Measuring Impact Over Activity In The Age of AI
Everyone is scrambling to update how they measure marketing, but how?
As marketers, we’ve never had more data. Scrolls, clicks, attribution models, real-time dashboards. You name it, we can track it. And yet, most teams still struggle to answer the simple question: Is our content actually moving the business forward?
It’s not a tooling problem. It’s a measurement problem.
We’re still using traffic-based metrics in a world that no longer rewards volume the way it used to. Search behavior has changed. Buyer journeys are nonlinear. AI is reshaping how information is found and consumed, often without a single click.
In the early 2010s, content strategy was straightforward. You published “The Ultimate Guide to X,” ranked on Google, generated traffic, and watched leads roll in. Traffic drove form fills, which drove sales. Simple math.
But the equation is broken now.
AI-generated summaries, featured snippets, and LLMs are answering questions before users ever reach your site. Organic click-through rates are falling. And users don’t convert the way they used to. Not directly, not immediately, and not on your timeline.
So what do we measure instead?
We need to move beyond traffic quantity and toward traffic efficiency, a model where success isn’t about how many visitors we get, but instead what those visitors represent and what they do.
Efficient traffic means content is:
Aligned to a clear business objective
Reaching the right people (not just more people)
Driving real outcomes like pipeline, brand authority, and customer expansion
That means looking beyond top-line numbers and asking sharper questions:
Is this content reaching our ICP?
Is it helping people progress through the funnel?
Is it referenced in sales calls, shared by execs, or showing up in AI responses?
There are three lenses we use to evaluate efficiency:
Purpose-driven segmentation. Not all traffic serves the same purpose, so content shouldn’t be measured by a one-size-fits-all metric. Content might be designed to build awareness, educate prospects, support decision-making, or retain existing customers. The goal defines the KPI.
Channel-specific objectives. Organic search is great for capturing long-tail queries and building durable authority. Social builds community and thought leadership. Email deepens engagement. Direct traffic signals brand strength. Each channel plays a different role and should be measured accordingly.
Outcome alignment. Content should drive measurable impact, whether that’s revenue, market expansion, improved retention, or competitive differentiation. When you link content performance to business strategy, you create alignment across teams and clearer signals for what to do next.
But here’s where most teams get stuck: they treat conversions as the only goal.
And yes, conversions matter. But when we over-prioritize them, we can miss the bigger picture.
Take this example:
One blog post brings in 500 visits, 50 signups, and 5 demos.
A research report brings in 2,000 visits, 20 signups, and 2 demos.
At first glance, the blog appears to be a better performer.
But that report reached nearly 850 decision-makers, drove branded search, got picked up in three industry newsletters, and influenced a six-figure deal months later. You can’t measure that kind of impact in a weekly conversion report, but it’s exactly the kind of long-term value we should be tracking.
Obviously, the ideal scenario is to do both. 😛 However, we all know that most teams can’t ‘do it all’ and are forced to prioritize, which is why this example is important.
So, how do you measure that?
You use metrics like:
Revenue per visitor
ICP fit rate
Cross-channel amplification
Mentions, citations, and AI references
Sales enablement usage
One of the best signals of efficient traffic? Branded search. When someone types your company name into Google, that’s intent. That’s influence. It’s often the downstream result of TOFU content that builds awareness and trust, even if that content didn’t convert directly.
Another? Bottom-of-funnel queries. People searching “best [category] software” or “alternatives to [competitor]” aren’t just browsing, they’re buying. These visits drive outsized pipeline value, and they’re a critical part of any efficient content strategy.
That said, TOFU content still matters.
In a zero-click, AI-heavy world, authority-building content is how you earn visibility. It’s how your brand shows up in AI overviews and drives branded search weeks later. It’s how you educate a market and shape demand long before it converts.
So no, you don’t abandon TOFU. You just stop expecting it to perform like BOFU.
What this really comes down to is building a balanced portfolio.
You need content that builds awareness, content that educates and nurtures, and content that converts. Each has a role. Each needs its own measurement model.
You also need regular feedback loops with sales. What content is used in deals? What are prospects referencing? Which assets actually help close?
That’s how you measure true efficiency by looking at how content contributes to real progress across the funnel, not just short-term spikes.
Traffic is a means to an end, not the end itself.
The best content teams aren’t chasing pageviews. They’re building trust, accelerating deals, creating unique content that builds authority, and developing long-term growth engines. That’s what we focus on at Ten Speed. Not just content that gets seen, but content that works.
📚 What the Ten Speed team is reading…
Google’s official advice on optimizing for AIOs & AI Mode (SEJ)
10 Key Hurdles That CMOs Must Overcome In 2025 And Beyond (SEJ)
12 New KPIs for the GenAI Era: The Death of the Old SEO Dashboard (Duane Forrester)
Domain-Level Link Metrics May Not Be Good Predictors of AI Search Mentions (Ahrefs)
📈 Ten Speed’s New Early-Stage GTM Program
At Ten Speed, we have worked with various B2B and SaaS companies, from pre-seed to Series D/E. As part of this, we have seen that early-stage companies not only need different things but they also need a different engagement structure altogether.
Last month, we officially launched our Early-Stage GTM Program.
Eligible startups can enjoy the benefits of a strategic partner that can help you execute across a number of channels and content types, without the stress of long-term contracts or a limited scope of work, all at discounted rates for those who meet the criteria.
June 1, 1999 - Napster launches, letting fans trade MP3s peer-to-peer. Labels lose billions, but marketers gain a crash course in viral distribution, community building, and the coming dominance of digital.
June 29, 2007 - The first iPhone goes on sale. Lines, hype, and an “always-on” pocket internet that rewrites the rules of mobile marketing, apps, and m-commerce.
June 18, 2025 - At Cannes Lions 2025, AI tools edge out rosé chatter. Holding-company chiefs pledge nine-figure AI budgets as creatives debate machine vs. muse. The festival marks AI’s coming-of-age in mainstream advertising.
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Cheers!
Nate