Searchlight is Aztek's marketing news roundup that brings together the week’s most relevant developments in marketing, search, AI, and digital strategy, all in one place. We update this article throughout the week with news we think is worth your time, along with context to help you understand what changed, why it matters, and what it could mean for your business.
This week's topics:
9/29: Google Search Console Adds Multimodal Search Reporting
On Sept. 24, Google announced new multimodal search reporting in Search Console, making it possible to see how website content performs when people search using images through tools like Google Lens, Circle to Search, image uploads, and Chrome’s “Search this image” feature.
The update isn’t a reason to rethink your entire SEO strategy, but it is another sign that search behavior is expanding, and marketers now have a little more visibility into how people are finding them.
What Is Google Search Console Multimodal Search Reporting?
Google Search Console already gives marketers data on how their websites appear in Google Search, including impressions, clicks, search queries, and page performance. The new multimodal search filter adds another layer to that reporting. Someone might take a photo with Google Lens, circle an object on their Android phone, upload an existing image, or right-click an image in Chrome to search for something similar.
Google Search Console multimodal search reporting gives site owners a way to isolate that activity and see how their content is performing within those searches. Google is also including the data within its Generative AI performance reporting.
Why Visual Search Data Matters
The interesting part of this update is what the filter tells us about how search itself is changing. Typing “industrial rubber gasket with six bolt holes” into Google requires knowing how to describe what you’re looking at. Taking a photo of the gasket and asking Google to identify it is much easier.
Visual search isn’t limited to shoppers trying to find a pair of shoes they saw on Instagram. It can potentially play a role in discovering replacement parts, identifying materials, researching equipment, or finding products based on how they look. For B2B marketers, that makes the images on a website more than filler. Product photos, application images, diagrams, and other original visuals can contribute to how people discover content.
What Marketers Should Watch in Search Console
Google says the multimodal search reporting is rolling out globally, and sites will begin seeing metrics when they receive traffic from those types of searches. If that data starts showing up, look at which pages are getting multimodal impressions and whether any patterns emerge. Product pages or application pages may perform differently than more text-heavy resources. Certain types of imagery may also appear more often than expected.
Clicks matter, too. Search Console’s existing performance reporting lets marketers compare impressions and clicks, which can provide some context around whether visibility is actually turning into website traffic.
Search Is Becoming More Visual
Traditional search isn’t disappearing. People will continue typing queries into Google, just as they always have. They just have more ways to search now.
For now, check the data when it becomes available, see which pages are showing up, and pay attention to what your audience tells you through their search behavior. Sometimes the next useful SEO insight may come from an image instead of a keyword.
10/1: LinkedIn Is Leaning Further Into B2B Creator Marketing
The term B2B creator marketing can sound like another attempt to bring influencer marketing into the business world. There’s some overlap, but that doesn’t really capture what’s happening on LinkedIn right now.
In B2B, a creator might be an industry consultant, an engineer who regularly shares useful advice, a company executive, or another subject matter expert with credibility in a specific field. Brands can work with these people to create or promote content that reaches buyers through a recognizable human voice rather than relying entirely on posts from a company page.
LinkedIn is making that easier. The platform has invested more heavily in tools that help businesses discover relevant creators and turn their content into paid campaigns.
What B2B Creator Marketing Looks Like on LinkedIn
LinkedIn's Creator Marketplace gives advertisers a way to find people based on their expertise and audience. The company has also been testing additional creator discovery capabilities to make it easier for brands to identify people who fit a particular campaign or subject area.
Imagine a manufacturing company trying to reach plant managers. A creator partnership might involve working with someone who has spent years in manufacturing and regularly posts practical insights about operations. A software company could partner with a respected professional who talks about the problems its customers deal with every day. The value comes from expertise first. Audience size can help, but a huge following isn't necessarily the goal.
Why LinkedIn Is Investing More in Creators
B2B buyers already spend a lot of time learning from other people in their industries. LinkedIn's own research has found that marketers believe peer and expert voices play an important role as buyers research and validate decisions.
A company's website can explain what a product does, and branded content can provide useful information. Buyers may still want to hear what someone with firsthand experience thinks about the problem.
LinkedIn is essentially creating more formal ways for businesses to participate in behavior that's already happening on the platform. Its Thought Leader Ads are another part of that approach. They allow companies to promote posts from individuals, including employees or outside experts, instead of creating a traditional brand ad from scratch.
Expertise Matters More When Content Is Everywhere
There's also a bigger content problem behind this trend. Creating polished marketing content has become much easier to produce en masse (although it still takes human oversight to ensure quality). AI tools can help companies produce posts quickly, which means there's more content competing for attention and a lot of it starts to sound similar.
Someone who can explain what they're seeing in the field, share an informed opinion, or answer a specific industry question gives people a reason to pay attention. The content doesn't need to sound like a carefully polished campaign, and in many cases, it may work better when it doesn't.
For B2B brands, that means some of their most valuable content opportunities may already exist inside the organization.
Your Next Creator Might Already Be on Your Team
Companies don't necessarily need a formal creator program to start experimenting with this approach. Look at the people who already have useful knowledge to share. Maybe that's someone in sales who hears the same customer questions every week. It could be a technical expert who can explain complicated topics without making them more complicated.
Marketing can help those people turn what they know into useful LinkedIn content without trying to make everyone sound like a professional content creator. Outside creators can also make sense when they genuinely know the industry and already have credibility with the audience you're trying to reach.
B2B Marketing Is Getting More Personal
LinkedIn's investment in B2B creator marketing doesn't mean company pages or traditional content are going away. It does suggest that the person delivering the message is becoming a bigger part of how buyers judge it.
For marketers, the opportunity isn't to find someone with a large following and pay them to talk about a product. It's to identify people your audience already has a reason to listen to, then give those voices a meaningful role in your marketing.
