Citations Are The New Clicks: The Metric Your Marketing Company Isn’t Tracking
Ready Or Not, AI Search Is Here
Your current marketing company is tracking the wrong metrics. They’re a large digital marketing company with many systems and employees who learned about search the old way.
The old SEO and search techniques don’t work anymore. They’re like disco, cassette players, and newspapers – outdated.
Companies like Thrive, Hibu, and Yellowpages give you stats on website traffic. They report on search rankings for important keywords, conversion rates, bounce rates, and session duration.
They also tell you how many people clicked on your website from Google.
But all this data is becoming less relevant. It measures a customer journey that doesn’t reflect how most people find businesses today.
The metric that really matters now is one that most marketing companies aren’t tracking. It’s how often your business is cited and recommended by AI search tools when potential customers ask related questions.
Let me explain why this is a game-changer.
The Death of the Click
For over 20 years, the digital marketing industry was built on a simple idea: get people to click on your website from search results. The more relevant clicks you got, the more leads and customers you’d have.
Every strategy and tactic was designed to get as many clicks as possible. Search engine optimization was about getting a high ranking so people would click on your link.
Pay-per-click ads meant paying for each click. Content marketing was about creating content that was compelling enough to get people to click and read it.
The idea was that clicks would lead to sales.
If you could get enough qualified visitors to your site, some of them would become customers.
Success in marketing was measured by how well you could turn clicks into revenue.
But this model is disappearing fast.
Research by Dan Monaghan in “The AI Search Revolution” shows that over 60% of searches now don’t result in anyone clicking on a website.
This is a big change from just a few years ago, when most searches did lead to clicks.
This trend is getting stronger. Google’s AI Overviews appear in almost half of all searches for information.
ChatGPT handles over a billion queries every day. Other AI search tools like Perplexity and Claude are growing rapidly in popularity.
These AI systems all have one thing in common: they answer questions directly, without making users click through to websites. They take information from many sources, put it together in a clear answer, and let the user move forward without visiting the source websites.
The Rise of the Citation
In this new environment, visibility is no longer about clicks, it’s about citations.
When someone asks AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google’s AI for business recommendations in your category, they generate a response.
This response often mentions a few specific businesses by name, quotes their reviews, and explains why they’re good choices based on the person’s needs.
I refer to being mentioned in this AI-generated response as a citation. It means your business is seen as a relevant and credible option for what the person is looking for.
Citations have become the new measure of visibility because they show actual exposure to potential customers who are actively searching for what you offer.
When an AI tool cites your business, it’s recommending you to someone who has already shown interest by asking a question.
The person receiving this recommendation trusts the AI’s judgment because they believe it has evaluated multiple sources and provided the best answer.
Research shows that people see AI-generated recommendations as more objective and comprehensive than traditional search results.
If your business gets cited, you’re considered by the customer. If you don’t get cited, you’re not even part of their decision-making process.
Why Traditional Metrics Are Misleading You
Here’s the problem that keeps me up at night, staring at the ceiling…
Most marketing companies still use metrics from the old click-based model to measure success.
They show you that your website traffic is steady or growing, that you rank well for important keywords, and that your page load speed and mobile responsiveness are improving.
These numbers might look good, and you might feel like your marketing is working because of the positive results your marketing company is showing you.
But here’s the thing: these metrics don’t show you if AI search tools are citing your business.
They don’t tell you if your competitors are being recommended to potential customers while you’re not. They also don’t show that most people searching for businesses like yours don’t click on websites because they get their answers from AI.
You can be ranked #1 on Google for your top keywords and still lose market share if AI tools aren’t mentioning you.
You can have great website analytics, but still miss out on most potential customers who use AI search instead of traditional Google search.
The problem is that traditional metrics are measuring how you’re doing in a game that’s no longer the most important one.
What Citation Frequency Actually Measures
Citation frequency is easy to understand. It’s how often your business is mentioned when AI systems answer relevant questions.
For example, if someone asks ChatGPT for HVAC companies in Cincinnati that do emergency repairs, does your business get mentioned?
If someone asks Perplexity for personal injury lawyers in their area who handle car accidents, is your name included?
If someone uses Google’s AI search to find a financial advisor, does the AI mention your firm?
A high citation frequency means AI systems see your business as relevant, credible, and worthy of recommendation for the questions potential customers are asking.
On the other hand, a low or zero citation frequency means your business is not visible to customers using these AI tools.
This metric is closely related to generating leads, and it’s more effective than traditional website traffic. Businesses with high AI citation frequency are getting 40% to 60% more qualified leads than those with similar traditional SEO performance but low citation frequency.
The reason for this is simple. When an AI tool recommends your business to someone who asked a specific question, it’s a warm lead.
The AI has already endorsed your credibility, so the person contacting you is already interested in your services.
They’re reaching out because the AI said you’re a good fit, not just because you ranked well in search results.
The AI Visibility Funnel
Dan Monaghan introduces the AI Visibility Funnel in his book, which has helped me understand what’s happening in this transition.
The traditional marketing funnel was based on the idea that awareness leads to consideration, and then conversion. To create awareness, you drove traffic to your website.
To support consideration, you provided information. To drive conversion, you used calls to action.
