#11 - Larisa Aslanyan: The Near-Future of PPC Advertising

Welcome back, after two months of silence, to Road Work Ahead, a podcast that explores the unmapped future of business and technology.

My name is Sam Gerdt, and today I'm sharing a recent conversation with one of my long-time colleagues, Larisa Aslanyan. A few months ago, Larisa and I were talking about big changes in paid advertising. Obviously, artificial intelligence is a major factor in these changes, but there's a lot more than that happening under the surface.

At the core of our talk is how the internet, and the way we interact with it, is radically changing. When it comes to paid advertising, your strategies will have to adapt to the new ways your audience is searching. These search habits are often wildly different from generation to generation, so while I may still use Google like a grandpa, younger generations are developing search practices that require new advertising strategies.

My skepticism and cynicism shines through quite a bit in this discussion, but I really did have a lot of fun imagining all of the ways that new technologies like AI will forever change how we interact with the world around us. The next few years are going to be interesting.

Episode Transcript

Sam Gerdt (00:07):
Welcome back, after two months of silence, to Road
Work Ahead, a podcast thatexplores the unmapped future of
business and technology.
My name is Sam Gerdt and todayI'm sharing a recent
conversation with one of mylongtime colleagues, Larisa
Aslanyan.
A few months ago, Larisa and Iwere talking about the big
changes happening in paidadvertising.

(00:27):
Obviously, artificialintelligence is a major factor
in these changes, but there's alot more than that happening
under the surface.
At the core of our talk is howthe internet and the way we
interact with it is changing.
When it comes to paidadvertising, your strategies
will have to adapt to the newways your audience is searching.
These search habits are oftenwildly different from generation

(00:50):
to generation, so, while I maystill use Google like a grandpa,
younger generations aredeveloping search practices that
require new advertisingstrategies.
My skepticism and cynicismshines through quite a bit in
this discussion, but I reallydid have a lot of fun imagining
all the ways that newtechnologies like AI will
forever change how we interactwith the world around us.

(01:13):
The next few years are going tobe interesting, we were
talking the other day about thechanges that are happening in
PPC paid advertising, and I'mreally I shouldn't be surprised,
but I'm a little bit surprisedabout how many common themes

(01:33):
there are between PPC and theother things that we talk about
on the show, so I wanted you tocome on.
I wanted you to have thisdiscussion with me in front of
everybody and talk through someof those things that are
changing in PPC and how theyrelate to things like artificial
intelligence, data privacy andsome of the other technologies

(01:54):
that we're dealing with on thisshow.

Larisa Aslanyan (01:57):
PPC is very tightly connected to everything
else online.
Every business that's visibleonline, every search, every
behavior that you have online insome way will have some kind of
connection with advertising.
It's also such a big part ofbusinesses and consumers how

(02:20):
they find products, how they buyso it's, I think, very natural
that it's being heavily affectedby technology right now and
what's happening in the AI topic.
So, just to sum up the question, I would say there are four

(02:40):
main trends that we couldisolate right now.
First one is obviously AI and alot of the new tools that are
emerging a lot of AIfunctionality and new features
in almost all of the advertisingplatforms Meta, google,
anything really and so we, asadvertisers and businesses who

(03:06):
are advertising, have to takeadvantage of those tools and
they have to learn how to usethem, because the future is
going to be very heavily AIinfluenced and you need to learn
to use those tools.
So that's one.
The second trend is PPC hasalways been such a complicated

(03:27):
thing to do for business ownersor someone working in the
average marketing department ofa business who is not really
into digital marketing that havethis marketing background.
It was always very complicatedfor them to understand.
Okay, what does this mean?
What does the CPC mean?
What is like CPA?
And that is changing.

(03:48):
It's being more simplified,more accessible to a lot of
other professionals, I guess, alot of people who come from
different backgrounds.
So, if they want, they can setup their own ads and have a more
human understanding of how itworks.
Third one is hyperpersonalization, and that's just

(04:09):
how we target our ads, how wechoose well, we don't choose,
but how we hope our ads willshow who will see the ads, how
will they react, and all of thefunctionality and features that
we have available in that regard.
And finally, it's getting moreand more expensive every year to

(04:32):
advertise online.
I think this changed a lotafter COVID, because businesses
had to go through this evolutionand become online businesses,
whether they want it or not.
It was either, you know, goonline or shut the doors and go
home.
So a lot of these businessesadapted and now a lot more
companies have their onlinestores, a lot of online

(04:55):
operations, and you have toparticipate in the marketplace
for ads and you have toadvertise.
So there's more competition,there's more costs.
However, it's not just that thecompetition is raising the cost
, but it's getting moreexpensive and everyone should be
ready to spend more on theirads.

Sam Gerdt (05:14):
So we've got four things we want to talk about
specifically today and just torecap those, we've got the
impact of artificialintelligence on paper click
advertising, on digitaladvertising.
We've got the increasedproductivity that new tools are
offering and the decreased whatwe're calling the decreased
point of entry.

(05:35):
You no longer need to havethose highly technical skills in
order to understand adsplatforms.
Then, thirdly, we've got highlypersonalized ads, which is
going to have a lot to do withthe way that we collect data.
It's also going to have a lotto do with a lot of the privacy
and ethical changes that arehappening in our market.
And then, lastly, we haveelevated costs, which seems to

(05:58):
be the theme all over the worldfor all things, not just
advertising.
I want to get into each of theseindividually and I want to hear
your perspective on why they'reimportant and why we need to
talk about them, and,specifically, what business
owners need to be thinking aboutin the coming year and the
coming years, as we see thesechanges become more and more

(06:20):
apparent.
So let's go ahead and startwith the big one Artificial
intelligence.
Why is this a big deal and howis it already changing the paid
ads market?

Larisa Aslanyan (06:31):
I think the number one thing.
It's obvious, everyone issaying this, but we need to
understand how it works.
We need to be able to starthaving interactions with AI and
not be blind throughout thoseinteractions.
I feel like a lot of businessowners still don't understand
how PPC works.

(06:52):
There are all sorts of these oldformulas that if you invest
this much money and then if youchoose this many keywords,
you're going to get this manyleads.
They don't work anymore becauseso much of the system, so much
of the advertising algorithms,are now governed by AI and
machine learning that it's moreabout what data you feed to the

(07:15):
AI, what kind of conversationsyou're having with the AI and
then what it's going to giveback to you as a business owner.
You have to understand how AIworks, how machine learning
algorithms work, so that you canconstruct your own online
system, your website, youremails, your marketing funnel,

(07:35):
your lead generation process, sothat you will be in sync with
the AI changes coming up.
One of those main changescoming is conversational search.
We're going to be able to well,we're doing it now already with
chat GPT, right?
I mean, how often are you usingchat GPT instead of Google, for
example, or a search?
engine yeah yeah, and that'scoming to the search engines.

