Zero Click Marketing

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 

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 public evidence — and show why good AI visibility still starts with good marketing.

Timestamps

00:00 Why AI search is changing SEO

01:35 What GEO actually means

03:10 Why GEO is a zero-click marketing problem

04:30 The four mechanics of GEO, beginning with retrievability

08:30 Extractability: can your content be understood and reused?

11:00 Credibility: why generic SEO content falls short

13:30 Public evidence: why your brand’s off-site record matters

18:45 Why GEO is not magic — it’s good marketing

Resources:

• Ahrefs study: AI Overviews Reduce Clicks by 58%
• Pre-order the Zero Click Marketing book (yes, there’s a chapter on AI marketing!)

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 

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 | Threads

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 world, the easiest metric to report is not always the one that matters most.

Timestamps

00:00 Why marketers optimize for what’s easiest to measure

01:36 How SEO gets too much credit for capturing demand

04:23 The Fitbit B2B example and content as a service

06:09 Better ways to judge content quality

07:54 Why the best content does more than one job

11:12 What better measurement looks like in a zero-click world

You can do audience research with all kinds of tools and networks like Google Trends, Exploding Topics, Reddit, and of course, my employer, SparkToro. You can create an always-free account and get 5 reports per month on sparktoro.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 

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. I break down what winning websites actually have in common, why relevance now beats comprehensiveness, and how to rethink your content strategy for a zero-click world.

Research cited in this episode:

• 5 Data-Backed Features of Websites Winning Google in 2026 by Cyrus Shepard
• The Fan-Out Effect: What Happens Between a Query and a Citation by Kevin Indig and AirOps

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:21 The rise of the “ultimate guide” playbook
00:53 Why broad, catch-all content is getting weaker
01:00 What Google’s winners have in common
02:19 The difference between reading and doing
02:36 Why destination sites win
02:57 Brand vs. discoverability
03:52 What ChatGPT actually rewards
04:30 Why answering one question beats answering five
04:56 The new standard: defensibility + focus
05:55 How to rethink your content strategy
06:36 Why brand matters more than ever
07:00 Final takeaways

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