• by Jonathan Yantz , 11 hours ago

M+C Saatchi Performance’s Managing Partner, North America, writes, “If your search strategy still starts and ends with keywords, you’re already behind.The rise of LLMs is forcing a shift from optimizing for clicks to optimizing for inclusion.”

If your search strategy still starts and ends with keywords, you’re already behind.

The rise of LLMs is forcing a shift from optimizing for clicks to optimizing for inclusion, e.g. being the brand an LLM chooses to mention or recommend. That shift hinges on trust, because in AI-driven environments, trust isn’t just a brand metric, it’s a distribution channel. LLMs prioritize credible sources with clear expertise and consistent depth, favoring quality over keyword scale.

For years, Google owned the starting point of consumer intent. But LLMs are changing how that intent is expressed and who shapes it. Instead of typing keywords, users ask full questions and receive synthesized answers and recommendations, not a list of links. Google built its business on harvesting intent; LLMs are increasingly influencing it. We’re already seeing the impact: fewer clicks but higher-intent ones. The funnel is compressing, with consideration and decision-making happening earlier, often inside a single response.

So how do marketers show up when there’s no page of results to rank on? Optimizing for inclusion requires a shift in how performance teams think about visibility, measurement, and investment:

1. Optimize for answer inclusion, not just rank.
High-performing content now needs to answer real questions clearly, structure information for easy synthesis, and align with how LLMs summarize topics. Think less about “#1 page rank” and more about “most quotable, most usable answer.”

2. Expand beyond owned media into influence signals.
LLMs pull from across the ecosystem, for example, reviews, Reddit threads, FAQs, publisher content, and structured data. That means performance strategy needs to build on content and extend into PR, partnerships, and third-party validation. If your brand only exists on your own site, you’re relatively invisible in AI-driven discovery.

3. Rethink measurement in a zero-click world.
Last-click attribution breaks down when users get answers without visiting your site. Marketers should start tracking share of voice in AI outputs, branded search lift, and downstream conversion quality. The KPI isn’t just traffic, it’s whether you’re influencing the decision and showing up visibly.

Google is adapting, blending AI-generated answers into search while trying to preserve its ad model. But the more it answers directly, the more it risks disrupting the click-based system it built. Meanwhile, LLM platforms face the opposite challenge: monetizing without eroding trust. Because the moment recommendations feel biased, the experience breaks.

This isn’t just a competition between Google and AI. It’s a competition for trust at the moment of decision. And in a world where answers replace links, the brands that win won’t be the ones that rank highest.

They’ll be the ones AI trusts enough to recommend.

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