Let’s get one thing out of the way: search can no longer be your primary audience strategy. But the real shock is how fast it’s become nearly useless for audience growth.

Google’s turning into a closed loop. Over half of all searches now end with zero clicks, and when AI-generated summaries appear, organic links lose a third of their clicks on the spot. If your site traffic is down, it’s not your SEO team’s fault — it’s because search as we’ve known it is dead.

“Your headline is your homepage.” In other words, your content has to earn attention without the click. You can’t rely on users landing on your site anymore, because most of them never will.

So where does that leave media brands? Smack in the middle of a reset. Here’s what the smartest operators are doing now to adapt and why the rest risk falling further behind.

1. Stop chasing traffic. Start earning intent.

Sure, you can still try to play the volume game. Crank out more articles. Cast a wider net. Cross your fingers. But the volume game won’t work like it used to.

The collapse of passive search traffic is shrinking your top of funnel. However, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Much of that traffic was never your real audience. It was noise. Window shoppers. Bots. AI-generated detours.

Now’s the time to trade quantity for quality. Every impression, every email capture, every form fill has to work harder. That means media professionals need to focus on:

• Sharper conversion paths
• Smarter segmentation
• Personalized nurture tracks that actually lead somewhere

When the funnel’s narrower, your optimization game has to be stronger. Period.

2. Clean up your data because the bots are winning

Let’s talk email. You may think your open and click rates look solid. But there’s a good chance those numbers are lying to you.

According to our research, up to 80% of email clicks across the industry are generated by security bots, not people.¹ That’s not just a rounding error. That’s full-on performance distortion at scale.

And it’s getting worse. These new “data center” bots mimic human behavior well enough to slip through basic detection. If you’re not using advanced bot filtering, you’re likely reporting inflated engagement, overvaluing underperforming content, and misleading your advertisers.

The takeaway: If you’re not scrubbing your metrics, you’re not measuring engagement. You’re measuring noise.

3. Your first-party data is your only real moat

Let’s stop romanticizing platform reach. You don’t own your audience on LinkedIn, Facebook, or YouTube. You rent it. And the rent keeps going up.

The only data that can’t be taken away, throttled, or repriced is the data you collect yourself. That means:

• Known user identities
• Email addresses
• Preference data
• Behavioral signals
• Demographics tied to intent

This isn’t just marketing hygiene — it’s strategic infrastructure. Without it, you’re building on sand.

4. If you can’t see the growth, you’re looking in the wrong place

Here’s the part most brands miss: the best audience growth isn’t visible in your dashboard. It’s happening in dark social such as Slack groups, Discord threads, iMessage chains, and private communities.

You won’t see referral traffic from these places. You can’t boost a post into them. The only way in is to be so useful someone decides to share your content voluntarily.

And no, that doesn’t mean slapping another CTA at the end of your article. It means surfacing real insights. Speak human. Create content that solves a problem or starts a conversation.

In dark social, trust is the algorithm. If your brand doesn’t have it, you won’t grow.

5. The economics matter more than the volume.

Executives who can’t answer two questions are flying blind:

• “What does it cost to acquire a user?”
• “What’s that user worth over time?”

User acquisition costs vary wildly by channel. So does LTV. The most sophisticated operators treat audience like a supply chain:

• Tracking acquisition by source
• Measuring velocity and retention
• Monitoring value creation over time

It’s not just a marketing metric. It’s a P&L strategy. And this strategy should shape every audience investment you make.

6. Audience operations is your most strategic hire

It’s not campaign management. It’s orchestration.

The best audience teams sit at the intersection of data, content, marketing, tech, and revenue. They’re translators. Strategists. Connectors.

And yes — they’re expensive. But they’re also your best shot at future-proofing your business.

If you don’t understand the role, you’ll under-resource it. If you undervalue it, you’ll fall behind.

Final Thought

The audience playbook has been rewritten. Again.

Search is evaporating. Bots are faking engagement. Social algorithms are tightening their grip. And the platforms aren’t coming to save you.

But if you know your audience — truly know them — you’re not just surviving this shift. You’re building something no algorithm can take away.

So ask yourself: Are you still chasing traffic? Or are you building something that lasts?

---

About the author

Tony Napoleone is VP of Client Experience at Omeda, where he helps media brands turn audience data into revenue. With deep expertise in audience development, marketing tech, and lifecycle strategy, he leads high-touch client partnerships that drive growth, engagement, and innovation.

1 Omeda Email Engagement Report Q1 2025.