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How to create content that connects, converts, and scales - Nuno Bamberg
14 Plays15 days ago
Performance SEO Unpacked brings together host Ruchi Pardal and Nuno Bamberg, a marketing leader known for building consumer-first, scalable brand strategies.
This episode breaks down how human intent is reshaping SEO in an AI-first world. Nuno shares how brands can move beyond keywords and use search behavior to create content that actually connects, converts, and scales.
They explore content as the new targeting, how AI is changing discovery, and why websites are becoming repositories for AI-driven search. The conversation also covers building a culture of experimentation and aligning teams around real consumer insights.
This episode is for marketers and SEO leaders focused on driving real business impact, not just rankings.
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👤 Guest Bio
Nuno Bamberg is SVP of Brand and Marketing at Sleep Country Canada, with expertise in consumer-centric marketing and cross-functional leadership.
He has led initiatives for global brands like Mastercard, The Home Depot, Coca-Cola, and Unilever, driving strong revenue growth and brand impact.
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📌 What We Cover
- Human intent vs keywords in SEO
- Content as a growth driver
- AI and search behavior shifts
- Scaling SEO with real insights
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Guest LinkedIn
Nuno Bamberg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nuno-bamberg/?locale=en_US
Host LinkedIn
Ruchi Pardal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruchipardal/
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Performance SEO Unpacked, the podcast that helps enterprise businesses master SEO and get measurable results. I'm your host, Ruchi Padal, SVP of Innovation at Result First, where we've been delivering pay for performance SEO for over 15 years.
00:00:16
Speaker
If you're tired of SEO strategies that don't scale, struggle to prove our ROI to leadership, or want to stay ahead of the latest trends, you're in the right place. Each episode, we break down complex SEO challenges into simple,
00:00:28
Speaker
Actionable steps designed for enterprise success. Let's dive into today's topic and help you unlock the full potential of enterprise SEO.
00:00:39
Speaker
I'm thrilled as I am joined by Nino Bamberg. He is the Senior Vice President, Brand and Marketing at Sleep Country. Welcome to the podcast, Nino. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for having me, Ruchi. It's very nice to be here.
00:00:53
Speaker
Benito Bamberg, as you mentioned, a CPE of Brand & Marketing Sleep Country Canada. a Proud Canadian for the past 11 years. As I always say, Brazilian board, Canadian made in many ways. And very excited to be here talking SEO content and behavior with you.
Human-Centric SEO: Understanding Consumer Behavior
00:01:10
Speaker
We are touching upon a very exciting topic today, content that has been king for years in SEO and it becomes even more important with the AI bots consuming it differently, humans trying to consume it differently, and the search engine bots trying to consume it differently. But there are some common aspects to content that works with all the three audiences of ours. And Nuno's been moving around with this, strategizing, ah All of this around a very important aspect, which is the human centric SEO.
00:01:42
Speaker
No, you've led marketing across a portfolio of sleep brands in an industry where products like mattresses are often viewed as commodities. How does SEO help you uncover the human side of customer behavior?
00:01:58
Speaker
That's a great question, Richie, and I think you nailed it.
Transforming SEO into a Behavioral Insight Tool
00:02:00
Speaker
Our industry, from the outside, to your point, can look highly commoditized, right? If you think about it in practical terms, a mattress, a mattress, a pillow is a pillow.
00:02:09
Speaker
Nonetheless, the queries that sit in and around consumer need or want for a mattress or a pillow or any sleep accessory are actually quite different because they can be based on a physical need, such as I'm having back pain or a transitional need in a life stage, like my child is transitioning beds. It can be that I'm downsizing to a smaller apartment. I'm having budget limitations. I'm suffering with insomnia.
00:02:33
Speaker
So it becomes highly personal outside on the outside. It feels highly commoditized. And so if you think about the two sides of SEO, the very technical structural side, it's of course very important to continue to stay extremely diligent within that area. But on the human side, I think the opportunity in the behavior and the search behavior is exactly understanding what was the intent behind what led to the query.
