Part 6A: "Organic Traffic Falling Off a Cliff" Series: Playbook for the Post GenAI GTM Challenges
Welcome to the last part of our 6 part series - we’re 83.3% of the way through the series! Let’s jump right in with a recap of where we are in the series:
Positional awareness
Here’s the schedule for the series and if you are just coming in, welcome, we recommend starting back at part 1 as it’s being laid out linearly.
Part 1 (Feb 11): Organic Traffic is Falling off a Cliff
Part 1.5 (March 8): More Data about Plummeting Organic Traffic
Part 2 (March 11): What to do about it - 9 Strategies for post-GenAI GTM
Part 3 (March 25): 9 Strategies for Post-GenAI GTM: Strategies 1,2,3
BONUS: We talked about all of these topics at the RDSW Tweener Workshop and you can read more in the first half of this post.
Part 4 (May 12): 9 Strategies for Post-GenAI GTM: Strategies 4,5,6
Part 5: (June 10): 9 Strategies for Post-GenAI GTM: Strategies 7,8,9
Part 6: (July 29): Playbook for The Post-GenAI GTM Challenges **YOU ARE HERE** We are splitting it into 6A and 6B due to length
Part 6A - We Made it!
I’ve started and had to re-do this post several times since Part 5 in early June. There were rumors Google would be making ANOTHER core update (after 2 in Q4 24!). It started rolling out June 30 and was done July 17th and I wanted to give it time to let the SEO world come to a consensus at the same time we’ve been talking to our portfolio companies to get a feel for the very bleeding edge of the continuing to rapidly change GTM motion.
The good news is this feels like a good point to jump in, give an update of the macro environment,t he June Google core Change, and Recap our playbook with some slight updates. Then in part B we’ll update you on what AI native companies are doing with their GTM motion, so you can get a feel for: “If I were starting with a clean slate today, what how would I build GTM?
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Update on Post GenAI Traffic Trends
As you may suspect, the trends we identified in Post 1 of this series back in mid-Feb when we kicked off this series. There are three trends that I wanted to update
GenAI Search Traffic Trends
This SimilarWeb chart shows the 2025 usage trends for all the top GenAI engines:
Couple of notes on these two:
40% - Don’t let the look of this fool you - the scale is huge as it’s DAU (Daily avg visits) and starts at 180m in Jan and is now ~250m - a 40% increase in 7 months
75% - While ChatGPT’s losing share from 85% to 75% as competition increases, that’s still an amazing market share.
ChatGPT on the Move
It was AI last week in DC and as part of that, Sam Altman has been out dropping lots of nuggets. The top 2 are:
Sam said that ChatGPT now handles 2.5B prompts a day that’s a 150% growth trend over 8 months. We know from the SimilarWeb data that traffic is growing 40%, so that implies there is monster ‘per user/visit’ prompting. think of ‘traffic’ as users and prompts as ‘engagement’.
Through a variety of sources, it’s leaked that ChatGPT-5 is coming out in August. That’s anywhere from 4 days from now to 35 days.
What we know are there are three big areas of focus for ChatGPT-5:
Simplified - Instead of having a model and mode (agentic/deep research/web search0selector, ChatGPT-5 will pick the right model and mode for you.
More memory, more context window - Gemini is currently ahead of ChatGPT with a 1m token context window. The expectation is ChatGPT will close that gap.
Coding - Anthropic with Claude and Claude Code plus Cursor seem to be pulling away in this vertical from ChatGPT, can ChatGPT-5 catch them up?
Historically when ChatGPT comes out with new models it creates a lot of excitement, buzz and further accelerates the already insane adoption curves.
Conclusion as it relates to GTM: GenAI’s traffic growth and engagement isn’t slowing down at all and ChatGPT-5 is a wildcard that could cause acceleration. These trends will continue to cause Google to rapidly role out AI Overviews and make core changes as they struggle to navigate the Innovator’s Dilemma they find themselves stuck in.
