HubSpot’s blog peaked at additional than 20 myriad integrated visits a month. As AI answers spread, it misplaced concerning 80% of that integrated traffic. Revenue kept climbing anyway. If you’re an SEO who motionless reports sessions as the scoreboard, Kipp Bodnar’s document of what HubSpot measures now, and what he’s careful not to claim, is the most helpful part of the new publish he co-wrote.
That publish is Loop, subtitled “Outlearn. Outmarket. Outgrow.,” which Bodnar wrote alongside HubSpot’s Kieran Flanagan, published Sept. 22, 2026.
Bodnar and I talked complete Zoom, and he answered my questions in penning afterward, including a few that authors on a publish tour rarely get. He answered all inquiry but one. That one concerning HubSpot’s Oct. 6 layoffs wasn’t among the questions we discussed on Zoom. So, I’ve pieced together the probable answer from news accounts, and I’ve tagged it that way near the end of this column.
The Old Playbook Said ‘Get Found Using Google’
It’s value remembering how literal the first commitment was. HubSpot co-founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah titled their 2009 publish “Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs.” Google came archetypal in that subtitle for a reason.
“Inbound worked since buyers started on Google, and in that world, additional satisfied meant additional traffic, which meant additional customers,” Bodnar told me. “If you published the finest answer, group came to your location to get it.”
AI bankrupt that chain. A buyer can now ask Claude or ChatGPT a inquiry and get a tailored answer without visiting a sole website. When Google rolled out AI Overviews, Bodnar stated HubSpot misplaced nearly 5 myriad visits in a 30-day period.
“We had tracked traffic as the scoreboard for 15 years, and it stated we were failing,” he said. Then the squad looked at the visitors who were motionless arriving, particularly the ones coming from AI answers, and established they converted at approximately three times the charge of traditional search.
I think Bodnar is correct that the scheme bankrupt and promotion didn’t. I additionally think he’s being unusually candid concerning how much of HubSpot’s old traffic was never value having.
What 80% Of The Traffic Was Actually Worth
“Much of that traffic was never going to rotate into revenue,” Bodnar said. Some HubSpot posts chased search volume on topics akin “famous quotes” or “how to category the gesture emoji.” Those posts drew visitors who would never buy software. When AI Overviews began answering those questions directly, that traffic went away, and nearly nobody who mattered went alongside it.
Revenue grew nearly 20% in 2025, according to Bodnar, since HubSpot had spent years construction channels that don’t depend on search. It acquired The Hustle newsletter in 2021, launched a creator program in 2022, and built a podcast network in 2021, and the YouTube network in 2023. It additionally pruned additional than 3,000 blog pages that weren’t reaching customers.
Today, he said, concerning 90% of HubSpot’s satisfied leads arrive from channels that barely existed in its mix five years ago. The blog accounts for concerning 10%. HubSpot rode out the traffic autumn since it had spent five years construction audiences that Google couldn’t obtain away, fine before it needed them. No AEO trick would have covered an 80% hole.
The visitors who motionless reached HubSpot were value more, too. HubSpot rebuilt its conversation so it could answer genuine questions and move conversations forward. By Q4 2025, Bodnar said, it was generating additional than 10,000 revenue meetings a quarter.
“Website traffic used to track growth,” he said. “Now we appearance at income per visit, AI portion of voice, and content-influenced pipeline.”
The Loop, In Plain Terms
Bodnar calls Loop Marketing “the functioning scheme for promotion in the AI era.” The old chimney assumed buyers moved in a direct row from awareness to deliberation to conversion. He argues they don’t anymore. Awareness is scattered throughout Reddit, YouTube, Discord, and AI conversation windows, and many buyers depict their endeavor to an AI motor and display up already informed.
The Loop has four stages that nourish all other. In Express, a squad defines who it is and who it serves, and captures its sensation and item of perspective in a Taste Profile before anyone writes a prompt. Tailor uses data from genuine client interactions to personalize the communication for all buyer. Amplify puts the brand anywhere group and machines appearance for answers, from hunt and AI answers to ads and creators. Evolve feeds all outcome rear in so the next sequence starts smarter.
“Because all sequence improves the next, the squad that learns fastest wins,” Bodnar said.
Ground Truthing The Claims
The publisher’s clarification of Loop says HubSpot tested the scheme on its own promotion motor archetypal and that “within a year, it was outperforming the old one they’d ripped up.” That’s a claim, and it comes from group alongside a interest in it. So, I asked Bodnar what metric it beat, against what baseline.
