Ratio Marketing Inc.

09/03/2026

The average traveler now visits 38 websites and uses 7–10 touchpoints before booking. Guests are out there searching, comparing, deciding so the demand hasn't gone anywhere.

What's changed is who shows up in that research window. Organic search still drives 44% of global visits to hospitality sites, yet most independent operators I talk to are pouring their budget into an online travel agency's commissions and paid ads while their organic presence sits untouched.

That's backwards. While an online travel agency will get you booked once, organic visibility gets you found, and re-found, for years.

If you run a hospitality business and haven't looked at your search visibility in the last year, that's the first place I'd check, not your ad spend.

Sources:

https://www.digimau.com/hotel-hospitality-marketing-digital-strategy-guide-2026/

https://cufinder.io/blog/benchmarks/hotels-resorts/

08/24/2026

What’s a Zero-Click? We used to measure search success by clicks. But what happens when people get the answer without ever visiting your website?

That’s what a zero-click measures: the percentage of searches in your industry that end without a click to a third-party website.
Google may answer the question directly through AI Overviews, featured snippets, knowledge panels, local results and other search features.

For a business owner, here’s the number that matters…
If your industry has a 60% zero-click index, 6 out of every 10 searches may end without the person ever reaching your website.
That doesn’t mean SEO is dead. It means the job of SEO is changing.

Your business needs to be visible inside the answer, not just ranked beneath it.

That means thinking beyond website traffic and asking:
Is Google (and increasingly AI search) finding, understanding and recommending my business when potential customers are looking for answers?

Because the next battle in search may not be for the click. It may be for the mention.

08/20/2026

Google's latest spam update is rolling out now. It's the third one this year. Watch your rankings this week because these core updates can impact organic rankings.

The update will take a few days to roll out.

08/17/2026

So for years, it's been pretty easy to figure out whether SEO is working. Like when someone searches, your website shows up organically, they click on the link and buy from you. BUT, AI is changing that journey.

Today, a potential customer can ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude a detailed question, compare businesses, narrow down the options and even develop a preference for a company before ever visiting its website. For business owners, that's a significant shift.

Your business can now be recommended, mentioned, misunderstood or completely left out of an AI-generated answer.

That doesn't mean SEO is dead. Quite the opposite.

Your website still needs strong SEO fundamentals: it has to be technically set up, have good user experience and external backlinks. Now, AI needs additional reliable information to understand who you are, what you do and why it should recommend you.

So we're moving beyond simply asking:

"How much traffic did our website get?"

We also need to ask:

"When potential customers ask AI about businesses like ours, are we showing up AND what is AI saying about us?"

That's especially important because people aren't necessarily searching with just a couple of keywords anymore.

For example: instead of typing "comfortable jeans," someone might ask:

"What are the best comfortable jeans for hiking and everyday living?"

This shows that you can't optimize your website for every possible question.

What you can do is build enough useful, authoritative content in your area of expertise so that search engines and AI systems understand what your business is known for.

Think of it this way: AI is becoming part search engine, part recommendation engine and, increasingly, part shopping assistant.

Your customers may be forming an opinion about your business before they ever reach your website. The question is: Do you know what AI is telling them?

08/14/2026

Sure AI is a good topic for digital marketing, but how it can increase profits is much more interesting. For business owners, the real question isn't "should we be using AI?" It should be "where can AI make more money, spend less or stop wasting resources?"

The research out of McKinsey (based on dozens of business use cases) is telling us that generative AI could add up to $4.4 trillion in economic value.

What does it mean for the average business? The opportunities are practical. Here's a few you might want to consider.

1. Increase Revenue

AI can take over parts of research, reporting, analysis, documentation, content development and administration. This frees up time so employees can be more dedicated work that generates revenue.

2. Convert More

AI can analyze sales conversations, website behavior, customer questions and purchase trends to identify friction in the buying process.

3. Improve Efficiencies

Instead of producing more content, AI can help identify patterns from customer behavior that can uncover where marketing dollars are being wasted.

For example, you could save up to 5 hours a week by using AI for meeting summaries, data analysis, email drafts and routine internal communications.

Most businesses already have a lot of information acquired from their CRM, Google Analytics, Google Ads, SEO software, etc. The problem is not getting the data, it's what to do with it so you can make better decisions.

Here's a good place to start, by asking some simple questions:

- Where are we spending the most employee time?

- Where are we spending money without knowing the return? (my personal fav)

- Where are customers dropping off before they buy?

Then figure out how AI be adopted to improve the economics of your business.

08/10/2026

Should you start moving some of your Google Ads budget to ChatGPT?

Not yet. But I’d start paying attention.

ChatGPT is rolling out more sophisticated advertising options — including better ways for advertisers to reach potential customers and showcase products.

You don't need to understand the technical terminology behind it.

As a business owner, here's what matters: another major platform is starting to compete for your advertising dollars. And ChatGPT has one potentially significant advantage.