00:03:00
Speaker
What was the intent that led to the behavior you're observing now through a query? And so the question that I personally focus on the most is what's happening in someone's life as a human and therefore as a consumer at that point time in which they typed in that query.
00:03:13
Speaker
And if you start there and you use SEO as just the starting point of an insight, like many other consumer data and insights within the journey itself, I think you are transforming what perhaps perceived as only a traffic lever.
00:03:28
Speaker
and turning that insight into actual behavior. And that will start to change your brief, the way you position the brand, the way you communicate with the consumer, the way you engage with them by simply shifting from talking about what we believe they want to listen to and actually tap into what they're asking us to talk about.
Designing Content for Consumer Intent
00:03:47
Speaker
um Beautiful. In today's world, but we are all talking about scaling content, create an agent, get it to go search and start spinning off content and add scale. In this world where everybody is now trying to target and content being the center of everything, you've talked about content being new targeting.
00:04:08
Speaker
Can you walk us through how your team is designing content that speaks directly to people's intent, especially in the top of the funnel stage, like you just mentioned one of the use case right now?
00:04:19
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely happy to. And so that my media friends don't get mad at me, of course, media still matters. Of course, targeting still matters. Of course, creative still matters deeply. And the algorithm still is going to use the targeting based upon all of those things. But what I mean by it and so that i want to overstate the role of content. i don't want to over-exaggerate it But I do want to overemphasize that content now actually perhaps has a more qualifying role within the journey itself. from a consumer and brand engagement standpoint than perhaps they used to.
00:04:50
Speaker
And of course, that can vary from category to category, but in high consideration categories like ours, where in the early stages of the journey, you don't necessarily start your query with specificity.
00:05:01
Speaker
You may start the query in a very exploratory way, The content plays a role in answering consumers at a point in time in their journey in which you're not yet showing up as a product per se, you're showing up as an answer to a need or a want that they have.
00:05:15
Speaker
And so taking that first path within the journey and intercepting that consumer not only allows you to understand the clusters of behaviors and insights and intent that comes with it and being able to leverage that obviously product claims, not only strategy within the communication,
00:05:31
Speaker
but how to drag them down that funnel and then allow conversion to play if perhaps a more efficient role. And so I think when content meets that moment appropriately and intelligently, not just the keyword, not just the actual insight behind the question, but most importantly, how do you respond and attract the audience based on what they're trying to
Operationalizing Scalable Content Strategy
00:05:50
Speaker
find out? And if in the end,
00:05:52
Speaker
you miss the opportunity to listen to that knew the audience has likely your content is also going to miss the opportunity and the question they're looking for and so simply put i think when intent and content align well performance improves because the friction itself tends to decrease further in the journey allowing for more efficiencies across every channel and to your point ruchi at the top of the funnel Think of it as just having a constant chandelier that allows consumers to navigate your brand, your category intelligently and utilize that clarity as a way to then target them more efficiently and convert more effectively.
00:06:28
Speaker
Yeah. And I get the mattress being such a personalized aspect. Somebody needs it hard. Somebody needs extra spring. Somebody needs extra height. And these are so specific use cases, which are like you rightly said, that they are so personal.
00:06:44
Speaker
And touching people with that individual need and writing that same kind of demand and putting it down in the words out there and calling it out ah for them, I think would be a great connecting point, right? now At whatever stage of funnel you are.
00:07:01
Speaker
100%. And the mattress journey is an interesting one, right? Because if you think about it, Ruchi, you're usually in that journey for an average of two, perhaps three weeks altogether when you're closer to purchase.
00:07:13
Speaker
But you're going to step out of that journey for the next seven, eight, nine years at times. And when you step back into it, usually it's a very different landscape in of itself. Therefore, your journey starts in a very exploratory way because buying a mattress today in 2026 looks vastly different than buying a mattress back in 2016, for instance. And so that's where understanding that behavior that is innate to the consumer and tends to be relatively unbiased, it's driven by the true intent of what they're looking for, can be quite powerful in categories like ours, for instance.
