Zero Click Marketing is a marketing strategy podcast about content marketing, audience research, and how brands grow when clicks matter less. Hosted by Amanda Natividad, Chief Evangelist at SparkToro, the show explores how marketers reach audiences, build influence, and earn attention in a zero-click internet. New to the show? Start with Episode 2: What Zero Click Marketing Actually Is.
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
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
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 — plus a few practical ways to get started without spending much money or time. This episode is an expansion of my blog post, “ Best Practices Are Meaningless Without Audience Research .” Timestamps: 00:00 How best practices turn into beige marketing 01:27 The antidote: audience research 02:01 The Fitbit example and the real B2B challenge 03:43 Good marketers have always done some version of this 05:08 More examples: marketers, skincare, and sports betting 06:36 How to start doing audience research 07:40 How to spot patterns faster 09:38 Best practices only tell you the format 10:05 How audience research improves taste 11:02 Best practices get you on the field. Audience research helps you win. You can do audience research with all kinds of tools and networks like Google Trends, Exploding Topics, Reddit, and of course, my launch sponsor, 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
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 track whether the public story around your brand is getting stronger over time. It’s a practical episode about reputation, visibility, and what marketers can still influence in a world of fragmented discovery. This episode pairs nicely with the previous week’s “Why Better Attribution Won’t Fix Your Measurement Problem.” You might want to check that one out after this one. :) Timestamps: 00:00 Why your brand’s public record matters 02:00 The 7-step playbook 02:35 Audit the story the internet is already telling about you 04:00 Treat third-party services as an extension of your brand 05:25 Separate weak claims from strong facts 07:22 Make your content easy to retrieve, cite, and summarize 09:01 Measure whether your public record is getting stronger Resources: Wil Reynolds’s “ GEO Experiment: How AI highlighted the 1 bad review we got in 24 years ” Ross Simmonds’s “ Reddit’s Impact on B2B Search ” study Search Engine Land’s “ Why your content doesn’t appear in AI Overviews ” Alertmouse for brand monitoring SparkToro for audience research 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
A lot of marketers say they want better measurement. Usually, what they really want is cleaner attribution. In this episode, I argue that those are two different jobs. Attribution tends to reward the channel that captured demand once the buyer was already in motion. SparkToro's latest research proves that influence happens everywhere. So what we really need is better measurement — to help us understand lift: are more people searching for you, remembering you, mentioning you, and showing up ready to buy? If you confuse the two, you’ll keep overvaluing what’s easiest to credit and underestimating what actually drives demand. Timestamps: 00:00 The real problem: buyers are influenced before the click 01:41 Attribution vs. measurement: two different jobs 04:33 Stop giving the wrong channels all the credit... 05:10 ...because influence happens everywhere! 08:05 Why measurement needs to get broader and simpler 09:30 Why we (accidentally?) end up starving our demand creation channels 10:47 Measurement needs to grow up. 11:24 Next week: influencing the public record 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