He gave a genuine answer, which is additional than most authors do. The baseline was HubSpot’s segment-based email program alongside personalization tokens, anywhere the squad tested topic lines, sharper copy, and sometimes clasp color. “Those gains were incremental,” he said.
HubSpot rebuilt the program about AI-written emails personalized to all recipient. Each immediate runs pages long. It draws on the Taste Profile, the tongue HubSpot’s teams use in genuine conversations alongside buyers, instructions for all segment, spirit guidelines by buyer stage, and a banned-word list. It took months of iteration. The result, Bodnar said, was an 82% betterment in conversions for the AI-powered email, and AI is driving an average 50% addition throughout the broader email program.
That’s a dependable lift. But a percent without the basis charge is motionless a figure you can’t put on a CEO’s glide by itself, and readers should ask for the basis charge before copying the playbook.
I pressed Bodnar on another row he’s used in public, that he was a “C” alongside generic AI and an “A” alongside a Taste Profile. Who graded that?
“That’s a fair challenge,” he said. “Those grades are self-assigned.”
I provision him credit for saying so plainly. His clarification is that generic AI plant from the average of everything it has read, so its output lands near the average. A Taste Profile gives the example customers’ genuine language, their objections, and HubSpot’s item of view.
He additionally admitted that HubSpot can’t cognize a Taste Profile is correct before buyers respond. What it can do is capture feeble activity early. Before spending money, the squad tests headlines, emails, and pages against a Buyer Sim, an AI type of the ideal client that is “blunt on purpose.” If the Buyer Sim’s feedback stops matching what genuine buyers do following launch, that tells HubSpot the Taste Profile has drifted. The squad refreshes it all fourth regardless.
When I asked what unsuccessful or was abandoned during the Loop test, Bodnar pointed to the archetypal prototype of HubSpot’s AEO Grader. It returned scores so generic they could have applied to any company. The Buyer Sim stated so, and the squad went through three additional rounds, adding industry benchmarks, competitor-aware scoring, and recommendations that referenced the user’s own copy. By type 4, the Buyer Sim said, “I’d bookmark this and dispatch it to my CMO.”
That’s a fine narrative concerning accelerated iteration. It’s additionally a nonaccomplishment that turned into a shipped product, which is the benevolent authors akin to tell. I’d motionless akin to comprehend concerning item HubSpot tried under the Loop and dropped.
For measuring the Loop overall, Bodnar uses four outcomes he calls the four Rs:
- Remarkability asks whether imaginative norm improves as output grows.
- Resonance asks whether the activity lands alongside the particular individual receiving it.
- Reach covers AI portion of voice, involvement on channels HubSpot doesn’t control, and conversion charge per channel.
- Regeneration tracks the percent betterment in outcomes from one sequence to the next.
Regeneration is the one Bodnar says makes the Loop compound. “A business operating 26 learning cycles a twelvemonth volition outperform one operating four, equal alongside improved endowment and a bigger budget,” he said.
Mentions, Citations, And A 1,850% Jump
I compose frequently concerning citation portion of voice, so I asked whether HubSpot tracks how frequently it’s cited in AI answers, and whether those citations convert.
HubSpot tracks AI visibility in two ways. A citation is whenever an AI answer names HubSpot. A citation is whenever the answer links to HubSpot. The squad follows the two throughout the prompts that matter most to the business. It additionally watches which sources the engines drag from for all prompt, which are frequently Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, or assessment sites akin G2. That shows HubSpot anywhere to build existence beyond its own site.
“Those citations do convert,” Bodnar said. Qualified leads from AI answers grew 1,850% between Q1 2025 and Q1 2026, he said, and they change at concerning three times the charge of traditional search. Deal cycles run concerning fractional as long, since the buyer has already had the conversation alongside AI before reaching HubSpot.
Then came the declaration I established most helpful in the entire exchange. “Attribution is imperfect,” he said. Many group who see HubSpot cited never click, so click-based tracking misses part of the picture. What HubSpot can see is that as its visibility rises, additional prospects inform revenue that ChatGPT recommended it. “The indication is correlative, and it’s powerful adequate that we treat AEO as a center part of how we market.”
A growth charge of 1,850% nearly certainly starts from a small base. Bodnar didn’t oversell it, and I won’t either. The honest takeaway is that HubSpot is consenting to create AEO a center funding on a correlative signal, which tells you how powerfully the indication is pointing.
