Netflix is replacing your family this holiday season
š° NoGood News | Vol. 95
Hi NoGoodies š
Welcome to NoGood news where we talk about all things marketing ā the good and not so good.
In case you missed it, Netflix dropped a bomb at Tudum with the Stranger Things trailer. The twist ā Season 5 will take over your Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years.
We were invited to Londonās first-ever SXSW! On the panel, we dove into the most controversial topic that brands havenāt acknowledged yet ā the rise of AI search and its impact on brand visibility.
And the biggest AEO study conducted by Goodie AI is live. Traditional search vs AI searchā¦ whatās the difference and why does it matter?
Enough for the TL;DR, let's jump into it.
Netflix replaces your holidays with Stranger Things
Are brands getting left behind because of AI search?
Learn from our SXSW London panel discussion about AI and brand visibility
Google isnāt replaced by AI (yet) ā but AI search isnāt far behind
Itās time for brands to create new strategies with AI in mind
Sign up for our free course and build your AI search strategy
Ready? Let's get into it.Ā
š² Netflix replaces your holidays with Stranger Things
Read about their strategic release strategy
Netflix is canceling your holidays this year. š
Tudum announced the dates for the Stranger Things finale: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years.
While tons of fans are saying Stranger Things shot themselves in the foot with this timeline, weād say otherwise.
Thereās one thing that everyone does during the holidays: Watch TV. šŗ
Stranger Things gives viewers more of an incentive to watch TV and specifically choose Netflix to stream.
Netflix has seen some of its highest traffic specifically between Thanksgiving and New Yearās Day.
Thatās why weāre not seeing the finale until the end of the year ā holidays like Halloween donāt align with their strategy. š
With Netflixās global top 10 list feature, Stranger Things has a high chance of appearing on the list as #1 for 3 months straight.
Netflix wants to be the first streaming platform you click on once you turn on the TV, making Stranger Things go out with a bang.
What are your thoughts on the Stranger Things release date?
š Are brands getting left behind because of AI search?
Learn from our SXSW London panel discussion about AI and brand visibility
We got one thing right (and it's not our names): a new era of search is here. š
We had a great time speaking at the first-ever SXSW London event, where Mostafa ElBermawy and Jim McKelvey dove deep into the conversation of AI search and brand visibility with Marina Chilingaryan as their moderator.
When it comes to AI search, visibility is all about controlling the narrative.
Picture this: someone looks up your brand, and AI ends up pulling info from old press stories and random Reddit threads, building a version of you that just doesnāt feel right.
That result might be someone's first and only impression of your brand ā and our panel discussed exactly how to prevent that.
We covered:
š What AEO is
š Factors that determine a brandās visibility and performance
š Tips for brands to stay relevant
š How to measure the impact of AI search
Thank you to everyone who attended the panel!
š”Google isnāt replaced by AI (yet) ā but AI search isnāt far behind
Read about Goodie AIās largest AEO study for B2B brands
Whatās the difference between AI search and traditional search? š
Almost everything.
Goodie AI recently conducted the largest AEO study for B2B brands, analyzing 117,432 leads from October 2024 to April 2025.
The question they wanted to answer was, does traffic from AI search sources lead to better pipeline outcomes than traditional sources like Google?
TLDR; yes.
AI search is driving pipelines ā even though Google dominates top-of-funnel traffic, ChatGPT leads have the highest close rate.
This study changes the way we view AI search and the impact of its results.
The results are a wake-up call for growth leaders, SEO teams, and content marketers clinging to legacy strategies and models of attribution and optimization.
If brands donāt monitor how AI search impacts their funnel, they risk getting left in the shadows as other brands climb their way to the top.
Do you want your brand to appear in AI search?
š Itās time for brands to create new strategies with AI in mind
Sign up for our free course and build your AI search strategy
Thereās one thing brands arenāt acknowledging thatās keeping them left behind.
And thatās the impact of AI search on brand visibility.
Search behavior is rapidly shifting as users prefer answers that are context-rich and immediate without scrolling through blue links.
As more people turn to AI platforms for answers, maintaining brand visibility in AI-driven search is now essential for organic success.
Join us as we partner with Maven to bring you our latest course on building your AI search strategy for AEO success!
This course will cover:
ā The impact of AI search on organic growth
ā How to build AI search strategy
ā How to measure & track AI search performance
Join our FREE introductory course today!Ā
š July 16th at 12PM EDT
Secure your spot now!
šļø Q&A with an expert
A bi-weekly interview series with the best in the game
Q: As the moderator for our SXSW London panel last week, can you tell us how brands can control the narrative AI search engines generate about them?
A: AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity donāt just index your website to respond to user questions ā they synthesize information from across the internet, ranging from press, reviews, forums to social platforms (think: weāre all guilty of adding āRedditā at the end of our Google searches because you trust it more).
That means your brand narrative isnāt just what you publish. Itās whatās retrievable. Brands that look to control their AI narrative need to start with understanding what content already exists about them, where it lives, and how credible and consistent that information is. From there, itās about optimizing for structured, trustworthy and frequently updated sources ā this includes owned content, thought leadership and PR. The key here is to create and distribute content thatās easy to read for machines, not just humans.
Q: Is traditional search really dead?
A: Anyone declaring traditional search ādeadā clearly hasnāt looked at the numbers. People still hit up Google 34 times more than they chat with AI, and Googleās still crushing it with 90% market share while ChatGPT sits at 4.33%. Googleās not sitting around waiting to die eitherātheyāre embedding AI right into search results, and itās actually making people search more, not less.
Traditional SEO is, however, changing as we speak. Itās important to note that, with AI tool adoption speeding up, user expectations are shifting away from āsearch and click a blue linkā to āask and receive a direct answerā. This means brand visibility isnāt just about ranking anymore, itās about being retrieved, summarized and trusted by AI models.
Whatās also interesting to note is that even social platforms like TikTok, YouTube Shorts and now Instagram are transforming into search engines in their own right, illustrating just how fragmented the search space is becoming (beware, Google!) and how much more niche search behaviors become as users pick and choose what sources to trust when asking questions.
For brands, this means playing on multiple fronts: optimizing for discovery algorithms and search intent, showing up in social feeds and in AI summaries, and building traditional SEO with a new layer of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and social search optimization.
āļø We wish we wrote this
Articles that caught our eye these past 2 weeks:
Soot competes with the typical vertical scroll experience in unexpected ways
Hereās how brands can build relationships with Gen Z
Audio is more important in advertising than you think
š Keeping up on the socials
Because IYKYK is better than FOMO:
Cerave has a new mascot ā Sarah. V
If Sydney Sweeney had a marketing manager
Rhode being sold for $1 billion was the smartest move
This chicken company tricked millions of people
š„ Trend Radar: Blow up or fall behind
The trending topics, sounds, and formats to key and eye on:
āme when it comes toā¦ā finish the sentence with what you do
post a picture of you with overlay texts of your hobbies/likes
link a song to a photo or video of you thatād make you do 90 miles in a 35 mile zone
š Ready to meet your NoGood partner?
Tell us where you are and where you want to be ā and weāll help get you there.