The New Search Reality: Why Programmatic Deserves a Seat at the Diversification Table
The Future Of Search Behavior : AI Summaries Reshape Clicks
Search advertising is experiencing subtle but significant changes in user behavior. A July 2025 study by the Pew Research Center found that when Google’s AI-generated Overviews appear atop search results, users click traditional links just 8% of the time down from 15% when no summary is present. That’s a 47% reduction in click-throughs, with only 1% engaging directly with the AI summaries.
This doesn’t mark the end of search efficiency, but it does signal a shift that advertisers can’t afford to ignore. If click behavior continues to evolve this way, cost-per-click may rise disproportionately to value delivered, prompting marketers to reconsider how their media dollars are spent. Many will turn to paid social as the obvious alternative, but stopping there risks limiting exposure and missing out on strategic depth.
Diversification In Media Mix: Don’t Stop At Paid Social
Adding to the complexity, AI summaries are now being used not just in search, but across publisher content itself, particularly in Google Discover feeds. These summaries often provide enough information upfront that users no longer feel compelled to click through to full articles. For publishers, this means reduced traffic and ad revenue. For advertisers, it means fewer opportunities to engage audiences through traditional content placements.
AI In Programmatic Advertising In MENA: Elasticity Where Search Falters
This is where programmatic advertising steps in not as a fallback, but as a scalable, strategic solution. Programmatic offers elasticity where search falters.
It adapts to new signals, behaviors, and moments, whether through identity-driven inventory, DOOH, or curated marketplaces. And with 84% of GCC ad spend projected to be digital by 2029, and 79% of that through programmatic channels, the region is already signaling where the future lies.
Search vs Programmatic: Why Curation Matters
But to unlock its full potential, advertisers must give serious thought to programmatic curation. Curation isn’t just about bundling inventory—it’s about refining it. It enables:
Cross-publisher inventory packaging for scale and relevance
Privacy-compliant targeting using first-party data and contextual signals
Improved transparency and control over where ads appear
Higher match rates and ROI through curated Deal IDs and premium placements
Diversification In Media Mix: Connection Is The Conversion Currency
This isn’t a call to abandon search. It’s a call to rethink the center of gravity in your media plan. As AI alters how users engage, diversification becomes more than a hedge, it becomes a strategy. And programmatic deserves a far stronger role in that strategy.
Because in a world where attention is increasingly elusive, distribution without intention risks irrelevance. Programmatic offers both—and in doing so, it enables something deeper: connection. And in this new media landscape, connection is the currency that truly converts.
AI in search advertising: FAQs
Q1. What changes with AI in search advertising right now? AI summaries compress the need to click, reducing traditional link CTRs and altering how value accrues across results pages.
Q2. How should I balance search vs programmatic?Keep search for high-intent harvest, but shift budget to curated programmatic for incremental reach, frequency control, and outcome-based buying.
Q3. What is programmatic curation in practice?Pre-built Deal IDs that package cross-publisher, privacy-safe, contextually aligned inventory with clearer controls and reporting.
Q4. Where does AI in programmatic advertising MENA have the edge?High digital growth, strong marketplace supply, and rising first-party data maturity enable elastic buying across formats (web, in-app, DOOH).
Q5. How does diversification in media mix show up in KPIs?Expect steadier CPA/CAC, improved effective reach, and reduced dependence on volatile CPC dynamics in search.
Q6. What should I track when testing search vs programmatic?Incremental conversions, assisted conversions, frequency to conversion, lift tests, and cost per quality action not just last-click CPA.
Q7. What’s next in the future of search behaviour?More answers in-stream, fewer clicks, and greater emphasis on trusted surfaces—making intentional distribution and curated inventory more valuable.
