Episode 29: Google’s AI Evolution: Winning with Entity Optimization
Discover how Google is looking far beyond keywords. Learn why email behavior, sentiment signals, and fulfillment performance now play a major role in visibility, ad performance, and brand trust.
“You’re now playing with their cookie jar—and they’re deciding who gets to have a cookie and who doesn’t.”
Objectives
In this episode, you will be able to:
Understand how Google is evaluating brands beyond keywords, incorporating signals from email engagement, sentiment, and fulfillment performance.
Discover why maintaining consistency across all customer touchpoints—from customer service to shipping speed—directly impacts your visibility and ad performance.
Learn how Google’s integration of Merchant Center and Search Console is shaping the future of brand discoverability.
Explore how reputation management and sentiment velocity are influencing local and organic search rankings in real time.
Gain insight into how marketers can move from reactive to proactive by aligning cross-functional teams and embracing a holistic brand strategy.
Transcript
Tim:
Okay, so Robbie, how do you build your street cred on Google?
Robbie:
Okay, just follow this. The first day of your new website, you gotta find the biggest, baddest website on the playground. You gotta punch that website in the teeth. Punch it in the teeth. Nobody's gonna mess with you. Take down the big dog. Nobody's gonna mess with you.
Tim:
Position one all day long.
[Intro]
Tim:
Okay. This is Tim and Robbie with the Content Community Commerce podcast. We talk about topics of convergence in content, community, and commerce. And today we're going to be talking about a topic that's a little bit different, but it's...
Robbie:
Emerging.
Tim:
It's emerging, but it's kind of like understanding the gap—what does your street cred look like across your business? Because Google is kind of all up in your business, a little more so than normal.
Robbie:
More than we'd like them to be. But at the same time, they're thinking about the user. And them getting up in your business is going to deliver the best user experience on Google, though maybe not the best experience for you as a company.
Tim:
You better get used to Google hanging out in your underwear drawer. Be okay with it—sniffing around.
Yeah. This conversation kind of came up because Google publicly announced that they’re pulling information from emails into search results. Basically, using content inside emails to enhance the content that gets ranked and published on Google.
That's through shopping and businesses using the Merchant Center, showing up on Google—how their products and services are being displayed. It's still early days for this, because it hasn't even been a full month. But it’s one more indication that Google really wants to know what's going on.
Even with just this small piece, we can see a clearer picture coming together. Google is building a tighter and tighter view of our businesses—or at least the more publicly facing sides of how we communicate and operate. They have a very high-level view into things.
Robbie:
And a really close view under the hood of how your business is probably functioning.
Tim:
I think for the longest time, as marketers, we've been guilty of seeing all of these siloed channels as their own things. Like, "Oh, what's going on over there won't impact me over here."
But in SEO, they've been hinting for a while at the concept of entity optimization.
When they're talking about that, they're thinking about all the touchpoints to your brand—to your website—to you as an entity.
So keywords are still something that helps them rank you, but understanding the entity—like the sentiment around your brand, how people are talking about you, where they’re talking about you, how they link to you or mention you—matters. It doesn’t even need to be a link.
This can be across YouTube, reviews, Reddit, social media—you name it.
Tim:
And now, with this new announcement, it's not enough to just be in your ad data. They're going a little deeper in that top drawer.
They're getting into your email. They're like, "Oh, well Bill clicked on that email and liked it, and now he's on their social."
They start seeing the audience integration across all the entities you're touching.
That can either be a really great thing—or a really scary thing. Like, "Oh no, they got a peek in the drawer that has socks with holes in them and worn-out Underoos... and they’re not impressed."
Robbie:
Yeah. There's so much here.
When they have this full picture of your business—and it's even tighter than the view some businesses have of themselves—it’s powerful.
Somebody might work in customer service and see one piece. Another person might be in email marketing and see another. Someone else might be on the content team.
All those pieces are siloed.
But this kind of brings a lot of that together.
For Google, the advantage is having a much more robust data set about customer profiles—basically, who is likely to do what, and how they’re interacting and engaging across all these different channels and sources.
If they’re making decisions, purchasing—whatever it is—Google is learning from that.
Also, like you mentioned, it's kind of a GDPR nightmare.
Tim:
Like, for you as the end user of Google, they throttle what you can see.
You have your GA4 dashboard and you go in there and you've got information, but it's all been highly sanitized to be GDPR-compliant.
But for them, as a proprietary owner and collector of this information—if they're not distributing that data—it’s basically first-party data to them.
They have it because the person has signed, probably unknowingly, so many terms and conditions across every one of Google’s properties.