(08:02):
That's probably going to cometo social media as well.
As some point you'll be able tohave conversations.
Well, it is in social media.
If you consider the chatbotsthat businesses can have, you
can have an AI assistant talkingwith your customers.
So you need to start thinkingabout your online marketing in

(08:22):
the format of conversations thatyou can have with AI with your
customers.

Sam Gerdt (08:29):
We deal with a lot of questions about this ourselves,
and then, you know, as we workwith clients, they have
questions too, and that is so.
Much of what we do in digitalmarketing and advertising is
driven by consumer behavior, andit doesn't take a very smart

(08:49):
person to look around andrecognize that consumer
behaviors are changing sorapidly, both just day to day
and then generationally too.
The way that I interact withthe internet is completely
different than the way someone10 years younger than me
interacts with the internet andsomeone 20 or 30 years younger

(09:12):
than me.
These people are interactingwith an internet in an almost
unrecognizable way, and so asyou look at the future of your
own business, as you look at thefuture of the internet, you
have to recognize that ourpreconceived ideas about how
things like advertising aregoing to work, those things are,

(09:33):
those are all out the window.
So with artificial intelligence, what we see is we're preparing
for it's almost a new type ofweb crawler as well as a new
type of consumer.
So on the web crawler side youknow, on the tech side, when we

(09:53):
build websites, when we createall of these channels, we're
looking at it from a verytechnical perspective and asking
the question how is the searchengine, how is the entity
answering a consumer's questiongoing to get the information
from my website and serve thatconsumer to my website?
So there's all kinds oftechnical considerations that go

(10:15):
into that process, whether it'sa website or social media or
whatever.
And then, secondly, you have,besides, the web crawler, you
then have the consumer, and howare they going to interact with
the information that I'm puttingout there?
How are they going to interactwith my website?
How are they going to interact,you know, with social media?
And so there is this hugepreparation process, and there's

(10:36):
a lot of ways in which we don'tknow what's going to happen.
Where we're recognizing the oldway of building a website, the
old way of building thesefunnels, building these channels
, it's gone and the new way isgoing to look very different,
because we're serving anartificial intelligence that's
way smarter than any Google botin the past and we're serving a
consumer that has far, fardifferent behaviors than

(11:01):
anything that we're accustomedto in the past or in our own
generation.

Larisa Aslanyan (11:06):
We could be probably the last generation
well, millennials could be thelast generation where they have
more distrust towards technologyand advertising and AI than the
newer generations.
Because I feel like it's goingjust this AI thing and

(11:28):
technology in general is goingto be so implanted into our
lives that it might be yourfriend.
When you go to Google, youmight not look at it as this
company, this search engine,whereas we saw Google kind of
being created and then developedand then becoming what it is
now.
But for newer generations, it'stheir best friend in their

(11:48):
pocket.
So add AI to that and it'stheir best friend in their
pocket that really understandsthem and the information that
they're going to give to that AI.
It's going to make these ads soappealing, so targeted, so to

(12:09):
the point that I have no ideahow people are going to react to
these ads in the future,because that's something we'll
have to see and it's going to bevery interesting.
But one of the examples that wealready know and it was
announced during GoogleMarketing Live this year was
we'll be able to ask a questionon the search engine page.

(12:31):
Let's say I'm in the city and Iam looking for family oriented
activities, and then I will beable to ask you follow up
questions and then you give themmore info.
Okay, so we have how many kidsyou have, what are the ages,
what type of activities you'reinterested in, and just imagine
the amount of personal data orjust personal preferences that

(12:55):
AI can collect about a user andthen use that data to find just
the right content to show.
It's just mind-blowing.
And that's just in the nearfuture.
Just imagine in a few yearswhat are the opportunities that
we can have.

Sam Gerdt (13:13):
Yeah, there's going to be all kinds of ethical and
practical considerations thatare going to have to be dealt
with by probably by us, probablyvery soon but the idea that
those lines are completelyblurring.
We saw this a little bit whenwe had voice search and you had

(13:33):
little boxes that sat on yourcountertop and you could talk to
them and ask them questions anda voice would respond.
What we saw there was a shiftaway from people interfacing
with a computer in order to getthe answer to a question, and
that meant also a shift awayfrom people interfacing with
your website as a business toget an answer to a question.

(13:54):
That's already presented uswith a lot of challenges.
Far fewer searches, we alreadyknow, result in a click through
to an actual website.
Google is trying to serve ananswer on the SERPs page.
The trend now is like you'resaying it's even further where

(14:15):
not only are you interfacingwith this entity off of a
computer, off of your business'swebsite, you're interfacing
with it not as a machine, not asa company, a business, whatever
.
You're interfacing with it as atrusted advisor, as a friend,

(14:36):
as someone who knows you and hasa personality and has
supposedly it's going to giveoff the perception that it has
your best interest at heart.
It's going to very quicklybecome this thing where these AI
entities will be trustedadvisors.
You'll take their considerationas their agency grows.

(14:58):
As you get more multimodalengines out there working in
this capacity, not only willthey have the ability to feed
you information, they'll havethe ability to take actions on
your behalf.
Let's bring up an example.
Ten years ago, my toilet startsoverflowing.

(15:19):
We've got to go further back.
Fifteen years ago, my toiletstarts overflowing.
I get on the computer reallyquickly because I don't have a
smartphone yet.
At that point I might evensearch the yellow pages for a
plumber what I'm looking forbecause it's an emergency.
I'm looking for probably thefirst one that comes up, which

(15:42):
means he had the best keywordstuffing, he had the best
backlink strategy, so he'sshowing up number one on Google.
I'm going to call him.
I'm making these quick actions.
Even in a considered decisionscenario, I might look at a few
options, I might look at reviewsand ratings, but I'm taking all
of those actions for myself andI'm doing it at a computer.

