The rise of zero-click behavior: Navigating the new landscape of university marketing and engagement

In an era where information is increasingly accessed without direct website visits, our universities face the challenge of adapting digital strategies to stay visible and engage deeply with our audiences.

In 2024, around 60% of Google searches ended without a click. With shifts in search algorithms and in-platform experience, coupled with the rise of AI tools and agents to find information for us, and shifts in how users engage in social media, we need to brace ourselves for declining web traffic as we know it.

So, how do we adapt our digital strategies to prepare for this?

In this session, we will explore:

• The urgency in fully adopting structured and semantic content and how to get stakeholders on board with this.
• The impact of zero-click behavior on university marketing and digital engagement.
• The tech and user trends that are driving this shift.
• How we need to shift our content strategies to respond to new approaches for optimization for search, AI and social media’s trend towards in-platform engagement.
• The emergence of AIO (AI optimization) as a key core skill for digital and content teams.
• The need to rethink our success metrics and how to continue to prove impact and engagement when we don’t always hold the data.

Presenter

Tracy Playle — Pickle Jar Communications and ContentEd