Clicks are dwindling from traditional search, and users are relying more on AI and social to make purchasing decisions.
But what does the data actually show us?
In this edition:
- 🧭 Where the frick is your web traffic coming from?
- 🎯 How to master CTAs (based on data)
- 🗞️ Stories to not doomscroll
🧭 Where the frick is your web traffic coming from?
When was the last time you dug into your Google Analytics to figure out how most people are finding you?
Neil Patel analyzed traffic data from 10,000 websites (each with over 5,000 visitors per month) to reveal where visitors are coming from in 2025.
Here’s where most traffic is coming from (no surprises here):
- Google – 27.44%
- Direct – 26.89%
- Ads – 7.09%
- Bing – 1.55%
- Email – 1.21%
- Other – 34.51%
What’s more interesting is the “emerging traffic sources” that hold a much smaller (but growing) share:
- Facebook – 0.37%
- ChatGPT – 0.29%
- YouTube – 0.18%
- Yahoo – 0.11%
- DuckDuckGo – 0.09%
- LinkedIn – 0.08%
So what about B2B SaaS companies specifically? I dug into my current client accounts to compare (I excluded Google CPC since that varies based on ad spend):
Looks pretty similar to Neil Patel’s data. But I wanted to dig deeper to see which sources provide the most CONVERSIONS:
Note: “Direct” traffic could be people coming from anywhere, making it hard to decipher where and why that traffic is going to your website. Most are likely customers, but a good portion will be from those who hear your brand from somewhere, then search the domain.
What I find interesting: ChatGPT punches well above its weight for conversions compared to traffic, which tells me ChatGPT traffic has high commercial intent. Not exactly surprising, though.
🎯 Want to master CTAs based on data?
I sifted through this data-loaded, fat playbook on CTAs so you do not have to.
The highlights:
- One ask per email wins. A single CTA drives up to 371% more clicks than stacking CTAs.
- Place CTAs above the fold. CTAs visible early see up to 84% more engagement.
- Ask a question, not a favor. Closing with a question can double reply rates, especially on cold first touches.
- Make it tappable. Buttons beat text links by up to 45%.
- Personalize the ask. CTAs that are specific to an industry, role, or pain convert up to 202% better than generic ones.
- Test your wording. Simple A/Bs on phrasing, placement, and format can deliver about 28% higher conversion.
What CTA tips have you found to work best?
🧮 Attribution, simplified
If it closed, Sales did it.
🗞️ Stories to not doomscroll
Google is testing AI-written meta descriptions. Spotted on Reddit threads, the AI-generated snippets replace manual descriptions and link directly into posts.
AI engines overwhelmingly favor YouTube. Across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI, YouTube holds a 20% citation share, 200x more than any other video platform.
Search is splintering fast. Only 11% of U.S. consumers trust their first search result, while 73% report using AI tools more this year.
AI hasn’t cut jobs, yet (ALLEGEDLY). A Yale study found zero evidence of AI-driven job losses after 33 months, with real usage concentrated mainly in coding fields. This doesn’t sound right to me.
Forget open rates. Replies are the real newsletter metric. Replies are one of the only email metrics we can truly track. (Bots heavily impact open and click rates.)
How Pat Flynn turned “Should I open it or keep it sealed?” into 3.5B Reels/Shorts views. His secret: 60-day experiments, catchy jingles, voiceover storytelling, and embracing his “weird” thumbs.
Newsletters can scale fast with paid social. Matt McGarry’s playbook: start with Facebook lead-gen ads, test TikTok videos, and build a swipe file of proven creatives.
You can run competitive intel in 15 minutes a week. Replicant’s CMO uses a ChatGPT prompt to track funding, product launches, and strategy updates — no analyst needed.
🤝 Need a hand with your content marketing?
I run Stat Digital, a fractional content marketing team for B2B SaaS companies.
We can help you:
- Create blogs that capture ready-to-buy leads from SEO.
- Launch and run newsletters to nurture the thousands of neglected contacts going stale in your CRM (like this one)
Want to get a custom content marketing playbook to generate customers ASAP? Schedule a free strategy session here.