The big earned-paid gap—and why the system is threatening to collapse
LLMs are pushing zero clicks, traffic is collapsing, budgets are shifting. At the same time, earned media determines visibility in AI overviews. Without a new balance between paid and earned, the media system will collapse, comments Verena Gründel.
The media system is facing a tectonic shift. AI is rapidly changing search behavior—and brands are shifting their budgets. What follows is a chain reaction that could destabilize the entire marketing ecosystem.
The causal chain is clear: more users are turning to LLMs instead of traditional search. Zero-click searches are surging. Website traffic is declining.
Publishers are already feeling the pinch, as every click translates into cash for them. However, reach is declining rapidly. In response, many brands plan to cut their display budgets by up to 30 percent in 2026, according to Forester’s forecast.
But here’s the irony: they’re cutting the very branch they’re trying to cling to.
Because if you want to show up in AI Overviews from ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity, one thing matters most: organic, editorial brand mentions on trusted sites. Earned media becomes the key.
A recent analysis of 75,000 brands made by Ahrefs reveals this: brand mentions on the web are by far the strongest driver of AI visibility. The most-mentioned brands appear up to 10x more often in AI Overviews than the next quartile.
The top three correlations are all off-site and essentially “earned”:
1. Brand web mentions (mentions of the brand name anywhere across the web)
2. Brand anchors (mentions of the brand name in hyperlinked text)
3. Brand search volume (monthly search volume attached to the brand name)
And here’s the paradox: while publishers are fighting for survival, brands are shifting budgets away from Paid into PR—hoping to boost their Earned Media presence. But if nobody pays to fund content anymore—where will all those organic mentions come from?
What seems smart in the short term may be self-destructive in the long run. An economic ecosystem built solely on Earned Media will collapse.
Of course, new models might emerge: advertorials deemed trustworthy enough to be cited by LLMs. Or hybrid PR-Paid collaborations. But how long can that work—ethically, legally, economically?
One thing is clear: the battle for Earned Media visibility is intensifying. Already, 26 percent of brands in the analysis don’t appear in AI Overviews at all. Brands that aren’t mentioned often enough will soon vanish from the AI memory.
Marketers and publishers must work toward a new balance. Because under the current rules, survival is only possible together.
However, these rules of the game could change again tomorrow.
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