the case below, fabric:

Get more marketing ideas ready to go for June (and every month of 2026) in our free marketing calendar template!

Father’s Day

Of course, you can offer discounts and sales on this day, but here are some other ways to promote your business. We’re always looking for ways to think outside the [tie] box when it comes to Father’s Day gifts.

• Father’s Day gift guide: Compile some great gift ideas into a blog post, some of which can be your offerings. See if you can create a persona for the dads of your target audience. Are they young fathers? Old-timers? Gardeners? Gadget lovers? Readers? There are tons of Father’s Day gift guides out there, so keep it targeted for your audience.
• Gift baskets: Spare moms and kids from having to come up with ideas and put together creative gift baskets or combinations. Seeing everything together and artfully arranged gives added appeal.

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• Restaurants: Supply gift cards to your restaurant with a bottle from a local distillery or winery.
• Spa or salons: Run specials on men’s grooming supplies. Moms who come in to redeem their gift certificates from Mother’s Day will love the one-stop shopping!
• Don’t forget about last-minute shoppers! While diligent shoppers make careful decisions to find the right brand or product, last-minute shoppers are looking to make the fastest decision with the lowest risk.
• Make your flexible return policy prominent in your marketing copy, such as with “No hassle returns!” or “No return deadlines!”

Here are some more resources to help with your Father’s Day marketing:

• Inspiring Father’s Day Instagram Captions & Ready-to-Post Images
• Happy Father’s Day Messages & Greetings (+Templates)

Now, let’s continue on to other June marketing ideas based on national days and monthly observances

Flip a Coin Day

The first day of June every year is Flip a Coin Day. This holiday was made to celebrate math, but you can have some fun with it in your marketing content. Here are some ideas:

• Run a coin flip discount day: For each purchase, have customers flip a coin and call heads or tails. If the customer wins, they get a percentage discount based on the value of the coin. Quarter flips = 25% off, dime flips = 10% off, and nickel flips = 5% off. Of course, you can adjust the discounts depending on your budget and customer volume.

• Create content about decision-making. You can use the below blog post title formulas for just about any industry:
  Don’t Leave It to Chance: How to Choose a [X] Wisely
  It’s a Toss-Up: Should You Use X or Y?
  Can’t Make Heads or Tails of X? Read This
  Don’t Flip a Coin When Deciding on Your Next [industry] Partner.
• Gyms and trainers can share or run a coin flip workout.

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Donut Day

People love Fridays. And people love the donuts. And on the first Friday in June, they come together on National. Donut. DAY.

• Create a new tradition: Local bakeries, if you want to do something beyond just discounts and coupons, announce to your audience a week or so in advance that you’ll be introducing a brand-new, never-before-seen donut on this day—with a limited supply! Post little teasers on social media and your website to generate some excitement and mystery. Better yet, continue the tradition annually. Your patrons will look forward to it every year!
• Fitness businesses can offer or share an after-Donut Day workout. Donuts are delicious, but not exactly marketing materials for the fitness industry. Host or post a Day After Donut Day workout.
• Show customer appreciation: Bakeries can post pictures of their loyal customers, tagging them (with their permission)

World Environment Day

We know that consumers look for businesses that support causes they care about—one of which is environmental protection. Here are some ways to show your support for this cause, which occurs every year on June 5:

• Collect donations for a charity or offer limited edition eco-friendly items.
• Offer waste-reducing freebies with purchase, like a reusable bag or metal straws.
• Even just creating visuals with appealing and earthy tones for your June 5th Instagram post can make a mark.

Best Friend Day

National Best Friend Day, which occurs annually on June 8, is a relatable holiday and a great excuse for a sale. Run buy-one-get-one sales, promote your referral program, or run a tag-a-friend social media contest.

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Iced Tea Day

While not everyone drinks it, National Iced Tea Day (every June 10) is a reminder that summer is here and the weather is beautiful, which puts everyone in a good mood. Here are some simple ways to celebrate:

• If you collaborate with a local coffeehouse or bakery that specializes in tea, you can host a pop-up at your business and offer free tea for guests, or a coupon for a free tea with purchase.
• If you have a brick-and-mortar location, hand out iced tea samples to get foot traffic and spread brand awareness!
• Simply engage your audience on social media with questions about their iced tea preferences. Alternatively, you could share iced tea fun facts or recipes to get plenty of likes, comments, and reactions.

Nature Photography Day

Nature Photography Day, which occurs annually on June 14, is more than, well, nature photography. It’s about using images to raise awareness and advance conservation and protection efforts for plants, wildlife, and landscapes.

Post some of your best nature photos on social and accompany them with an eye-opening stat pointing to the need for conservation.

Summer solstice

The summer solstice is the first, and longest, day of summer. This is the perfect time of year to launch a summer collection, throw a beach-themed event or sale, or offer a beach blanket or koozie with a purchase.

