Where Did All Your Website Traffic Go? How To Thrive In The Zero-Click Era

Executives, business owners, CEOs, and leadership teams love numbers—especially metrics, KPIs, and performance indicators that scream success.

But my question to you today is: What happens when those numbers don't add up like they used to?

Welcome to the world of zero-click content, where we'll explore the new cold hard truths that businesses need to understand about how marketing is changing and developing.

The Evolution of Digital Marketing

It's becoming increasingly vital for us to consider that the typical 'funnel' that we may think customer journey down doesn't actually exist like we think it does.

We are truly in an era where the digital landscape is consistently and constantly changing.

As marketers, business owners, and CEOs, we need to understand how to reach and engage our audiences across multiple platforms effectively and how this landscape is changing so rapidly.

It is becoming increasingly important as technology evolves instead of just returning to the age-old measurement of how content performs based on clicks and website traffic.

Those days are gone.

We need to start thinking beyond just website clicks, but we still see it so much when we're chatting with leadership teams when we're meeting with clients, and they're asking:

"Well, how's the website traffic looking?"

"Has this generated how many clicks?"

"What's the CPC here?"

These metrics are important, but we need to shift our focus from examining the cost of a website click or the amount of website traffic we've generated this month to examining the multi-channel strategy.

How does the entire marketing strategy feed into your overall business growth?

I'm not saying having your own website and a piece of the Internet that you can control is not essential.

In fact, it's a solid part of any strategy not to build your entire ship on rented land, be that Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or YouTube.

But I am saying that we need to be okay with the changing consumer landscape and how potential customers discover and interact with your business.

The Power of Multi-Channel Marketing

A study done last year by Advertiser Perceptions in the UK reported that 50% of UK advertisers—and I would say it's even more than that now—are using a multi-channel approach.

They experienced extended reach, brand awareness, and much more ad engagement across the board.

The report also revealed that nearly half of those marketers, about 47%, experienced a much better ROI from their marketing efforts when they looked at all these different channels rather than just measuring website traffic alone.

Multi-channel campaigns are really an opportunity for us to capture users throughout an entire marketing landscape.

For example, think about overall awareness through multi-channel retargeting strategies, which enable marketing teams to deliver ads to users based on their previous intent-based actions across different platforms.

Common Multi-Channel Marketing Mistakes

However, we also need to add a few caveats when discussing a multi-channel approach.

First, don't spread yourself too thin. Attempting to create unique content on every platform at all times of the day is obviously one of those key things we see. It's going to lead to burnout, diminished output quality, or a reliance on crappy AI-generated slop, which will be a detriment to your brand overall.

Instead, your marketing strategy should aim not to be everywhere, but to focus on where your customers are.

So revisit your business's key persona: Where are they hanging out? Where are they consuming content? What time of the day are they consuming content? What type of content are they actually consuming? What content is actually helping you to build your business and reach your business goals, objectives, values, and mission?

So where to from here?

There are some cold, hard truths that marketers, business owners, CEOs, boardrooms, and executives need to understand as we enter 2025 and as technology continues to evolve:

The Evolution of Search

There is going to be less organic SEO traffic on corporate websites.

People are finding solutions on search engines or AI agents without having to click through to your website, and there are still executives who don't understand that fact.

Google is now presenting solutions on the search results page without users even visiting that website.

So, informational content will be more challenging for businesses to rank for in future.

Consumers' search behaviours are ever-changing.

"Google it" became synonymous with finding information and researching.

But now the way people approach research or finding answers to their questions is changing.

Instead of Googling, they're saying, "I'm going to go to ChatGPT or Claude".

In the future, we may even have AI assistants who will help us do all this research and find answers to our problems.

Again, these actions likely result in your business not getting a click on your website. Still, it will be an essential consideration in a potential consumer's discovery of your business.

Platform-Specific Realities

So, let's look past Google to other 'traffic generation' platforms.

YouTube video viewers rarely click on description links within a video.

They prefer to consume more content, move on to the next video, and watch the video after that—and that's what YouTube wants them to do.

YouTube doesn't want them to go off to your website and get distracted.

They want people to stay on YouTube, which means they can deliver more ads for their advertisers and more money in their pockets.

So, what content can you produce on YouTube to help discover your business?

LinkedIn typically provides minimal to zero referral traffic, especially to corporate sites.

Do a test yourself.

If you include a link to your website or to another resource, the content is very likely to lead to much engagement.

That's because LinkedIn isn't about providing referral traffic to your website.

LinkedIn is about networking. It's about building a brand and a voice and authority.

Instagram is great for brand building, especially for creative products and services.

Even then, Instagram only allows links to profiles and bios.

You can't even put a link in your Instagram caption. They literally want people to stay on that platform.

Let's also consider other rich media formats like podcasts. I create a podcast, and I'm not recording an episode with the expectation that I'll get clicks from the podcast description to my website.

That's not what this is about.

Building a podcast is about sharing your voice, your brand, your authority, and it's not focusing on clicks.

Zero-click Marketing is Here to Stay in 2025

Given these challenges, it's clear that we're truly in the zero-click age, with much of that powered by the fast advancements of AI and technology.

But what's even more crucial is how we measure and communicate this to boardrooms and executives, helping them understand how we measure our marketing strategies and results from here on out.

We need to stop relying solely on using Google Analytics to determine the number of clicks on our website.

We need to start re-evaluating our marketing goals and objectives, consider how people are consuming our content, and measure our success based on these other channels and platforms.

By balancing your multi-channel strategy, I'm confident that you will find that sweet spot where your business can thrive and extend your reach, increase your engagement, and ultimately help drive more conversions and sales for your business.

We need to educate ourselves, other business owners, marketers, executives, and CEOs that the goal in marketing isn't always about driving clicks to a website.??

It's more about how marketing can build our brand, authority, and trust, ultimately building our leads and sales through genuine relationships.

That's the imperative KPI and measurement you should deliver in your next executive marketing meeting.