Veruska Anconitano’s Post

NEW research: https://lnkd.in/gdDM-jEx Thanks to our good friends at Datos, A Semrush Company, I've got new numbers on zero-click searches in not just the United States, but the European Union as well. This study also includes answers to burning questions like: - What happens after Americans and Europeans search Google? - What percent of searches in 2024 end without a click? - Have the EU’s regulations curbed Google’s ability to funnel search traffic to its own properties (YouTube, Google Flights, Google Hotels, etc.)? - Is the popular media narrative that Google is losing out to LLM-powered tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Microsoft’s Bing correct? - Has the rollout of AI Overviews changed how many searches consumers perform, how many results they click, or how much traffic Google sends to the open web? See the full study, including 9 new charts and graphs, on the blog now 😎 🔥

Its important to understand zero click searches and how b2b brands must create content that is genuinely valuable to key audiences.

Interesting read based on clickstream data, covering both the US and EU. So far, the Doomsday for Google Search has been postponed -- searchers have not migrated to LLM, nor has SGE/AI Overview taken all the traffic away from websites. Take a look.

Like memes & schema (in the neuroscience context) shape our minds, content & schema (in the digital marketing sense) shape the hive mind. Warning: #digitalmarketing #rant and unpopular opinions ahead! Am I the only one who is not surprised, bothered, or particularly concerned by the observations outlined in Rand Fishkin's reshared post below? Firstly: Folks now take 10x the volume of actions they used to in their search journey (causing lower "click to completion" rates). Secondly: People start their search journey on a greater range of platforms than ever (if people don't want Google-centric results, they don't search on Google). Thirdly: You've gotta love the *disclaimer in the footer of that graphic, pragmatically admitting their 1% CTR figure for ads is highly dubious. Several research design questions come to mind. Not that I'm going to run down those rabbit holes to fact check the digital marketing equivalent of pop psychology. These shifts in consumer behavior seem more like "the times are a-changin'", than "this cabal of supervillains is up to no good and we caught them red handed". I'm not saying this isn't a conversation worth having. And it's worth noting that Rand-in-particular is not actually catastrophizing, at all, in his post. He isn't a silly banana. But I have seen at least a dozen "omg this is the end" type posts recently, causing repeated rolling of the eyes by yours truly. Between zero-click trends, AI developments, and the phasing out of third party cookies, it seems like much of the marketing/business community have turned into street corner preachers announcing impending doom. Personally, I don't see it. Perhaps I'm just allergic to melodramatic responses 😇 Perhaps (/obviously) the age & attitude of decision makers is frustratingly relevant... I feel: All of these developments are less terrifying, more exciting, and kind of liberating, when considered from the appropriate perspective, through the appropriate set of lenses. Not that I, or anyone, has (/could) precisely calculated those to perfection. I think: We (digital marketers) should take a broad vision of what a digital marketing footprints looks like. Understanding "brand identity" as the emergent property of having helpful content around the internet connected to a given entity. That web of signals should be easy to find (indexable by whichever robots/algorithms/platforms matter to your audience), easy to understand (does it make immediate & intuitive sense your target audience?), and sensibly distributed (plz don't spam links on thematically irrelevant websites). It should also be accurate, and independently verifiable by other trusted sources (my oh my, how important Reddit / YouTube / Wiki / Journals / misc-information-repositories have become, and are still becoming). All in all: Don't mind me, I'll be over here in my corner with Intero Digital, delivering awesomesauce daily, and finding signals through the white noise 😇 /rant

This is very interesting as someone focused on #leadGen and data. By and large, this is the B2B world or non-e-commerce searching. ONLY 290 of 1000 search results will end up on someone's website. And a much smaller to ad clicks. My money would go to SEO and #contentmarketing. Focusing on research and intent-focused keywords... never top searches, or even traffic. Search engines are starting to just answer simple question searches, thus the no traffic. At SaturnOne, we have a tool that finds the keywords actually driving lead conversion!! More valuable than I realize.

After reading this post, I thought...given this, what would I do / where would I start looking for threats or opportunities? 1 - Google is back to an all time high of referring itself as a % of results, flights, hotels, reviews, etc. If Google does acquisitions in your space or starts testing drastic new layouts in your space, stay woke...you might get a disproportionate hit over the next 3-5 years. 2 - Given the above and the regulatory environment in the UK, if you sell in both the UK and US, you might want to start looking at industries Google self-refers and consider that maybe $1 invested in Google based UK search marketing might be increasing in value over $1 invested in US. 3 - Mobile searches TANKED when AI-overviews was rolled out. You can see it in the data, and while CTRs are low if you can get more searches you can offset the hit. Watch this space VERY closely. Google might not roll out AI overviews as aggressively as they need to because of how it cannabalizes THEIR cash cow, giving openai / perplexity / bing and others more of a reason to invest in AI search that starts with AI overview style answers. Better for customers (if they can get the answers right), not better for profits, Bing doesn't need those profits from search. Google does. 4 - 22% of searches result in another search, I wonder how Dataos accounts for people interacting with AI overviews, if it doesn't count as a new search, then I wonder if that could help us better back into the impact of AI on CTRs, which it looks like mobile especially is where I would watch.

Your digital strategy should understand how to embrace this!

Great insight, SparkToro! This study highlights a significant shift in search behavior, emphasizing the importance for marketers to adapt their strategies. With such a low percentage of clicks going to the open web, it's crucial for businesses to optimize their presence on platforms where zero-click searches are prevalent. Understanding these trends can help us stay ahead and ensure our content remains visible and engaging. Thanks for sharing 🙂

Interesting finding, as always. But nothing new. This trend began in 2018 with the introduction of featured snippets and will continue once SGE/AI Overviews become widely available. Only 36% of Google searches in the US and 37% in the EU result in visits to websites and social networks, with 58.5% and 57%, respectively, of searches ending in a zero-click search. In my opinion, fewer searches will lead to websites, and Google will strive to answer questions quickly and initiate conversations through AI. The implications are as follows: - The majority of websites will experience a drop in traffic - SEOs will need to rethink their strategies to attract clicks - Only a small percentage of sites will benefit from this change The actions to take are: -Understand how SGE/AI Overviews work -Ensure you can write content that answers questions in the best and quickest way - Address any technical issues on your site and ensure your content is genuinely valuable, to reduce noise and increase your chances of being noticed by Google What are your thoughts? #seo #seoconsultant #seofuture

With the rollout of AI Overviews, we're starting to see similar numbers in 'zero-click-searches' that we encountered in the 2019-2020 period. 2020: Approximately 64% of Google searches were found to be zero click searches (SparkToro) 2022-2023: Approximately 25.6% of Google searches, were zero-click searches (SEMrush) 2024: According to Datos, we are seeing 58.5% result in zero-click searches. #ZeroClickSearches #SEO #AIOverviews