(16:03):
Then we get the smartphone andI can do it at my phone.
Then we get voice search andnow I can just talk to Google.
I say, hey, google, my toilet'soverflowing.
What do I do?
At that point we see this shiftwhere, all of a sudden, maybe
Google starts feeding you actualinformation instead of results
for plumbers.
Maybe Google says shut off thewater valve, instead of saying,

(16:28):
here, let's go look atxyzplumbercom and see what this
blog post says.
There's these constant shifts.
When I say multi-model agentstaking actions for you, five
years from now, of course, fiveyears from now we may have a
smart home who says, hey, I seethe toilet's overflowing, let me
shut that off for you.
But barring that, five yearsfrom now you're going to say,

(16:51):
hey, my AI agent.
Hey, fred, my toilet'soverflowing.
Call the best plumber.
And Fred the AI agent is goingto do the web search, determine,
based on his knowledge of youand the situation, which one you
would prefer and make thatdecision for you.

(17:14):
Then he's going to call thatplumber and schedule the
appointment and the plumber'sgoing to show up at your door.
And then, in the meantime, he'sprobably going to say the
plumber's going to be a while Inthe meantime.
Let me give you this detaileddescription about how to shut
off the water in your bathroom,and at that point too, five

(17:34):
years from now, certainly thecapability to show you an
AI-generated photo or videotutorial that has photo or video
of your bathroom with yourmodel toilet.
And so there's the place thatwe're at now is just this place
that I don't think we cancomprehend, like we're talking

(17:55):
about the absolute utterabolition of the web as we know
it.
And then you say that Fred thatjust did all of that for you,
is going to have built into it Imean, unless you're tech savvy
and you build like a privatesystem, if it's a

(18:18):
corporate-owned system, it'sgoing to have built into it the
ability to serve you ads and it,you know, depending on how the
ethics conversation goes withthat, you look at that situation
, you say I'm not sure thatthat's quite a good idea, but
that's where we're headed andthat's why I think this AI-paid

(18:40):
advertising conversation is so,so interesting.

Larisa Aslanyan (18:44):
All of those things that you said just kind
of so true, and I just want toadd a few things.
So you can one for example, youget a call and your carrier is
Google Pie, you can alreadychoose to not answer the call
and have the AI assistant askthem questions like hey, who's
calling?
And then so you can have thatAI as a substitute of yourself,

(19:08):
as already.
But the other thing is that ifwe go a little bit more science
fiction on that and if weconsider that in a few years and
maybe like 10 years, maybe wehave these new rulings or other
chips implanted in us, sotechnology is already a part of

(19:28):
us.
I wonder how interesting itwould be to advertise on those
platforms.
Yeah, we'd be able to serve adsto people when they're asleep
in their dreams, or just.
The possibilities are soendless.
And I think the number oneconcern because you touched upon
the ethics, I think the numberone concern is to as a user.

(19:53):
You're a consumer.
If you're a user, you have tounderstand that you got to be
very careful about what youspeak, what you type.
If you have these, even if youdon't have voice search at home,
you have your mobile phone nextto you.
If you, I would say if youdon't intend to buy something,
just don't talk about it.
I started being very carefulbecause I'm Armenian, so I speak

(20:17):
Armenian at home.
So I will have conversationsabout some products or services
in Armenian and I will get theads in English an hour later.
So I started being very carefulabout even what I add into this
world.
The other thing is when you dowant to call the best plumber.
In the past, whatever you wereusing if you were using Google

(20:41):
or whatever, it would probablyfind the company that is
targeting the keyword bestplumber and then it would serve
you that result.
Right now, the AI knows youbetter than anyone else.
Probably knows you better thanyou yourself not yourself so
it's going to know what bestmeans for you.
Does it mean you want the bestcustomer service, or you want

(21:01):
the quickest service, or youwant the local plumber?
What does it mean for you?
And there's just a lot morecontext and as a business owner,
you have to keep this in mind.
So when you're creating yourwebsite or when you're creating
content any type of relationshipthat you have with your
customers that's not paidadvertising, for example you can

(21:21):
collect that information whatdo things mean for your
consumers and then use that data, feed that data into the AI to
run ads and then you will havemore successful results.
And I think that every companyspeaking of ethics especially
small and medium-sized companies, because they have much better

(21:43):
relationships with theircustomers, I'd say A lot of them
know their customers by name.
So you have to takeaccountability for some of the
ethical aspects of targeting andadvertising using technology,
but when it comes to biggercompanies, I would not expect
any really ethical standards, atleast behind the scenes.

Sam Gerdt (22:04):
I'm very careful on this show not to steer too far
into hypothetical futures.
I have the belief thatspeculation tends to be less
productive, and so when we talkabout some of these futures with

(22:25):
multi-model AI agents makingphone calls on your behalf, I'm
actually speaking from just a.
We're not postulating too muchFor each one of those
suggestions of what the futuremight look like.
There are already products outthere doing these things.

(22:46):
So, for example, generatingvideo tutorials that feature
your model toilet in yourbathroom, that technology
already exists.
The way that we can autogenerate those images and, to a
lesser degree, those videos.
And also, you know, train anagent on a specific model of
anything.
Train an agent on, you know, aspecific discipline like

(23:08):
plumbing in this example.
That's all already there.
And then I think the otherimportant thing to realize is
that advertising, historically,has always been the cutting edge
of this kind of data collectionand data use, and advertising
has also historically done ithidden from the view of the

(23:31):
consumer, undisclosed.
There are a number of examplesthat we can think of throughout
the last several years, and someof them at this point are 10
years old and they sound likethere's something that might
happen today or, you know in afew years and surprise us.
So the one that comes to mind,and I'll just share it briefly

(23:53):
is there was that instance,several several years ago, where
Target got into some hot waterfor generating sales promotions
for a teenage girl who and thepromotions were geared towards
pregnant women and new moms.

(24:14):
And, of course, the dad of thisteenage girl got really upset
about that and made a big stinkabout it and raised it, and then
shortly after discovered thathis, his teenage daughter, was
expecting, and at the time thatTarget was serving her the ads,
she didn't even know it yet.
And so the question is well,okay, well, ai can't be that

(24:38):
smart, right?
It's not like they've gotinstrumentation that can detect
whether or not you are pregnant.
No, and that's that's notwhat's happening.

Larisa Aslanyan (24:49):
Let me just sorry, just let me tell you how
they did it though.

Sam Gerdt (24:55):
What they did is they .