00:07:46
Speaker
Interestingly, when it gets so personalized, ah you also need to do for a larger organization, the one that you're heading and for any other larger organization, bringing this concept to scale and operationalizing this entire model. What's your workflow to turn those nuggets into content or campaign strategy across the team?
00:08:08
Speaker
That's a great question. I think that goes beyond um insights coming from SEO or any particular insights coming from a particular area, if that makes sense. I think to your point, there has to be something that the organization believes at its core, meaning it will only ever work if the insight is expected at the beginning of strategy. Right. And insight and data are not strategy. They are informers of strategy. And if the organization top down, bottoms up believes in that,
00:08:34
Speaker
and believes that the data needs to show up at the beginning of whatever journey you're developing, be that a strategic journey within communications or even within product development, so on and so forth, then of course, that's going to become part of the culture as well as the motives of Miranda and the processes of the organization.
00:08:51
Speaker
And so if planning starts with demand signals, consumer behavior, market shifts, performance, trends, search included in that, then naturally it's going to be part of how the organization operates. From an SEO specific perspective, to your point is when our counterparts on the digital side surface a shift in intent and signal to us, hey, we've identified a search behavior or a search intent or behavioral intent that has shifted over the past couple of months or whatever that may be.
AI and the Evolution of SEO
00:09:20
Speaker
The next stage becomes then how do you translate that in clear themes, hypothesis, so that we can then chase off those themes, hypothesis, and put in place go-to-market strategies to either test the hypothesis or disprove it, and therefore measure it and find results against it. But to operationalize it across the organization has to be something that the organization itself believes in If you truly believe in being consumer centric and understanding the needs and the wants of a consumer as a way to translate into a business strategy, be it for the product or service that you're offering, then by design, insights are going to be at the very onset of the conversation.
00:09:58
Speaker
Very interesting. Anybody I speak in the leadership role, this is one thing that comes across very common, which is that SEO brings in the data that's needed and has the power to change thought processes and working cultures across the organization.
00:10:15
Speaker
bringing up reading the customer behavior, the shift that you just made. How is the customer behavior shifting? What are the search key terms that are shifting? It is a very quick, easy signal for anybody who's reading it correctly,
00:10:29
Speaker
To pick up the right signals from your audience, the change in the user behavior, the change in their search behavior and articulate into the rest of the channel.
00:10:39
Speaker
Touch your social media with that keyword, with your content, with those key phrases that people are doing. Touch your ah SEO content with that. Yeah, organizationally. that That is something that I've seen common. But at the same time, the adaptability of this is only with a handful of mature organizations. There are still a lot of mid-sized and around even in companies around 200 million or 300 million. If I've been able to speak to people, their receptability and getting SEO the right seat on the table is still work in progress for a lot of those. Yeah.
00:11:17
Speaker
I think most companies are going to be forced ah either in a good or a negative way to adapt to that, whether we want it or not. right Because in the end, as to your point earlier, it a search engine, be it an LLM, and of course not speak to technical side because I'm not the most qualified one to say so. They both operate in different ways in how they crawl and how they ah chase information, they both go back to the fundamentals of if you can't answer the question that's being ah chased after, yeah you're not going to surface, right? You're not going to be able to actually interact with that audience.
00:11:49
Speaker
Yes. And that very interesting note last time when we spoke, you who mentioned that websites are now turning into repositories for AI bots. What do you think brands need to do today to make their websites and content ready for the AI agents for tomorrow?
00:12:05
Speaker
Yeah, i love that question. By the way, this is not a hot take before people also get... to turn out here this ah Look, what I meant by that is, I think AI is undeniably changing how discovery happens. Regardless of what LLM you're using or to your point, search engine, whatever that may be, the reality is how that discovery stage happens, particularly in categories that are very... intense in that area, meaning people spend lot time in discovery mode. AI changes how that happens today, right? But beneath, underneath all of that, the fundamentals still apply very much. So in no way, she performed my suggesting that the fundamentals and principles of having a structurally sound website goes away. In fact, I think AI is forcing all of us to make sure across all operations that we have never been more structurally sound
00:12:51
Speaker
on our websites and our SEO than ever before, exactly because the discovery stage is changing so much. And way before they ever get to your website, through another lens, for instance, they're going to know so much about your company, your product, how it's been reviewed, how it's been talked about, it's been perceived, that they may never actually get to your website.
