Zero Click Marketing

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 valuable 01:31 — Wistia’s sustainable approach building its podcast 06:38 — Let the audience choose the format 10:19 — Marketing in a zero-click world 14:02 — Massive opportunities in untrackable marketing 16:36 — How to pitch bold ideas to leadership 20:42 — Where Chris would invest if he were starting from scratch 28:19 — Brand search as a leading marketing indicator 31:05 — How marketers can manage up more effectively Connect with Chris Savage: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cjsavage/ Check out Talking Too Loud: https://wistia.com/series/talking-too-loud Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads This episode was produced in partnership with Share Your Genius www.shareyourgenius.com

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 distinctly human in the AI era 00:41 — What fitness brands teach us about identity and marketing 09:53 — Starting a podcast makes you a better communicator 11:34 — What should a podcast actually accomplish? 15:45 — Defining success and overcoming the “podcast graveyard” 19:10 — Why Erica isn’t worried about business outcomes yet 22:12 — The reality of sustaining a podcast 23:47 — Erica’s podcasting cheat sheet for 2026 Connect with Erica Bonser: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erica-bonser/ Check out Fan Club Brands: https://fanclubbrands.co/ Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads This episode was produced in partnership with Share Your Genius www.shareyourgenius.com

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 — How the creator economy has grown up 02:14 — As content gets cheaper, credibility gets more valuable 03:15 — Why creator marketing *is* Zero Click Marketing 04:08 — The prerequisite: authority with the right audience 05:01 — #1: Message transfer 06:24 — #2: Audience saturation 08:02 — #3: Asset value 10:01 — What the creator economy rewards now Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads This episode was produced in partnership with Share Your Genius www.shareyourgenius.com

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 proof — and it feels even more relevant now than when we recorded it. This episode was originally published on Talking Too Loud, Wistia's podcast about the brands, products, and marketing moves people can’t stop thinking — and talking — about. Watch the original episode: https://wi.st/TTLNatividad Explore more Talking Too Loud: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMCL9HnQdLDHx8xxzeorzmQ Learn more about Wistia: https://wistia.com/ Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads This episode was produced in partnership with Share Your Genius www.shareyourgenius.com

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 citation behavior is wildly unstable 04:26 The boring winner: brand-owned websites 05:32 Build useful homes across the internet 06:36 AI visibility is a benefit of good marketing ZCM Field Notes are short reactions to news or observations of what’s happening in the field. Edits can be a little messy 'cause I'm doing them with my bare hands. Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads

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 the best LinkedIn strategy still looks a lot like behaving normally at a party. Timestamps 00:00 — What’s changed since the original episode 01:05 — Retrieval vs. ranking: the “two algorithms” caveat 01:28 — Why topical consistency still matters 02:20 — LinkedIn’s new “Seems like AI slop” reporting feature 03:20 — Stop chasing algorithm hacks; become understandable 05:02 — How LinkedIn’s retrieval and ranking stages work 06:20 — Why LinkedIn is like a party 10:03 — The real LinkedIn strategy: predictable relevance Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads This episode was produced in partnership with Share Your Genius www.shareyourgenius.com

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 make smart marketing bets when perfect attribution is impossible, what AI visibility can and can’t actually tell you, why “rank tracking” inside LLMs is mostly the wrong mental model, and where AI genuinely helps marketers — provided you know enough to recognize when it’s wrong. Most importantly, this is a conversation about keeping your head while everyone else is telling you to do more. In this episode: 04:20 — How to measure marketing when you can’t prove causation 07:11 — Why executives accept fuzzy measurement for traditional advertising but demand perfect attribution from digital 08:45 — Leading and lagging indicators for zero-click marketing 14:07 — Why AI actually makes zero-click marketing easier to understand 19:49 — Rand’s skepticism about AI visibility tracking — and the research that changed his mind 27:02 — What Rand learned about real versus synthetic prompts 30:52 — Using AI to analyze marketing data without outsourcing your judgment 33:45 — Zero Click Marketing does not mean zero sales Of course, you’ll learn all about this and more in our forthcoming book, Zero Click Marketing. It comes out this October, and you can preorder today at zeroclickmarketing.co/book . Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads This episode was produced in partnership with Share Your Genius www.shareyourgenius.com

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 rest. Timestamps 00:00 — Moving content vs. making ideas portable 02:07 — How the Paul Rudd example traveled 03:18 — Make it useful without the click 07:15 — Find the smallest complete version 08:51 — Make the idea applicable 10:21 — Give up control of the route 12:14 — Influence is bigger than attribution Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads This episode was produced in partnership with Share Your Genius www.shareyourgenius.com

