If Marketing Metrics Are Obsolete, What Should We Measure?
“Hit counters” were early website metrics. Back then, we measured the kind and length of “visits.” Today, “visitors” are more likely to be AI bots than humans, so should we still be counting them?
Digital marketing is definitely in flux right now. We’ve become used to nice tables and graphs describing how well our website is performing by tallying up stats in traffic growth, engagement rates, and page behavior. Which are all great numbers, but they don’t accurately reflect how our prospective customers are using the internet in 2026.
More than SEO needed
Since tools such as Google’s AI Overview and ChatGPT provide immediate answers, internet users are less likely to actually visit a specific website. What that means is that in addition to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), savvy website owners are also applying Answer Engine Optimization (AEO).
We’ll explore what AEO is exactly and website best practices to optimize for answer engines in the coming weeks, but today, let’s talk about what’s happening in marketing metrics.
Answer Engine as go-between
Internet marketing consultants explain that traffic trends on your website’s Google Analytics report look disappointing because more and more internet users are getting what they need from the Answer Engines instead of going to a specific website where their visit is logged. But Answer Engines do cite which website provided the answer, so it’s not like you are completely invisible and not getting any eyeballs on your organization.
So what are we supposed to be measuring now? Internet usage is changing, and even the experts are complaining that “The analytics, however, haven’t caught up.”
Old is new
Until the analytics catch up, it’s back to basics, even pre-internet basics: Are you getting leads? Making sales? Being referred?
Credibility, authority, and branding have never been more important than they are in today’s marketing landscape. People have been bombarded for too long by marketing hype and hucksters. Artificial Intelligence just makes it harder than ever to figure out what is real and what is fraudulent, which helps bad actors trying to steal our money and our security.
Underlining your organization’s trustworthiness through marketing, and especially on your website, should be your number one focus. As a proven authority, AI bots will use your information in their Answer Engines. Humans will review you positively and refer you to others. Real relationships with prospective customers will be built.
Certainly, there is much more to successful digital marketing than establishing your business’s trustworthiness, but it is the foundation for everything else. We’ll share more in the coming weeks, but if you can’t wait, call today to get started with our digital marketing team.
Photo by Ono Kosuki
Kate Gingold
I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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