TL;DR: Declining web traffic and CTR aren’t signs of failing performance — they’re symptoms of AI-driven discovery. To keep up, marketers need to stop over-relying on top-of-funnel metrics and start tracking AI visibility while optimizing the channels they own. Here’s how it’s done.
On a recent episode of The Visibility Brief, Yext SVP of Marketing Rebecca Colwell sat down with Tim Rickards, Senior Director of Value Consulting at Yext, to unpack one of the most uncomfortable truths marketers are facing right now: the KPIs we’ve grown to trust don’t tell a complete story anymore.
But often, the problem isn’t actually marketing performance; it’s that discovery has changed, and the way we measure success hasn’t caught up yet.
What’s happening to trusted marketing KPIs?
AI didn’t just change search — it changed customer behavior.
Today, buyers can research and evaluate options without ever going to a brand’s website. Whether they're using ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, or AI-powered search summaries, early-stage questions get answered before a click ever happens.
That means:
- Fewer impressions at the top of the funnel
- Fewer clicks from search results
- Less visibility into how (and where) buyers are forming opinions
From a customer perspective, this is great. They’re getting direct answers to their questions without clicking anything. From a marketer’s perspective? It’s unsettling.
AI now satisfies early-stage buyer needs
One of the biggest drivers of declining click-through rates is the rise of “good enough” answers.
AI often provides a:
- Clear response to a basic question
- Synthesized comparison across brands
- Deeper back-and-forth conversation
But there’s a tradeoff.
When users get what they need immediately, there’s no reason to visit your site — even if your content powered the answer. That doesn’t mean your content isn’t working; it means it’s working upstream, in places you can’t fully see.
The marketing funnel isn’t disappearing — it’s flattening
AI made what marketers have known for years unavoidable: the funnel was never linear. And what's changed isn't buyer intent — it's where intent forms.
What’s happening now:
- Discovery is broader and harder to track
- Early- and mid-funnel activity happens off-site
The part of the funnel you can measure is the part you own, and that’s the root of today’s reporting gap. So what does this mean to our meticulously curated dashboards?
Clicks still provide value, but they no longer represent total interest. Rather, they represent the moment someone crosses into a channel you control.
For marketers who have been following Google's rules for twenty years, that's a big shift.
Which metrics still matter (and which matter less)?
In the AI era, context matters more than ever, and that needs to be considered when deciding which metrics to focus on. So what should marketers do?
Stop over-indexing on:
- Click-through rate as the primary indicator of success
- Top-of-funnel traffic as a proxy for brand interest
Double down on:
- Conversion performance on owned pages
- Actions that indicate real intent (calls, form fills, map clicks)
Long-trusted KPIs aren’t meaningless; they’re just incomplete.
To get the whole story, we need to analyze performance through a few new lenses:
- AI visibility – Does your brand appear in AI-generated answers?
- Share of voice vs. competitors – How often are you mentioned versus others?
- Citation rate — How often is your brand referenced as a source?
AI visibility measures whether your brand appears or is referenced in AI-generated answers across search engines and assistants — even when no click occurs. Your goal is not just marketing anymore; it’s becoming a source of truth.
Where should marketers start?
Marketers are used to controlling their narrative. Now goals are split between marketing a brand and being selected as a source.
Here are three things your team should start differently right now, if you haven’t already:
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Optimize content for AI, not cleverness: Clear, factual, well-structured content wins. There are now two Internets — one for humans and one for bots — and you need to serve both.
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Build authority through consistency and sourcing: Original insights, strong citations, and repeatable messaging increase trust — even when your content is surfaced secondhand.
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Distribute beyond your website: AI models pull from many places. Make sure your brand’s “truth” exists everywhere that matters, not just on your own domain.
AI is forcing marketers to rethink our playbook
The teams that win won't be the ones clinging to familiar dashboards; they'll be the ones redefining visibility, measurement, and influence from the ground up.
Want to learn more? Listen to The Visibility Brief podcast, Measuring What Matters in an AI-first World wherever you get your podcasts: [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]