Now they have permission to see your Gmail, to see your YouTube viewing habits, to see your login activity, your access to this, your responses over there.
So now, all of a sudden, they can take this one person and see how they interact on every touchpoint of your company—and how they view your company.
Tim:
Have they just deleted or unsubscribed from your email? Well, maybe we shouldn’t show ads to that person anymore, because they just gave us a signal that you’re not important to them anymore.
Or have they gone on and liked your last 20 videos?
And I think even what we were reading—it’s like they use emails to also verify your social presence and all those things.
So they’re really in your business.
They're touching everything to know who that person is and where they’re at with you.
Robbie:
They're getting into your dirty laundry. They've gone through your dumpster. They've gone through your trash. They've gone through your dog’s trash.
Tim:
They’re getting into it all.
But again, as a user, it probably means you're going to have way better ad experiences and better interactions with the brands you really like.
But as a brand, if you don’t have a good reputation or good sentiment around your company—or you’re doing things that aren’t helping you—this could be yet another nail in the coffin.
Here’s how Google is going to make it harder again to perform in yet another channel.
Robbie:
Because there’s so much more you have to do.
You have to work so much harder to be so much better across all those channels.
And that makes it challenging. That makes it difficult.
But I also think there's a lot here that provides opportunity.
It’s an opportunity to get on your toes instead of your heels.
But also, I think just having the understanding and awareness of how all these things are playing together gives us really unique opportunities as marketers—when we can see the high-level view of things and try to take action.
Also, I don't want to get into conspiracy theories, but they are getting all of this data from everybody—and getting really, really, really great, rich first-party data that they can use and leverage.
And what do they give us as marketers? GA4.
I'm gonna get my knife and fork for us...
Tim:
We're really excited to announce this new product for you all—it's GA4!
Is it something new and better? No.
We're going to strip out all your ability to know anything about your customer.
And by the way, we've basically sanitized it to the point where we're even going to threshold your traffic so it doesn’t match any of your other tools.
And your revenue's not going to be accurate in here.
Robbie:
Universal Analytics was like a tiger...
Tim:
But yeah, they know all this stuff—and stuff that you don’t know.
And now, just layering on top of that, it’s also happening in real time compared to how it used to be.
So like, Google five years ago—you had time to pivot, react, watch things change and evolve.
Now, changes can happen almost instantaneously.
If sentiment around your brand shifts—
And I was reading about this. I don’t even do local SEO, but I’ve been hearing that the most recent update responds to the velocity of reviews that you're receiving.
So if you’re getting a higher velocity of positive reviews than your competitors, that’s going to move you up rapidly in local rankings.
However, if you're receiving a rapid velocity of negative reviews, it’s going to have a similar effect—but in the opposite direction.
And this is like taking that concept and putting it on steroids.
Now they're mapping this across all the touchpoints of your business.
And based on that, it will determine how your ads display, how you inbox, all of these things that are revenue-impacting.
You're now playing with their cookie jar—and they’re deciding who gets to have a cookie and who doesn’t.
Robbie:
Yeah. Which is kind of a—again—almost a vulnerable position to be in.
Because you never want to be completely beholden to one platform.
But they do have a lot of power in this situation.
And like you said, they’re making swings in discoverability, in reaching your audience, based on the level of sentiment that’s going on.
Or what's going on in the market, or in the world around it.
It’s just a unique place.
It’s moved to a deeper level of context in everybody’s life.
Which, again, like you said, is going to make relevance and ads better.
Like, nobody wants to buy from a shady brand.
Tim:
ShadyMcGrady.com.
Robbie:
I mean, unless you’re looking for a shady deal. In which case, that’s your spot.
But yeah—this is a really unique step in the direction of Google having a good understanding of consistent sentiment around your business.
So instead of just one layer...
Tim:
It can’t be manipulated.
And I think that’s where, if you look back at all these signals and algorithm updates over the years—
Again, I’m maybe leaning into some SEO lenses here—but when they rolled out E-A-T, and then they added the extra E later…
All of these trust signals—
It used to be you could manipulate link profiles. You could get a bunch of backlinks, and that would make you look like a hero brand.
Whereas now, they’re not as dependent on that because they’re seeing all these other ancillary touchpoints—
How users actually interact with you. How they respond.
How they're talking about you on Reddit.
What they’re doing in their emails with you.
What they’re doing in ads.
What they’re doing organically.
They can take all of that and determine: how good is this brand really, when we stack it all up?
And I think there's a lot of opportunity here. But brands need to be way more strategic.
Because I don't think every brand should be playing in every channel if you can't...
Robbie:
Do all the things well.
