Has your pet business been open for 10, 15 or even 20 years… but suddenly the phones aren’t ringing quite as often as they used to?

Are newer competitors and franchises appearing in your market with bigger marketing budgets, stronger Google rankings and making a LOT more noise?

And just when you thought you’d finally got your head around Google and SEO… are you now wondering how ChatGPT, AI search, Bing and even Yelp mean for your pet business?

In this week’s episode of the Pet Boarding & Daycare Podcast, Dom is joined by the awesome Duane Carey from Impact Marketing to examine what’s happening in an increasingly competitive pet care marketplace.

Duane is seeing long-established pet resorts that never previously needed to advertise suddenly finding themselves flat or even 10–20% down, while well-funded new competitors arrive with sophisticated marketing and advertising. They discuss why simply being brilliant at looking after dogs is no longer enough if prospective clients can’t FIND you, why pet businesses need a consistent pipeline of new clients even when retention is strong, and why waiting until revenues have already dropped can make turning things around much harder.

Then Duane looks at the next big change: AI search. Google still dominates local searches such as “dog daycare near me”, but more consumers are using AI tools and AI-generated search results, creating new rules around what makes a pet business visible and authoritative online.

Duane explains why information like PRICING now needs to be clearly available on your website, why Bing and Yelp may deserve more attention than they have in the past, and why the content on your website increasingly needs to answer the questions of humans AND the machines searching on their behalf. Plus, Dom shares a brilliant piece of dog research that provides a surprisingly useful lesson about creating marketing content that cuts through all the generic social media noise.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• Why Long-Established Pet Businesses Are Suddenly Feeling the Squeeze – Duane shares what he’s seeing from operators who’ve been successful for 15 or 20 years but are now flat or losing revenue.
• Why Being Brilliant With Dogs Isn’t Enough Anymore – New competitors may not have your experience, but if they’re better funded and better marketed, prospective clients may never discover the difference.
• Why You ALWAYS Need a New Client Pipeline – Even with fantastic retention, dogs eventually age out of your services, which means new clients continually need to enter the business.
• How AI Is Changing Search – Why ChatGPT, Google AI and other tools are beginning to change the way consumers research businesses and the information search engines consider important.
• Why Hiding Your Prices Could Hurt Your Visibility – Duane explains why transparent website pricing is becoming even more important as AI tools search for clear answers to consumer questions.
• The Doggy Lesson in Dog Whistle Marketing – How research into the way dogs filter human speech provides a perfect analogy for creating specific marketing that cuts through a prospect’s endless stream of online noise.

Episode Highlights

[03:40] – Dom previews his upcoming US trip, San Francisco DDSA Immersion, mastermind and Hershey Expo — and why he still invests in coaching and masterminds himself.
[10:00] – Dog News: fascinating research into how dogs identify important words inside continuous human speech.
[10:57] – Dom turns that research into a marketing lesson: your prospects are filtering out generic social media content in exactly the same way.
[13:43] – Duane reveals the worrying trend he’s seeing among pet businesses that have been operating successfully for 15–20 years but are now flat or down.
[16:26] – Why well-capitalised franchises and new competitors can win attention even when established independents have greater pet care expertise.
[20:41] – Why there’s no resting on your laurels anymore — and why marketing has a lag that makes acting BEFORE you’re desperate so important.
[25:03] – Duane explains why he believes industry events like Hershey are increasingly important when owners are dealing with changing demand and increased competition.
[26:31] – How AI is beginning to influence pet resort lead generation and why owners need to understand the changing search landscape.
[28:30] – Zero-click search, AI-generated answers and why traditional Google search still matters enormously for local pet care businesses.
[31:01] – Practical AI-search actions: put pricing on your website, answer important client questions and start paying attention to Bing and Yelp as well as Google.

Hershey is getting VERY close now, but you still have time to grab a ticket and set yourself up for success in 2027. Start now by securing your place at the biggest Pet Boarding and Daycare expo in the world, click here to grab your ticket

Remember, we have more than 30 live seminars, around 100 vendors and hundreds of pet boarding and daycare owners will be descending on the Hershey Lodge — from people considering opening their first facility to owners who’ve been operating for 20 or 30 years.

Click here to grab your ticket now

Big thanks to this weeks special guest Duane Carey, who will be in Hershey with Aaron Reiner delivering a deeper dive into AI and the future of search. Find out more about how IMPACT marketing can help your business by going to ImpactMarketing.net

A HUGE thank you to Canine Lab Testing for sponsoring this week’s episode.

Did you know most dogs carrying parasites show no symptoms, meaning infections can spread unnoticed through busy daycare and boarding facilities.

Canine Lab Testing offers quick, affordable on-site sample collection with next-day results, helping you protect your pack, reassure clients and potentially create an additional revenue stream.

Find out more at caninelabtesting.com