Return on Brand Visibility vs ROAS: Are We Measuring Marketing Success All Wrong?

Organic traffic is falling, but consumer discovery isn't disappearing

The numbers are difficult to ignore.

In June 2026, SparkToro published research using Similarweb data examining what happens after people search Google.

Its findings showed that 69.5% of Google searches in the UK ended without a click.

That's nearly seven in ten searches where the user doesn't click through to another destination.

The UK also had the highest proportion of searches without clicks among the six countries examined.

This doesn't mean organic traffic has fallen by 69.5%, or that AI is responsible for every search that ends without a click. Google has been answering questions directly for years.

But the research demonstrates how often consumers now find information without leaving the search environment.

Research from Pew Research Center reinforces the point.

When Google's AI summaries appeared in search results, users clicked a traditional search link in just 8% of visits.

Without an AI summary, that figure was 15%.

And just 1% of visits involving an AI summary resulted in a click on one of its cited sources.

For publishers, information websites and businesses that have historically relied on organic traffic, the implications are substantial.

For years, SEO success was closely associated with attracting people to a website.

Now, consumers can get answers, compare options and gather recommendations directly within search and AI platforms.

Your business might be part of that research without receiving the website visit that would traditionally demonstrate its value.

Website traffic is becoming a less complete measure of how consumers encounter and evaluate brands.

And that creates a challenge for marketing reporting.

Adobe is already rethinking how brands measure their presence

This isn't just a conversation taking place within marketing agencies.

Some of the biggest technology businesses are investing in new ways to measure the impact of AI on consumer discovery.

In January 2026, Adobe Vice President of Strategy and Product Loni Stark spoke to Forbes about how AI is changing the relationship between brands and consumers.

In the interview with Forbes journalist John Koetsier, Stark described what Adobe calls dual optimisation, explaining that brands are now:

"actually optimizing for two audiences"

Those audiences are people and AI systems.

Brands increasingly need to ensure their information is useful to consumers while also being understandable and accessible to the AI platforms helping them make decisions.

And Adobe's own research suggests that AI is becoming commercially important.

According to Adobe Digital Insights' September 2026 UK report, referral traffic from AI platforms to UK retailers increased by 1,439% between October 2024 and August 2026.

That increase comes from an emerging channel, so the percentage alone doesn't tell us how large AI traffic is compared with Google.

What is particularly interesting is the quality of that traffic.

In May 2026, AI referred traffic overtook traditional web search on conversion rate in Adobe's UK retail data. By August, the conversion rate was 20% higher than for traffic referred by non AI sources.

Consumers arriving from AI platforms were increasingly likely to purchase.

One possible explanation is that much of the research and comparison has already taken place before they reach the retailer.

That changes the role of the website from a place where customers begin their research to somewhere they may arrive ready to make a decision.

Adobe is investing commercially in this shift too.

In June, it launched Adobe Brand Visibility, bringing together its technology with Semrush intelligence to help businesses understand how they appear across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity.

The platform measures brand mentions, audience reach, competitive share of voice and the questions influencing AI recommendations.

Of course, Adobe is selling technology designed to address this challenge. But the investment reflects a genuine gap in traditional measurement.

And there is an important distinction between appearing in a response and being the business someone is encouraged to consider.

As Adobe strategist Sneha Hatwar put it in a June article:

"Recognition is not preference."

Her analysis of AI search measurement explains why appearing in broad category searches is different from being recommended when a consumer asks a much more specific question.

It's one thing for ChatGPT to recognise that your restaurant exists.

It's another for it to recommend your venue when someone asks for private dining in London with a particular atmosphere, budget and capacity.

The latter is much closer to a commercial decision.

And that distinction should matter when we evaluate marketing effectiveness.

ROAS tells us what converted. But does it tell us what created the demand?

Let's be clear. ROAS remains an important metric.

If a business spends £2,000 on advertising and generates £10,000 in attributed revenue, that's a ROAS of five.

Useful information.

But it doesn't tell us whether those sales were entirely incremental, whether the campaign was profitable after other costs or what originally made customers interested in the brand.

Imagine someone discovers a restaurant through an Instagram Reel.

They then see a positive review, read an article mentioning the venue and ask ChatGPT to compare it with two competitors.

Eventually, they search Google for the restaurant by name, click a paid advert and book.

Google Ads may record the conversion.

But did Google create the demand?

Not necessarily.

Social content, reputation, editorial coverage and AI recommendations may have influenced the decision.

