Why Inbound Marketing Is Not Working as Well as It Used To

  • Inbound marketing depends on buyers starting with a Google search and visiting the vendor's website to do the research.

  • AI lets more buyers bypass those two steps, so the website loses traffic and buyers enter the nurturing phase less often.

  • Inbound marketing still works, but it does not generate as many leads as it used to.

AI Lets More Buyers Get Answers Without Visiting the Vendor's Website

Inbound marketing depends on buyers starting their journey with a Google search and visiting the vendor's website to do the research. However, AI lets more buyers bypass those two steps and get answers without visiting the vendor's website.

Inbound marketing still works, but it does not generate as many leads as it used to. A growing number of B2B buyers are finding that AI-mediated shortlisting is a more effective way to find, research, and compare vendors: they outsource the work to an AI research assistant.

With more B2B buyers using AI as a research assistant, this has two impacts on the inbound funnel:

At the Top of the Funnel, the Website Loses Traffic

Because more buyers can get their answers from AI and no longer have to click through to the website, website traffic from search has dropped since ChatGPT was released in November 2022. Bain & Company calls this zero-click search.

In the Middle of the Funnel, Buyers Enter the Nurturing Phase Less Often

More buyers stay in the AI chat and are less likely to leave it to download a lead magnet or join an email list. Forrester expects the model of driving traffic to a website to nurture prospects to become much less effective.