Rand Fishkin: ZERO CLICK MARKETING | SIC 2024

The digital world has become a zero-click world. Traffic referrals from every major network have fallen precipitously. Searchers and browsers expect native content and instant answers. Brands, especially those looking to gain a foothold in the ruthless competition for web traffic, are left struggling for scraps.

A mindset shift is needed—marketers can’t be stuck optimizing for clicks, measuring impact based on referral traffic and single-visit conversion rates. The old tactics are dying. To survive, marketers must prioritize earning engagement and growing audiences on the platforms themselves. We have to conform to new algorithmic rules and new user expectations—that's where Zero-Click Marketing comes in. In this presentation, Rand will show how it works, why it's needed, and how to apply this tactical shift to every channel and campaign.

1. Rand Fishkin, CEO Zero Click Marketing Why It's Time for Brands and Creators to Give Up on Click-Based Attribution and, Instead, Embrace Impact.

2. In 1937 , Coke put up this San Francisco Billboard

3. Then along comes Digital Marketing … Buying billboards is throwing away money! With digital, we can track every view and click a customer makes before they buy from you, so you’ll never waste a marketing dollar again.

4. How did it all go sideways?

5. 3 rd -Party Cookies Are Only in Chrome Source: StatCounter

6. 1 st -Party Cookies are Getting Less Effective & Accurate, Too Source: Clearcode

7. Users are manually blocking more tracking in their browsers, too Source: DuckDuckGo

8. Ad Blockers don’t just block ads… they block most tracking techniques, too Source: EyeO

9. Multi-device journeys are now standard Source: Cisco

10. What’s Possible & Legal in the US Isn’t Most Anywhere Else Source: In Country

11. Marketers have forgotten how easy it was to justify content & SEO investments when Google provided keyword data “We rank #12 for this KW, which means we could get 40-60X this many conversions by moving to #2.”

12. In 2024, Google’s learned their monopoly power is untouchable, so they might as well do things like: Answer queries directly in the SERPs, continually shrinking organic clicks Assembled & analyzed by Source: clickstream panel provided by * Study panel includes desktop & mobile browser searches only; zero-click searches may be higher in Google Assistant/Google Search App queries

13. % of clicks rising, keyword data is provided (unless you use PMAX). % of clicks is declining, keyword data is intentionally hidden. % of searchers who are satisfied by what Google surfaces on the SERP keeps rising

14. Running Ads Without Getting Scammed is a Full Time Job Source: AdExchanger Meta DOESN’T notify advertisers when the ML systems overcharge them. They only refund the money if an advertiser finds & reports the issue! And now Google’s following suit.

15. OK… So maybe we can’t reliably track what happens on other sites, but we can still see clickthroughs !

16. What Happened to Clicks?

17. At First It was just Google

18. Convenient for users (and infuriating for creators)

19. Hey! We had a deal : you can crawl & index us, free; but, in exchange, you send us traffic

20. In 2024, what happens after Americans search 37.1% Nothing. (the browsing session ends) 21.4% Another search. (in Google’s “all” tab) 41.5% One or more clicks... (to one of the 3 options below) 70.5% (to unpaid, organic results) ? 58.5% “ Zero-Click Searches ” 28.5% (to YouTube, Maps, Images, News, or another Google property) 1%* (to a paid ad) That means… For every 1,000 US Google searches, 360 clicks go to the open web. The full report is here , assembled & analyzed by Source: clickstream panel provided by

21. Clicks here are declining (and they’re dominated by big brands) Searchers who are happy with these “Google answers” keeps rising

22. And now there’s predictive answering, too! Is that a “Negative-Click” search?

23. AI Overviews could compound this problem.

24. Assembled & analyzed by Zero-Click Searches in the European Union vs. United States (measuring all searches in Google performed by the panel’s mobile* and desktop devices, January-May 2024) Source: clickstream panel provided by * Study panel includes desktop & mobile browser searches only; zero-click searches may be higher in Google Assistant/Google Search App queries

25. Then it expanded to The Rise of Zero-Click Everything

26. 🚫 Instagram: No Links Allowed! 🚫

27. 🚫 TikTok: No Links Allowed! 🚫

28. 😐 Twitter: Link at Your Own Peril… 😐 Twitter reduces the reach of posts with links (until they do well despite being kneecapped)

29. 😐 Threads: Link at Your Own Peril… 😐 Meta’s Threads algorithm hates links, too (they’re nearly impossible to find in “For You”)

30. 😐 LinkedIn: Link at Your Own Peril… 😐 Link in Comments or GTFO (literally a 90% reduction in reach for posts w/ links) ~10X the reach with zero-click content

31. This one has a link. This one has no link. ~10X the reach with zero-click content 😐 Facebook: Link at Your Own Peril… 😐

32. Every Platform Prioritizes *Native Content* Source: SparkToro

33. And then there’s Dark Social

34. 76% of our visitors come from “Direct?!”

