Keynote: Marketing in the Zero Click world

In the keynote address of FTA Global's Marketing Stack Summit 2025, Amanda Natividad, VP of Marketing at SparkToro, explored what it means to market in a zero click world. Clicks are disappearing, but attention is not. Platforms today prioritize on-platform engagement. Posts with outbound links are penalized. Even when users click, referral data often disappears, breaking attribution. Marketers are not failing. The system has changed.

Amanda explained how Google has entered its zero click era. Most answers appear directly in search results or AI overviews. Nearly 60% of searches end without a click, and many that do go to Google’s own platforms like YouTube or Maps. Social media platforms follow the same pattern. Native posts thrive, external links get buried. Facebook even advises creators to post links in comments to avoid reach drops. The result is invisible brand interactions and broken analytics.

But content marketing isn’t dead. It’s evolving. Amanda outlined how marketers must now measure success differently. Instead of chasing click-through rates or form fills, focus on branded search lift, direct traffic growth, earned mentions, and the quality and speed of conversions. Most buying decisions happen long before someone visits a website.

Zero click marketing is about long-term visibility. Consistent presence builds recognition, and repeated exposure creates trust. Amanda reminded marketers of the “rule of seven” which talks about how buyers need multiple touchpoints before making a purchase. Distinct points of view and authentic ideas travel farther than links. Shareability now matters more than linkability.

She also urged marketers to rethink the funnel as a brand vortex. Instead of moving users step-by-step from awareness to conversion, brands should pull audiences in through continuous engagement. The goal is attraction, familiarity, trust, and eventual intent. People spend more time on social and productivity apps than on search, so marketers must meet them where they are.

Amanda closed with a call to prioritize resonance over rankings. Keyword research alone no longer drives growth. It must pair with audience research i.e. understanding who your audience is, where they spend time, and what they care about. She shared SparkToro’s toolkit that blends qualitative and quantitative insights through social listening, community analysis, surveys, and predictive analytics. Her message was practical: validate ideas, lead with a point of view, and create content that earns recognition, not just traffic.

In a zero click world, Amanda concluded, the brands that stay visible, cited, and trusted are the ones that win.