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 marketers to ignore. In this episode: 00:00 — Zero-click marketing for the normies 01:09 — Paul Rudd and the zero click internet 02:41 — The broken bargain between platforms and publishers 03:50 — How AI accelerates the shift 05:14 — Creating value without holding it behind a click 06:00 — What my NPR/Planet Money interview reveals about influence 07:32 — Making ideas useful, clear, and memorable enough to travel Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads This episode was produced in partnership with Share Your Genius www.shareyourgenius.com

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 — The question to ask before saying yes 05:13 — When metrics should change your plans 06:47 — What can you stop feeling guilty about? 07:11 — You do not have to show up everywhere Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads This episode was produced in partnership with Share Your Genius www.shareyourgenius.com

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 podcasting worked faster than traditional lead generation 04:10 Is launching a podcast easier today than 10 years ago? 08:46 How Share Your Genius measures marketing success 10:05 The question every marketer should ask before tracking another KPI 13:29 A partnership experiment that paid off (and where it went too far) 16:22 Defining qualified leads and knowing your ideal customer 21:37 How founders can accidentally hold back their own marketing 24:15 Letting data guide decisions without overreacting Connect with Rachel Elsts Downey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelelstsdowney Learn more about Share Your Genius: http://www.shareyourgenius.com Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat) : LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads This episode was produced in partnership with Share Your Genius www.shareyourgenius.com

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,” how AI systems seem to read content, and why customer research is becoming newly essential. Links to some of Kevin’s recent research: The Fan-Out Effect: What Happens Between a Query and a Citation Timestamps: 00:00 Kevin on why trust matters more in an AI world 00:32 Why GEO/AEO may be forcing executives to care about better marketing 01:39 Kevin’s research: fewer clicks, more variance, and trust as the key ingredient 05:11 What “ghost citations” are and why they matter 14:09 The risk of AI slop and how synthetic content erodes trust 19:24 Tools and approaches for tracking AI visibility 22:03 What user behavior research reveals about AI search habits 24:50 What brands should measure in their first 90 days of AI search tracking 27:03 Why old-school PR metrics like share of voice and sentiment are back 29:05 Best way to stay in the know on all things GEO Connect with Kevin Indig: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinindig/ Sign up for Kevin’s Newsletter, Growth Memo: https://www.growth-memo.com/ Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads This episode was produced in partnership with Share Your Genius www.shareyourgenius.com

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 traffic often shows up as branded search, not AI referral traffic 04:45 Branded search as a “receipt” for upstream marketing 06:00 Why AI may not create demand, but move or nurture it 07:30 The four roles of AI visibility: create, capture, nurture, protect 10:30 Why AI visibility can’t live only with SEO 12:00 What marketers should track beyond referral traffic 14:00 The Zero Click Marketing takeaway: the most important touchpoint may be the one analytics never sees Links Mentioned: Similarweb: The Downstream Impact of AI Visibility Rand Fishkin / SparkToro: New Research from Similarweb: How AI Brand Mentions Influence Direct Visits & Traditional Search Queries Seer Interactive: Your SEO Team Is Building AI Visibility. Paid Media Should Be Too Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads

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 visibility is becoming an executive question 01:34 — AI visibility as a mirror 03:15 — Testing HubSpot’s AEO Grader with SparkToro as an example 05:04 — What a messy competitive set can reveal 06:21 — AI visibility meets positioning 10:27 — Warning: vanity metrics 12:05 — Three buckets for evaluating your results 14:38 — Turning visibility gaps into marketing priorities 17:11 — A practical AI visibility playbook 19:22 — What the mirror can teach you This episode is sponsored by HubSpot. You can try their free AEO Grader for yourself! Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads

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 has such a short shelf life, and what it really means to matter more instead of simply marketing more. Timestamps 00:00 — Jay’s core idea: don’t market more, matter more 02:26 — Why every talk needs to create a real shift, not just a to-do list 04:24 — Jay’s “unsolicited response rate” metric 06:00 — Reach vs. resonance, and why making people care is the actual job 07:46 — Amanda’s coaching session with Jay and the missing “problem” in her talk 08:47 — Why marketers need to slow down and develop ideas that matter 14:21 — Creativity as trial and error, not instant genius 17:22 — Asking questions Google can’t answer 20:52 — Amanda’s favorite newsletter and useful zero-click content 22:38 — Michelle Warner as an example of a zero-click business 28:55 — How platforms reward lowest-common-denominator content 30:16 — Why speaking gives you control that social platforms don’t 34:48 — Jay’s podcast, *Why They Resonate*, and Amanda’s upcoming appearance Connect with Jay Acunzo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayacunzo/ Learn more about Jay Acunzo: https://jayacunzo.com/ Sign up for Jay’s Newsletter: https://jayacunzo.com/newsletter Listen to Why They Resonate: https://open.spotify.com/show/2xMty2O4GBcG8F7ySudeXl Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads This episode was produced in partnership with Share Your Genius www.shareyourgenius.com