The Great Decoupling: Search Engine→Answer Engine
In the SEO/SEM world there has always been a correlation between impressions and clicks - because until Q4 24, Google was designed to send traffic away as quickly as possible, suddenly it’s not sending as much traffic. This separation, as you see in this screenshot of a large account’s Google Console is really starting to widen. Notice the downward trajectory of clicks with the consistency of impressions.
In the SEO/SEM world, they call this ‘The Great Decoupling’ or ‘Zero Click SEO’. Google used to be magic bottom-of-the-funnel clicks that converted highly and now it’s turning into more of a Meta-type channel where you have to think about it like more top of the funnel - impressions, engagement, demographics.
Why? When an AIO is shown, various studies show a 35-50% decrease in clicks because the answer is right there, zero clicks needed. RIP Clicks.
Google June 2025 Core Update (June25CU for short)
In a way, I feel bad for Google, because core search is waging a war it is highly likely to lose. The core Google search product is being so swamped with low quality GenAI junk that is all SEO-optimized and back-linked that algorithmically looks ‘real’, but as a human you hit it and you know instantly. Google has checkers pieces (PageRank) and the game has move don to 3-D chess (LLM+Search Index/RAG+Agentic).
E-E-A-T- Remember in Strategy 3, we talked about this, June25CU leaned in even more into (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) by promoting in the index favored content demonstrating stronger E‑E‑A‑T - specifically depth, topical clustering, and well-structured internal linking. Thin, AI‑generated or shallow content saw broad demotion. But at this point it’s an arms race, the thin GenAI content can be fixed and GenAI doesn’t sleep, it can write content 24x7 - faster than Google can index it, much less fix the index.
At some point, will Google, re-work the algorithm to turn off the linking signal and lean into the Gemini engine to bring context, authority and third-party validation even higher than they are able with natural language matching vs. links? Only time will tell.
For More Information
Want to learn more on any of these topics, here are some resources (none paywalled) that will help you start your journey:
ChatGPT-5 - Want to learn more? Here are some more articles that go into ChatGPT-5 in more detail: Tech Times, TechRadar, Reuters.
Zero Click SEO/ Great Decoupling - Ahrefs (SEO oriented pub) has a great article on the decoupling here. Moz (SEO OG) calls it zero-click SEO here. SEO Roundtable another good piece on decoupling here.
Google Core Update - You can find infinite content on this one SearchEngineLand has good pieces here and here.
Updates to the Tweener Times Post-GenAI GTM Playbook…
Now let’s consider the above updates to consumer behavior changes, GenAI changes and Google that have come to light in the last 45 days since we wrapped up the last three strategies in the playbook (yes the GTM world is changing this frenetically right now).
My personal belief, and hopefully as a reader, you can see that I am transparently demonstrating this to you via this substack, my LinkedIn content and if you are interested, the Retailgentic substack that in a World where an SEO arms race is flooding the zone with low-quality content, a singular, original and 100% authentic, never AI voice not only stands out, but should become increasingly scarce as a % of content. I read a LOT of content and it’s a weird time because there’s simultaneously more junk/throw-away content, but the pockets of good content are some of the best content I’ve ever seen.
Therefore, I’d say the only change I would make to the playbook is priority. I’d say think about this order of the strategies:
Strategy 2 - Authenticity (the WalkWest 4-P framework) - this is the best time for your company to create a direct-to-customer channel.
Strategy 7 - Leverage AI to beat GenAI - In startup-land because of the scarcity of resources, we don’t get to pick an ‘OR’ we have to figure out ‘ANDs’ - you have to do more GTM and do it faster and cheaper and with less people. the only way to do this is leveraging the heck out of AI. Don’t write your content with AI, but use it as a super-power generating assistant that 2-10Xs your productivity so you can get that AND and don’t have to face an OR. This will be the focus of Post 6 Part B and where there is a ton of innovation.
Strategy 4 - ABM - Focusing in on your ICP, getting very tight on that, not at the company level, but creating lists of ICPs, knowing the internal constituent you need to get to, and knowing their business very very well is going to be the only way you stick out and can punch through the GenAI wave of content they are inundated plus all the other vendors vying for their attention.
