How Wall Street Can Help to Evaluate Your Media Mix

Disruption isn’t the exception in performance marketing. It’s becoming the norm. There’s a lot of noise, and fewer and fewer reliable signals to inform strategy – and so many brand leaders, CMOs, and performance marketers are still planning like it’s business as usual. 

Over my nearly-a-decade sitting with prospects and clients, discussing the future of search marketing, growth strategies, and, most recently, what that future looks like with AI, I’ve asked the question: why should anyone choose one marketing agency over another? Everyone has their own proprietary research. Proprietary technology. But it doesn’t account for the unknowns. How can marketers possibly start to predict, forecast, plan, and make smart money decisions with all this noise and no real answers? 

We’re seeing similar signals across portfolios, and as we dig into trends, my past-life in the financial markets starts knocking: what if we go back to something that’s universally understood? Been in existence for hundreds of years? The stock market. 

The thought exercise: If the stock market is making bets on Google and AI (and other Search companies’) futures, can we use that to evaluate our media mix? 

When analysts adjust price targets for Google, it’s not only a reaction to the headlines they're seeing. Analysts build predictive models around how search volume may grow or decline as a result of competition, LLMs, etc. And then, predict the revenue impact.

What Wall Street Already Knows About Your Media Mix 

💡 If search traffic drops, Google has two ways to maintain revenue: increase click-through rates (CTRs) or raise cost-per-click (CPCs).

Now apply that same logic to your media mix. If organic traffic is declining and CTRs don’t rise, what happens next?

The markets are already modeling this. Shouldn’t we be doing the same?

Here are four questions we’re asking as we guide brands through media planning in this new era:

1. If CPCs rise, should we shift budget to other channels?
   
   If Google compensates for lost search volume by increasing ad prices, are there more efficient acquisition channels we should be testing?
   
   
2. How do we model these potential shifts?
   
   Just like investors predict future performance and earnings, can we model out the performance shifts caused by LLM disruption, declining branded traffic, or increasing auction volatility ahead of time?
   
   
3. Are we diversified enough?
   
   If reliance on search ads becomes riskier, are we testing other channels like social, influencer, or direct partnerships to hedge against rising CPCs?
   
   
4. What signals are we watching?
   
   Analysts use Google’s earnings reports to predict future performance. As marketers, are we tracking the right metrics, like auction price changes, CTR trends, or organic visibility metrics to get ahead?
   
   

Use the market vs search pundits as your true north

We spend a lot of time justifying where search is going, but what if instead of guessing, we could show how financial markets are already making bets on the future of search? When analysts adjust their targets, they’re signaling confidence or concern about how Google will adapt. Are they betting on Google successfully raising CPCs? Or a sharp cliff as a result of traffic shifting to LLMs? This article is a prime example: 

So time you’re planning a media mix discussion, ask:
What would an investor do? 

OK… What Would An Investor Do? 

We’ll talk about what marketing leaders can do with this lens in a second. But it’s important to think about how investors strategize, or more importantly, how they hedge their bets.

Smart investors don’t go all in on one stock, they spread risk, hedge big bets, and set rules for when to cut losses. Marketers should do the same. Are you diversifying across channels? Hedging by balancing Google with Meta or LinkedIn? Have you defined your “stop-loss” – the point where you pause spend before performance tanks? 

So in marketing what are the things you are hedging against? Do you want to wait for a crash in Click Through Rates to make a plan?  How could you make investments today in a growth area, like making a WhatsApp Group or LinkedIn, as Google’s market share is starting to decline.

What Should Marketers Do? 

You don’t need to overhaul your strategy and suddenly go learn a ton about financial markets. You DO need smarter ways to read the signals to make smarter bets in the face of so many unknowns. 

• Build scenarios based on market indicators, not just marketing forecasts
• Diversify your media portfolio before volatility forces your hand
• Define your floor, know when and how you’ll reallocate if performance slips

When marketing trends and shifts get this noisy, clarity is going to be your competitive advantage. The stock market doesn’t predict outcomes perfectly, but it does reward preparation, optionality, and a well-balanced portfolio.

Don’t react late. Do position.

Interested in learning more about how we put this thinking into real media plans at Seer? Let's chat.