Larisa Aslanyan (24:56):
I know how, yeah.
So they, they came out and theywere proud and they kind of
explained everything how theydid it and it was, I think, in
2015,.
So there was no AI back then,what they did is they?
they took us like their own poolof people who knew that.
They knew that these peoplewere pregnant, and then they
tracked the fine behaviors ofthose people.
But the data that theycollected afterwards they could

(25:20):
tell even when your due date was.
And then what they did?
They took that data and thenthey turned it into a pregnancy
prediction score and theyassigned that score to everyone.
All their customers of everyonehad a.
They had a pregnancy predictionscore and if yours was high,

(25:40):
then you would get these offers.
What they also did they ran somestudies and they realized that
if they show you ads based onthe data that they've collected
let's say, they only show youpregnancy items, they advertise
just those products to you youwill not trust the ad enough to
click and buy.
So what they did was theyintentionally mixed up the

(26:00):
products and the promotions andads to make you believe that
you're not really being hypertargeted like that.
But just imagine if that wasdone by humans and it was done
just in this area of, I guess,human life.
But imagine if you tell AI ormachine learning to do that in
all aspects of all humans,regardless of their lifestyles.

(26:23):
Ai can target you just as wellas it can target me, even if our
lifestyles are so differentfrom each other.
When there's conversations aboutethics, I don't think that
anything has changed.
I don't think that biggercompanies know exactly what

(26:45):
you're going through in yourlife, what's happening.
It's Christmas.
They know you're buying gifts.
They know who you're buyinggifts for.
Imagine how much it can growthe data and we're all feeding
that data.

Sam Gerdt (27:02):
So let's come away with an action item from this.
You're looking into the futureand you say, okay, well, this
sounds very different and Ithink many people are going to
say this sounds uncomfortable orconcerning, scary.
Even so, the action item here,because we want to talk
specifically about paidadvertising, we want to apply
this to business.
The action item here is youreally need to begin now

(27:26):
aligning your marketing andsales tactics, efforts, goals,
understanding, with a futurethat looks very different than
the past.
So if your alignments in thoseareas are not strategically
forward thinking, it may be timeto reevaluate how you're going

(27:50):
about making those decisions,because we are looking at a very
different web and we're lookingat a very different base of
consumers across every industryacross the board, because it's
not just industry related.
This is generational and it'shappening very fast.
So let's leave that first bit.

(28:11):
We spent a long time on thatfirst bit.
It's so fun to just dwell there.
But let's leave artificialintelligence and paid
advertising and I want to visitthese other three areas that we
talked about.
I think they're also veryimportant, though maybe not
quite so sensational.
Let's talk about howproductivity is changing in paid

(28:32):
advertising.
Let's talk about how theseplatforms are becoming a little
bit more accessible.

Larisa Aslanyan (28:38):
I would just start by saying it's different
for each advertising platform.
I still find that meta needs tocatch up with how simple it is
to advertise.
I know a lot of business ownersthat just get lost in the ad
manager.
But when it comes to Google,for example, instead of having
these dozens of campaigns, wenow have maybe just one or two

(29:02):
campaigns, and everything isgrouped into topics.
Everything is grouped intorelevant keywords.
We look at the intent, we don'tlook at these.
We want to target this exactkeyword with.
The user is going to search.
That's gone.
We need to look at search andadvertising in a more contextual
way.
So that's easy on us Everyonewho's doing PPC for businesses.

(29:25):
It's much easier.
We can use a lot of AI tools,like responsive ads.
They help us generate headlines, descriptions.
I don't know if not everyone isusing those features if they're
professionally in the industry,but if you're a business owner
and you're just getting startedyourself and maybe you don't
have a budget to hire an agencyor a freelancer, you can start

(29:48):
doing it yourself.
Google is making these featuresmore accessible to anyone
without a technical backgroundand again, ai plays some part
here, because you can set upyour ad account and your
campaigns by havingconversations with the AI bot.
What the?
problem is here is that whenGoogle does this, there's a lot

(30:12):
of information that is kept fromthese business owners.
These automatic features don't,let's say, the smart campaigns.
They don't provide a lot ofdata, a lot of information to
the business owner, who can thenuse that information to plan
their growth, have a strategy,know exactly which areas

(30:33):
contributed to these conversions, where their customers came
from exactly, and so there's alot of in-depth data that's not
available to business owners.
If they choose this more simpleset up process and have a much
better productivity, they canjust spend an hour creating the
ads and then go about theirbusiness.
So there's a con and a pro toproductivity.

(30:59):
In some areas, it's better tospend more time and compromise
the productivity than go for thesimpler solution.

Sam Gerdt (31:09):
Do you find that in the cases where a business owner
is doing that set up himselfusing those simplified tools do
you find that the end resultbecause the data that's being
surfaced is not as deep asinsightful does that affect the
efficacy of the ads?

Larisa Aslanyan (31:30):
Yeah, so I think I've seen businesses that
were very successful with thesesmart campaigns, and those are
usually the online shops,e-commerce websites.
They can do very well withthose very highly automatic
features and they can createtheir own merchant center and
just have.
They can even have someone fromGoogle or a partner of Google

(31:53):
reach out to them and help themset up the account.
They don't even have to hire orpay anyone.
However, the decisive factor isif you're a business and you
have a strategy and if you'vebeen using this strategy for
years, your website is alignedwith a strategy.
Whatever content you have,everything is in sync.

(32:14):
Everything is connected to eachother.
You're giving out this onemessage, you're positioning
yourself in a certain way and sowhen you start advertising and
use these automatic features, itcollects all that data and,
because you had a strategy, thedata connects to each other and
then serves to the right person.
But let's say, if you're abusiness and you're just getting

(32:35):
started, you don't even have awebsite, so you decide to have
this one landing page and you'regoing to run ads.
Or if you have a website that'snot well built, you don't have
enough content, you don't haveenough reviews on Google or
other places then you don't haveenough data and enough data
that speaks to each other, thatcreates this one big picture to

(33:00):
feed into the automatic features, into the machine learning, to
then get good output to havevery effective ads.
So that's why it's verycontroversial A lot of PPC
specialists do not recommendusing this simple setup
processes, and they alwaysrecommend you know what?
Just invest some money intoadvertising.

(33:21):
Just have someone that knowswhat they're doing to set up
your ads.
But at the same time, I thinkit's important that these things
are accessible.
There's a lot of people who arejust starting out their
businesses, and maybe in a fewyears they will be they have
would have grown enough to beable to invest more into their
marketing, but if they can'tright now, why should they not

(33:45):
advertise?
Why should they just log intothis complicated platform and
not understand anything fromthere?
And so I think it's a goodthing to have all of these
simple setup processes.
The other thing is generativeAI and how online shop owners
can generate their productimages for promotions and
advertising inside Google.