Strategy 1 - Clicks are dead, long live attention - With the death of traditional Search, and the move to answer engines, what matters is great content that has authority that people interact with and engage with - get really really sharp on measuring attention and engagement and figure out how to drive the heck out of that KPI and down-stream good things will happen.
Strategy 6 - Diversification - The companies that got 90% of their GTM juice from one of the sides of Google, are in a World of hurt right now. If you have that problem and survive, remember how painful it was to be over-dependent on one channel and having the rug pulled out. You want a pie chart of 10, 10% share online channels. If you can’t get there settle for 4 at 25% - or 3 at 33%- anything less channel-wise or more %-ge wise should cause you to not sleep well at night until you diversify.
If you feel good about where your company’s GTM strategy related to those 5 from the playbook, then it’s call on if the remaining Strategy 3 (E-E-A-T), Strategy 5 (GEO is the new SEO) or Strategies 8 (Company UGC) and 9 (intention mapping) are the next best focus area for you to hone.
Playbook for the Post-GenAI GTM Challenges
To summarize the Playbook we’ve put together so far in this 6-part series, in this final section we have a short ‘cheat-sheet’ of our 9 Strategies and the supporting 4-6 tactics that together form the comprehensive Post-GenAI GTM Playbook (or survival guide).
Readers have been sending us very positive feedback as they have been trying out a variety of the strategies, tactics and tools and it’s great to hear everyone’s wins and even experiments that didn’t work (at least you learned something!). The reason we produce this content is to give Triangle companies an edge against the competition and it’s great that you are embracing it and that it’s having an impact.
Tweener Times Post-GenAI GTM Playbook
Here’s the Playbook in a short summary form. If you missed the details, they are in post 3 (strategies 1,2,3), post 4 (strategies 4,5,6) and post 5 (strategies 7,8,9)
Strategy 1: Clicks are dead, Attention is King
Tactic 1: Create attention/engagement-focused metrics dashboards (e.g., time on page, scroll depth). Tip: Use heatmaps; Outcome: True engagement measurement; Tools: Hotjar, GeckoBoard, Microsoft Clarity.
Tactic 2: Add live digital interactions (e.g., AMAs, webinars). Tip: Promote on LinkedIn/email; Outcome: Builds trust/advocacy; Tools: Streamyard, Riverside.
Tactic 3: Leverage hybrid online/offline engagements (e.g., micro-events). Tip: Record highlights; Outcome: Memorable interactions + reusable content.
Tactic 4: Experiment with attention-grabbing paid ads (e.g., videos/polls). Tip: Focus on brand awareness; Outcome: Retention over clicks.
Strategy 2: Authenticity and the Walk West/Earfluence 4Ps
Tactic 1 (Presence): Film raw video diaries from founders/team. Tip: Keep short/genuine; Outcome: Builds trust; Tools: iPhone + caption tools.
Tactic 2 (Proximity): Publish behind-the-scenes content (e.g., prototypes). Tip: Tie to lessons; Outcome: Transparency/closeness.
Tactic 3 (Partnership): Co-create with customers/peers (e.g., webinars). Tip: Use real examples; Outcome: Authentic reach.
Tactic 4 (Perspective): Share hard-won insights with data. Tip: Frame as lessons; Outcome: Credibility as a "straight shooter."
Strategy 3: Focus on Quality and Relevance (Time to E-E-A-T!)
Tactic 1: Conduct content relevance audit. Tip: Update/consolidate/remove; Outcome: High-quality library.
Tactic 2: Build in-house expertise for creation. Tip: Interview SMEs; Outcome: Depth/experience.
Tactic 3: Incorporate structured proof/sources. Tip: Use charts/references; Outcome: Signals trust.
Tactic 4: Use EEAT-first format (e.g., author bios). Tip: Personal tone; Outcome: Obvious expertise.
Tactic 5: Publish definitive guides/deep dives. Tip: Add TOC/videos; Outcome: Comprehensive authority.