People aren't necessarily scrolling when they're using it. They're asking questions:

What should I buy?
Which company should I use?
What's the best option for me?
How do these products compare?

That's a very different mindset from someone scrolling through a social feed — and potentially a very valuable place for a business to appear.

So, should you take $1,000 out of Google Ads and put it into ChatGPT tomorrow? Probably not. But when ChatGPT advertising becomes more broadly available, I would be looking at allocating a small test budget rather than waiting until everyone else is doing it.

Test it. Measure the quality of the traffic. Measure leads and sales. Then decide whether it deserves a bigger share of the budget.

Because the bigger shift here isn't simply another advertising platform.

It's that the journey from "I have a question" to "I'm ready to buy" may increasingly happen inside AI.

And advertising budgets will eventually follow.

Would you move 5–10% of your digital ad budget into AI advertising to test it?

08/05/2026

Business owners often invest thousands of dollars in advertising, websites, and new software to improve sales. Sometimes, one of the highest-return investments is simply coaching your team to build genuine relationships with customers.

According to a Monash University study, one surprisingly simple habit may be part of the answer: using a customer's name. The results were hard to ignore.
• Customers spent 17.3% more
• Upsell acceptance more than doubled
• Customer satisfaction increased by 15.9%

But here's the catch...

The study wasn't really about names. It was about making people feel recognized.

The timing mattered too. Mentioning a customer's name naturally during the conversation worked. Using it during the sales pitch didn't. Once it felt like a tactic instead of a genuine interaction, the benefit disappeared.

As more businesses introduce AI into customer service, this research is a good reminder that technology can't replace authentic human connection.

Just like Maya Angelou's quote says...

" People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel"

What are you doing in your business to make customers feel like people—not transactions?

https://app.sciencesays.com/p/when-and-how-to-call-customers-by-name

Addressing customers by name can make them spend up to 17% more and leave them up to 16% more satisfied.

08/03/2026

Your traffic didn't drop because your SEO got worse. It dropped because the click stopped happening.



I've got a ratio for this. It's the percentage of searches in your sector that end without anyone reaching a website, because the question got answered on the results page.



Right now, across all industries it's 60–65%. Note: This average is a range from my researched sources. And when an AI Overview shows up, it's over 83%.



If your website's zero-click ratio is 60%, then six out of ten people looking for something you could answer never reach you. They were never lost to a competitor. They were satisfied before they arrived.



Most owners I talk to are still treating this as a ranking problem. It isn't. You can rank first and still get nothing, because first place on a page nobody clicks is worth exactly nothing.



I'm measuring this by sector now, starting with construction, professional services, healthcare, and finance.



Genuine question for the owners here: has your website traffic dropped in the last 12 months while your business stayed steady? That gap is the whole story, and I'd like to know how common it is.

07/27/2026

Most business owners have no idea what AI is doing to their customer relationships. That's a problem.

AI-powered search, chatbots, and generative AI engines are quietly reshaping how consumers find, trust, and choose businesses. They're also collecting more behavioral data than ever before. Yet most business owners are stuck in reaction mode: they've heard "AI is changing everything" but have no plan for what that means for their bottom line or their customers.

Here's what my research is showing, and 3 ways to get ahead of it:

1. Audit where AI already touches your customer journey. Before you can manage the impact, you need to see it. Map every touchpoint where AI is involved. That includes search visibility (i.e. AI Overviews), chatbots, ad targeting, personalization engines. You can't offset what you can't see.

2. Get transparent about data use, before regulators or customers force you to. Consumers are increasingly aware their behavior is being tracked and fed into AI systems. Businesses that get ahead of this with clear, plain-language communication about what data is collected and why build trust. Businesses that stay silent erode it.

3. Diversify how customers find you. As AI answers more questions directly (without a click), traditional organic visibility is shrinking. Businesses need a multi-channel presence with direct relationships, email, community, referral networks so they're not solely dependent on algorithms deciding whether they get seen.

The businesses that treat this as a strategic priority now, not a someday problem, will be the ones still earning trust (and traffic) in 2027.

What's your business doing to adapt? I'd love to hear.

07/17/2026

Too many businesses still choose influencers the same way they choose billboards: like bigger must be better. It isn't.

The best creators aren't always the ones with the biggest audiences. They're the ones with the right audience. I'd take someone with 8,000 highly relevant followers over 80,000 random ones any day if they can reach the people who actually make buying decisions.

Here's a few takeaways from this article that stood out to me:

• Start with your ideal audience, not the creator's follower count.

• Read the comments. That's where you'll find out if the audience is engaged or just scrolling by.

• Measure success by leads, conversations and revenue, not impressions alone.

• Treat creators as strategic partners, not just another advertising channel.

If you're thinking about hiring an influencer, keep these things in mind.

LinkedIn influencers are often the fastest way to borrow credibility in B2B, but only if you choose creators who can actually move the right audience to