00:13:10
Speaker
And that's the point around how AI is now changing the function and the role of a website way beyond just perhaps what used to be before, a more exploratory space for a consumer, a more sticky environment for a consumer to know your product or your offering of services, to now actually be a very healthy place where all of that information sits in case they're actually accessing that directly to the website, but through an LLN, for instance, or an AI overview, for instance, right? And so if your content is vague or over-exaggerated or doesn't have the right certifications and the claims can't be proved if it isn't clean easy to navigate so on and so forth it's going to get exposed faster and that's my point around being very mindful of how reis changing the role of the websites in that regard but on the other hand as you stay disciplined as you have your clean structure as you answer full questions as you are clear about your offer you back up what you claim you watch out for your reviews your social proofing so on and so forth And of course, you're going to continue to succeed in that space. So in a nutshell, the way I look at this is the brands that were already struggling to survive before AI came around because those fundamentals weren't in place.
00:14:20
Speaker
If you don't catch up to it now, it's going to be even more difficult to do so because the pace with which technology evolving is so much faster than before that we are all forced to go back and say, are all my fundamentals, be them structural or content wise, completely in check so that I continue to evolve at the pace that I need, not only for the technology, but for the consumer adoption of technology and the behavior that's clearly continued to ramp up as we go along.
00:14:47
Speaker
Yeah.
Focusing on Niche Content for AI Discovery
00:14:48
Speaker
Well, interestingly, you know, there are um so many experiments that people are trying to do now to make sure that the AI bot come crawl the content and identify and, you know, it's interestingly,
00:15:04
Speaker
Picking up your niche, getting associated with that particular niche and making sure that you have all the right content around it is becoming key. And Yeah, in this world, in order to do that with so fast changes that are coming in, like you just meant things pretty much change overnight these days. You get up in the morning and there's another news, which is just... But but if you think about it, Richie, all of these things are trying to do the same thing as we have always tried to do in what we do in marketing communications, which is yes identify the intent that that human behind what we call a consumer has. So it shows up to us in a report as a consumer data point, be that qualitative or quantitative. But in a nutshell, what's behind that is a human intent, be it because I want something, be it because I need something, I desire something. There's an intent behind it.
00:15:56
Speaker
What happens with the LLMs coming to play is that the access to answers to those wants and needs are getting out of the realm of control that the brands used to have within the traditional search space and evolving to a new model. But the way you get to answer those questions continue to be somewhat fundamentally the same, again, in the sense of,
00:16:18
Speaker
identify the intent, respond to the intent as cleanly as possible, as effectively as possible, and then no longer is about just volume for the sake of volume, but volume where there is precision, surgical precision to identify the intent with response.
Embracing a Culture of Experimentation
00:16:32
Speaker
Yeah, interestingly. And with all these changing environment, both for Google or AI bots and overall in general, how we approach different things, experimentation and the speed to experimentation is critical, I would say.
00:16:49
Speaker
Failing fast has never been more important than as of today's time. How do you create in in the culture of your organization and how do you influence that how approach organic visibility or AI adaptation at scale?
00:17:03
Speaker
That's a great question as well. And I think to your point is it's cultural, right? I think we talked of the question speaks to speed and I think speed sometimes confused with urgency. And I think it isn't always about urgency. I think it's about clarity.
00:17:17
Speaker
I think ultimately you, deliver on speed to market when the process is riddled with clarity that allows you to function with that set speed. So when teams understand the objective and how they can actually intelligently test against that, they move.
