The marketing budgets that Gartner tracked this year grew by one-tenth of a percentage point. Over roughly the same stretch, the share of Google searches that end without a single click climbed to 68%. Put those two facts side by side and you get the real story of 2026: businesses are being asked to win more attention with almost the same money, in a place where fewer people click through to a website.
Key Takeaways
- Rankings no longer guarantee traffic. 68% of US Google searches now end without a click, and AI Overviews cut the click-through rate of the top result by about 58%. Track leads, calls and bookings next to traffic.
- Budgets are flat, but AI spending is rising. Gartner found marketing budgets at 7.8% of revenue, while only 30% of CMOs say their teams are ready to scale AI. Fix tracking, data and ownership before buying more tools.
- Reviews now decide who gets considered. 97% of consumers read local reviews, 47% avoid businesses with fewer than 20, and 74% care only about the last three months. Ask for reviews steadily and reply to every one.
- AI tools are becoming a discovery channel. Your reviews, listings and website facts shape what they say about your business, so keep them accurate and current.
- Original content wins. Add your own data, examples and experience, because generic summaries are what AI answers replace first.
- Measure with several signals. Use a “How did you hear about us?” question, call tracking, GA4 conversions and branded search growth to see what marketing really earns.
- Do not neglect existing customers. Retention gets less than 15% of media spend, yet repeat buyers cost less and bring the fresh reviews you need.
- A 90-day plan works better than an overhaul. Audit in the first 30 days, fix and build in the next 30, then grow and measure.
The 2026 picture in plain words
HubSpot’s 2026 State of Marketing report, based on a survey of more than 1,500 marketers, found that 61% of marketers believe the industry is going through its biggest disruption in 20 years. That feeling is easy to understand. Search results now answer questions on their own page, buyers ask AI tools for recommendations, and review sites decide whether a business even makes the shortlist.
None of this makes digital marketing less useful. It does change where the work has to happen. The six problems below are the ones we see most often, and each one comes with a practical fix.
Problem 1: Search now gives answers, not clicks
For years, the formula was simple: rank on page one, get traffic, turn some of it into leads. That chain has weakened in the middle. A 2026 study by SparkToro and Similarweb found that 68% of US Google searches ended without a click to any website, up from about 60% in 2024. The same study noted that AI Overviews now appear on more than 20% of searches.
The effect on top-ranking pages is large. Ahrefs looked at 300,000 keywords and found that when an AI Overview appears, the click-through rate for the first organic result falls by about 58%. A separate field experiment by Search Engine Journal randomly assigned users to see AI Overviews or not. It found that outbound organic clicks fell 38% on the queries where an Overview appeared, and zero-click searches rose from 54% to 72%. Users were not more satisfied with their results either, which suggests the click loss is not simply a sign that people found what they needed.
It is worth keeping this in proportion. These numbers are strongest for informational searches, such as definitions and general how-to questions. A person searching for “emergency plumber near me” or comparing two accountants behaves differently from a person checking what a term means. If your business depends mostly on people with a clear need, you are less exposed than a publisher living on explainer traffic.
Illustrative example. Picture a dental clinic that ranks first for “what is a root canal.” Its traffic report looks healthy for two years, then drops sharply even though the ranking has not moved. Meanwhile, bookings from people who search for “dentist near me” stay steady. The clinic had been counting visits from an informational page that never produced many patients anyway. The drop hurt the dashboard more than it hurt the business.
What is working:
- Stop judging search only by sessions. Track impressions, branded search volume, calls, form fills and booked appointments next to traffic.
- Write pages that a person or an AI system can quote: a direct answer in the first two sentences, followed by the detail, the exceptions and your own experience.
- Add information nobody else has, such as your own pricing ranges, timelines, process photos or customer data. Generic summaries are the first thing an AI answer replaces.
- Treat local and commercial pages (service pages, Google Business Profile, directories) as the core of search, because those are the searches where people still click and call.
- Look at Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) as an extension of good SEO: clear structure, consistent facts across the web, and content that answers real questions.
Problem 2: Flat budgets and big AI bets
Gartner’s 2026 CMO Spend Survey, which covered 401 marketing leaders and ran from January to March, found that marketing budgets sit at 7.8% of company revenue, compared with 7.7% the year before. In the same survey, CMOs put an average of 15.3% of their budgets into AI initiatives, yet only 30% said their teams have mature capabilities to scale it, and 70% said their internal processes are not ready.
