No clicks? No problem! How to handle reporting when the traditional numbers keep going down

In this talk, Laura will cover a combination of practical discussion and actionable tips around what is still measurable and useful information in the current landscape, and also advice around the important conversations to have with clients and stakeholders about the changing value of various datapoints.

Transcript

1. No clicks? No problem! How to handle reporting when the traditional numbers keep going down Laura McInley Oban International Speakerdeck.com/lauramcinley
2. 2 This talk will cover: The current digital landscape What matters to measure Approaching the conversation with stakeholders Agenda
3. 3 The current digital landscape
4. Top 3 global sources of brand / product discovery Search still dominates globally TV still matters! Social keeps on climbing 4 Source: GWI, 2025 Q3 vs. 2024, Global audience, excluding WOM Search engines 35.3% | ▲7.6% YoY #1 #2 Ads on TV 31.8% | ▼1.5% YoY #3 AIs such as Chat GPT in #18 Ads on social media 30.8% | ▲3.7% YoY
5. Organic clickthrough rates through time indicate AI features appear to be reducing CTRs 5 https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/aio-impact-on-google-ctr-september-2025-update 2.80% 1.62% 1.19% 0.61% 0.0% 0.5% 1.0% 1.5% 2.0% 2.5% 3.0% 3.5% Oct-24 Nov-24 Dec-24 Jan-25 Feb-25 Mar-25 Apr-25 May-25 Jun-25 Jul-25 Aug-25 Sep-25 Organic CTR (AIO Not Shown) Organic CTR (AIO Shown)
6. Overall, site referrals are down 24% globally 6 Reuters -33% -21% 9% 15% -24% Google Search Google Discover Facebook X Total referrals X Facebook
7. ChatGPT referrals are up, but don’t make up for decreases in traffic from other sources 7 Similarweb 1 25.2 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Referrals (millions) Jan-May 2024 Jan-May 2025
8. Approximately 24% of ChatGPT’s 2.5b daily queries are analogous to search 8 National Bureau of Economic Research, “How People Use ChatGPT” 29% 24% 24% 7% 5% 5% 5% Practical Guidance Seeking Information Writing Multimedia Self-Expression Other/Unknown Technical Help
9. To put that into context… 9 16.4B Daily searches on Google 600M Daily searches on ChatGPT
10. Social media users continue to grow 10 https://datareportal.com/social-media-users 5.66B Social media user identities globally +259m YoY 18H 36M Weekly time spent using social platforms (including video)
12. 12 Users gather information from multiple sources
13. What do we need to know about the overall digital landscape? 13 The landscape is increasingly fractured, with users spending time on a wider range of platforms Traffic is declining for many sites, particularly ones which previously depended on clicks to informational content Search engines remain the primary global source of information on brands and products
14. 14 What matters to measure?
15. 15 What do clicks actually tell us?
16. 16 An indication of how well content appeared to match what users were looking for
17. 17 How valuable is visibility?
18. 18 Opportunity to provide expertise and build relationships
19. 19 Average number of touchpoints per purchase 28.87
21. Get the clicks that are still up for grabs 21 +25% organic clicks compared to without Citation in an AIO is connected with
22. It’s becoming increasingly important to monitor Bing as closely as Google of the global search engine market of SearchGPT citations match Bing’s top 10 organic results 22 https://meetanshi.com/blog/bing-statistics/ https://thedigitalbloom.com/learn/2025-ai-citation-llm-visibility-report/ 4% 87%
23. Don’t forget to consider visibility in other online spaces 23 Source: https://sparktoro.com/blog/new-research-search-happens-everywhere-an-analysis-of-41-websites-with-significant-search-activity/ 80.76 9.76 5.37 3.19 0.91 Q4 2025 Share of Search (US) Traditional Search Engines Commerce Platforms Social Networks AI Tools Other Verticals
24. You have different options for understanding AI visibility 24 SEO tools Log file analysis
26. To understand the value of visibility, you need to understand your audience 26 GWI Gardening enthusiasts age 35+ who care about the environment Men who recently bought a hair styling tool Gen Z users Are more than 2x more likely to… Be daily users of Threads or Quora Use AI or live chat services to research brands or products Find out about new products via ads on mobile games or on music streaming services
27. 27 What about other metrics?
28. 28 Engagement
29. 29 Conversion rate
30. Growth in brand interest can give an indication of how much you’re noticed 30 Source: https://thedigitalbloom.com/learn/2025-ai-citation-llm-visibility-report/ • Branded search volume • Share of voice • Media coverage and off-site mentions 0.334 Correlation between branded search volume and AI visibility
31. 31 Ultimately, there are a huge number of options for measurement… the challenge is choosing the right ones in an ever-changing environment
32. 32 Approaching the conversation
34. 34 What is your site for? What actions do you want users to take? Are those actions measurable?
35. You need a measurement framework 35
36. 36 Understand the real impact of work, and the next steps
37. 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 Clicks 37 We can still see strong keyword uplifts as a result of optimisations Source: GSC Clicks –Aug 2024 to Sept 2025 Implementation ▲2.3K clicks (54% YoY) Position improvement: “chenille geranium” position 6 to 1 with CTR improved by 323% Before implementation
38. Testing to increase conversion rate for key conversions 38 Newsletter signups ‘Buy now’ on target articles Hypothesis: Moving the newsletter CTA higher on the page will increase signups Result: Statistically insignificant uplift Conversion Increase: +63.13% Win Probability: 86.68% Hypothesis: Adding a “Buy Now” CTA to grow guides (currently low-converting pages) will increase usage Result: Statistically significant uplift Conversion Increase: +60.83% Win Probability: 95.67%
39. 39 Look at competitors to benchmark
40. Organic traffic continues to be down for most brand competitors YoY 40 Similarweb, competitor global organic traffic Jul-Sep 2025 YoY Target.com.pl -49% Yates.com.au -38% Daltons.co.nz -21% Client site traffic down 30% YoY
41. 41 Contextualise results within the framework of user behaviours
42. Understanding where users are searching helps prioritise activity and reporting 42 Ahrefs, Brand Radar AI Mode AIOs ChatGPT Google Search Total Planning 139 66 41 913 1159 Touring 92 24 29 113 258 Discovery 185 139 2 195 521 Total 416 229 72 1221 1938
44. 44 Bear in mind both what you want to achieve, and where you can have the most influence over the outcome
45. 45 • Early • Often
46. To sum up… 46 Everything is changing, all the time! Know what your site needs to do and measure that specifically Keep a close eye on the data and keep the lines of dialogue open
47. Thank you for your time!