With a rich background in analytics and performance optimization, Milena Traikovich has become a go-to expert for businesses looking to navigate the complexities of modern lead generation. As the traditional, linear search funnel gives way to a fragmented ecosystem of social discovery and AI-driven queries, she helps brands rewrite their playbooks. In our conversation, we explore how to create content for a discovery-first world, the evolution of SEO for conversational AI, and the necessity of building hybrid marketing teams. Milena breaks down how to map user intent across platforms rather than siloing budgets and discusses the critical convergence of brand-building and performance marketing, offering a new model for measurement and success.
Given that over half of Gen Z starts product searches on platforms like TikTok, what specific, discovery-ready content should brands create? Could you share an example of a campaign that successfully nurtured trust with creators and the metrics used to measure its impact on performance?
It’s a fascinating and fundamental shift. The key is to stop thinking like an advertiser and start thinking like a creator. The content that works is authentic, helpful, and feels native to the feed. Brands need to invest heavily in video tutorials, behind-the-scenes looks, and content that genuinely solves a problem or provides inspiration without a hard sell. For example, a skincare brand could create short, satisfying videos showing the product’s texture rather than just listing benefits. A campaign that truly nurtures trust doesn’t just pay creators for a one-off post; it builds a long-term advocacy program. Imagine identifying micro-influencers who already use your product, then giving them creative freedom to integrate it into their content for six months. Instead of just tracking vanity metrics, you’d use a data clean room to measure the real impact. You could see that audiences exposed to these trusted creator videos had a significantly higher conversion rate downstream, proving that the relationship-building directly fueled performance beyond what last-click could ever show.
With consumers asking questions to AI like ChatGPT instead of typing keywords, how must SEO evolve? Can you provide a step-by-step process for optimizing a brand’s web assets for conversational search, focusing on both structured data and plain language content?
SEO is having to grow up and move beyond its obsession with simple keywords. It’s no longer about ranking for “best running shoes” but about being the definitive answer when a user asks, “What are the best running shoes for a beginner with flat feet training for a 5k?” The process starts with a deep dive into audience understanding. First, use your analytics and social listening to identify the full-sentence questions people are actually asking. Second, create dedicated content that answers these questions directly and in a natural, conversational tone—think blog posts with clear Q&A sections or comprehensive guides. The third and most critical step is technical: implement structured data. You need to use schema markup to essentially label your content for the AI, telling it, “This paragraph is the answer to this specific question.” This combination of plain language for humans and structured data for machines is what allows a platform like ChatGPT to pull your content and present it as the authoritative answer.
The essay suggests mapping intent stages like ‘inspiration’ and ‘research’ rather than budgeting by platform. How would a team practically implement this? Please detail a cross-channel measurement model that successfully connects insights from video touchpoints to final commerce outcomes.
Practically, this requires a radical shift in how marketing teams are structured and how they think about their budgets. You have to break down the silos. Instead of having a “social media budget” and a “search budget,” you create an “inspiration stage budget” and a “comparison stage budget.” The inspiration budget might be allocated to TikTok creator campaigns and beautiful Instagram stories. The comparison budget might fund in-depth product reviews on YouTube and targeted search ads for competitor keywords. To connect the dots, a last-click model is useless. You need a more sophisticated cross-channel model, often powered by a data clean room. This allows you to combine your sales data with anonymized exposure data from platforms. You can then see that a user who was first inspired by a creator’s video on Tuesday, then saw a retargeting ad on Wednesday, and finally searched for your brand on Friday is a single, cohesive journey. This holistic view proves the value of those early video touchpoints and allows you to allocate your budget to the entire journey, not just the final click.
You advocate for hybrid teams where search specialists understand creator strategy. What are the biggest hurdles MENA advertisers face when restructuring this way? Could you describe the ideal workflow for a cross-functional “intent team” owning the path from discovery to conversion?
The single biggest hurdle is organizational inertia. For years, teams have operated in isolated channels with different goals and metrics. The search team is obsessed with cost-per-click, while the content team is focused on engagement. Getting them to speak the same language and share ownership is a massive cultural challenge in any organization, and the MENA region is no exception. The ideal workflow for a true “intent team” is a continuous loop. It starts with shared discovery, where the entire team—search specialist, content creator, data analyst—huddles to analyze a consumer trend. Then comes integrated strategy; for example, they might decide to target the “Ramadan gifting” intent. The creator strategist plans a TikTok series, the search specialist bids on relevant Arabic search queries, and the e-commerce manager preps a dedicated landing page. They execute in a coordinated pulse and, most importantly, measure success with a shared dashboard that tracks the customer from first impression to final sale. That insight then fuels the next strategic cycle.
As brand-building and performance converge, what is the right equilibrium between the two investments? Please share an anecdote where a strong brand awareness campaign directly fueled performance, detailing how your team measured and proved that connection beyond last-click attribution.
There is no magic percentage for the equilibrium; it’s a dynamic balance. A startup might need to invest 70% in brand-building to even get on the map, while an established market leader might lean more heavily into performance to capture existing demand. The key is understanding that they are two sides of the same coin. I recall a project with a consumer goods brand that launched a beautifully shot, emotional video campaign about family gatherings. It was pure brand-building—no “buy now” button. But our performance team was ready. We didn’t measure the video’s success on clicks. Instead, we watched our branded search dashboard like hawks. Within 48 hours of the campaign’s launch, we saw a massive spike in searches for the brand’s specific product names. These weren’t generic queries; they were high-intent searches from people who were clearly moved by the ad and now wanted to buy. By correlating the timing of the brand campaign’s media flight with this surge in high-converting search traffic, we could directly prove to the CFO that every dollar spent on that “fluffy” brand video was generating a measurable return in hard sales.
What is your forecast for the evolution of search and discovery over the next three to five years, particularly within the MENA region?
My forecast for the MENA region is that search will become incredibly personalized, predictive, and embedded. First, AI will master local dialects and cultural nuances, making discovery feel less like using a global tool and more like talking to a well-informed local friend. Second, the power of regional marketplaces like Noon and Amazon as search destinations will only grow, creating entire ecosystems where brands live or die by their on-platform visibility and retail media strategy. But the biggest shift will be the move from reactive to proactive discovery. Your digital assistant won’t just wait for you to ask a question; it will anticipate your needs based on your calendar, location, and past behavior, then serve you a helpful video or a creator recommendation. The ultimate challenge for marketers will be to build enough brand trust and provide such clear, useful information that they become the default solution that the AI chooses to recommend.
