What are zero-click searches and how do they affect PPC?

Zero-click searches are queries where users get their answer directly on Google without clicking any result. In 2026 they account for 68% of all searches, directly shrinking the pool of available paid clicks.

Why shouldn't I auto-apply Google Ads recommendations?

Recommendations like Auto-apply, Display Expansion, and Budget recommendations are designed to increase spend, not necessarily campaign performance. Always verify whether a recommendation aligns with your CPA goals before enabling it.

How do I optimise content for AI Overviews?

Use structured data, FAQ schema, and clear direct answers to questions. E-E-A-T signals and authoritative long-form content increase the chance your site gets cited in AI Overviews.

How can I track AI visibility in Google Search Console?

Google is testing new AI reports in Search Console with hourly impression granularity. Once available, activate them and collect baseline data, because recovering organic rankings after a Core Update does not automatically mean success in AI answer placements.

Google Ads & zero-click: audit before you lose

Google in 2026 is optimising its own ecosystem, not your performance. Zero-click searches hit 68% (Search Engine Land, June 2026) and paid clicks dropped roughly 40% year-on-year in both the US and EU (Search Engine Journal, August 2026). If you have not reviewed your Google Ads settings and SEO KPIs since your last campaign audit, you are likely paying for results that are quietly getting worse.

Key takeaways

Zero-click searches account for 68% of all queries; organic click volume is no longer a reliable standalone performance indicator.
Paid clicks in Google fell from 2.3% to 1.3% in the US and from 2.4% to 1.4% in the EU/UK.
Four specific Google Ads settings (Auto-apply, Display Expansion, Search Partners, Budget recommendations) systematically inflate spend without guaranteeing better results.
AI Overviews and Knowledge Panels are absorbing a growing share of informational queries that previously generated organic clicks.
New AI reports in Search Console allow you to track AI visibility separately from classic organic data for the first time.

Four Google Ads settings that quietly inflate your budget

Search Engine Land flagged four recommendations that Google actively promotes but that primarily serve to increase spend rather than campaign performance.

Auto-apply recommendations are the highest risk. Without clearly defined guardrails (maximum bid caps, negative keyword lists), the algorithm can start raising bids on segments where conversion data is thin or missing entirely. Enable them only if you have automated CPA anomaly alerts in place.

Display Expansion automatically extends Search campaigns onto the Google Display Network. The result is predictable: impressions climb, conversion rate drops. Before enabling it, review the placement list and build an exclusion list for inventory you do not want to pay for.

Search Partners (Yahoo, AOL and others) typically deliver lower conversion rates than pure Google Search. If you have them enabled without separate reporting, you are paying for traffic whose quality you cannot see. Test them as a distinct segment with its own CPA benchmarks.

Budget recommendations from Google are the clearest case: they target higher spend, not better outcomes. Always cross-reference them against your own demand elasticity data and CPA targets, not Google's estimate of "missed conversions".

Auditing these four settings is a concrete deliverable that agencies can offer clients without overhauling entire campaign structures.

Zero-click and AI Overviews: what this actually means for SEO KPIs

The State of Search 2026 data (Search Engine Journal) is clear: in both the US and EU/UK, roughly 40% of searches generate a click to the open web, while 17-20% go directly to Google's own properties. AI Mode has stabilised at 0.13% in the US but is growing in the EU/UK, where it sits at 0.29%.

The practical impact: if you measure SEO primarily through organic clicks, you are tracking only part of the picture. A first-position organic ranking today does not deliver the same traffic volume it did two years ago. At the same time, informational queries are growing by more than 5 percentage points year-on-year, which is exactly the space where AI Overviews operate most actively.

Revise your KPIs. Add tracking for AI Overview impressions (once Search Console makes this available), brand visibility in Knowledge Panels, and content citability in AI answers. The click is no longer the only valid output worth measuring.

What content AI Overviews actually cite

Structured data and FAQ schema are the foundation. But adding them technically is not enough; they need to answer specific questions in a way AI can quote directly. Clear definitions, direct comparisons, verifiable claims. E-E-A-T is not an abstract concept here; it is the signal AI models use to decide whether to cite your content or skip it.

The European layer: Search Console AI data and regulation

Google is testing new AI reports in Search Console with hourly impression granularity, currently limited to the UK (Search Engine Journal, June 2026). Without click data they are limited for now, but as a baseline for tracking AI visibility they are irreplaceable. Enable them as soon as they appear in your account.

The regulatory picture in Europe is shifting faster than most teams can follow. The UK CMA has ordered Google to enable opt-out from AI Overviews and AI Mode. The DMA ruling from July 2026 will require Google to share ranking data with competitors from January 2027. The Munich court ruling from May 2026 holds Google directly liable for false AI Overviews, and that liability could extend to other answer engines.

European search is also more fragmented than most strategies acknowledge. Bing's real desktop share is significantly higher than combined mobile-desktop numbers suggest, driven by enterprise Windows defaults and Copilot in Edge. For B2B and enterprise SaaS campaigns, this changes bidding allocation in ways that blended metrics hide entirely (Search Engine Journal, July 2026).

Marketplace search (Amazon EU, Zalando, Idealo, Allegro) is absorbing product queries before they ever reach Google. Optimising titles, structured attributes and review counts on these platforms is a technical SEO priority that most teams leave to platform account managers without any connection to broader discoverability strategy.

Where to redirect the Google Ads budget that zero-click is eroding

If paid clicks in Google are falling 40% year-on-year, the logical question is where to reallocate. The data points to a few directions:

YouTube Ads and Shopping stay within the Google ecosystem but operate on surfaces that zero-click affects less directly.
Performance Max combines signals across channels but requires a careful audit of asset groups and exclusion lists, otherwise you end up in the same trap as Display Expansion.
Meta and TikTok Ads are relevant for brand campaigns and categories where visual formats outperform text-based search.
Knowledge ecosystem presence (Wikipedia, Reddit, Quora, authoritative directories) now drives real traffic in EU/UK, where Wikipedia jumped from 7th to 3rd as a traffic source from search. Backlinks and mentions from authoritative domains directly influence AI brand visibility.

See how Charlie's AI specialists help with campaign audits and AI visibility tracking without rebuilding your entire tech stack.

One audit, three outputs

Connect these three things: audit the four Google Ads settings, revise SEO KPIs toward AI visibility, and check whether your content meets the conditions for citation in AI Overviews. These are not three separate projects; they are one audit with different outputs. The right time is now, because the data from the first half of 2026 shows the trend is not slowing down.