The AI Visibility Funnel is different and has three stages: discovery, synthesis, and recommendation.
In the discovery stage, AI systems gather information about businesses from various sources like websites, review platforms, social media, forums, news articles, and more.
This is similar to how search engines index websites, but AI systems look at a wider range of sources and evaluate different signals.
In the synthesis stage, AI systems process the gathered information to understand what each business does, who they serve, and what makes them credible.
The E-E-A-T framework is crucial here, as AI systems assess experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness to determine their confidence in citing each business.
In the recommendation stage, when a user asks a question, the AI generates a response by selecting the most relevant and credible businesses for that query.
The businesses that get mentioned are the ones that succeed in the AI Visibility Funnel.
The key insight is that success in this funnel isn’t about getting people to visit your website.
It’s about being discoverable, understandable, and trustworthy to AI systems, so they can confidently cite you when relevant questions are asked.
Why Big Platforms Can’t Optimize for Citations Yet
I want to be upfront about something that impacts most small business owners I speak with.
If you’re using Thryv, Vivial, Hibu, or another large marketing platform, they likely aren’t optimizing you for AI citation frequency. In fact, they may not even be tracking it.
They’re still focused on the click-based model because that’s how their systems were designed.
This isn’t due to a lack of competence or caring. It’s just that optimizing for citations requires a different approach than optimizing for clicks.
To optimize for citations, you need customized schema markup for your specific business. You also need content formatted in a way that AI systems can easily understand and reference.
Building trust across multiple platforms and continually testing and refining based on what AI systems say about your business is also necessary.
The problem is that large platforms rely on standardization and templates to serve thousands of clients with minimal customization.
Citation optimization, on the other hand, requires customized work that can’t be easily templated.
By the time these platforms develop and roll out their AI optimization services, businesses that adapted sooner will already be established as the recommended names by AI tools.
Once this positioning is established, it’s very hard to change.
I’ve seen this pattern before when I owned my cleaning company and worked with Vivial.
Every major shift in digital marketing followed the same timeline – Vivial was always six to nine months behind.
By the time they caught up, my competitors who had better partners had already gained the advantage.
What Mader Marketing Does Differently
At Mader Marketing, we use AI citation frequency as a key metric to measure success for each client.
We regularly test how AI systems like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google’s AI respond when asked for business recommendations in a client’s category and location.
We compare how often our clients are mentioned versus their competitors and analyze what the AI systems say about them.
We identify any gaps in the AI’s understanding and address them through targeted content and schema improvements.
This approach is not an add-on to traditional SEO, but rather the foundation of our digital marketing strategy in 2026.
While traditional SEO elements are still important, they support our main goal of making our clients worthy of citation by AI systems.
To achieve this, we optimize schema markup so AI systems can clearly understand what each client does, who they serve, and where they operate.
We structure content in a way that makes it easy for AI to extract and cite, using clear hierarchies and direct answers.
We also build trust signals that give AI systems confidence in recommending our clients.
Additionally, we create a presence across multiple platforms, as AI systems gather information from a wide range of sources beyond just business websites.
The results are clear: our clients who have transitioned from platforms like Thryv are seeing significant increases in qualified leads, even if their website traffic remains flat or declines.
These leads are also warmer and more ready to buy, thanks to being pre-sold by AI recommendations.
The Question You Need to Ask
If you remember one thing from this article, remember this.
Ask your marketing company a simple question: How often do AI search tools mention my business, and how does that compare to my competitors?
If they can provide you with specific numbers and examples of what AI systems are saying about your business, that’s a positive sign.
If they can’t answer or change the subject to traditional metrics, that’s a concern.
You’re paying for marketing services that don’t prioritize the kind of visibility that matters today.
You’re using metrics that don’t accurately predict whether you’re succeeding or failing in the market where your customers make decisions.
There’s already a big difference between businesses that AI systems frequently mention and those that are ignored. This gap is growing every month.
Businesses that recognize this change and adapt quickly will gain a competitive edge that will last for years.
What You Should Do Next
Start by understanding your current standing in AI citations.
Open tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google’s AI search and ask a question that a potential customer might ask about businesses like yours in your location.
Check if your business is mentioned and which competitors are cited instead. Also, see what the AI tools say about these competitors and why they are recommended.
This simple test will give you a better idea of your competitive position than traditional analytics reports can in months.
Next, honestly assess whether your current marketing partner can help you close the citation gap. Do they know what drives AI citation frequency?
Can they provide examples of clients they’ve successfully optimized for AI search? Are they tracking the metrics that matter?
If the answer is no, you need to find a partner who is already working on citation optimization, rather than one who is still figuring out its importance.
I’m offering a free 30-minute AI Citation Analysis to small business owners who want to know their current citation frequency, how they compare to competitors, what AI systems say about their business, and what it takes to become a consistently cited name.
This analysis comes with no pitch and no pressure, just honest data on what’s happening in the search environment that matters now.
The change from focusing on clicks to citations is the biggest shift in digital marketing since Google became dominant twenty years ago.
Businesses that recognize and adapt to this change will lead their markets for years to come.
Those that keep optimizing for clicks while their customers move to AI search will disappear without understanding what happened.
Which path you take depends on whether you’re willing to measure what really matters.