(34:06):
They don't have to hire aphotographer to have these
multiple variations, and sothere is increased productivity.
But I think you should be verycareful where you make use of it
and where you don't.

Sam Gerdt (34:18):
Well, this highlights , I think, one of the common
problems that I see personallywith a lot of artificial
intelligence tools andimprovements that are being
applied across the industry todifferent technologies, and
there will be people whodisagree with me on this, but I
I look at what artificialintelligence can and can't do
and I'm not convinced thatartificial intelligence is

(34:39):
capable of creativity.
I'm not convinced thatartificial intelligence is
capable of taking its trainingdata, the data that it's given,
the input, the prompt and theoriginal training data, and and
producing anything thatcontributes to the betterment of
that corpus, that body ofknowledge.
So I mean, we've already seen alot of studies that suggest

(35:03):
that AI does a terrible job ofgenerating new training data,
that training data is bestgenerated by humans.
So you apply that on thesmaller scale to an ads campaign
and I I have to think that thepoint at which you're letting AI
take the decision makingcontrol whether it's in the

(35:24):
setup of the account and the andyou know the feeding and
collecting of that original dataor whether it's in, you know,
micro adjustments as you'rerunning ad campaigns the point
at which AI takes control ofthat decision making process is
the point at which your processceases to be creative, additive,
ceases to be innovative, andit's the same thing and probably

(35:48):
even a bigger issue, with theAI generated ads and content.
I would not, at this point,trust artificial intelligence to
do good brand work, whether youalready have an established
brand or whether you're juststarting out, the brand work
that AI does for you at thispoint, from what I'm seeing, is

(36:11):
only ever going to be, it's onlyever going to have a
degenerative effect on the workthat you've done.
It's only ever going to move theneedle in the wrong direction.
It may not be immediate and itmay not be readily apparent, but
when you have innovative andcreative people working on your
brand, who are making humanconnections through the course

(36:32):
of their work with your clients,with your company, those people
, as complex humans, are goingto be far more capable, far more
capable of making the decisionsand coming up with the ideas
that are going to evolve yourbrand.
They're going to improve yourbrand and they're going to have

(36:54):
a greater effect in making thosehuman connections with your
customers, your clients, yourprospects, whoever your audience
.
I think that's just a big boxthat we could open and maybe
look into and say I don't knowhow beneficial this would be.
But, to your point, when Ithink about accessibility and

(37:18):
when I think about lowering thebar for what it takes to even
get on the platform at all, toget platformed at all, I see the
application of AI in that wayas being generally a good thing
that will most definitelyimprove over time.
So what we're seeing now isonly the beginning.

Larisa Aslanyan (37:37):
I completely agree with you.
In some instances, when I'mresearching ads let's say I'm
researching competitors or thetype of ads that people run in
some cases I can see an ad onGoogle and I can know that
they've used chat, gpt or any AItool to create that, because so

(37:59):
many of them look so similar.
There is no originality.
You can tell it was not createdby a human.
But I think, up to some pointfor a business, that could be
okay if they're just gettingstarted and they have nothing
online.
But if they are planning togrow, they want to have a

(38:23):
strategy.
If they're already, they're outof this stage of not knowing if
they will make it or justmaking that full commitment
after that.
At the moment, yes, ai will notadd anything to your marketing
bucket.
It's better to just work withhumans.

Sam Gerdt (38:42):
I think that nicely wraps up this idea of we're
seeing increased productivity onthe ad side.
I want to move on now to thethird thing that you brought to
my attention, and that washighly personalized ads.

Larisa Aslanyan (38:57):
I think hyper-personalization has always
been a thing.
I have a personal story thathappened years ago.
I had a friend who was a serialentrepreneur and he would
create these small onlinebusinesses, one after another.
This was a long time ago,before there were these concerns
about privacy and how companiescollect data on users.

(39:19):
This guy shared his strategy ofdeciding what kind of business
he's going to run.
He would go to Facebook AdManager.
He would pick a targetingbundle let's say, people who
live in this area, people whohave this much household income
and people who are looking tobuy this thing.

(39:40):
He would create a businessbased solely on that targeting
bundle.
Then he would make a lot ofmoney because targeting worked
every single time on his ads.
He was just so relevant towhoever he was targeting that he
would make a lot of sales.
Then, unfortunately for him, atsome point, these targeting

(40:02):
criteria that were just sopersonal and sensitive were
changed so that he was no longerable to do that.
I think that's the one thingthat has changed.
Now, companies may not collectpersonal data on you that's
connected to your identity, butyou will be grouped into these

(40:22):
audience groups.
Then you will be targeted basedon that.
That can be just as effectiveand freaky, I would say.
In terms of the results, Idon't see a lot of change.
It's still going to be just ascreepy, just as scary.
You're still being researchedby every website that you log

(40:43):
into.
Your data is being collected,but just the way it's being
collected and how it's beingused and what parts of it are
being shared with advertisersthat has changed.
You can have a lot of differentvariations of targeting.
Right now, if you're collectinga lot of first party data from
your website, whatever yourcustomers agree to share with

(41:03):
you you can use that data tohave a much better understanding
of what the customers arelooking from you and use it in
your advertising, using yourpromotions, in your content, in
your organic SEO, whatever youwant to use it in.
You can also have these likerules when it comes to targeting
.
You can target back to peoplewho visited your website but

(41:26):
then didn't buy anything andleft, or you can target people
who visited certain pages andthen what happened?
Like they did other things.
So you can have thesebehavioral bundles and target
based on that.
Right now in Google, you canalso choose to target to new
customers or return, or peoplewho are already your customers

(41:49):
or returning customers, so youcan have that targeting option
as well.
There's just so many ways youcan target ads or anything.
Really, right now, I think themain thing that has changed is
just how that collection happens, but in terms of the results,
ads are going to get more andmore and more personalized.

(42:10):
A funny thing that I do is likeI did with my Christmas shopping
.
Sometimes I shop for someoneand I don't know what I should
get for them.
What I do is I just browse theinternet for a bit and then I
just leave, and then the nextday I have all these suggestions
all over my internet and then Ikind of use the system to help
with some of my tasks.

(42:31):
But not everyone is doing that.