35. Yet, only 29% land on the homepage…? Are people really typing or bookmarking these long URLs?

36. We ran an experiment to measure Dark Social , and found entire networks hiding referral data: 100% h idden 100% h idden 100% h idden 100% h idden 100% h idden 75% h idden 30% h idden 14% h idden If these sites & apps send you traffic, your analytics will report those visits as “Direct”

37. Does Anyone Still Send Clicks?

38. ** Sites with a single owner that pass referrals via multiple entities have been grouped (e.g. Twitter.com, Twimg.com, and T.co; Live.com, Bing.com, MicrosoftOnline.com, Office.com, and Office365.com; etc.) &

39. But That’s Not Where People Spend Time…

40. Search may send the clicks, but it’s only the 5 th most-trafficked category overall. Social, news, productivity, and video are where people consume content and discover brands.

41. What to Do?

42. Just Spend More on Ads, Right? Via AdWeek , NYT , Input , & HBR

43. “What the pandemic showed is  we can take marketing down to zero and still have 95% of the same traffic  as the year before. So, we’re not going to forget that lesson.” -Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb Via Campaign

44. The Parable of the Pizzeria

45. WHY WORK HARD TO MAKE MORE SALES, WHEN I COULD JUST GET CREDIT FOR SALES THAT WERE ABOUT TO HAPPEN ANYWAY?

46. Hard to swallow pills The best marketing opportunities are often the least measurable

47. the What’s Solution?

48. Go Where Your Audience Is…

49. Be Present in the Places They Hang Out

50. Don’t be afraid of Zero-click Searches Think of SEO as brand marketing > traffic driving (i.e. how we already do most PR and social media marketing)

51. Or Zero-Click Content No Link. Tons of Love. (these videos are some of our most impactful marketing, even though we cannot attribute a single conversion to them)

52. Zero-Click = More Reach

53. Zero Click Content Can Build a Following

54. It Grows Brand, Subscribers, & Connections

55. The hard conversation you’ll need to have: You should be able to attribute every marketing dollar spent to the sales it produced. Sorry, 2010-Rand, attribution is dead. Demand it and you’ll overspend on paid for sales that would have happened anyway. And you’ll underinvest in the serendipitous, hard-to-measure channels with the highest ROI

56. Find a source that reaches your audience Provide unique value that earns their attention Wow them. Turn their audience into your audience Nudge ‘em to your site. A podcast. A YouTube channel. A media or blog site. An event or webinar. An email newsletter. Create content. Engage them on social. Invite them to your platform. Help them w/ a problem. Get a warm intro + rec. Provide value they can’t get anywhere else. Comb through their previous work and uncover which ones rocked (and didn’t). Go above and beyond. Don’t push; nudge. Watch Google Trends for branded search lift. Engage their audiences on social. Follow up with everyone you can. Use non-promotional calls to action. Free tools. An email newsletter. Free research reports. An engaging blog/news section. An episodic content series. The Zero-Click Flywheel A Flywheel Like This Might Work For You:

57. To measure, do what Coke did in the 20 th Century

58. #BONUS A few extra tips …

59. What does this mean for marketers ?

60. #1 Those who focus exclusively on traffic acquisition are stuck with search. Not a lot of channel diversity here.

61. #2 Trying to prove acquisition via referral strings will make you Google’s fool. Almost everything that happens in these categories… Leads to one of these… Guess who gets credit in your analytics?

62. #3 To win at social, you’ve gotta embrace zero-click content. All these sites combined send ~1/7 th what Google does.

63. #4 To determine platform prioritization, research where your audience engages: e. g. If I wanted to reach graphic designers, I’d take a close look at Behance , Pinterest, and LinkedIn

64. Human Content > AI Content (yes, even in 2024)

65. The Minimum Bar for Content Better than nothing Better SEO’d than the competition Better than what’s on page two of Google Better than what Buzzfeed-style content mills are spitting out Better than what ChatGPT can create 1995 - 2001 2002 - 2008 2009 - 2012 2013 - 2018 2023 - 20XX 2019-2022 Better than what the Big Tech platforms can zero-click answer * * E.g. instant answers on the front page of Google’s results, native content in the algorithmic feeds of social platforms, etc.

66. Spelling AI’s Content Advantages Human Content Advantages Quantity Speed Cost Quality Novelty Creativity Artistry Humor Resonance In every algorithmically-driven field, someone is going to invest in these and win with them.

67. Threads is Probably Going to Crush Twitter

68. Via AppFigures & Insider

69. ~Same metrics, 1/100 th the followers. Threads’ engagement rate is HUGE.

70. The Return of Barnacle SEO

71. Via r/dataisbeautiful

72. Via Detailed

73. Despite breaking this story (and being linked-to in every one of these), SparkToro can’t rank for it

74. 98% YouTube on page one of Google

75. Want to appear? Better use YouTube.

76. Want to appear? Better use Reddit.

77. Want to appear? Better use Pinterest.

78. There is One Channel Where Engagement Hasn’t Fallen Off a Cliff

79. 20 years of doomsaying, yet email marketing stats are nearly unchanged!

80. Thank You ! Want to chat more? I’m @ randeruiter on Threads or rand @ sparktoro.com .