Zero Click Marketing

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...

What if the best marketing doesn’t drive a click at all — but makes people seek you out?
I chat with Jay Acunzo about why public speaking might be the ultimate form of zero click marketing, how to build ideas that actually matter to your audience, and why resonance beats reach when you’re trying to create work people remember.

Jay breaks down how to build stronger arguments for your ideas, why commodity content ...

Breaking news! Rand Fishkin/SparkToro published a new zero-click search study. In the first four months of 2026, a whopping 68% of Google searches ended without a click. I sound off on this finding, the trajectory of the zero-click phenomenon, and a durable strategy to help you win.

Sources:

• My blog post, which expounds on this episode: The Click Is Now Optional. Here’s What Isn’t.
• Rand Fishkin/SparkToro: In 2026, Less...

I chat with writer and strategist Kaleigh Moore about how content teams can adapt to AI search without sacrificing quality. 

Kaleigh shares her “source signal stack” framework, explains why third-party validation matters, and makes the case for treating LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, newsletters, and employee-led content as part of one larger visibility ecosystem.

Timestamps

00:00 — Why employee experts are such a p...

B2B buyers like to pretend decisions are purely rational. But when your job, reputation, budget, and team trust are on the line? That’s emotional as hell.

I sat down with Talia Wolf, founder of GetUplift and author of Emotional Targeting, to dig into customer research, pricing transparency, AI search, and how emotional targeting helps marketers create messaging that actually resonates.

Talia also shares a case study on how her ...

The best-of-breed marketing stack made sense when traffic was cheap. But in a zero-click world, every lead is harder to earn — and every tool handoff is another place for that lead to die.

In this episode, I make the case for rethinking bloated marketing stacks, explain why small teams may need fewer tools instead of "the best" tool for every job, and share how Typeform’s Growth Flow turns forms into richer workflows for...

Here's my new rule for demand generation: Ungate the argument. Gate the utility. Ungate the point of view — and ungate the template, tool, deeper cuts, or genuinely useful live experience.

Buyers now have more ways to get answers without entering your funnel: AI search, Reddit, YouTube, private communities, and competitors’ ungated posts. And if your best educational content is locked behind a form, it's not shaping your...

AI search is changing SEO, but not because SEO is dead. It’s changing because search is becoming more zero-click.

In this episode, I explain GEO — Generative Engine Optimization — and why it’s less about chasing AI hacks and more about making your content easier to retrieve, understand, cite, trust, and remember. I break down four practical mechanics of GEO: retrievability, extractability, credibility, and pu...

Zero Click Marketing: How to Build Brands and Earn Customers on a Traffic-Starved Web is officially available for pre-order.

YOU HEARD RIGHT, CUTIES! I announce my and Rand Fishkin's upcoming book, explain why pre-orders matter, and tell you how to claim the pre-order bonuses.

Pre-order the book at zeroclickmarketing.co/book.

Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co

Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram |...

Marketers say they want good strategy. Then they optimize for whatever’s easiest to measure.

This episode is about why easy-to-see metrics like traffic, likes, attributed pipeline, and rankings can create false confidence. Instead, better measurement can look like this: off-platform sharing, stronger sales conversations, customer education, adoption of your language, and content that does more than one job. In a zero-click wor...

For years, marketers were told to create the ultimate guide: one page that covers everything on a topic. That advice worked when the goal was to rank, earn the click, and keep people on your site. But that era is coming to an end. In this episode, I walk through new research on Google and ChatGPT that points in the same direction: broad, catch-all content is getting weaker, while focused, hard-to-replace value is getting stronger. ...

Best practices can help you avoid obvious mistakes — but they can also make your marketing forgettable. In this episode, I explain why the real problem isn’t best practices themselves, but using them without personalization, taste, or audience insight. Drawing on my experience at Fitbit, I’ll show you how audience research leads to stronger content, smarter channel choices, and more compelling marketing — pl...

Before someone clicks your website, they may already have formed an opinion about your brand from the public record — snippets, Reddit threads, reviews, and AI answers. So today, I’m sharing a 7-step playbook for shaping your brand’s public record. I’ll help you audit what’s visible, identify weak claims versus strong facts, publish more credible proof, make that proof easier to retrieve and cite, and ...