Robbie:
I always talk about this in my social media strategy courses.
Start with one or two channels, then go from there.
Tim:
So you're saying I shouldn't do the Ticky-Tock?
Robbie:
I mean, your dancing is fantastic. Like full husband-in-the-tops energy. Backin' it up on TikTok—that's gonna be a crowd-pleaser.
But yeah, not starting off with too many channels is a gift.
Because you’re not spreading yourself so thin.
And your understanding of every new channel—every new way you're going to be interacting with Google—is going to be about as expensive as a free puppy.
It's not going to cost you anything up front, but it's going to cost you time and attention.
And that's what's going to be needed to really focus on this.
Because eventually, this is going to impact more and more layers of the business.
Customer service will become involved.
It connects email. It connects SEO. It connects ads.
It connects a lot of different groups—and even connects fulfillment too.
In the Merchant Center, they’re pulling in fulfillment data—understanding how quickly you're getting stuff out...
Tim:
...the door.
Robbie:
Yeah. So that’s going to be impacting what surfaces, what doesn’t.
And again, you may have to pay extra.
You might pay more for your ads, or they might not serve your ads up as often.
Tim:
This is where we insert: “Go listen to the podcast that we've done on fulfillment.”
Because it’s true—bad fulfillment is going to ding you.
If you're saying you have a great turnaround time, but you're not getting stuff out the door for five days or two weeks—people notice.
Expectations have changed.
Maybe you could've swung that during COVID, when things were delayed and logistics were messy.
But now?
We're so far post-COVID, and everyone's back to the expectation of, “Do I get it today or tomorrow?”
Like, I ordered a fridge filter on Sunday. I thought, “Oh man, I need a replacement one.”
It was 10 in the morning. At 3 in the afternoon, it arrived at my house.
I didn't even know that was going to happen.
I was like, “How did this get here faster than I could’ve gone to the store to get it myself?”
Robbie:
One analogy—one analogous situation this makes me think of—and I just thought of this, sorry—
This is a lot like how Amazon treated Prime.
I know Amazon is changing and evolving.
They may not be as ruthless as they were a few years ago, but this feels very similar.
If you messed up your fulfillment, you were kicked off Prime.
If you did something shady, you were kicked off Prime.
If you tried to manipulate your reviews, you were kicked off Prime.
That access to Prime was like a golden ticket for so many Amazon merchants.
And Amazon had so much control in that space.
They could command that control because all they had to do was make sure the marketplace was good.
And they managed their brand by making sure people felt...
Tim:
...safe.
Yeah.
You don’t question it.
They’ve earned that trust.
They’re the gatekeepers of it.
And if you don’t meet expectations, they make sure you’re not on their platform—because that breaks the trust they have with the customer.
Robbie:
Yeah.
Tim:
And Google’s doing that same thing.
Now I’ve got this crystal ball moment where I’m trying to put dots together—this is totally looking into the future...
Robbie:
Future vision or conspiracy theory—one of the two.
Tim:
This is a future one. Totally not a conspiracy.
But Google has been talking about how they’re going to evolve as a search engine.
Sorry—it’s hard to say this while looking at Robbie, who’s just having a field day.
Robbie:
This hot conspiracy theory brought to you by Tim Lauer!
Tim:
<laughs> Steam is coming off this one.
Shhh—don’t tell anybody else.
But thankfully, we don’t have a lot of listeners to tell, so that’s safe.
Google has said they’re going to change how they operate as a search engine.
We all know AI, large language models, Gemini—it’s all here.
And when you think about how they could potentially reposition the search engine—
All of these things are ultimately connecting points for what they want Google to look like in 1, 2, 3, 5 years from now.
The results. How they present them. How they display them. What information they include.
So you think of things like rich snippets—with the stars and product info.
What if they start enriching that with all of this other data that they’re pulling from other places?
So now, whenever you query something in Gemini—or whatever Google looks like in the future—they come back, and it’s not just an affiliate site talking about it.
It’s real data.
User sentiment. Email behavior. Social media engagement. Unsubscribes. Likes. Complaints.
They could generate a summary that says something like:
"Yeah, this is a good brand. However, be prepared that you may not get the product as quickly as you'd like. They've had several people complain recently and unsubscribe.”
Robbie:
Like: “Long Gen Sellers has been having pumpy issues lately.”
They had a big crisis three months ago and couldn’t fulfill anything.
But yeah—it’s a fascinating idea.
They can give transparent information.
And as the arbiter of that information—that builds a lot of...
Tim:
...trust.
Yeah.
And it’s something none of the other platforms can get.
