Chat vs Search: Why SEO Isn’t Dead

Early 2025 has seen a flood of posts about AI killing SEO. These posts question whether investing in SEO makes sense now that AI provides direct answers.

However, we shouldn't ask, "Is AI killing SEO?" Instead, we should ask:

"Will users prefer to Chat instead of Search?"

This question focuses on the user and customer perspective—exactly where marketers should focus.

How we see the future of Search for eCommerce:

I've been in this industry for over 10 years and have never been more optimistic about its future. We may soon see multiple search and chat engines emerge, each with unique criteria and quality guidelines.

However, the biggest threat to the channel today comes from busy marketers who mistake social media posts for genuine knowledge rather than seeing them as clickbait designed to drive engagement. Those who focus on short-term gains while missing the bigger picture will likely struggle in the years ahead.

Click the button below to read the full article.

Interview with Ben Stinson, Diamond King

This month's interview is with Ben Stinson, who we’ve branded the Australian Diamond King. Jake and I discuss marketing in the Diamond Industry and multiple topics across Ben’s career that are relevant and interesting for anyone working in eCommerce marketing.

Key Discussion Points:

• Need to knows about launching in the Australian market

• Tips around managing up to a director vs a founder

• Teaching your team to manage up

• Learnings moving from a highly luxury product like Diamonds to an incredibly functional product like underfloor heating

• The curious lack of impact brand plays in influencing a purchase in the diamond industry

• Tracking the impact of showrooms on online marketing

• Regarding diamonds and a traditional male-female relationship - Are you marketing to males or females? And how this has changed over the years to same-gender marriage and less stereotypical roles in relationships.

• Approach to a highly seasonal-led industry

• Finally: ‘WTF is up with Hatton Gardens’

You can access the full interview on any podcast platform you sign up for. Coming soon to YouTube. The main link is available here: https://sessions.thisisnovos.com/

eCommerce Market Performance

Below is a snapshot of how eCommerce performance has been trending over the past 4 weeks (left) and the previous 12 months (right).

As expected, December was a strong month for online sales. Surprisingly, the first week of January started positively but dropped off the following week.

When comparing YoY data, there is a clear positive trajectory from Q3 and Q4 2024 compared to 2023 performance.

Now we’re at the end of January, we have all of December's data populated, bringing a full calendar view together to compare YoY.

Health & Beauty was a significant outlier in 2024, with aggressive 10%+ YoY monthly growth.

Clothing struggled with a YoY decline every month except in September.

Menswear struggled in the first half of the year, with YoY declines of around 10%+. Footwear contributed to the overall market growth, with respectable YoY growth from August onwards.

As always, reply to this email if you’d like to see benchmark industry data for your sector. Below are the sectors we can access, including sub-sectors within most of these.

• clothing

• electrical

• gifts

• health and beauty

• home & garden

• jewellery

• sports & outdoors

• Mobile commerce

2025 Year-to-date, Year-on-Year Performance by Category

Revenue Performance

Total market growth is a respectable 4%, which looks heavily skewed by Health and Beauty.

Traffic Performance

Revenue looks to be outpacing traffic growth, with a -0.7% YoY traffic decline. Skincare is sky-high, with a 47% YoY growth; accessories are down 42% YoY.

Upcoming Event: Only 4 Spaces Left!

If you want to reduce reliance on paid media this year, don't miss out on our dinner at Gordon Ramsey's Lucky Cat restaurant in Mayfair, London, on Thursday, February 6th.

Our Co-Founder, Antonio, and Head of SEO, Tom G, will host the event with our partner, Littledata. They’ll discuss ways to diversify your channel mix this year and how to track it.

Join over 15 other eCom leaders in similar positions to chat through solutions to common challenges and more.

Book a free ticket here before they go 👉 https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/reducing-reliance-on-paid-media-in-2025-how-can-it-be-done-tickets-1092032230799?aff=oddtdtcreator 

Case Study: 4x SEO Growth Vitabiotics

Below is a visual from a third-party tool illustrating the organic growth Vitabiotics has seen since working with NOVOS. This is a massively competitive space, and the team has done an incredible job.

Black line = their start date with us.

Why is this relevant?

The graph perfectly illustrates how long it takes for SEO to get going, but you can see significant growth over a long period once it does.

The graph shows the stagnation before working with us, nearly 2 years of 0 growth.

You can also see the fluctuations in performance; just like investing in the stock market, there are drops, but when you play the long game, you see the real gains and can genuinely start relying less on paid media. Organic growth isn’t meant to be an easy, quick fix. Otherwise, everyone would be doing it!

We’ve worked with Vitabiotics for over three years now, and as the saying goes, the proof is in the pudding.