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 than One Third of Google Searches Still Send a Click Cyrus Shepard/Zyppy Signal: 5 Data-Backed Features of Websites Winning Google in 2026 Search Engine Land: Roughly 3 in 4 consumers use AI to shop, and nearly 1 in 3 won't let it spend Adobe Analytics (via TechCrunch): AI-sourced traffic to US retailers grew ~393% YoY in Q1 2026 and converts ~42% better ZCM Field Notes are short reactions to news or observations of what's happening in the field. Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads

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 powerful source of original content 03:06 — How Kaleigh started learning AI tools and GEO/AEO hands-on 05:46 — The “source signal stack” and how LLMs evaluate content 09:40 — The messy reality of measuring AI visibility and attribution 12:57 — Durable marketing bets in a fast-changing AI landscape 17:09 — What effective employee advocacy can look like in practice 20:43 — How internal talks can become LinkedIn, YouTube, and recruiting content 26:07 — Kaleigh’s underrated tactic: syndicating newsletters on LinkedIn 28:08 — Where to follow Kaleigh and read her newsletter, Context Window Connect with Kaleigh Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaleighmoore/ Learn more about Kaleigh Moore: https://www.kaleighmoore.com/ Subscribe to Context Window: https://kaleigh-moore.kit.com/ Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads This episode was produced in partnership with Share Your Genius www.shareyourgenius.com

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 team helped one company increase free trials by 54% through emotionally resonant comparison pages. Timestamps 00:00 — Why B2B purchases are deeply emotional 01:36 — How emotional targeting and zero-click marketing fit together 04:47 — Talia’s three-step framework: research, audit, test 05:11 — Why buying B2B software carries more emotional risk than B2C 09:27 — The qualitative research that reveals what buyers actually care about 11:00 — How Teamwork.com used comparison pages to increase free trials by 54% 16:50 — Why honest comparison content can attract better-fit customers 19:37 — Why pricing transparency matters more in the AI search era 25:41 — The KPIs Talia’s team tracked beyond free trials 28:10 — The problem with A/B testing and what to do about it Resources: Unlock better marketing with Emotional Targeting by Talia Wolf. Get your copy now Connect with Talia Wolf: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taliagw/ Learn more about GetUplift: https://getuplift.co/ Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads This episode was produced in partnership with Share Your Genius www.shareyourgenius.com Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads

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 capture, enrichment, automation, and reporting. Timestamps: 00:00 — The best-of-breed era is ending 01:00 — How we got from monoliths to unbundled SaaS stacks 04:30 — What changed in a zero-click world 07:00 — The hidden cost of handoffs 11:00 — Typeform Growth Flow and built-in enrichment 14:00 — The DTC skincare quiz funnel example 18:00 — Five places a lead can die 23:00 — The new question: “What’s the fewest tools I can run this through?” For the full DTC workflow, read my newsletter, " Your Marketing Stack Is About to Get Smaller ." This episode is sponsored by Typeform . It features my honest take on Growth Flow. Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads

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 public record. The better question isn’t “should we gate this?” It’s: what should be freely available so buyers can understand, trust, remember, cite, and share your ideas — and what is valuable enough that someone would reasonably trade their information for it? Because in a zero-click world, changing someone’s mind without relying on clicks and form fills is the whole game. Timestamps: 00:00 — The old B2B bargain: email address for the thing 02:04 — Buyers have more ways to get answers without you 03:03 — AI search makes the gated content problem more obvious 04:00 — Why the public record matters in a zero-click world 05:00 — Ungate the argument, gate the utility 06:00 — Buyers want to engage on their own terms 07:07 — A form fill is not the same thing as demand 07:26 — Three questions to ask before gating content 08:05 — Good gates vs. lazy gates Sources & Tools: What is Gated Content? And How to Make It Discoverable to AI Bots by Conductor Gated Content and AI Search: Why It’s Invisible by Ziptie Gartner Sales Survey Finds 67% of B2B Buyers Prefer a Rep-Free Experience 10 Minute Email - 10minuteemail.com SparkToro - sparktoro.com Alertmouse - alertmouse.com Pre-order the book: Zero Click Marketing (zeroclickmarketing.co/book) Learn more: zeroclickmarketing.co Connect with Amanda Natividad (@amandanat): LinkedIn | Substack | Instagram | Threads This episode was produced in partnership with Share Your Genius www.shareyourgenius.com