It’s almost 12 months since Re:commerce 2024, which proved to be a fascinating event filled with expert insights from some of the brightest minds working in e-commerce, digital marketing and SEO.
We summarised the event’s key takeaways here, but ahead of Re:commerce 2025 on Friday 16th May we wanted to revisit those themes and give our updated take, and a hint of some of the hot topics and insights we’ll be sharing at this year’s event.
AI continues to reshape search
Unsurprisingly, artificial intelligence was a key topic of discussion for multiple speakers at Re:commerce 2024, including how it’s reshaping search.
While our job used to be to create content that resonated with users and was optimised for search algorithms, we’re now also needing to think about how to get visibility with AI in the mix. Focus is needed on brand connection and bringing our A-game when creating content. AI won’t surface our content unless it adds value to the end user.
Jono Alderson, an award-winning technical SEO consultant with almost 20 years experience in the industry, discussed how we all need to take more responsibility for the low value pages being created by AI.
As Jono points out, what we fail to consider is that there are lots of people just like you following the exact same process for content production.
Figuring how to create unique, high value content isn’t necessarily a new issue for marketers, but AI is reshaping the search landscape. As Jono highlighted in his talk, Google (and other search engines) can increasingly synthesise results without having to send visitors to your website.
Dawn Anderson, international SEO consultant and MD at Bertey, discussed similar points in her talk. Dawn explained how AI is now more accurately predicting search preferences and outperforms human evaluation for ranking—all at a fraction of the cost.
Our take
In 2025, successful SEO strategies are starting to prioritise a strong focus on positive brand building, as well as an increased focus on efficient crawling and discovery of content. This isn’t just about surfacing content in Google Search, but across all touchpoints in the customer journey. Google has been crawling websites for decades now, but Answer Engine crawlers need a helping hand to see the ‘right’ content and serve it up to the user. Brand trust and deep subject matter expertise are now essential to achieving visibility.
Mediocrity is not a means of survival
Marketing consultant and ‘SEO Futurist’ Jes Scholz emphasised the point that mediocrity would not deliver success for brands, and Jes was clear on how you can only gain a competitive advantage by offering more than your competitors—not the same stuff repackaged in a different way. You need to provide more interesting content than your competitors, bring something new to the conversation, stop focusing on keywords and be the genuine answer to your customers’ questions and challenges.
Holly Tucker, founder of Holly&Co and Not on the High Street, used her opening keynote to remind Re:commerce 2024 attendees of the importance and power of ‘emotional commerce’,
and how being imaginative and human-centric is unfortunately missing with so many brand stories.
However, as Holly reiterated during her excellent keynote, ‘there is no silver bullet’ for creating great content.
E-commerce brands also need to be aware of what Google is looking for in terms of ‘quality’ content. Cindy Krum, founder and CEO of MobileMoxie, focused her talk on E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authority and Trust)—the signals we have to optimise for to ‘create the sense of quality’ Google is looking for.
Our take
The need to learn is constant and as consumer behaviours change in reaction to AI search, so must our strategies to provide a meaningful connection to our customers. With this in mind, it’s even more critical to test new tactics and methodologies and, as Holly Tucker said during her keynote speech, ‘it’s about learning, driving and testing, and not being scared of new.’
Understanding the uniqueness of your customer is the key behind getting them from answer engines, onto your website.
Life beyond Google
Google might still dominate the search landscape, but many of our speakers highlighted the importance of looking beyond the ‘ten blue links’ of page one. Amazon, social networks and the growing influence of Reddit are all eating into brand visibility on Google Search, and as up and coming search channels themselves.
What’s more, it was highlighted that Google is becoming the ultimate category page, where consumers are only leaving the SERPs to visit your website at the point of conversion. Jes Scholz predicted that this could spell the end for category pages, with brands instead needing to focus on product enrichment. Arnoldo Cabrera, Digital Optimisation Manager at IKEA, sees this as a transition from an internet experience based on information retrieval to one based on knowledge and trust. During Arnoldo’s talk, he advised attendees to build their brands, content and knowledge around this new dynamic.
Some of our panelists provided some useful insights on this very subject, advising attendees to optimise for ‘anything that has a search box and ranking.’ You have to be where your customers are, wherever they are.
Our take
TikTok can facilitate a full consumer journey from research to purchase, while Reddit’s growth in Google has stabilised and displaced multiple brands and retailers in the search results on its way to the top. Meanwhile, Amazon continues to be a dominant marketplace competitor.
Addressing all of this requires the brands of today to have a synergistic approach to search across all channels, focus on building brand trust, and have a comprehensive marketplace strategy in place.
For e-commerce specifically, more traffic is coming directly to product pages. Google Shopping and Google Organic Product Grids are driving collaboration between organic and paid teams, and brand USPs and competitive pricing are critical to win in this space.
Secure your spot at Re:commerce 2025
The e-commerce search landscape is in a constant state of flux, and adaptation is the key to delivering success in 2025 and beyond. Marketing professionals in this space need to take advantage of every opportunity to learn, and Re:commerce provides the inspiration and expert insights to ensure you’re able to keep driving your brand forward.
Re:commerce 2025 is set to be an uplifting day of insight, ideas and open discussion for e-commerce businesses, and last year our attendees had the chance to learn from a fantastic line-up of internationally-acclaimed speakers and industry experts. To secure your ticket for this exciting one-day conference event, book your place now.
Our Early Bird discount is currently active, meaning you can save 30% on the full ticket price. This special offer is only available until 11th March, so act quickly to take advantage of it.
