Zero Click Marketing

I tossed out the idea that “today GEO is CRO,” and it gave Ross Hudgens actual goosebumps, because he’d just written about the same thing. Ross argues that if you can convince a user to buy, you can convince an LLM to recommend you. 

Ross is the founder of Siege Media and author of Generative Engine Optimization, and we talked about what actually drives AI visibility. We discuss his research on more than 100 B...

Rand Fishkin (my co-author!)  is back on the show for a special episode about our new book, Zero Click Marketing.

We talk about what surprised us while recording the audiobook, and some of the Zero Click Marketing ideas that marketers have pushed back on the most.

We get especially fired up about attribution and post-purchase surveys and taking stronger positions in your content. Plus, learn how an expert like Rand is learning a...

Marketing keeps changing. But good marketing? Not so much.

Sarah Stockdale, founder and CEO of Growclass, joins me to talk about what still matters as algorithms, AI, attribution, and the platforms change. We talk about what still wins, and one crucial skill you still need today.

In this episode:

00:00 Why good marketing was never supposed to be easy

03:30 The fundamentals that still matter

07:15 Why changing user behavior is so hard

15:...

Josh Ho, founder and CEO of ReferralRock, and I chit chat about marketing challenges and opportunities as of late. My fave part of this episode is when Josh explains how ReferralRock turns its existing customer conversations into an always-on source of audience research — using real customer language and anecdotes to shape strategy. (This happens about 15 minutes in!)

We also get into why marketers need both audience data and ...

Wil Reynolds joins me to chop it up over what AI is changing — and what it’s revealing — about marketing, expertise, and trust. We talk about using AI without losing your voice, why accountability may matter more than “taste,” and how AI search is making it harder for brands to simply optimize their way into credibility. Wil also explains why he’d rather measure human trust than algorithmic visib...

Wistia CEO Chris Savage joins me to talk about how marketing has evolved in recent years, especially now as attribution keeps getting harder. We also dig into building sustainable content programs, finding opportunities in saturated channels, making the case for creative risks, and why some of the ideas that are hardest to green-light are actually the most valuable.

Timestamps

00:00 — Why the hardest ideas end up being the most...

As AI makes it easier to produce more content, podcasting offers something increasingly valuable: unmistakable evidence of a real person behind those ideas. Erica Bonser, co-founder of Fan Club, joins me to talk about what success should actually look like for a new show, and how marketers can turn a podcast into a sustainable engine — without expecting immediate business results.

Chapters

00:00 — Why podcasting feels dis...

It’s never been easier to create content — which means simply making content isn’t much of an advantage anymore. Today, I talk about what AI changes about the creator economy, why credibility is becoming more valuable as content gets cheaper, and how marketers should evaluate creator partnerships beyond clicks and impressions. 

Chapters

00:00 — It has never been easier to create mediocre content

00:45 &mda...

What happens when your marketing is clearly doing something — but attribution can’t tell you exactly what? In this conversation with Wistia’s Talking Too Loud, we dig into zero click marketing, branded search, word of mouth, recall, and the growing gap between what marketers can measure and what actually influences people. It’s a conversation about learning to work with evidence instead of expecting perfect ...

This is me reacting in real time to news from Promptwatch and Petra Labs that Reddit just lost about 80% of citations in ChatGPT. TL;DR: chasing platform behavior is not a good strategy.

Other sources:

• Axios
• Semrush
• Profound

Timestamps:
00:00 Reddit citations fell off a cliff. So what?
00:59 Your strategy shouldn’t depend on one platform
01:54 If your audience uses Reddit, Reddit still matters
03:10 ChatGPT c...

LinkedIn’s feed has changed since I first published this episode — but the core idea holds up: the platform is trying to understand what you talk about, who should care, and what deserves distribution. In this refreshed Field Note, I revisit LinkedIn’s retrieval-and-ranking system, clarify what topical consistency actually means, touch on the new “Seems like AI slop” reporting feature, and explain why ...

AI is new, yet somehow it’s already exhausting. Marketers are under constant pressure to adopt more tools, track more things, rethink their strategies, figure out AI visibility, and generally become smarter about a technology that keeps changing underneath them.

So this week, we’re resurfacing a conversation with my co-author Rand Fishkin because it feels even more useful now than when we recorded it.

We talk about how to...

Marketers know how to distribute content. But getting a post, podcast, or report in front of people doesn’t guarantee that its central idea will stick.

Today, we dive into the difference between content performance and idea portability — and I offer five qualities that help an idea travel beyond its original container: immediate usefulness, a memorable handle, and oh… guess you’ll have to listen to find out ...

The zero click internet sounds like marketing jargon, but the idea is simple: platforms increasingly give people answers without sending them to the original source. Citing my recent NPR appearance and using Paul Rudd as the leading example, I explain the zero click web… for your mom. Well, for my mom. Both, really. I also break down why the shift is convenient for users, difficult for publishers, and impossible for marketer...

Good marketing is not about doing more. I explain why every channel creates an ongoing obligation, how opportunity cost shapes modern marketing, and the three filters to decide what deserves time, energy, and attention.

Timestamps

00:00 — Why doing more is not the answer

01:39 — What should you stop doing?

02:04 — Marketing channels are recurring obligations

02:56 — How maintenance overwhelms strategy

03:21 &mdash...

This is what marketing looks like when perfect attribution isn't possible — and why that may actually be freeing. I chat with Rachel Elsts Downey, founder of Share Your Genius, to discuss podcasting as a business strategy, measuring what actually matters, choosing marketing channels intentionally, and why trust compounds faster than dashboards.

Timestamps

00:00 Why podcast partnerships created six-figure pipelines

03:31 Why podc...

I chat with my buddy Kevin Indig about what he’s learning in his AI research, along with generative engine optimization, and user behavior in tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode.

Kevin explains why clicks are disappearing, why citations may matter less than brand mentions, and why trust is becoming one of the most important assets a brand can build in the AI era. He also explains “ghost citations,&...

In this Field Notes episode, Amanda looks at new research from Similarweb on the downstream impact of AI visibility, plus Seer Interactive’s argument that AI visibility isn’t just an SEO issue — it also affects paid media, brand, and attribution.

Timestamps

00:00 Why AI visibility is creating a new attribution problem
01:30 What Similarweb found: AI-recommended brands saw more downstream visits
03:00 Why the t...

When AI puts your brand in the wrong category or compares you to the wrong competitors, it's tempting to dismiss it as a hallucination. But what if AI's mistakes reveal something about how the market understands you? I suggest why AI visibility isn't merely a score. It's a mirror.

This episode pairs nicely with my May episode, "GEO Is What Happens When Search Becomes Zero Click." :)

Timestamps:

00:00 — Why AI visibilit...