In the first of our new series of Unleashing Potential interviews we talk to iCrossing's Head of Search, Mark Williams, to discover how brands can unleash the potential of his ‘Total’ approach to Search in advance of his Breakfast Briefing event next week...

Total Search is a holistic approach to search marketing, which considers SEO and PPC as a single channel.

We live in C2B world, where consumers lead and brands follow, and the brands that succeed are those that take a channel-agnostic, customer-centric approach to marketing. We must plan around people and people don’t distinguish between search channels, they give their business to the first brand that solves their problem.

Good question. Consumers have relied on search engines to connect them with the correct products and services for years, and it has always been important to consider the synergy between SEO and PPC, but thanks to the changing landscape it’s more important now than ever. In 2016 I heard two common themes immerging within search industry. Firstly, that PPC budgets continued to rise with pressure to gain a profitable return on investment. Secondly, that SEO continued to lose share of voice within mobile search results as more and more of the screen becomes monopolised by paid ads. By taking a ‘total’ approach to search brands can overcome these challenges by widening their search reach and only paying for clicks that are incremental.