Zero Click Marketing

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