Aaron

CEO, Host · Site Strategics, Edge of Media Studios

Key takeaways

3:00AI Overviews are causing organic click-through declines close to 60-61%, forcing marketers to shift from clicks to brand mentions, impressions, and visibility as primary KPIs.
6:05Budget allocation disagreement: Grace favors majority SEO investment; Melissa prioritizes content creation; Barry advocates diversification across all channels; Aaron emphasizes video and user experience.
10:12Original research, data, and point-of-view content now matter more than volume publishing in an AI search environment where LLMs synthesize multiple sources.
19:22Centralized visibility budgets managed by cross-functional teams outperform siloed channel budgets because customer journeys are nonlinear across social discovery, AI search, and Google.
29:31Hidden costs that teams will regret underfunding in 12 months include data infrastructure and reporting tools, video content creation, and AI experimentation even for skeptics.

Questions Aaron answered

How would you divide $10,000 across Google AI optimization, SEO, digital PR, citations, and social discovery?

Grace advocates majority to SEO; Melissa prioritizes content creation as the top-of-funnel driver; Barry argues for diversification across all channels; Aaron emphasizes video and user experience alongside SEO.

[Debate] Budgeting for multi-engine search: Where should your next $10K go?6:05 · with Grace Frolich, Melissa Pop, Barry Schwartz

What are the biggest hidden costs teams will underfund but regret in 12 months?

Grace and Melissa both cite data infrastructure, reporting tools, and measurement. Aaron adds video content. Melissa emphasizes quality content corners that teams always cut. Barry recommends teams experiment with AI tools even if skeptical.

[Debate] Budgeting for multi-engine search: Where should your next $10K go?29:31 · with Grace Frolich, Melissa Pop, Barry Schwartz

How do you justify budget allocation when attribution models can't reliably track which search engine drove the conversion?

Aaron argues you shift to visibility, brand, and share-of-voice KPIs instead. Melissa stresses the need to educate clients on new metrics and reporting frameworks. Grace notes the problem is not new to AI search.

[Debate] Budgeting for multi-engine search: Where should your next $10K go?33:36 · with Melissa Pop, Grace Frolich

In Aaron's words

“It's tough to put attribution against the billboard sign on the highway, right?”
[Debate] Budgeting for multi-engine search: Where should your next $10K go?35:38

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