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Hey good folks and happy Wednesday! 

I’ve been thinking a lot about just how much content goals are changing––or need to change. So, this week, a bit of an essay about it, with no exact answers just yet. If you have ideas, I’d love to hear them! 

Let’s dive in.

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Zero-click content, the term coined by the wonderful Amanda Natividad, is proliferating. It used to refer primarily to social media content. And it basically meant that platforms were deprioritizing sending traffic away from them (platforms like LinkedIn, for instance). This meant that posts with links to articles were going to be less effective. They’d get less views, and less engagement as a result. 

This in and of itself was a big shift for marketers. What’s the point in promoting content on a platform if you can’t drive that traffic back to your site?

Well, Amanda and others like her have a lot to say about why zero-click content is critical, not just important, even when you aren’t tracking sessions back to site. 

After all, it’s about visibility and, on social platforms at least, engagement. It’s a brand play, sure, but it goes deep in the funnel, too, as more and more people lean on conversations (with other humans or now with LLMs) to inform their buyer’s journey, not just listicles, analyst firms, or comparison tables. 

Zero-click content as a concept is now making its way into SEO via AEO (or GEO, if you prefer). LLM citations are small and easy to miss.

Even in Google’s own AIO, if you click on a brand name in that overview, it takes you to a branded search with a not-so-ad-looking branded ad right there. I’d venture to guess that companies that are dominating in AIO are seeing less organic search traffic and more branded paid search traffic––simply because of the user journey Google has set up there. 

Sessions, as a result, are no longer a great metric of success for content. And if you are one of those folks who say, “Well, they never were! It was all about conversion and leads and MQLs are a metric instead.” Great. You’re right. And still, those aren’t the best indicator of content success any longer.

And that’s because content is being surfaced as a visibility play. And what you’ll likely see in your attribution metrics is sessions from social and organic going down, while sessions to paid media, direct, referral, or even “other,” going up. 

Content has always had a halo effect, but to really prove its value in 2026, we’re going to need to figure out a way to measure that halo effect. 

AEO tools like those provided by AirOps (what you’ll see in the image below) or Profound can be helpful, but only if your leadership is aligned to how content metrics have changed. Who cares about visibility and being #1 for categorical topics if the primary metrics of success remain sessions?

This is perhaps what is most challenging about this specific moment in content marketing and strategy. Things are changing so quickly with LLMs and Google. Each of us is learning what works and doesn’t in real time, and we need to bring our leaders along in a way that educates and prepares them for a very different way of thinking about content. 

This shift has happened before with social media, though I’d argue that discipline didn’t do the best job at continuing to prove its value beyond sessions. That is still a work in progress. 

Zero-click content is the new landscape. Visibility is the new goal. Halo effects must be common knowledge internally. And attribution? Whew. For content, it might as well be going back to the Mad Men days and needing survey groups to truly understand. 

I don’t have specific answers just yet. But I know the ground has shifted underneath me, and I know that I need to educate those above me to make sure I set myself and my team up for 2026 success. 

And I know that is true for you, too.

A NOTE ON THIS ADVICE

You do you! 

One content marketer’s best practices aren’t always right for another one, though I do try to distill out the main concepts and core practices I believe everyone can benefit from. That said, you must use good judgment when deciding whether to take advice given from folks on the internet. I am an expert, and this advice comes from my direct experience, but I am not smarter than you, and I have nothing to gain or lose because of what you do.

THINGS KEEPING ME CONTENT

• What I’m reading: Still Milk Fed, but also now a new National Geographic that says the very first restaurant opened in Paris in 1765! 
• What I’m buying: I finally did it! I finally bought a Bearaby blanket!! I’ll report back after Christmas! 
• What I’m eating: My brother and his fiancee had their baby shower this past weekend and my mom made salsa for it. There was a lot left over and y’all, I simply cannot stop myself when that stuff is around. Have I gained like 4 pounds? SURE HAVE. But its worth it. 

Thank you so much for reading. Let me know what you think by replying to this email.

Very excited to be here with y’all. 

Tracey

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