Read those figures together and a pattern appears. Money is moving into AI from somewhere else, and many teams are buying tools before they have fixed the basics underneath: clean customer data, clear ownership and a way to measure results. One caution on the source: most respondents worked at companies with more than $1 billion in revenue, according to MarTech’s coverage of the survey. Smaller businesses face the same pressure with far less room for expensive mistakes.
What is working:
- Pick two or three tasks where AI saves real hours, such as first drafts of routine content, keyword grouping or reporting summaries. Prove the value before adding more tools.
- Keep a person responsible for checking facts, tone and brand voice. Buyers notice generic writing quickly.
- Fix the unglamorous parts first: a tidy CRM, consistent tracking in GA4, and a single source for customer details.
- Review tool subscriptions every quarter and drop anything the team does not use weekly.
Problem 3: Reviews have become a gate, not a bonus
Reviews used to help a business look good. In 2026 they decide whether a business gets considered at all. BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, which asked 1,002 US adults, found that 97% of consumers read reviews for local businesses and 41% always read them, up from 29% the year before. The same research reports that 47% of consumers will not use a business with fewer than 20 reviews, and 74% only care about reviews written in the last three months.
Two more findings matter for how you run day-to-day operations. According to BrightLocal’s data, 80% of consumers are more likely to use a business that replies to all its reviews, good and bad. And the way people find businesses is shifting: 45% now ask an AI assistant for local recommendations, up from 6% a year earlier, though BrightLocal’s AI follow-up report found that 88% of those users double-check the source or legitimacy before acting.
That last point deserves attention. AI tools build their answers partly from what the web already says about a business, including reviews, directory listings and news. If those sources are thin, outdated or negative, an AI summary will reflect it. A buyer then verifies the answer by looking at your reviews, so the loop closes on your reputation either way.
Illustrative example. A home-services company has a 4.8 rating built over five years, but only a handful of reviews from the last six months. A competitor with a 4.5 rating and a steady stream of fresh reviews gets chosen more often, because recent feedback tells buyers the business is active today.
What is working:
- Ask for reviews at the moment a job ends, when satisfaction is highest, and make it a routine step, not a campaign.
- Reply to every review in a human voice. Half of consumers in BrightLocal’s data dislike templated replies, so skip the copy-paste answers.
- Check what AI tools and search results say about your brand once a month, and correct wrong facts at the source.
- Keep records of fake or unfair reviews and report them through each platform’s official process. A reputation partner can help when negative content is serious or keeps resurfacing.
Problem 4: Content gets published and nothing happens
Producing content is no longer the hard part. AI tools made first drafts cheap. HubSpot’s data shows that about a third of marketers name creating content that earns engagement as their top content challenge, ahead of finding ideas or keeping a schedule. When everyone can publish quickly, the content that stands out is the content that shows real experience.
This is also where Google’s own quality guidance points. Its questions for self-assessing content ask whether a page offers original information, goes beyond the obvious, and is something a reader would want to bookmark or share. A page that rewrites the top five search results does not meet that bar, however well it is polished.
What is working:
- Start each piece with a real question from a customer, a sales call or a support ticket.
- Add something only you can add: a worked example, a number from your own data, a photo, a mistake you made and what you changed.
- Publish fewer, deeper pieces and update them when facts change. One thorough guide that stays current usually beats ten thin posts.
- Put a named author with real credentials on each article so readers know who is speaking.
Problem 5: Proving what marketing actually earns
In HubSpot’s research on what marketing leaders expect to struggle with in 2026, measuring return on investment came first at 33%, ahead of keeping up with trends and generating quality leads. Fewer clicks make this harder. When a buyer reads an AI answer, sees your name, searches for you directly a week later and then calls, the analytics tool records a branded search or a direct visit, and the earlier influence disappears from the report.
Businesses that handle this well stop expecting a perfect trail. They collect several imperfect signals and read them together.
What is working:
- Add a “How did you hear about us?” question to every enquiry form and ask it on sales calls. The answers often name sources your analytics never shows, such as AI tools, podcasts or a friend’s recommendation.
- Use call tracking and set up conversion events properly through Google Tag Manager and GA4, so a lead is counted as a lead and not as a page view.