So while ChatGPT is growing rapidly, it’s still only a sliver of the overall search market.
Google has the opportunity to do something ChatGPT can’t—because it's been around longer and has access to way more sources.
Just in terms of keeping users, keeping people sticky, keeping people on the platform—they can evolve their search experience in a totally different way.
They can use all of this to make your experience, as a user, way better.
But as a marketer? Way more challenging.
So yeah—conspiracy theory over.
But there’s potential in this.
They don’t do things by accident.
There’s always a reason behind what they do.
Usually, there’s a delay between the change and when we see the effect.
Then suddenly, one morning, you refresh your browser and go, “Oh man, my results page looks a little different.”
And six months later: “Oh man, it looks completely different.”
Because all the featured boxes are now presenting information differently.
Robbie:
I think looking at all of that too—there’s so much coming.
The needs that are going to come to fruition for businesses are going to be completely different.
Like the idea that suddenly, reputation management is going to be a really hot topic.
Tim:
Yeah.
Robbie:
If you can manage that reputation across those channels, that’s a really unique place to be.
If you’re doing good work, above board, across the board—those are going to be the brands that win a lot of these opportunities.
When these changes happen, those brands are the ones that are on their toes instead of on their heels.
And that’s where, again, there’s so much.
We’re joking around saying, “Google’s all up in your business,” but at the end of the day, we’re marketers.
We want to be able to maximize these opportunities.
Tim:
And Google is a lifeblood for many.
Robbie:
I mean, it’s...
Tim:
...businesses.
It touches everything.
Whether you're getting someone in through email, paid search, social—there's going to be a Google touchpoint somewhere in their journey.
Making sure the signals are strong and working is vital.
The thought that’s being planted in the back of my mind as we’re saying all this is:
Sometimes it’s quality over quantity.
That less-is-more idea.
Instead of trying to do every last thing and doing all of them mediocre, let’s do the right things and do them well.
If you're a new brand, that means picking the channels you can actually manage and control—doing things the right way.
If you're a legacy brand, maybe that means going in and doing some fixing and repairing—reputation management, email hygiene, the stuff you've been ignoring because you’re big and think it doesn’t matter.
Robbie:
So all of these things we’re talking about—maybe take a step back.
Let’s make sure our operations are buttoned up so we’re not getting dinged.
And I mean, that’s a good place to be anyway. It’s a strong exercise.
We always love working with groups that had an Amazon relationship before they worked with us, because they’ve already been through the fire.
Their operations are clean. Everything is validated.
By the time they get into DTC with us, it's just beautiful.
You don't have to worry about anything—they’ve already been held to that high standard and know what’s required.
Tim:
The opposite is terrifying.
The ones where their fulfillment is a hot mess, and they're like, “We’re going to get on Amazon.”
It's like—no.
Robbie:
<laughs>
Tim:
There’s a better direction to go.
If you've got your fulfillment dialed, go wherever you want.
Sorry to derail there—but I’ve seen it go the other way.
Somebody says, “We’re going to go to Amazon.”
Please don't. Not yet.
Robbie:
You're a turtle. Why are you trying to climb a tree?
This is going to get ugly.
But yeah, thinking about all those layers of the business—
It takes a lot of people out of the marketing lens and puts them into the business lens.
And that’s where I feel like the upstream conversations marketers should be part of come into play.
This gives marketers a bigger seat at the table.
It gives them a stronger foundation and presence in the room.
And as marketers, that’s where we want to be.
That’s where we should be—
Instead of being viewed as just “the make-it-pretty department.”
We should be thinking strategically, informing business direction.
We influence the customer journey and experience at so many touchpoints.
So having a full umbrella view of what’s happening is going to be more and more important.
Tim:
Oh man, I agree.
And as you're saying that—
All the other stakeholders in the company aren't always aware of these things.
They have their own agenda: get it out, make it happen, hit deadlines.
But they don’t think about Bob’s department over here being sloppy.
Or these other folks not having changed how they do things in 10 years.
It requires everybody to work collectively toward the why.
“This is what’s required to compete. This is what’s required to be well-positioned.”
It’s not because someone wants a pretty email.
It’s because we must fulfill that customer experience after we’ve earned the click.
Otherwise, your ad performance will take a hit—
Because Google is looking at this data point, that data point, and another data point—
And you’re breaking it, even if you’re not the one touching it directly.
Robbie:
Yeah, it’s an indirect break.
Tim:
Exactly.
Robbie:
You won’t be able to reach your audience. Or you’ll just have to pay more to reach them.
You’ll be paying “get out of jail” fees.