Sam Gerdt (42:34):
That's the kind of awareness that I think we need
to be promoting generally.
When we were talking about backon the first point, when we
were talking about theintrusiveness of artificial
intelligence and how subtly itwill have the ability to
manipulate and to advertise to aperson knowing so much about

(42:54):
them and being given that placeof trust, I think it's really
important for us to take a stepback and say, okay, well, what
is most valuable for us to becultivating in our minds in
terms of, like, a way ofthinking about this, and what I
keep coming back to is just ageneral, pervasive awareness of

(43:15):
the fact that everything thatyou ingest, everything that you
look at, everything that you aretold, everything that you
listen to, is influencing you,and so, when it comes time to
make a decision, you want tomake sure that your
decision-making process is astransparent and observable as

(43:41):
possible.
So, for example, if you need todecide where to go to lunch,
it's best not to.
This is a silly example it'sbest not to drive down the road
and just say I'll just stop atthe place that speaks to me, you
know, because what that's doingis that's putting the

(44:04):
advertiser in the driver's seatand it's letting them.
It's basically saying, let thebest manipulator win, and that's
a very broad strokes example,but the idea is there.
There are so many decisions thatwe've just made passive, and I
think we need to go back tomaking our decision-making

(44:24):
processes as individuals moreobservable and transparent.
So, just having that mindset ofI am constantly being
manipulated, I am constantlybeing advertised to social media
, news media, any media you knowbeing on the internet, being
out and about in stores, youknow, in these public places and

(44:48):
public forums and also ondevices, I need to be especially
aware and when it comes time tomake a decision, I need to step
back from those places and Ineed to make an objective one, I
need to think through it and Ineed to try to, I guess, shed
some of that manipulation thatclings to us as a result of our

(45:10):
interfaces with all of theseentities.
That's a mindset it's.
There are a lot of people frommy generation who are like, yeah
, that sounds great.
And then there are a lot ofpeople from, like my kid's
generation who are like, nah,that we don't, that sounds like
too much work, we don't needthat.
So I do think there's a littlebit of a generational thing
there and I think our kids aregoing to deal with the internet

(45:31):
just very differently than wewould.
But as a person who's a part ofthat you know, previous
generation who has to interfacewith this stuff for quite a
while that's the mindset that Ihave when I approach it.

Larisa Aslanyan (45:47):
The question is , though how can you know that
you're being objective?
How can you know that thedecision you're making is really
not influenced by anything oranyone?
There's been a lot ofconversation about influencers
as well.
If you're on TikTok andInstagram and you see these
girls or whoever using theseproducts and recommending them,

(46:09):
how can you really know thatthat's not a paid promotion?
There's been a lot of storieswhere people were not disclosing
that they were paid promotionsand they were recommending them,
and a lot of people would lookup to them and go buy those
products, but I think to just beon the more positive side.
I think it's time for all of usto just accept that this is

(46:32):
happening and that's not goingaway.
No matter how much populationthere is, how many laws we pass,
there's just no stopping thisdata flow.
You know you're sending so muchdata and there's something to
catch that data, and that's notgoing to change the way you can
approach it, whether you're aconsumer or a business, and
especially if you're a business,you can be very honest about it

(46:54):
, and you can develop theserelationships with your
customers through your website,through your content, your
emails, your customer service,and you can establish a history
of being honest and havingintegrity, making promises and
then keeping those promises, andI think that in those cases,
your customers will not evenmind that they're being

(47:16):
hyper-targeted by you.
I have a list of brands that Idon't mind giving up my
information to, because I knowthey help me, you know they
provide value to my life.
I think it's just time weaccept that technology is just
going to influence every part ofour lives and we just need to
learn to cope with it.

Sam Gerdt (47:38):
Absolutely.
I don't mean to put off a jadedperspective, but I do tend to
skew quite cynical and skepticalwhen it comes to interfacing
with any of these platforms.
So, for example, you said howwould you know if you were being
manipulated?
How, like, they don't alwaysdisclose when it's an ad.

(47:58):
And I think that's my point is,they don't always disclose when
it's an ad.
And so my assumption is if I'mon social media, my assumption
is, if I'm on the internet or onmy phone or wherever, that
automatically my assumption isI'm being manipulated, I am
being.
They are trying to steer mythinking in a direction.

(48:20):
There's a tug, there's a pull,and that you know.
That does sound cynical and itdoes come across as cynical in a
lot of ways.
I am infamous in my house, foryou know how it is that my wife
will come and show me a funnyvideo that she found on
Instagram and it's funny, and myany more.

(48:43):
My first thought is could thathave been staged?
And more than usually, theanswer is yes, and then my
response is it was probablystaged.

Larisa Aslanyan (48:52):
It's fake, you know it's.

Sam Gerdt (48:53):
it's funny.
Yeah, it's fake, it doesn't.
It doesn't change the fact thatit's funny and it doesn't
change what you're taking awayfrom it, but I think it's worth
it to recognize that that videothat looks like it's you know
America's Funniest Home Videosfrom 20 years ago is not
actually that.
That's probably take 13 on anaccount that produces a viral

(49:16):
video a week.
That sounds really cynical, butthat's just kind of where I'm
at right now.
I have this, I have this littlebit of a, of a.
I have a negative view of theway that people have created and
made everything out to be apopularity contest, whether it's
for advertising or whether it'sfor, you know, social likes and

(49:37):
engagement, that kind of stuff.
I do think we just need thisperspective, that that looks at
the world and says I shouldn'tjust believe everything that I
see anymore, because we'regetting to the point to where
that's going to get reallydangerous really fast.

Larisa Aslanyan (49:52):
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
I agree with you there.
You're right about it.
But the thing is that whatchanged is I think it just said
less stuff was fabricated in thepast.
Let's say, we had TV and we hadTV shows and even like the
reality TV shows right, a lot ofthose were scripted.
So we thought, oh, that's real.

(50:14):
But it turns out there was ascript behind it.
It's just that now everyone isdoing that.
There's just a scale of it.
It's just so massive.
But I have a question for you.
Last time we talked about yourpreferences for ads and how you
search to find solutions to yourproblems, and you just said as
long as you're on social media,you just have this.

(50:35):
You're thinking that you'rebeing manipulated or you're
being influenced, let's sayinfluenced.
Is that instead of manipulated?

Sam Gerdt (50:43):
Yeah, same difference .

Larisa Aslanyan (50:45):
But do you have the same feeling when you're on
Google or you're on any searchengine?
Do you feel like you're beinginfluenced by something?

Sam Gerdt (50:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
The difference is that it'syou're right, this is the world
that we live in and so we can'tescape that.
There's a difference betweentrying to escape it and trying
to be hyper aware of it, and Ithink the second, that second
option, is the one that I choosetry to be hyper aware of it.

