Article's Content
Article's Content
Welcome to Volume 237 👋
Happy Thursday!
In this week’s newsletter, we cover:
- 🖱️ AI Overviews Take a Bite Out of Click-Through Rates
- 📈 1Password’s Reddit-Based Approach to User Retention
- 👀 The Latest in B2B SaaS This Week
- 🧠 This Week’s Brain Food
- ➕ The Best Content Across the Web
Let’s get into it.
Ahrefs: AI Overviews Take a Bite Out of Click-Through Rates
Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: official statements from Google about the impact of a major platform update turn out to be untrue.
Subdomains being treated the same as subfolders.
The Helpful Content Update eliminating spam.
Now, it’s the positive impact of AI Overviews on click-through rate.
It turns out that Google’s AI-powered SERP feature actually reduces the click-through rate (CTR) for informational search terms. Ryan Law and Xibeijia Guan from Ahrefs analyzed 300,000 informational SERPs and found that AIOs reduced the average CTR by nearly 35%.
In a single year, the CTR for top position keywords in Ahref’s analysis dropped from 7.3% to 2.6% after Google rolled out AIOs.
This isn’t too surprising when you think about it.
The whole point of the AIOs is to provide the answer to a query without the need for additional action (aka clicks) from the user. But that’s not how it was communicated less than a year ago when Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that including links in these AIOs actually increases the CTR.
Whoops.
Featured snippets first brought zero-click searches to the forefront, and AIOs are exacerbating the situation.
What does this mean for the many businesses and brands that rely on informational organic searches as the top of their funnel?
There are plenty of options:
- Shift SEO focus to mid- and bottom-funnel keywords that drive conversions.
- Prioritize email list growth and audience capture to reduce dependence on organic search.
- Invest in brand-driven, thought leadership content that AI can’t easily replicate or summarize.
One thing’s for certain, though: the way people search for information is changing drastically, and you need to be prepared for it.
The Future of Search Is Here — And I’m Breaking It Down at #SEOWeek NYC
I’m excited to announce that I’m speaking at #SEOWeek next week in NYC!
I’ll share insights on Search, AI, and UGC: Navigating the Future of Google & Reddit’s Influence.
Get ready for 4 days of learning and collaboration around the future of search, including:
- 40+ industry-leading speakers across SEO, content, AI, data, and digital strategy.
- 30-minute talks sharing exclusive practical strategies to improve visibility, traffic, and ROI.
- One-of-a-kind sponsored parties and networking events.
- And so much more!
You can still grab tickets to the entire conference from April 28 – May 1, 2025, or just for Day 3 when I’m presenting. See you there.
1Password’s Reddit-Based Approach to User Retention
Too many brands are taking a limited view of Reddit and using it as just another channel to push blog posts. Don’t get me wrong—it’s a great marketing tool. But its value extends well past the traditional social media channel strategy.
If you want to extract more value out of Reddit, 1Password shows you how.
r/1Password is a brand-owned subreddit with over 39,000 subscribers and current platform users. The community only drives a small fraction of 1Password’s overall web referral traffic (>1%), but that’s just icing on the cake.
Why? Because their subreddit functions as the heartbeat of their customer retention strategy.
The top 50 posts in the subreddit over the last year are dominated by product-centric content posted by 1Password users and employees, from troubleshooting discussions and feature requests to announcements of the latest updates.
I recently took a deep dive into r/1Password to understand what it takes to turn a subreddit into a feedback loop for product improvement. Here are a few of the highlights:
- Create a specific post flair system to organize discussions and make it easier to prioritize user feedback.
- Have your Product, Development, and Community teams interact directly with users during product announcements and feature requests.
- Turn users into educators and evangelists who help complex concepts to new users and defend against competitor narratives.
For the rest of the details on the customer retention impact of r/1Password, check out the latest breakdown in the Foundation Lab.
Sponsored by: AI Tool Report
There’s a reason 400,000 professionals read this daily.
Join The AI Report, trusted by 400,000+ professionals at Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI.
