When Search Stops Sending Clicks And why health and finance brands are feeling it first
Search traffic used to be predictable. Not easy, but predictable. You ranked well, you earned clicks. Maybe not as many as you wanted, but enough to justify the effort.
That assumption doesn’t hold anymore.
Over the last year, something subtle but powerful has been reshaping how people interact with search results. AI-generated overviews now sit at the top of many queries, offering quick answers before users ever see traditional links. For certain categories, especially health and finance, this has quietly changed everything.
Not overnight. But noticeably.
The quiet drop nobody planned for
Click-through rates haven’t collapsed across the board. That’s important. What’s happening is more selective. Informational searches — the kind people type when they want clarity, reassurance, or a quick explanation — are behaving differently.
In health and finance, those queries are everywhere.
When AI summaries appear, users often pause there. They read. They nod. And then… they stop. No scroll. No click. The question feels answered, even if it’s only partially so.
Organic listings beneath that AI box still exist. They’re just being ignored more often.
Paid ads, surprisingly, aren’t immune either. In fact, they may be taking a bigger hit. When attention is absorbed at the top of the page, everything else competes for what’s left. And what’s left isn’t much.
Why these two industries are hit harder
Health and finance share a few uncomfortable traits.
They deal in trust. They attract questions with emotional weight. And they often rely on explanatory content rather than instant transactions.
Think about it. Someone searching for symptoms, treatments, insurance comparisons, tax basics, or investment risks usually wants understanding before action. AI summaries are good at delivering just enough clarity to slow the journey.
That “just enough” is the problem.
In other verticals — travel, shopping, entertainment — users still want to browse. In health and finance, once the anxiety drops, so does the urge to click.
This isn’t speculation. Marketers across these sectors are seeing it reflected in their dashboards. Visibility remains high. Engagement doesn’t follow.
Rising costs, shrinking patience
Here’s where it gets uncomfortable.
As clicks become scarcer, competition intensifies. Advertisers aren’t necessarily leaving. They’re bidding harder. Which pushes CPCs up. Lead costs follow. Conversion paths get tighter.
At the same time, broad informational keywords are losing efficiency. Not because they’re irrelevant, but because AI answers are intercepting intent earlier than expected.
This forces an adjustment. Some brands are trimming awareness campaigns. Others are shifting spend toward queries with clearer action signals. Fewer “what is” searches. More “near me,” “pricing,” and “apply now.”
It’s not a creative decision. It’s a survival one.
Content still matters — just not in the same way
There’s a misconception floating around that AI summaries make content pointless. That’s not accurate. What they make pointless is generic content.
Surface-level explainers. Rewritten definitions. Articles that say what everyone else already says.
Those don’t stand a chance.
What still works — and in some cases works better — is content that is specific, structured, and opinion-aware. Pages that answer clearly, then go deeper. Content that AI systems reference rather than replace.
There’s a difference.
Some brands are noticing that when their pages are cited within AI summaries, downstream engagement improves. Users who click after reading an overview arrive warmer. More selective, but more serious.
Fewer clicks. Better ones.
Adjusting expectations without panicking
One mistake would be to treat this as a temporary disruption. It doesn’t look like one.
AI summaries aren’t an experiment anymore. They’re becoming default behavior for certain query types. That means chasing old CTR benchmarks is a losing game.
The smarter move is recalibration.
Traffic volume may fall. That’s uncomfortable, but not fatal. What matters more now is intent density — how close a user is to acting when they finally do click.
This shift also exposes something many brands avoided acknowledging: search should never have been the only growth engine.
Email, brand recall, social discovery, direct visits — these aren’t “nice to have” channels anymore. They’re insulation.
What this moment is really asking marketers to do
Not pivot blindly. Not abandon SEO. And definitely not blame AI for everything.
What’s being asked, quietly but firmly, is better thinking.
Better content decisions. Better alignment between what users want now versus what they’ll want next. Better honesty about which queries are informational dead ends and which still lead somewhere meaningful.
Search isn’t dying. It’s maturing — in a slightly inconvenient direction.
Those who adapt early won’t necessarily win more traffic. But they may win something more valuable: attention that actually converts.
And right now, that might be enough.