Content Disrupted: Bold Takes on Brand Marketing Rand Fishkin on Building Brand Influence in a Zero-Click World
14 snips
Jun 12, 2025 
Rand Fishkin, co-founder of SparkToro and Moz, dives into the upheavals in marketing caused by AI and the shift to a zero-click world. He argues that traffic is just a vanity metric and stresses the importance of brand influence instead. As platforms morph and discovery happens in fragmented spaces, Fishkin emphasizes showing up where audiences already engage—like Instagram and Reddit. He also critiques outdated attribution models, advocating for a focus on genuine audience relationships for effective modern branding.
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Shift to Short-Form Content
- Almost no one watches or listens to full podcast or video episodes anymore.
- Marketing now focuses on creating many short clips to distribute where audiences already pay attention.
Funnel is a Pinball Machine
- The traditional top-middle-bottom marketing funnel is outdated, replaced by a chaotic journey.
- Consumers bounce across many platforms consuming content, making attribution impossible.
Clicks Are Dying Out
- Platforms limit or hide referral links, reducing traffic data to websites.
- Users prefer scrolling within platforms rather than clicking out to websites.
