September, 2026.- Josh Preston-White has been appointed as Croud’s first Managing Director of Integrated Search. The goal is to take clients on a journey to improve their organizational structure, measurement approach, and marketing efforts to truly stand out in their search capabilities. The ongoing fragmentation and evolution of how consumers discover brands and validate purchasing decisions is supercharging this approach.
In this interview, Preston-White discusses the biggest evolution in search behaviors since Google’s inception. Croud’s Consumer Index: The Validation Economy found that 39% of US consumers are already using LLMs in their shopping journey, and 73% of those AI users turn to an LLM before choosing a product.
On Return on Intelligence, Preston-White explains the difference from traditional ROI. Traditional ROI is a backward-looking measure of return on spend. Return on Intelligence means incrementality-focused measurement, predictive scoring across CroudOS, and genuine, incremental client outcomes.
Preston-White also discusses the three key reasons he joined Croud after 14 years at Jellyfish: the people, the creative proposition of Born Social, and Croud’s tech stack. He notes that one of the biggest challenges is ensuring that brands are operationally and structurally able to adopt an Integrated Search approach—there is no one-size-fits-all path to success.
1. The Newly Created Role: You’ve been appointed as Croud’s first Managing Director of Integrated Search. What’s the overarching goal of this role, and why is integration between paid, organic, and AI-driven search more critical now than ever?
We’ve seen the biggest evolution in search behaviours since Google’s inception. How consumers discover, research, interact and buy will never be the same again. This is highlighted in Croud’s recently published report, Croud Consumer Index: The Validation Economy, which found that 39% of US consumers are already using LLMs in their shopping journey, and 73% of those AI users turn to an LLM before choosing a product.
This isn’t anything new to Croud; we’ve already got our SearchAnywhere proposition. But what was clear in the interview process was that this is wider than simply combining PPC and SEO efforts. It’s about taking our clients on a journey to improve their organisational structure, measurement approach and marketing efforts to truly stand out in their search capabilities and become truly discoverable and differentiated.
The ongoing fragmentation and evolution of how consumers are discovering brands and validating their purchasing decisions is only supercharging our approach, and my role is to bring all of that existing thinking, knowledge and expertise together, to drive a measurable impact for brands.
2. Return on Intelligence: Croud’s proposition is about delivering a “true Return on Intelligence” for brands. What’s the difference between Return on Intelligence and traditional Return on Investment—and how do you measure it?
When we talk about Return on Intelligence at Croud, we’re talking about the measurable outcomes we deliver for clients by combining data, proprietary technology, and industry-leading global talent. Rather than traditional ROI, which is a backward-looking measure of return on spend, Return on Intelligence means incrementality-focused measurement, predictive scoring across our suite of tools in CroudOS, and genuine, incremental client outcomes.
3. AI’s Reshaping of Brand Discovery: You said AI is “reshaping how consumers discover brands.” In your new role, how do you balance the need to optimize for AI-driven discovery with the traditional search strategies that still drive significant business results?
Any good Integrated Search approach has to start with establishing a strong foundational base across your media channels. Without this it’s impossible to measure, impact and execute across all the avenues through which consumers can now discover brands. So a lot of the initial work has to go into ensuring we have parity across our marketing channels in terms of best practices.
One of the biggest challenges we have is ensuring that brands are operationally and structurally able to truly adopt an Integrated Search approach. Whether it’s accepting changes to roles of channel, being comfortable with scaling media spends with demand, or investing in improving their measurement infrastructure, there is no one-size-fits-all path to success.
As such, more traditional search optimisation sits side-by-side with an integrated strategy in this new world of AI-driven discovery. The focus must be on building the swim lanes and roadmaps to allow for teams to share insight, reporting, measurement and optimisation plans, which enables true cross-channel collaboration and continued growth.
4. From Jellyfish to Croud: You spent 14 years at Jellyfish, most recently as VP Paid Search. What attracted you to Croud?
There were three key reasons why I wanted to join Croud.
Firstly, the people. From my first interaction with Debbie (EMEA CEO of Croud), it was clear how much she cares about the team, and her priority was showcasing the talent in the agency. But what was also clear was the level of excellence within the company. In this more automated and AI-driven marketing world, the people are still the most important part of any marketing campaign.
Secondly, it was the creative proposition. Born Social’s social-first creative proposition is so compelling, and its impact on how brands can build a truly discoverable journey is so exciting. To be able to work so closely with the Born Social team and such well respected creatives was a true differentiator.
The final reason was Croud’s tech stack. Looking under the hood of the tools housed under CroudOS, coupled with the ability of the team to build market-leading technology at speed, meant there was a clear ability to drive meaningful change for clients – a standout in the industry.
5. Unifying Search Silos: Your role is about “breaking down channel silos” across paid, organic, and AI search. Where is the friction greatest between these disciplines, and how do you force them to work together without creating a new silo?
This is both an operational and a structural question.
Both agencies and brands are so used to speaking about search channels as separate entities. We’re used to our PPC activity delivering a certain lower funnel CPA or ROAS, and measuring SEO success on owning positions on the SERP. This means one of our biggest blockers comes from looking past historical approaches to channel allocation, budget splits and judging performance, and building new workflows and structures. Agencies like Croud can help clients on this journey, through shared understanding, incrementality testing and optimisations, but getting the most out of approaches like our SearchAnywhere proposition relies on true organisational buy-in from our clients.
The data and analytics teams really sit at the heart of making this a success. By ensuring that we have the right measurement frameworks in place, we can make sure we’re all pulling towards the same KPIs, whilst having a single reporting or visualisation tool means that we can clearly understand total demand and trends by category.
The ad platforms don’t always make this easy. The shift towards automated campaign types, restrictions in visibility and walled gardens means building a single, 100%-accurate source of truth is almost impossible — but stitching those fragmented signals together is exactly what our Advanced Analytics team does best.
