Google’s AI Overviews: 6 levers to remain visible and effective thanks to first-party data

On May 20, 2025, Google made a major strategic shift official: its search engine is becoming an answer engine, boosted by artificial intelligence. With the arrival of AI Overviews, the entire digital ecosystem – SEO, advertising, content, measurement – is being disrupted. Result: many queries no longer lead to any clicks to websites. For media, this is a direct challenge to the economic model based on organic traffic and programmatic advertising. For e-merchants, this means a critical loss of product visibility in results pages.

🎥Demo on Minted, Article from May 27, 2025, “Generative AI: the death of the web page is scheduled, how to anticipate it?”

Fewer clicks. Less visibility. Less control.

This evolution calls into question years of strategy focused on Google visibility. But it is also a unique opportunity to rethink the direct relationship with the audience, thanks to first-party data. 🔍

Concretely:

What Google will change:

Google will now respond directly to users, who no longer need to click on an article link to read its content, with an AI-generated answer powered by all the sources at its disposal. What was historically a search engine is becoming an answer engine. The operational consequences for media and e-merchants = the click disappears! Thus leading to:

1. A loss of traffic: as clicks decrease, sites face a drop in traffic to their web environment
2. A drop in revenue: the reduction in traffic directly affects advertising revenue and overall profitability.
3. A lack of content control: over the presentation and monetization of content in search results.

It will therefore be a question for web players of:

1. Evolving their SEO strategy towards SRO (Search Response Optimization) by structuring information so that it is understandable by AIs.
2. Finding new sources of revenue, beyond traditional programmatic advertising, to compensate for the anticipated drop in traffic
3. Diversifying their visibility by optimizing “substance” more than “form” and by expanding their referencing network beyond Walled Gardens
4. Regaining control and asserting their sovereignty in their respective sectors

🚀 Why first-party data is becoming the new black gold

In this new context, first-party data – that is, data you collect directly from your users – becomes the main lever to:

• Know and segment your audiences
• Personalize journeys and content
• Effectively target your campaigns (web, apps, CRM, retail media)
• Measure performance, even without clicks

This is precisely where First-id comes into play!

🤝 How First-id supports you concretely

As a cross-domain deterministic identifier solution, First-id allows publishers, e-merchants, and brands to:

• Unify their user data across all touchpoints (website, app, CRM, in-store…)
• Activate personalized experiences, powered by powerful insights
• Collaborate securely with their data partners (data collaboration)
• Target and measure omnichannel campaigns, even in a world without third-party cookies or clicks
• Enhance their data assets in the face of AI platforms

First-id allows you to move from a world driven by Google’s algorithm to a world driven by your customer knowledge.

🛠️ In clear terms: from acquisition to loyalty, a user-centric approach

👉 For media: enrich your monetization models through the direct exploitation of your audience.

👉 For retail: offer hyper-personalized, measurable, and effective purchasing journeys.

👉 For brands: activate your campaigns on the open web, online and offline, without depending on search giants.

The future of the web is no longer solely played out on Google. It is played out at your place, with your users, your data, your partners.

With First-id, regain control.

🔍 Here are 6 concrete recommendations to turn this transformation into an opportunity

1. Capitalize on first-party data as a common strategic asset

📉Challenges:

• Media are seeing their traffic decline, reducing their advertising inventory.
• E-merchants are losing natural referencing and indirect sales.

🎯Objective:
Regain control of customer knowledge by creating a unified and exploitable database of your own users.

🛠️How First-id helps you:
By unifying user identifiers between your different domains or partners, First-id allows you to track and enrich journeys, even without third-party cookies or SEO clicks.

📌 Example:

An internet user navigates a content site then a partner merchant site. First-id allows this user to be recognized to adapt the content or product offer upon their arrival.

For whom?

Media & e-merchants

2. Create ultra-personalized user experiences

📉Challenge:
With the disappearance of homepages as an entry point, each visit becomes a critical moment of engagement.

🎯Objective:
Maximize retention, time spent, and conversions from the first interaction.

🛠️ How First-id helps you: Thanks to the deterministic identifier, you can personalize the experience from the first page viewed: content, product recommendations, UX interface…

📌Example: A user accesses an article page from an AI engine: the page automatically offers them products or content related to their past interests on other sites within the same network. For whom? Media & e-merchants

3. Monetize differently thanks to fine segmentation and omnichannel activation

📉Challenge:
The drop in traffic leads to a decrease in classic advertising yield.

🎯Objective: Create high-value-added segments, activatable in programmatic, CRM, social, or retail media.

🛠️ How First-id helps you: You create qualified user segments (intenders, loyal customers, engaged readers…), which you can activate on all your marketing channels.

📌Example: A “cooking enthusiasts” segment from an editorial site is activated in a social media campaign for an appliance brand. For whom? Media, e-merchants, advertisers

4. Unite to create a resilient data ecosystem

📉Challenge:
Faced with web giants, each actor alone remains vulnerable.

🎯Objective:
Create lasting alliances by pooling data while respecting privacy.

🛠️How First-id helps you:
Our universal Premium and anonymous identifier allows partners (media, brands, retailers) to be federated to create common customer knowledge, without transferring raw data.

📌Example:
A media group pools its identification graph with a retail brand to better understand readers’ purchasing behaviors.

For whom?
Media, e-merchants, advertisers

5. Measure performance independently

📉Challenge:
Traditional analytics no longer reflect reality (unattributed traffic, vague measurement).

🎯Objective:
Track performance accurately, even without SEO clicks, even in cross-device navigation.

🛠️How First-id helps you:
Thanks to a persistent view of the user, you can measure the real impact of your campaigns, newsletters, or product sheets over time.

📌Example:
A media outlet tracks the impact of sponsored content or a newsletter on the real online and offline conversions of an e-commerce partner.

For whom?
Media & e-merchants

6. Invest in technological sovereignty

📉Challenge:
AI is transforming Google into a final destination, making players dependent on an opaque system.

🎯Objective:
Build your own search, recommendation, or monetization tools.

🛠️How First-id helps you:
By providing an interoperable technological brick to create a shared identity graph, the basis of a sovereign engine or a proprietary recommendation system.

📌Example:
A collective of sites creates a common search functionality to recommend content, products, or offers according to the user profile.

For whom?
Media & e-commerce platforms

🔚 Conclusion

The era of automated SEO is coming to an end. But another era is dawning: that of direct relationships, controlled data, and intelligent activation. At First-id, we believe that media, e-merchants, and brands have everything to gain by taking back control – over their audiences, their data, and their revenue. 👉 Want to adapt your strategy to the AI era? Contact us to discuss it.