Thanks to AI Overviews and zero-click searches, we’re now in the ‘Great SEO Underappreciation.’
By that, we mean traditional SEO attribution models have become outdated.
Because of this, CMOs have had an increasingly hard time measuring organic search ROI.
Google’s AI Overviews and the prevalence of generative AI search platforms like Perplexity and ChatGPT have caused click-through rates (CTRs) to plummet.
Ahrefs found that the presence of an AI Overview causes clicks to fall by 34.5%.
A TripleDart study also found that, after the introduction of AI Overviews, their clicks fell by 57%, and their CTR dropped by 35%.
The interesting part?
Their impressions rose by 20%.
Other brands are beginning to notice the same thing; clicks are down, but impressions and leads are up.
Moreover, visitors coming from AI search platforms convert at better rates than traditional organic search visitors.
Semrush’s research uncovered that one LLM visitor is worth 4.4x more than a visitor from a regular search engine.
This means two things:
- Organic SEO is still generating leads and sales (both directly and indirectly).
- AI search visibility causes clicks to fall but still generates visibility and ironclad leads.
In this guide, we’ll teach you why you shouldn’t underappreciate your SEO campaigns. We’ll also equip you with updated SEO attribution models to include visibility from LLM-powered search, so stay tuned!
What Modern Attribution Models Miss
As it stands right now, current SEO ROI attribution models aren’t capturing your content’s full impact on your audience.
Metrics like clicks and click-through rates don’t account for things like:
- Zero-click searches
- AI-assisted decision-making
- Brand familiarity via frequent brand mentions
These are all significant aspects of search marketing now, so let’s take a closer look at each one.
Zero-click searches: Gaining exposure without clicks
Google’s AI Overviews and Featured Snippets provide quick answers to (mostly) informational queries, which can cause users to find what they need on the results page.
Because of this, they never click on any of the organic results, thus the name zero-click search.
As an example, let’s say you wanted to learn what a Gantt chart is, so you search on Google for ‘how do gantt charts work?’
Before AI Overviews, this type of informational keyword was perfect for generating traffic to your website.
For instance, a project management website could whip up a piece of content that defines Gantt charts.
Assuming their SEO is solid, prospects from their target audience would see their article whenever they searched for information about Gantt charts.
This was a fantastic way to generate leads at the top of your sales funnel.
Well, here’s what the results page for that keyword looks like now:
As you can see, the AI Overview practically takes up all of the results page. It also provides a quick answer to the user query, heightening the chances that users will bail once they find what they need.
However, as brands are starting to find out, zero-click searches don’t mean users aren’t noticing your brand.
In the example provided above, even if visitors didn’t click on one of the YouTube videos provided in the source panel, they might remember seeing the name TeamGantt.
The next time they need to learn more information about Gantt charts and related topics, they may choose to visit TeamGantt’s website directly.
The craziest part?
They wouldn’t have known about TeamGantt if it weren’t for the zero-click search they made.
This is a new form of visibility that traditional SEO metrics like click-through rates can’t catch. While zero-click searches were viewed as a total loss in the past, that’s beginning to change.
Marketers are now beginning to see zero-click searches not as empty traffic, but as unique visibility opportunities.
AI-assisted decision making: ‘Invisible’ influence
More and more consumers are using AI tools like ChatGPT to help them shop online.
According to research by CapGemini, 58% of shoppers have already replaced traditional search engines with generative AI tools to find products and services.
Here’s where search marketing enters the picture.
If your brand has high visibility on AI search tools (i.e., AIs trust your brand and recommend it to users), you could see things like:
- An uptick in direct traffic visits (users going straight to your website)
- More brand searches (users searching for you on Google)
Also, clicks and CTRs don’t catch multi-touch experiences assisted by AI.
An example would be a user seeing an AI recommendation for your product, THEN watching a YouTube video review, and THEN placing an order on Amazon.
In this type of scenario (which is becoming more common), the user didn’t visit your website once, yet they still converted into a paying customer.
That’s what we mean when we say AI search tools can provide ‘invisible influence.’
Brand familiarity via brand mentions and recommendations
This visibility factor ties in with the other two, but it’s distinct because of the importance AI tools place on brand mentions.
Ahrefs discovered that the #1 visibility factor for brands on LLM-powered search tools was the quality of brand mentions they had.
The more LLMs see your brand mentioned on trusted online publications and niche-relevant websites, the more likely they’ll be to recommend your brand to users.
Where Organic Actually Shows Up in the New Marketing Funnel
While traditional SEO metrics no longer show it, there are lots of ways that your organic search presence still drives customers down every stage of your sales funnel.
These include:
- Initial discovery (top-of-the-funnel). Getting cited by AI search tools exposes audiences to your brand, even if they don’t click through to your website right away.