- Watch branded search volume and direct traffic month by month. A steady rise often means awareness work is paying off.
- Report on leads, qualified leads and revenue per channel, and keep traffic as a supporting number.
Problem 6: Existing customers get the smallest share of attention
Gartner’s survey also shows where media money is heading. As reported by ContentGrip, awareness and conversion account for 62.6% of media spend in 2026, while loyalty and retention make up less than 15%. Spending that heavily on finding new buyers, in a year when clicks are harder to win, means every new customer costs more than it used to.
The quieter option is to look after the people who already bought. Repeat customers cost less to reach, they leave the fresh reviews that Problem 3 depends on, and word of mouth still carries more weight than almost any paid message.
What is working:
- Send a useful email series after purchase, covering setup, tips and a check-in, before any promotion.
- Ask happy customers for a review and a referral at a natural point in the relationship.
- Segment your list by what people bought, so messages feel relevant.
- Track repeat purchase rate and referral share as regular numbers in your monthly report.
A practical 90-day plan
Businesses that feel overwhelmed by the list above usually do better with a short, ordered plan than with a big overhaul. Here is one sequence that works for most small and mid-sized companies.
Days 1 to 30: see clearly. Audit your tracking, your Google Business Profile, your review count and recency, and what AI tools and search results currently say about you. Write down the five questions customers ask most.
Days 31 to 60: fix and build. Repair tracking gaps, set up a routine for review requests and replies, and publish or rewrite your most important service pages so they answer those five questions directly and include your own evidence.
Days 61 to 90: grow and measure. Add content and outreach around what is gaining traction, start a retention email sequence, and review the results against leads and revenue, not traffic alone. Decide what to continue, change or stop.
Mistakes that cost businesses time and money
A few errors show up repeatedly. Teams chase every new platform instead of doing two or three channels well. They publish at volume with no review from someone who knows the subject. They judge SEO after four weeks, when most work needs more time to show up. And they treat reputation as something to deal with only after a bad review appears, instead of building it all year.
How ReputaForge can help
If you want a partner to handle these problems systematically, ReputaForge’s digital marketing services cover the areas this article discusses. The team works across on-page and off-page SEO, local SEO, link building, GEO and AEO, content and blogging, social media and paid marketing.
Because ReputaForge started as an online reputation management company, it also pairs marketing with review management, local listings and brand monitoring. That combination fits the reputation and AI-visibility issues described above, where a strong campaign can be undone by weak or outdated reviews.
Packages are built in three steps. Ember focuses on establishing your online presence with SEO, local SEO, GEO and AEO, content and tracking. Anvil adds guest blogging, listings, conversion optimization, video and digital PR. Apex adds email nurturing, podcast marketing, paid advertising and eCommerce SEO. ReputaForge says most businesses see meaningful SEO movement in about 3 to 6 months, depending on competition and site condition, which matches how long this kind of work normally takes.
Ready to look at your own numbers? Partner with us through ReputaForge’s digital marketing page and talk to an expert about what to prioritize first for your business.
Frequently asked questions
Question: Is SEO still worth the investment if clicks are falling?
Answer: Yes, with adjusted expectations. Search is still where people with a clear need look for providers, and AI tools draw on well-structured, trustworthy web content. The shift is from chasing traffic volume to earning visibility, trust and enquiries.
Question: What is the difference between GEO and AEO?
Answer: Answer Engine Optimization focuses on making your content easy for search features and AI assistants to quote as a direct answer. Generative Engine Optimization is the wider practice of making sure your brand and facts show up accurately in AI-generated responses. Both rely on clear writing, consistent information across the web and real expertise.
Question: How much should a business spend on marketing?
Answer: Gartner’s 2026 average is 7.8% of company revenue, but that figure comes mostly from large companies. Smaller and newer businesses often spend a higher share while they are building awareness. Start from your growth goal and your margin, then adjust using lead and revenue results.
Question: How many reviews do I need?
Answer: BrightLocal’s survey found that 47% of consumers will not use a business with fewer than 20 reviews, and recent reviews matter more than old ones. Aim for a steady monthly flow instead of a one-time push.
Question: Where should a small business start?
Answer: Begin with tracking, your Google Business Profile and your review routine. Those three give you accurate data and the trust signals buyers check first. Add content and paid campa