(51:14):
So I have a question.
I am still of the mind andgeneration to go to googlecom
and search in the search boxwith my query.
I still have an adept abilityto craft highly technical search

(51:34):
phrases that use all of thelittle symbols and keywords that
Google lets you use in order tomake your searches a little bit
more effective.
That's still the way I search.
I don't use voice.
I don't often useconversational search queries.
More often than not, my searchqueries look like a collection

(51:55):
of keywords, which is pretty oldschool.
So, that being said, google'sgonna feed me what it wants to
feed me, and that's for me.
That's acknowledgement.
Number one is the results thatI'm getting are the results that
were chosen for me.
It's not all of the possibleresults ranked in any way that I

(52:17):
can see or recognize.
It is the results that werechosen for me.
So, generally my approach towhether it's advertising or
search or whatever.
Generally my approach is Iwanna have a really good
understanding of the problemthat I'm looking to solve and I
want to make my searches asbroad as possible.

(52:38):
So I'm not usually the type ofperson to click the first link
and accept the first answer.
My behavior on the SERPs page isprobably weird compared to most
people, but more often than notI will look at the first three
pages of results.
I'll actually click through andreview all of the links If it's

(52:59):
an important question.
If it's neither here nor there,I'll just take what they give
me.
Like if I just need to know thename of that actress that was
in that movie.
That's very different than if Ineed to solve a complex problem
.
So I'm looking at many pages oflinks.
The other thing I'm doing isI'm clicking through on probably
five, six, seven links andlooking at five, six, seven
different web pages to see howthese different people are

(53:21):
answering my question, and thenI'm adjusting my search.
If I'm not seeing the answerthat I want, I will use the
answers that I'm getting to helpme adjust that search.
So maybe that's, you know, kindof like what you do with PPC.
Maybe I put in negativekeywords in my search, or maybe
I use the quotation marks to sayI need an exact match for this,

(53:42):
so like if that's what I'mtalking about, like I have a
very old way of searching.

Larisa Aslanyan (53:49):
That's definitely not how the average
person searches for you, sure?

Sam Gerdt (53:55):
No, I know we would be in trouble as advertisers.

Larisa Aslanyan (53:58):
if everyone searched like you, we would not
be able to solve anything, butyou know what.

Sam Gerdt (54:03):
you would be in trouble, but the consumer would
be way better off that.
I think that's my point.
I as a consumer, and far moreprotected because of that
mindset than the average person.

Larisa Aslanyan (54:14):
I think you there I'm much more different.
The way I search I kind of Idon't.
I just go with the flow, let'ssay, and I kind of just kind of
try to direct the flow as muchas I can.
The one good thing about thishyper-personalization and AI and
the machine learning algorithmsin advertising is it is getting

(54:37):
better and better.
So sometimes again, dependingon the issue I'm researching
sometimes it will give me justthe result that I need on the
first page or on the top pages,and then I will be immensely
grateful for that because itsaved time for me.
So I think it's a choice thatyou, as a consumer, make.
Do you want to feel like youhave more power over your own

(54:59):
decisions?
Do you feel like you are makingreally the most objective
decision that you can make, orare you more concerned with
saving time?
Maybe you need things fast andyou're just grateful that you
were kind of given the solutionfaster and so you can go do
something else now, and it doesdepend on what you're searching.

(55:20):
But I feel like we also talkedduring our last conversation
whether Google is going away ornot, and my opinion on that is
still the same that it'sdefinitely not going anywhere.
In fact, in the latest lawsuitone of the lawsuits that Google
is going through right now,brought forward by the

(55:44):
Department of Justice it's aboutthe search, google search and
how Google is dominating almost90% of the search markets.
90% of the searches happen onGoogle, and the reason for that
is because Google has beenpaying off a lot of these device
manufacturers and browsers tohave.

(56:04):
Google as the default searchengine, right?
So it's just so massive, it'snot going away and it has
collected so much data and it'sgoing to get better.
I don't know how often do youfind something on the third page
of the results, though Like isit?
Do you ever?
Does it frequently happen thatyou find your answer on the

(56:25):
third page, for the best optionfor you on the third page?

Sam Gerdt (56:29):
No, not frequently, and this is an important
distinction to make.
Like and this applies too tothe question why won't Google go
away it's not just becausethey're on every device, it's
because they're the ones thathave the data.
You know they've spent.
You know Google came out in1998, they've spent the last 25

(56:50):
years collecting data.
Any new competitor that comeson the scene has to catch up,
and it's not going to happenquickly.
But because Google has thatdata, they are the superior
engine.
So even though they are doingthose things that I don't like
in a lot of ways, with theinfluencing and manipulation, I

(57:15):
would still choose them over.
Say, like DuckDuckGo.
You know the privacy searchapplication.
Duckduckgo is very popular.
I really like DuckDuckGo for alot of things.
I don't like it for search.
When I have a question that Ineed an answer to.
If that question is simple,then it'll be helpful.
If it's complex, then Google isgoing to by far give me the

(57:40):
better answer faster.
So there's value in recognizingthat these more powerful
systems, these entities thathave all of the data while that
causes problems in some areaswhen you actually do need help
those capabilities are what'sgoing to be most helpful.

(58:00):
I think the whole.
Looking at three pages ofsearch is just that's an
exercise of.
I guess it would be somethinglike heterodoxy, where you want
to make sure that you'reinforming yourself on all of the
different opinions.
You're wanting to make surethat you're not just looking for

(58:21):
the answer from your camp.

Larisa Aslanyan (58:23):
You're looking for all of the perspectives.

Sam Gerdt (58:26):
Yeah, all of the information, all the
perspectives.
I would be far more concernedabout going to a search engine
for the answer to aphilosophical question than I
would going to the search enginefor an answer to a programming
question, because both are soincredibly complex but one is

(58:54):
going to be far more objectivethan the other and when you're
answering subjective questionsyou have to recognize that
heterodoxy mindset, that I needdifferent opinions mindset
doesn't mean three pages ofGoogle results.
It means Google results andthen go read some books and then

(59:16):
go talk to people fromdifferent backgrounds and then
go to different places in theworld.

Larisa Aslanyan (59:21):
Google is Google, that's more.
Yeah, yeah, and Google thosepeople.

Sam Gerdt (59:25):
Like that's the kind of it just depends on the
question you're trying to getanswered.
But that's the kind of way thatyou want to approach that, in
my opinion, is just making surethat you're diversifying your
sources.

