AI-Optimized Dog Food | Pets and Trends Newsletter

PLUS: The Role of Sustainability in Pet Food

Author

Zihan Lyu
April 30, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

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Welcome to Pets and Trends, your essential newsletter for pet product marketers and eCommerce professionals.

Editor’s Pick 🌟

Marketing thought leadership has a tendency towards binaries. The funnel is either completely dead or very much alive. Brand marketing is either pointless or the solution to all your problems, and ChatGPT is ending 30 years of search overnight.

At Fospha, we love the measurement challenge of any new channel that offers our clients ways to reach more customers. However, Google is still very much the biggest advertising platform. Performance Max (PMAX) and Search products alone represent around 30% of our clients’ digital share of wallet.

In uncertain times, it’s more important than ever for brands to nail these core channels, so we produced the definitive best practice guide on PMAX and Paid Search. Here were our top findings:

  • ⚖️ Best performing brands allocate 55% of Google budget to PMAX and 12% to Paid Search.

  • 🏆 Brands that pair Search and PMAX with ~50% of their budgets in YouTube, Demand Gen and Paid Social see optimal results.

  • 🎨 Especially for PMAX, high-volume creative is key for AI-powered optimization.

Sector Spotlight 🎥

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS

PawCo Foods is collaborating with Harvard Data Analytics Group to refine AI-driven dog food development, combining advanced data analysis with expert veterinary input.

This partnership accelerates time-to-market for scientifically validated nutritional formulations—offering a key case study on data-driven product innovation and speed for marketing professionals navigating competitive consumer sectors. PawCo’s model demonstrates actionable opportunities for leveraging AI partnerships to differentiate and scale personalized nutrition in eCommerce and related industries.

CONSUMER MARKET TRENDS

Pet food spending remains resilient despite economic turbulence, with demand classified as acyclical and insulated from tariff impacts due to low import reliance, supporting continued market strength. Marketers should monitor consumer trade-downs from premium to value brands as inflation fatigue persists. Success now depends on agile SKU management and adapting offerings to shifting consumer preferences.

BUSINESS EXPANSION

Dogdrop’s Texas expansion introduces a flexible, pay-per-use dog daycare model—no appointments required and real-time photo updates—in a market where pet ownership outpaces the national average. For marketing professionals, this signals opportunity in adapting service models to meet evolving urban pet parent expectations for convenience, transparency, and personalization.

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS

Natural Pet Food Group’s partnership with Aloha Natural Pet Supply expands premium K9 and Feline Natural brands in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, improving retailer access and supply chain efficiency. Their introduction of larger, value-oriented packaging directly addresses rising consumer demand for economical, responsibly sourced pet nutrition. This move signals significant market opportunity for retailers targeting pet parents seeking trusted, healthier options.

SUSTAINABLE PET NUTRITION

Major pet food brands increasingly spotlight environmental sustainability, such as emissions reduction and resource efficiency, in consumer communications, while attention to social and economic dimensions lags behind.

EU companies demonstrate more consistent, regulated messaging compared to the US, impacting consumer trust and differentiation potential. Marketers should address these gaps for stronger competitive positioning.

Influencer Corner 📢

Meta Ads vs. Google Ads: Which One is Better for D2C Brands?

Meta ads excel at:
👉 Building brand awareness.
👉 Nurturing new customers with engaging content.
👉 Retargeting cold leads who didn’t convert initially.

Google ads are great for:
👉 Capturing demand when people are actively searching for solutions.
👉 Generating high-intent traffic with low CPC.
👉 Converting cold leads into paying customers quickly.

Which one should you focus on?
👉 Meta ads work best if you’re focusing on top-of-funnel and brand-building.
👉 Google ads work best when you’re ready to convert customers actively searching for your product.

Rumour has it that OpenAI might be quietly working on a native Shopify checkout inside ChatGPT.

Apparently ‘leaked’ code shows:

👉 'shopify_checkout_url'
👉 'buy_now'
👉 'product_offer_ratings'

No redirects. No search. Just chat, compare, and buy in one flow. Unconfirmed, but catching attention.

If this happens?

Google, TikTok, even product pages as we know them are all about to change.

Optimization Hub ⚙️

SEARCH INNOVATION

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) integrates traditional SEO with AI-focused strategies, ensuring content is both visible in classic search results and cited by AI models like ChatGPT or Perplexity. Marketers must structure content to answer specific questions, prioritize authority, and track AI-driven citations. Adapting to GEO is essential for maintaining discoverability in an AI-driven search landscape.

DISCOVERY COMMERCE INNOVATION

TikTok Shop’s newly released playbook, developed with Accenture Song, provides marketers and brands actionable frameworks for driving growth through discovery commerce, leveraging real-time creator content and robust measurement. With TikTok Shop rapidly capturing eCommerce market share, ignoring these trends risks falling behind competitors capitalizing on content-driven online retail.

INNOVATIVE PERSONALIZATION STRATEGIES

Cookieless personalization is reshaping digital marketing by requiring brands to use first-party and zero-party data, contextual targeting, and server-side solutions instead of third-party cookies, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA. This shift enables marketers to maintain effective, consent-driven customer engagement while safeguarding user privacy. Marketers must adapt quickly to sustain relevance and trust.

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