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Take Your Dog to Work Day

This excellent day is observed annually. on the Friday after Father’s Day. Invite employees to bring their pooches to the office, and don’t be shy about advertising their presence on Meta, TikTok, or LinkedIn. The promise of a puppy is enough motivation for people to brave the summer heat and stop by your shops. And of course, this is the perfect contest opportunity.

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Insurance Awareness Day

Insurance Awareness Day occurs every June 28, and there’s plenty you can do with this June marketing idea, even if you’re not directly in the insurance industry. You can post a video to create buzz or share tips on how to assess your insurance, like with the example below:

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Other ideas:

• Lawyers and accountants can blog about the benefits of insurance for individuals and business owners, or resurface old posts on the topic.
• Doctors and dentists can encourage patients to check out their insurance to make sure they have adequate coverage, or provide tips for connecting with insurance companies about procedures.
• Massage therapists, chiropractors, and fitness centers should encourage clients to check their insurance benefits—many insurance companies offer coverage for massage and chiropractic treatments or subscriber discounts for joining a fitness center or gym.
• Travel agents, bed and breakfasts, and hotels can use this day to blog about the benefits of travel insurance.

And let’s not forget about pet insurance…

More June marketing ideas

How about a few more June marketing ideas? Check these out.

• Repeat Day (Saturday, June 3): Re-run past promotions and campaigns that were popular among your customers.
• Cancer Survivor’s Day (Sunday, June 7): Spotlight a team member or customer who is a cancer survivor, or simply post inspirational articles, quotes, and photos.
• Selfie day (Wednesday, June 21): You know the drill!
• Public Service Day (Friday, June 23): Feature a prominent member of the community on social media or offer a discount to those in the public sector who show ID.Try out these June marketing ideas

Diversity, equity, and inclusion marketing ideas in June

Diversity, equity, and inclusion in your marketing should be a constant throughout the year, but here are a few observances you can include specifically in your June content plans:

LGBTQ+ Pride Month

The LGBTQ+ community is one of freedom, creativity, and expression. So why not incorporate those themes into your associated campaigns?

And why not with a pride art or pride flag contest? Encourage your social media followers, or even other businesses and nonprofits in your neighborhood, to create their own pride flag or pride art and post it to social media. Make sure they use a specific hashtag so you can gather all entries and pick the winner(s).

Also, depending on your business, you can give away a couples-themed service, such as a couples massage session or photoshoot.

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Black Music Appreciation Month

Black artists have had unparalleled influence and impact on the music industry. Amplify the voices of Black creators this month by creating a shareable playlist of songs you love from Black artists.

This unique trick is sure to help your business stand out while also fitting diversity and inclusion into your marketing. It’ll also help to make your brand more memorable as the playlist will cause your audience to think of your business while they listen. You could even take it a step further and host an event where you and your customers can listen to the playlist together.

Juneteenth (June 19)

While this June holiday has over 155 years of history behind it, Juneteenth just became federally recognized in 2021. You’ll want to close down your regular operating hours for this day and give your employees the day off to process and learn from Black history. In the meantime, partner up with a local Black-owned business or organization for the day. Whether you’re volunteering at a nearby Black history resource center or cross-promoting with a Black-owned brand, you can post about the partnership on social media to help inspire and educate your customers.

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Additional observances in June that help promote diversity, equity, and inclusion include:

• National Caribbean American Month
• National Soul Food Month
• PTSD Awareness Month
• National Loving Day (for interracial marriage) – annually on June 12

June national awareness causes and themes

June is home to National Safety Month, National Great Outdoors Month, and more. Let’s go through some great ways to market your business in June with these June awareness causes.

Download our free, definitive guide to social media (simplified!) to see how you can quickly become social savvy for June!

Safety Month

Safety is a versatile topic that can apply to just about any audience. For example, here are some evergreen blog post ideas for different audiences:

• Cyclers: 10 Must-Have Features for your Child’s Helmet; 10 Deadly Mistakes to Avoid When Riding at Night
• Parents: Quiz: Are You Truly Keeping Your Baby Safe?
• Businesses: 5 Ways to Safeguard Your Network Against Hackers
• Millennials: 8 Social Media Safety Tips You Didn’t Know You Needed

You could also take a more seasonal approach by creating content around staying safe in the summer, or by handing out travel-sized sunscreen bottles in your store or with online orders for a limited time.

Great Outdoors Month

After brutal winters and busy school years, people are always particularly excited to get outside in June. Here are some ways to apply this theme to your marketing:

• Create a blog or social media post on the best places around your state to get outside and experience nature. Ask your followers to share their favorite spots, too.
• You could also run a month-long email campaign that points out new ideas and places to visit each week.
• If you hold indoor classes, host them outside!
• Run a sidewalk sale (because hey, outdoors doesn’t have to mean sitting atop a mountain).
• If there’s a local business near you that sells outdoor gear, see if they’ll donate some products for an “outdoors essentials” kit or even just a discount that you could offer in a giveaway. In return, you can promote their business on social media or even offer to donate your products at a relevant time.
• Turn a beautiful outdoors image into a media ad you can run on the Google Display Network and other owned media ad sites, like the USA Today Network. As a bonus, you could also turn this display ad into an eye-catching print ad or direct mailer.