Get daily insights, tools, and strategies to master practical AI skills that drive results.
Sign up now for free and work smarter, not harder.
👀 What’s the Latest in B2B SaaS This Week? 👀
- 💬Manychat Raises Massive $140M Round To Push Chat Automation | Crunchbase News
- 🧑⚖️ DOJ unveils plan to end Google’s illegal search monopoly | Search Engine Land
- 🇪🇺 ChatGPT search is growing quickly in Europe, OpenAI data suggests | TechCrunch
- 🍪 Google Will Keep Cookies and Backtrack on its Opt-Out Plans | ADWEEK
Create and Distribute Content 5X Faster with AI
You hit publish.
And then… nothing.
No shares. No engagement. No traffic. Goose eggs across the board.
You see, creating content isn’t the problem. Distribution is.
The smartest brands don’t just create — they distribute like crazy.
And that’s where Distribution.AI comes in.
- Upload your podcast, video, or article.
- AI generates everything you need for distribution: show notes, blog posts, LinkedIn threads, X posts, and more.
- Publish everywhere in minutes.
Your job?
Copy. Paste. Post. Repeat.
And the results?
Your content works like a rented mule — on every platform — while you sip coffee and brainstorm your next viral idea.
Want to turn your content into a distribution machine? Try Distribution.AI today.
🧠 This Week’s Brain Food 🧠
This April 22nd marked the 55th Earth Day Celebration in the history of our great planet.
I’m a big fan of Earth, as I’m sure you are too. But the history behind this annual celebration has always eluded me. So I decided the least I could do is understand how this celebration came to be.
Earth Day started in the 1970s as a response to growing concerns over oil spills, smog, and polluted rivers. Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson took a page out of the anti-war protests playbook and organized a nationwide teach-in on the environment. On April 22 of that year, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demand cleaner air, water, and policies.
It worked. That same year, the Environmental Protection Agency and a key piece of legislation, the Clean Air Act, were created.
Fast forward to today, and Earth Day is a global movement involving over a billion people in 190+ countries. It’s also an important reminder that ethereal things like awareness and community can drive meaningful change.
So, whether you’re reducing waste, supporting green innovation, or just taking a walk and appreciating the planet, it counts.
After all, as the saying goes: We don’t inherit the Earth from our ancestors—we borrow it from our children.
Interested in sponsoring this newsletter?
Get access to over 30k savvy marketers every week. Reply to this email and apply for a spot.
🎖️ LinkedIn Post of the Week
Reddit is the internet’s stamp of approval by Karina Penaloza
🎖️ Reddit Post of the Week
What’s the most overhyped metric in digital marketing? In r/marketing
🏅 Twitter/X Post of the Week
We compared the DA and BA of AI Overviews against the top 10 organic results by getSTAT
🤳🏽 Nice Finds You Should Binge
- Yes, AI will redefine marketing – but not the way you’d expect | The Drum
- Crowdsourced AI benchmarks have serious flaws, some experts say | TechCrunch
- Conversation, community, and the revised path to purchase | Reddit
💻 Job Postings Worth Checking Out
Looking for a new opportunity?
Here’s a round-up of some exciting job openings in the B2B SaaS space.
- Foundation: Reddit Specialist
- Foundation: B2B Content Marketing Strategist
- Foundation: Account Manager
- Foundation: Content Creator
- Foundation: Content Marketing Manager
- Foundation: Applied Research Specialist
- Foundation: Director of Digital Marketing
Are you hiring?
Reply to this email, and we’ll share how you can find your next unicorn, game-changer, or first marketing hire from among the industry’s top-performing marketers.
🎧 What We’re Wired Into This Week
Chamber of Reflection by Mac DeMarco
This SaaS news smattering is brought to you by Ethan Crump!
If you have any feedback, suggestions, or ideas you want to see in this newsletter, feel free to email Leigha Henderson at leigha@foundationinc.co. We always look for ways to improve and provide the best B2B SaaS marketing resources.
Have a great weekend!