So yeah—we’ve gone deep into this.
But I think everybody out there should be keeping an eye on this stuff.
These are the conversations marketers need to be having.
And we always like to wrap up with some takeaways.
So what are three things we can leave people with to help tee them up for success?
We put these together beforehand.
I think the first one is: Clean and prioritize.
Where do you want to be present?
What do you want to be doing?
How do you want to show up there?
Tim:
And that’s where—if you don’t need to be on a channel, or you don’t need to be doing certain things—it’s going to make you really think:
What can we cut?
What should we keep?
How do we provide the best experience possible at each of those touchpoints?
I think the pruning side of marketing needs to happen more often.
We need to be less precious about keeping things that aren’t working or aren’t providing value.
There are businesses still posting on Twitter—or, you know, X—just trying to make that happen.
But for a lot of people, we’re not going to make that happen.
Robbie:
Yeah. So like… stop.
Just cut that channel out.
If you must, go to BlueSky or do something different.
But still—your audience is now distributed across so many platforms.
If that’s not where you’re converting, just drop it.
The second takeaway goes back to what we were just talking about: communicating across the org.
Let everyone know—
Here are the things that are downstream from you that you impact.
So don’t pee in the stream up here, because eventually, that’s going to make it down to the end user.
And we’re going to lose them when they figure out what’s going on.
Tim:
Hey Jerry in Customer Service—don’t be mean to people.
We’re going to get a bad review.
Robbie:
Yeah.
I know you might not be thinking about this, but if you roast someone on the phone—they’re going to go to Google and leave a bad review.
Or maybe they unsubscribe from our emails because they’re like,
“You know what, Jerry? We should’ve had this in two days. I’m done with you.”
So yeah—this is something everybody needs to know.
They may not be directly in the web department, or in marketing, or touching digital in any way…
But if they’re interacting with customers, or they’re on the fulfillment side, or they’re in product and getting ready to launch something, but they don’t have solid dates and just throw out timelines—
Maybe be more mindful.
Let’s set actual dates we can meet and fulfill, versus breaching trust and promoting something we’re not ready to deliver.
Everyone in the organization should be aware: these things now matter.
And they impact our performance across channels—and how Google sees us.
Tim:
Yeah. So many layers.
And I think the last takeaway is this: this is an opportunity.
With every one of these changes, with every one of these updates—
This is a chance for marketers to get on their toes instead of their heels.
If you understand what’s going on and know how to leverage it, it represents a unique opportunity.
You can take advantage of being an early mover.
If you’re a pioneer in a new category, you’ll get favorable treatment by Google—
Because they’re prioritizing something they hadn’t before.
And those gains are going to be easier now than they’ll be six or twelve months from now, when everyone else has caught on.
If you’re not sending your emails to Google Merchant Center, that’s something we’ve started doing for clients just this past week.
Let’s make sure we have the proper Google email on our lists.
We’re sending every major public-facing email to that address—just so we get the credit for it.
And we even went back and sent quite a few emails to that account from earlier in the month—just to build up a backlog of what we want them to see.
Robbie:
Just so you know—we’re not trying to manipulate Google with this.
But yeah, that’s smart. Going back and doing that.
And as you were saying that—I remembered: Merchant Center has integration with Google Search Console.
So while Merchant Center is paid, they’re asking you to send your emails.
But there’s also a place in Search Console—purely organic—where they’re like:
“Hey, link your Search Console with your email.”
They want all these things to touch together.
If you don’t connect the pieces, they’ll find a way to fill in the information some other way.
Yeah. It’s just being a smart marketer.
We could go on for a long time with this.
Tim:
Yeah, we could definitely keep going.
If you want more information on this, let us know.
These are the conversations we nerd out about.
And yes, we could go into conspiracy theories at any time too—
But I think these are deep levels of insight.
This is how marketers need to be thinking.
More strategic. More understanding.
If we understand the economics of the platforms—
Google makes money by serving ads.
If they can do that more effectively, they win.
If we understand how they do it, then as marketers, we can make smarter long-term decisions.
We can think directionally—know where they’re heading.
These conversations are empowering.
They’re the direction marketers should already be moving in.
Robbie:
Love it, man.
Tim:
Okay. Insights.
Hey—if you have any questions, let us know.
This is Tim and Robbie with the Content Community Commerce podcast.
Robbie:
We’ll see you next time. Arrivederci.
Tim:
Did you like it? Leave us a review.
Robbie:
Leave us a review. We're shameless.
Tim:
Leave us a review because you liked it.
Robbie:
Five stars all the way.
Tim:
Or at least three and a half.
[Outro]
