I’ve been thinking about a recent SparkToro article, where they mentioned 68% of searches now end up without a click to a vendor website. That’s less than one-third of Google searches now send clicks, and we can’t do anything about it.
We need to accept the fact that demand generation can happen without an organic search visit to your website, especially with AI tools used for product discovery. The days when we measured clicks and conversions using last-touch attribution are over. Technology buyers (and buyers in other sectors as well) don’t behave like that anymore.
Here’s a more realistic journey:
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See your LinkedIn post
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Hear about you on a podcast
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Research your brand in Claude, ChatGPT or any other LLM
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Read a Reddit discussion
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Attend a webinar
…and then weeks later search for your company directly or just book a demo using type-in traffic. And even tracking cookies may be already deleted, not talking about anti-tracking tools in browsers.
The precise funnel tracking is gone, it’s not 2016 anymore. Accept the reality; the channel that created demand is often very different from the channel that captured it. Instead of asking:
“Which channel generated this lead?”
I think B2B companies’ CMOs should ask:
“What signals tend to increase before pipeline increases?”
Yes, these will be vanity metrics, and I was for years against tracking them, especially after my first Google Analytics Individual Qualification back in 2009. But many influential channels (LinkedIn, podcasts, communities, AI answers, webinars, word of mouth, analyst mentions) create demand that shows up somewhere else later. Therefore, instead of measuring KPIs incorrectly, making unrealistic assumptions and budget allocation decisions, it is better to use vanity metrics and look for correlations with pipeline. Some examples I can think of:
✅ LinkedIn reach
✅ Webinar attendance
✅ AI citations and mentions
✅ Branded search volume
✅ Direct traffic
✅ Community mentions (Reddit, Slack, forums)
Then track how these metrics correlate with opportunities and revenue 30, 60, or 90 days later.
Some wild guesses from my B2B tech experience:
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Webinar attendance will predict pipeline better than overall website traffic.
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Branded search growth will predict revenue better than SEO clicks.
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AI visibility will become a stronger leading indicator than rankings.
The future marketing dashboard won’t have channels and conversions. It will be a correlation dashboard helping marketers answer: “Which signals move together before pipeline and revenue increase?”
