By Fernando Angulo, Senior Market Research Manager at Semrush
Up to 70% of search queries now end without a click. But that doesn’t mean your audience isn’t engaging—it means your content strategy needs to evolve.
In the age of AI-powered results, instant answers, and SERP-rich features, user behavior is shifting rapidly. Today, people expect information on the search page itself—through Featured Snippets, People Also Ask, AI Overviews, and more. As a result, traditional click-throughs are declining. But visibility is more important than ever.
At Semrush, we’ve been tracking this shift across millions of keywords. Here’s what the data shows.
🔍 The Zero-Click Landscape
- 68–72% of searches on desktop and mobile result in no click to a website
→ Zero-Click Study: What’s Happening to Organic CTR? - Google’s SGE (Search Generative Experience) and AI overviews are dominating SERPs
→ SGE: What Google’s Generative AI Means for SEO - New discovery behaviors are emerging—especially in e-commerce and mobile
📊 New Stat: According to the 2025 Semrush x Statista U.S. E-commerce Report, monthly traffic from AI assistants increased 30× in just over a year, showing a major rise in discovery before the click.
🚀 What Smart Brands Are Doing Differently
Instead of focusing solely on traffic, winning brands now optimize for:
- SERP visibility—Winning Featured Snippets, FAQs, and AI-friendly content
- SERP footprint expansion—Owning multiple assets: YouTube, Google Business, forums, marketplaces
- Brand recall—Building awareness on SERPs, even without the visit
🎯 Track all of these with tools like Position Tracking, Sensor, and Semrush ONE’s full-stack visibility platform.
📈 From Search Behavior to Market Trends: A Unified View
To win in a zero-click world, marketers need to see the full picture—not just of keywords, but also traffic sources, competitors, and consumer behavior.
With the launch of Traffic & Markets and Semrush ONE, you can now:
- Unify SERP + traffic data across your industry
- Monitor AI-driven traffic growth and social commerce shifts
- Align content and channel strategies in one collaborative platform
🛍️ For example, the same Semrush/Statista study shows social commerce is expected to surpass $150B in the U.S. — reinforcing the need for brands to go beyond classic SEO and embrace integrated visibility strategies.
Want to See How This Plays Out?
In my upcoming session at BSCC #10 in Berlin, I’ll share:
- Zero-click benchmarks by industry
- Examples of brands winning without traffic
- A framework to audit and optimize your SERP presence