Strategy 4: ABM - Account Based Marketing
Tactic 1: Create Top 50-100 target account list. Tip: Use engagement data; Outcome: Focused resources; Tools: 6Sense, Clay, Warmly.ai, LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
Tactic 2: Develop multi-channel "air cover" (e.g., LinkedIn ads). Tip: Ensure 6-10 brand touches; Outcome: Warms prospects.
Tactic 3: Orchestrate micro-campaigns (e.g., custom pages/videos). Tip: Use GenAI for research; Outcome: Personalized responses.
Tactic 4: Analyze and iterate rapidly (e.g., monthly stand-ups). Tip: Frame as 2-week sprints; Outcome: Continuous improvement.
Strategy 5: GEO is the new SEO
Tactic 0: Get in the game (allow GenAI crawlers). Tip: Don't block like competitors; Outcome: Dominates AI results (e.g., RepVue example).
Tactic 1: Structure for "snippeting" (e.g., Q&A/FAQs). Tip: Add to site; Outcome: Cited in AI overviews.
Tactic 2: Provide evidence/unique data. Tip: Bullet format; Outcome: Preferred by AI.
Tactic 3: Embrace entity optimization (e.g., schema markup). Tip: Semantic links; Outcome: Authoritative in semantics.
Tactic 4: Query monitoring (top 10 queries weekly). Tip: Automate with agents; Outcome: Maximized presence.
Tactic 5: Optimize for conversational queries. Tip: Use exact phrases; Outcome: Matches AI patterns.
Tactic 6: Use GEO analytics. Tip: Ensure ingestion; Tools: Writesonic, Peec.ai, Semrush.
Strategy 6: Diversification
Tactic 1: Create current/future channel matrix. Tip: Use pie charts/ROI; Outcome: Reduces single-point failure.
Tactic 2: Test micro-influencer programs. Tip: Start small (e.g., webinars); Outcome: Relevant reach.
Tactic 3: Sponsor/host mini-events. Tip: Capture leads; Outcome: High-value prospects.
Tactic 4: Experiment with emerging channels (e.g., TikTok/Reddit). Tip: Go where customers are; Outcome: Balanced portfolio.
Strategy 7: Leverage GenAl to beat...GenAl?!
Tactic 1: AI-assisted brainstorming/drafting. Tip: Human edit; Outcome: Faster original content.
Tactic 2: Rapid A/B testing of content. Tip: Log variants; Outcome: Data-backed resonance.
Tactic 3: AI-powered personalization at scale. Tip: Human verify; Outcome: Boosted responses.
Tactic 4: AI for competitive research. Tip: Combine with analysis; Outcome: Faster insights.
Strategy 8: Company Distributed User Generated Content
Tactic 1: Empower employee/partner content creation. Tip: Add personal stories; Outcome: Multiplied reach/authenticity.
Tactic 2: Gamify UGC participation. Tip: Track with UTMs; Outcome: Boosted morale/exposure.
Tactic 3: Customer spotlight series. Tip: Provide prompts; Outcome: Peer-driven resonance; Example: ElevenLabs podcast.
Tactic 4: Community-driven challenges. Tip: Share/tag; Outcome: Brand awareness/innovation.
Tactic 5: UGC aggregation hub. Tip: Curate thoughtfully; Outcome: Loyalty/social proof; Example: RepVue.
Strategy 9: Intent-First Content Mapping
Tactic 1: Build buyer's journey framework. Tip: Interview customers; Outcome: Content roadmap; Advanced: By persona.
Tactic 2: Create intent-focused clusters. Tip: Interlink pieces; Outcome: Holistic experience/authority.
Tactic 3: Use intent hooks in titles/meta. Tip: Define funnel stage; Outcome: Relevance/engagement.
Tactic 4: Set up journey tracking in analytics. Tip: Use lead scoring; Outcome: Data on progress/bottlenecks.
Coming in Post 6, Part B
That’s it for now, but coming in Part B - we’ll update you on what AI native companies are doing, structurally and tool-wise with their GTM motion, so you can get a feel for: “If I were starting with a clean slate today, what how would I build GTM?”
Even if you have a mature GTM org and GTMOps, I think you’ll find some interesting concepts to try to level-up things.
Stay tuned for more!