Here's the uncomfortable truth: the PPC playbook that worked from 2015-2023 is breaking.
Not because you're doing anything wrong. Because the game changed. AI search didn't just add a new placement to optimize. It fundamentally altered how people discover, research, and decide.
The Old Model Is Breaking
The traditional PPC model assumed something fundamental: people click. Each funnel stage was defined by clicks. Traffic came to your site, you tracked it, you optimized for it.
The 2025 reality:
- • 60% of Google searches end without a click
- • Mobile zero-click rate: 77%
- • When AI Overviews appear, only ~1% of users click through to source sites
- • AI assistants answer questions before users ever reach a search engine
The funnel didn't just shrink. The top of it moved somewhere you don't own.
What Changed
Awareness happens inside search, not after the click
When someone asks ChatGPT "what's the best CRM for small businesses," they're getting awareness, consideration, and sometimes even decision — all in one response. No website visit. No pixel fire. No remarketing pool.
Brand visibility became more valuable than traffic volume
If your brand is mentioned (positively) when 1,000 people ask an AI about your category, that's brand exposure you can't measure in Google Analytics. It might be more valuable than 1,000 website visits from generic keywords.
The consideration phase collapsed
AI synthesizes research that used to take 10+ site visits. A user who would have clicked 5 competitors' comparison pages now gets a summary in one AI response. By the time they click, they've already decided.
First-party data became survival-critical
If users aren't coming to your site, you're not building audiences. The brands with existing customer data have a massive advantage.
1. Rethink Your Success Metrics
If 60% of searches don't click, optimizing purely for CTR and CPA is optimizing for 40% of your opportunity.
Add these to your KPIs:
- Brand search lift: Does branded search volume increase when you're active in a category?
- AI citation rate: How often is your brand mentioned in AI responses for target queries?
- Impression share in high-value positions: Being seen matters more when clicks are scarce.
- Conversion quality over quantity: With fewer but more qualified clicks, your conversion rate should increase.
- Assisted conversions: AI-influenced users may touch multiple channels before converting.
This doesn't mean abandoning CPA and ROAS. It means understanding that those metrics now capture a smaller slice of your actual impact.
2. Restructure Your Campaigns
The funnel collapse means you need campaigns that work across the entire journey, not just at the bottom.
The AI-era structure:
Layer 1: Brand defense
Branded search (required), branded + category terms ("your brand" + "vs" queries). Purpose: Capture demand you've already created.
Layer 2: Intent capture
High-intent non-branded keywords, exact and phrase match where you have historical data, AI Max for broader match expansion (with careful monitoring). Purpose: Capture in-market buyers.
Layer 3: Visibility investment
Performance Max (with brand exclusions), Demand Gen campaigns, YouTube for category awareness. Purpose: Build awareness and stay present across touchpoints.
Layer 4: First-party amplification
Customer Match campaigns, lookalike/similar audiences, remarketing to high-value segments. Purpose: Leverage your data advantage.
The key shift: Layers 3 and 4 are no longer optional "if budget allows" additions. They're core to maintaining visibility in a zero-click world.
Build Your First-Party Data Advantage
When you can't track users across sites and AI answers questions without clicks, the data you own becomes your moat.
Prioritize:
- Email acquisition: Offer genuine value in exchange for email. Gated content, tools, calculators.
- Customer Match audiences: Your existing customer list is gold. Build lookalike audiences.
- CRM integration: Connect your CRM to Google Ads. Import offline conversions.
- Server-side tracking: Browser-based tracking is increasingly unreliable. Implement Enhanced Conversions.
Reserve 10-15% of budget for experimentation: Testing new campaign types (AI Max, Demand Gen), experimenting with new platforms (Microsoft Copilot ads, ChatGPT when available), AI visibility investment (content optimized for GEO), measurement innovation (incrementality tests, MMM pilots).
The bottom line: The AI search era doesn't require you to throw out everything you know. What's changed is where "the right time" happens (increasingly, before the click), what "the right people" looks like (harder to identify with limited tracking), and what "the right message" needs to accomplish (compete with AI, not just other ads). The playbook changed. Time to update yours.