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Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month

Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month happens every June to remind folks of the 7.4 million Americans age 65 and older that live with Alzheimer’s disease. People dealing with Alzheimer’s and other related Brain diseases are also beloved grandparents, parents, friends, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and valued members of their community. Here is how your business can show it cares about this cause this June:

• Spread awareness in your campaigns by acknowledging this observance in your copy and creative.
• Donate money or volunteering time to a local senior center.

Candy Month

I would have assumed Candy Month falls in October, but actually it’s in June. This is great news for your business, as there’s plenty to play around with in your campaigns to connect with Candy Month. For example, you could hold a “guess how many” candy jar contest or sweepstakes.

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Summer vacation/graduation

Celebrate the end of the school year with specials geared toward high school or college graduates. Some marketing ideas for you:

• Moving companies can run special promotions for college grads.
• Restaurants can offer a gift card to graduates who post a picture of themselves at their restaurant wearing their cap and gown.
• Catering and events businesses can post the dates during which their services are still available.
• Don’t forget about running sales for graduation and teacher gifts!

More June monthly themes and observances

Here are more June awareness themes that you can use as a compass for your social media posts, blogs, emails, and promotions.

June national day highlights

There is an observance day for just about every niche out there that can be a fit for June marketing campaigns. The full list (with dates) is at the bottom of this post, but here are some notables:

And there you have it. A basketful of ideas and examples to keep your brand creative, attractive, and authentic! For more ways to squeeze the most out of your campaigns this June, see how our solutions can help!

Also, be sure to check out these other monthly marketing resources:

• May Marketing Ideas (and Examples) for Any Business or Budget
• Summer-Ready June Content Ideas
• Free and Creative July Marketing Ideas
• Easy & Engaging August Marketing Ideas
• Back-to-School Messages for A+ Marketing

Full list of June holidays and observances

And as promised, here’s the list of June holidays and observances.

June 1

• Go Barefoot Day
• Say Something Nice Day
• Penpal Day
• World Milk Day
• National Nail Polish Day
• Global Day of Parents
• National Leave The Office Early Day

June 2

• National Rotisserie Chicken Day

June 3

• Repeat Day
• National Black Bear Day
• National Running Day – First Wednesday in June

June 4

• Clean Beauty Day
• Hug Your Cat Day

June 5

• National Veggie Burger Day
• World Environment Day
• Donut Day – First Friday in June

June 6

• D-Day
• Eyewear Day
• Higher Education Day
• Gardening Exercise Day
• Bubbly Day – First Saturday in June
• Trails Day – First Saturday in June

June 7

• World Caring Day
• World Food Safety Day
• Cancer Survivor’s Day – First Sunday in June

June 8

• Best Friends Day
• World Brain Tumor Day
• SAFE Day

June 9

• National Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Day
• National Movie Night
• Call Your Doctor Day – Second Tuesday in June

June 10

• Iced Tea Day
• Herbs and Spices Day

June 11

• Making Life Beautiful Day

June 12

• Red Rose Day
• Loving Day

June 13

• Kitchen Klutzes of America Day
• Random Acts of Light Day
• First Lady’s Day
• Weed Your Garden Day
• Sewing Machine Day
• Rosé Day – Second Saturday in June

June 14

• Army Birthday
• Flag Day
• Children’s Day – Second Sunday in June

June 15

• Smile Power Day
• Nature Photography Day

June 17

• Garbage Man Day
• Eat Your Vegetables Day
• Mascot Day

June 18

• National Splurge Day
• International Sushi Day

June 19

• Juneteenth

June 20

• World Productivity Day

June 21

• Daylight Appreciation Day
• Selfie Day
• Father’s Day – Third Sunday in June
• Summer solstice/first day of summer/ longest Day of the Year

June 22

• HVAC Tech Day

June 23

• National Hydration Day
• National Pink Day

June 24

• National Take Back Lunch Break Day
• National Pralines Day

June 25

• Global Beatles Dazy
• National Catfish Day
• National Strawberry Parfait Day

June 26

• Beautician’s Day
• National Barcode Day
• National Chocolate Pudding Day
• International Day Against Abuse and Illicit Trafficking
• Take Your Dog to Work Day – Friday After Father’s Day

June 27

• Sunglasses Day
• PTSD Awareness Day

June 28

• Logistics Day
• Insurance Awareness Day

June 29

• Camera Day

June 30

• Meteor Watch Day
• Social Media Day

The post 58 Free June Marketing Ideas for Sizzling Campaigns appeared first on WordStream.