Larisa Aslanyan (59:36):
The thing that you mentioned.
Google is still by far thesuperior product.
If you compare it to the othersearch engines Bing, yahoo,
yandex those are not going tocatch up to Google.
But unfortunately, it's veryhelpful to us as users, but to
business owners and advertisers,as recently discovered, it can

(01:00:00):
mean the hidden raised cost ofadvertising just because they
have the monopoly.
And it's very funny becauselately, in the past two or three
years, we've had some.
I saw some clients trying tofind alternatives to Google,
asking me where else can weadvertise, because Google is

(01:00:23):
becoming very expensive for usand for some industries it can
get very expensive for a singleclick.
Unfortunately, I still haven'tfound the alternative and there
is no alternative, and it's hardto tell clients that this is
the only place.
If you really wanthigh-intentioned search, if you
really want a customer who'slooking to buy, who's looking to

(01:00:45):
sign up, who's looking to aservice they know what they're
looking for and they'researching for.
This is the only place you canadvertise on and have good
results.
Keep up your leads, the amountof leads, the quality of leads,
all of that.
This is something that thebusiness owners need to look out
for when planning their budgetsfor next year, I think the

(01:01:07):
numbers for this year was GoogleProject 20 to 30% increase in
advertising costs.
That's a lot, and there was anincrease last year as well.
In 2022, it was much less, butstill it's getting more
expensive every year.
So, and I understand that notmany advertisers can raise their

(01:01:28):
budgets every year, but atleast you can review your
strategy.
You can polish your websitessome more, you can add more
content, you can make otherchanges that will contribute to
the quality of your advertising,even if you can't raise your
budget.

Sam Gerdt (01:01:44):
It's sad to see it, but at the same time it's, I
think we have to recognize acouple of things.
There's the monopoly side of it.
You really do only have oneoption, and maybe that changes
in the future we'll see.
I have a feeling that if Googleis going to be disrupted in
this way, it will be throughplatforms like ChatGBT, like

(01:02:10):
these AI agents that we willeventually be able to purchase
and have for ourselves.
In those scenarios, the abilityof those entities to advertise
is going to be profound, andGoogle's influence in those

(01:02:30):
advertising platforms thatmanage that may or may not be
what it is today.
We would have to see.
So if there's any hope forGoogle being disrupted, I do
think that it kind of comes fromthis artificial intelligence
wave that we see coming in.
But then I think the otherthing that you just have to
admit to yourself is costs aregoing up, in large part because

(01:02:53):
people are getting harder andharder to reach.
You say, well, I don't knowabout that.
They're glued to their devices,they're constantly there,
they're constantly looking.
That's true, but there's somuch.
It's a bidding war.
There's so much competitionit's not so much that it's not

(01:03:15):
the consumer behavior.
In this case, it's theadvertiser behavior.
Competition in digitaladvertising is skyrocketing and
that's what drives the price up.
If your competitor is willingto pay a few cents per click
more than you are, then theprice is gonna go up.

(01:03:36):
You get that bidding war effect.

Larisa Aslanyan (01:03:37):
Well, that's definitely happening.
Definitely after the pandemic,the competition is just so much
more fierce.
But that's not the only thinghappening.
There's less transparency withGoogle's ad auctions, and I
think during this lawsuit thatit was revealed that Google
artificially increased some ofthe costs in some of the ad

(01:04:01):
auctions to make their profits.
And I think, as a businessowner, you need to know this so
that you don't think that eventhe Google likes saying that
Google is magic.
It is not magic and you shouldnot rely on any advertising
platform to generate your leadsand then you just sit back and

(01:04:24):
you think you're going to justservice them and your business
is going to do great.
You really have to work onevery other aspect of your
marketing.
You need to work on yourwebsite.
You have to make sure you'reaccessible online in the local
results and organic results.
You need to make sure you'recollecting your leads, and then
you're sending them emails,you're making these connections

(01:04:45):
with them, buildingrelationships, and this all
sounds very easy to say, hard todo, but all the businesses
right now really need to investin their overall presence online
, because advertising alone isnot going to give them the
results for the price that theyhope for.

Sam Gerdt (01:05:07):
Yeah, advertising without website advertising,
without brand advertising,without someone who's
intelligently tracking thatprocess from start to finish,
it's just not going to have thateffect.
And, especially with pricesgoing up, you really do want to
be taking advantage of everyclick that you buy, and so

(01:05:28):
having a look at those otherthings can in some ways reduce
your paid advertising costs,even when costs per click are
going up, by improving thoseconversion rates and those close
rates, knowing exactly why youneed to advertise where and in
which locations you're going tobe or in which locations.

Larisa Aslanyan (01:05:49):
having all this data from your first party data
collection will make you muchmore successful, will help you
make just the right decisionsand then just make use of every
opportunity you have online,every promotion, marketing
opportunity that you have.

Sam Gerdt (01:06:06):
Recurring business referrals, word of mouth, all
these other secondary ways thatwe think of brand has everything
to do with it, and so it canstart with paid advertising, but
by building that strong brandrelationship with your customers
, you can build that perpetual,ongoing benefit.

Larisa Aslanyan (01:06:25):
That's another thing that we often, as PPC
specialists, we tell clients isyou can have the best ads, you
can have so much money investedin Google ads or any ads, meta
ads, any ads but once the userclicks and they land on your
website and your website justdoes not provide enough
information, it doesn't make theuser feel safe.

(01:06:46):
Taken care of that there.
Their problem is going to besolved.
They don't see any human faceson your website, for example.
There's not a journey they cango through on your website.
Then that click is wasted.
Just wasted all that money.
So yeah, advertising is verytightly connected to everything

(01:07:08):
else.

Sam Gerdt (01:07:09):
Very good.
Thank you, larissa, for goingthrough these with me.
I thought it was such aninteresting conversation when we
first had it, and having it nowhere in front of the camera
just gave us some opportunity toplay around with these ideas in
ways that I thought were a lotof fun.
So of course, I'll be in touchwith you, but is there anything
else that you would add beforewe say goodbye?

Larisa Aslanyan (01:07:31):
Just wanna say thank you for a wonderful
conversation and stay positive.
A lot of good things arehappening.

Sam Gerdt (01:07:38):
No, I'm a cynic.
I'm a cynic.

Larisa Aslanyan (01:07:41):
Yeah, well, at some point you won't have a
choice but to stay positive.

Sam Gerdt (01:07:47):
I appreciate that.
Thank you, Larissa.

Larisa Aslanyan (01:07:49):
Enjoy the objectivity yeah.

Sam Gerdt (01:07:51):
Thank you, sam.
Thank you, I'll see you soon.