00:17:33
Speaker
And so for us, when we think about experimentation as a culture, quite frankly, isn't about chaos and just frankly trying things differently all the time. It's actually quite structured. It's about defining the define hypothesis you're trying to prove or disprove,
00:17:46
Speaker
Launch your go to market plan that attacks the hypothesis, measure it, learn. If you succeed, of course, learn as fast as you can to replicate it and scale it. And if you fail, try to fail as fast as possible, learn even faster, pivot even faster and continue to move forward. And when that becomes part of the way your team operates, not only within what we do in marketing, but cross-functionally, and we are all supporting that culture, of course, with the right rigorous processes in place to protect not only the organization, but the employee's ability to continue to experiment, then I think you're going to be successful and becomes muscle memory.
00:18:22
Speaker
It becomes how you do things. It's no longer something you're chasing. It's just something that's part of how you operate and continues to evolve from there.
Advice for CMOs: Maintaining Brand Authenticity
00:18:30
Speaker
Yeah, I'm a strong believer that it all flows from the top.
00:18:34
Speaker
Oh, 100%. Yeah. So let me pick your brains on that one piece of advice that you would like to give to the CMOs or brand heads who are trying to future-proof their content strategy without sounding robotic or losing the brand's soul.
00:18:50
Speaker
So I knew this one was going to come up. And in Brazil, we say that if a device was really, really valuable, you just package it product and sell it to you. you welcome product So take this as with all the experience I've had thus far and be in my agency days, be it now on the client side of the corporate world and in marketing overall. What I can say, Rich, is that there's been a principle that I've really hang my hat around and really believed in and really helped up for me over time, which is to be anchored in the human behind the consumer, right? Not just the classic, the consumer centric in the data, but actually take a little bit of my marketers hat off and just look at the information as a human.
00:19:32
Speaker
What is the human trying to tell me to the insights that comes across as a target audience or as a demographic audience? just look at intent and human behavior. And so that is because I believe intent usually signals interest. And not to say that in the world of SEO, for instance, that interest translates to conversion immediately.
00:19:49
Speaker
I'm not obviously overstretching that way, but I do believe that intent signals interest. They will signal possibility and the possibility signals the opportunity for conversion. And when someone is searching, for instance, just use that as an example, back to topic, or they're comparing or clicking or they're trying to discover something about your product or your service, they're revealing something about the intent behind why they need it. And I think that's really what's powerful. And while the technology will continue to evolve, the platforms will change a thousand times to a point, AI a year from now will be completely different than it is today.
00:20:23
Speaker
The human behavior will continue to be the same. I'm still going to wake up one day and I'm going to either need a new mattress because I'm having a back pain or I am moving to a new house or I just had it for too long and I need to change. The time has come or have a want because I am moving to a new home and now i want to do my bedroom all over again. And I want to invest in my sleep because I can't.
00:20:45
Speaker
That intent is going to be translated to some sort of signal. And in the digital era, search is perhaps the cleanest. not saying it's the only, but perhaps one of the cleanest without bias to indicate that.
00:20:58
Speaker
But a hang your head around the consumer human intent, not just the consumer commercial intent. And if you stay close to that, I believe you're going to be able to adapt without losing the soul of your brand because your brand theoretically is built to serve human before the human is even a consumer.
00:21:17
Speaker
That is very beautifully articulated. And would say this probably is the fundamental to entire marketing. It is so challenging for SaaS businesses, for product businesses to think out of the best features that they are launching in their product, but park it and think what the consumer needs and how can they use those features or the products that you have out there and adapt it and make a decision to purchase and go ahead with. Not just SEO, I would say, like you said, it's fundamentally important across all the marketing function, rather organizational thought process. And that's what helped us understand.
00:21:58
Speaker
Well, this has been a great chat, Nino. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. I love the conversation here and I hope the listeners enjoy it too. Thank you, Richie, for having me. It's been a pleasure. I hope they enjoy it. i hope they enjoy the content and I'll be keeping an eye and ears out for the next one.
00:22:14
Speaker
Yes, thank you. Thank you for listening to Performance SEO Unpacked. I hope today's episode gave you practical insights to help scale your SEO and drive results. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you found value, share it with your team or a fellow marketer. For more tips, tools, and strategies, visit Resultfers.com slash Unpacked and connect with me on LinkedIn for the latest episode on enterprise SEO. Thanks for tuning in. See you next time on Performance SEO Unpacked.