- Re-engagement (middle-of-the-funnel). Once brands know who you are, organic content like blogs, videos, and infographics serves as ‘second touch’ content to keep them engaged once they visit your site.
- Brand validation (bottom-of-the-funnel). Recommendations from LLM-powered search tools help validate your brand and convince audiences to convert.
As you can see, organic search marketing still pays off; it’s just taken on a new form. That’s why new attribution models are a necessity.
The Case for Giving SEO More Credit
Some CMOs may see declining click-through rates as the death of SEO, and may be hesitant to keep investing in it.
However, as we’ve already gone over, CTR is an outdated metric that doesn’t fully reflect the impact organic search content has on marketing ROI.
Here are some crucial points to bring up to your CMO if they’re considering giving SEO the axe.
Behavioral influence
Since so many consumers use LLM-powered assistants to shop online, it’s not surprising to learn that AI has been influencing their decisions.
If you optimize your content for AI search, LLMs will openly recommend your brand to users, which is a powerful position to hold.
For example, let’s ask ChatGPT who the best lawyers are in St. Petersburg, Florida:
These law firms have a serious edge over the competition in their area.
Why?
Because ChatGPT is recommending them!
Also, while this may look like ChatGPT just pulled results straight from Google’s Local Pack, that’s not the case.
Instead, ChatGPT checked legal review sites, law firm websites, and reputable local directories to compile its own list of recommendations.
As such, generating positive reviews and brand mentions are what you need to improve AI visibility.
Assisted conversions
Assisted conversions happen whenever a consumer decides to make a purchase, partially because of an AI recommendation.
This most commonly occurs when users engage in multi-touch experiences, like watching YouTube reviews after AI recommends your brand.
These ‘assists’ play a major role in directing prospects down your sales funnel, so you shouldn’t ignore them.
How to Prove (and Sell) SEO ROI Internally: New Attribution Models
Okay, now it’s time to get to the good stuff.
By now, you should know that organic SEO still contributes to your marketing ROI, but that the existing metrics aren’t enough.
So, how can you actually track things like ‘invisible influence’?
Here are our favorite methods.
Track visibility in AI Overviews and citations
AI search is still very new, so there aren’t many reliable tools out there for analyzing its impact on revenue and lead generation.
Currently, you track your visibility in Google’s AI Overviews using tools from Ahrefs, Semrush, and Keyword.com.
To monitor your brand’s presence on LLM-powered platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity, BrightEdge recently released its AI Catalyst, a dashboard that centralizes AI search visibility.
Here’s a peek at what it looks like:
It’s certainly handy to be able to monitor your brand’s visibility on AI tools in one spot, but it does require a paid subscription.
If you’re looking for a cheaper way to see if you’re getting cited, you can always test things out manually. By that, we mean you simply type in your target prompts to a tool like Perplexity and see if you appear as a source.
If you aren’t showing up at all, it’s clear that you need to try new tactics.
New attribution inputs and weights
In traditional SEO attribution models, the last click carries all the weight.
That’s not the case anymore, so you should spread things out like this:
- 30% AI-fueled discovery (i.e., appearing in AI Overviews and citations)
- 40% AI-assisted conversions (i.e., AI-exposed users navigate to your website to consume content)
- 30% Traditional SEO clicks (i.e., users clicking on organic search results)
This gives a more balanced view of the new way users convert from search exposure.
For data inputs, you should focus on:
- Your share of voice in AI answers compared to competitors
- Your visibility in AI summaries and citations
- Brand recall (branded search volume, lifts in direct traffic, etc.)
- Pairing traffic data with things like surveys (“How did you hear about us?”)
With these in place, you’ll get a much broader (and more realistic) view of the impact your organic search presence has on your bottom line.
Funnel ‘anchors’ for multi-touch experiences
In the current era, measuring traffic isn’t enough. You need to consider the influence of multi-touch experiences in your SEO attribution models.
Here’s how to do that:
- Awareness and initial discovery. Content cited in AI Overviews and summarized by LLMs aids in brand discovery and exposure. Use tools like Ahrefs and BrightEdge to measure your share of voice.
- Engagement and consideration. Exposed users often visit your site through branded search or direct visits. From here, they engage with your content to learn more about your brand. Check for rises in direct traffic and branded searches to measure this.
- Conversion. Prospects decide to convert after discovering your brand through AI, re-engaging with your content, and considering other factors (like YouTube reviews). Overlaying your timelines can help measure this. For instance, check to see if improved visibility in AI Overviews (like appearing as a source for more prompts) correlates to a rise in conversions.
Adding these anchors to your sales funnel will help you realize its full impact.
Wrapping Up: SEO Attribution Chaos
To summarize, the SEO world is experiencing attribution chaos because of how drastically search engines (and user behavior) have changed.
Old metrics no longer paint the full picture, so you need to include the attribution models that we presented in this article.
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