If we're judging marketing success solely by the final attributed conversion, we're potentially undervaluing the activity responsible for generating that interest.

This isn't just our interpretation.

In its 2025 analysis of retail media measurement, NielsenIQ stated:

"ROAS is not true ROI."

NielsenIQ highlighted a case in which a campaign reported a ROAS of 14 to 1, but a broader marketing mix modelling analysis estimated a return of just 0.4 to 1.

That's a substantial difference between attributed performance and estimated incremental return.

The lesson isn't that ROAS is useless.

It's that platform attribution shouldn't be confused with a complete understanding of business growth.

Capturing demand and creating demand are different jobs. A successful marketing strategy needs to account for both.

So, how do we measure Return on Brand Visibility?

First, Return on Brand Visibility isn't yet a universally standardised financial metric like ROAS.

There isn't an accepted formula that assigns a reliable monetary value to every AI mention, social impression or press article.

And we wouldn't suggest inventing one.

Instead, we see it as a measurement framework that connects brand presence with awareness, consideration, customer behaviour and commercial performance.

For marketers, that means looking beyond a single dashboard.

Here are five areas we believe should sit alongside ROAS in a modern marketing report.

• Brand visibility across AI platforms. How frequently does your business appear in relevant ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI responses? Is it recommended when customers ask questions with genuine purchase intent? Measure your presence against competitors using a consistent set of relevant questions, recognising that AI responses can vary.

• Share of search and branded demand. Are more people searching for your business by name? Is your brand gaining attention relative to competitors? The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising has published research showing that share of search can provide an early indication of future market share movements. It isn't perfect attribution, but it is a valuable signal of demand.

• Earned media, reputation and authority. Is your business appearing in relevant publications, reviews and industry recommendations? Are credible sources discussing or recommending your brand? The quality and context of that coverage matter more than simply counting mentions.

• Brand consideration and customer behaviour. Are more customers familiar with your business? Are qualified enquiries, booking rates and repeat purchases improving? Brand surveys, CRM data and questions such as "Where did you first hear about us?" can help connect marketing activity with customer decisions.

• Incremental commercial return. Is increased brand exposure contributing to additional revenue and profit, rather than simply receiving credit for existing demand? Brand lift studies, controlled experiments, geographic tests and marketing mix modelling can provide stronger evidence of the commercial impact.

None of these measures tells the entire story independently.

AI mentions fluctuate. Branded searches can be affected by seasonality. Direct traffic isn't a reliable standalone indicator of brand awareness.

But tracking these signals consistently, and comparing them with actual business outcomes, gives marketers a more complete understanding of what their investment is achieving.

What does this mean for marketing budgets?

This is where the conversation becomes commercially important.

Most businesses don't have unlimited marketing budgets.

And when budgets come under pressure, activity with the clearest short term attribution often looks easiest to defend.

Google Ads generated revenue.

Meta delivered enquiries.

SEO traffic declined.

PR didn't produce an obvious conversion.

So the temptation is to move more money towards the platforms reporting the strongest immediate return.

But what happens if the activity you're cutting was helping create the demand that those paid campaigns convert?

You risk becoming increasingly efficient at reaching customers who already know your business, while investing less in attracting new audiences.

Over time, that can make customer acquisition more expensive.

This is why brand building and performance marketing need to be evaluated together.

PR, content, social media, SEO, partnerships and paid advertising influence different parts of the customer journey.

The challenge is understanding how those investments collectively contribute to commercial growth.

For businesses, that means continuing to measure ROAS and customer acquisition costs while building a clearer picture of brand performance.

It means establishing a baseline for branded demand, share of search, AI recommendations and brand consideration.

It also means looking at how those measures change alongside qualified enquiries, conversions, customer acquisition costs and revenue.

Where possible, businesses should use controlled tests or longer term analysis to identify whether marketing activity is generating additional demand.

And importantly, budgets should be allocated according to what each channel is actually designed to achieve.

A Google Ads campaign intended to generate immediate bookings should be accountable for commercial performance.

A PR campaign designed to establish authority and awareness should be evaluated against relevant coverage, audience quality, recognition and changes in consideration, with commercial contribution assessed over time.

Both investments should ultimately support business growth.

But expecting them to produce identical reporting metrics overlooks the different roles they play.

The danger isn't that businesses will stop measuring return. It's that they'll stop investing in valuable marketing activity simply because the return is harder to attribute.