I’d asked concerning the long, conversational prompts of 40 to 60 words that Bodnar has described in AEO talks. His figure has grown. A traditional hunt query is two to four words, he said, but prompts in AI tools now run 40 to 100 words, and buyers depict their entire situation. “Our satisfied has to answer the complete inquiry in plain, chunked language, the way a buyer would ask it.”
The Vendor Question
HubSpot additionally sells the tooling, including AEO tools. So, I asked the apparent question. If all squad builds a Taste Profile in the identical software, doesn’t that create sameness? And anywhere does Loop‘s direction cut against what HubSpot sells?
“Sameness is the biggest hazard of the AI era,” Bodnar said. “AI is trained on everything, so remaining on its own, it gives you the average of the world, and promotion that sits at the average doesn’t win.”
His direction to a marketer who never buys HubSpot is to do the difficult activity first. Get apparent on your customer, your merchandise story, and what makes you different. “No application does that for you,” he said. A competitor alongside the identical application can’t copy that work, since it comes from your customers and your convictions.
His cleanest row came at the end. “If a business could put its logo on your communication and nothing would change, that communication is adding to the noise.”
He didn’t name a particular location anywhere Loop’s direction cuts against a HubSpot product. Readers can decide whether “no application does that for you” counts as one.
The Question Bodnar Didn’t Answer
After our Zoom call, I added a inquiry that wasn’t on the first list. On Oct. 6, HubSpot announced it would cut nearly 660 jobs, concerning 7% of its workforce. Loop argues that AI expands the marketer’s role. How does Bodnar quadrate the two, and what does the reorganization alter for promotion at HubSpot?
Bodnar didn’t answer it. That’s fair, since it wasn’t among the questions we discussed. So, the probable answer has to arrive from news accounts of the layoffs, not from him.
Here’s what those accounts report. CEO Yamini Rangan told workforce in an Oct. 6 memo that “this is not driven by AI-related efficiencies” and is “not merely a cost-cutting exercise.” She wrote that HubSpot has shifted from construction application that helps customers develop to delivering outcomes, and that “customers don’t think in Hubs and features.”
Product teams are being reorganized about four client outcomes alternatively of Hub merchandise lines. Those outcomes are generating demand, winning deals, delighting customers, and scaling growth. Each squad volition own the complete client journey and be accountable for results, and HubSpot volition cut administration layers to move decisions nearer to the group doing the work.
The Boston Globe reported that HubSpot had 8,882 full-time workforce at the end of 2025, expects $65 myriad to $75 myriad in restructuring costs, and plans to complete the cuts by the end of Q1 of financial 2027. The Globe additionally noted HubSpot’s shares were downward concerning 46% for the twelvemonth on the day of the announcement. Rangan stated headcount has grown additional gradually than income and volition keep doing so. None of the safety I peruse named promotion as a function that took particular cuts, and HubSpot declined to say which teams were hit hardest.
My study of that coverage, and it is mine, not Bodnar’s, is that the reorganization looks akin the Loop applied to the org chart. Teams built about outcomes and accountable for results are the organizational type of swapping traffic for income per visit. “Generating demand” is the outcome promotion volition most apt be measured against. And “headcount grows additional gradually than revenue” is the small comfortable fractional of “AI expands the marketer’s role.” The function gets bigger for the group who keep it.
I’d have preferred to comprehend Bodnar say that, or item different, in his own words. If he answers later, I’ll update this column.
How To Apply This To Your SEO Strategy
You don’t need HubSpot’s prosperity to act on what Bodnar described. You need to halt defending traffic you can’t monetize and commencement measuring what AI visibility is really doing for you.
Find your own “shrug emoji” pages before AI Overviews does. Pull your top organic landing pages and kind them by whether they always produced a lead, a demo, or a sale. Informational pages alongside elevated quantity and zero business intent are the traffic most exposed to AI answers. Decide now whether to prune, consolidate, or rewrite them for a buyer, the way HubSpot cut additional than 30,000 pages.
Track mentions and citations as distinct numbers. Pick the 25 to 50 prompts that matter most to your endeavor and inspect them on a agenda in ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Claude. Record whenever you’re named and whenever you’re linked, and note which third-party sources the engines lean on. If Reddit, G2, or YouTube keeps showing up, that’s anywhere your next satisfied prosperity belongs.
Write for the 40-to-100-word prompt. Take a genuine revenue call copy and rotate a buyer’s complete clarification of their circumstance into the inquiry your leaf answers. Then answer it in plain, chunked sections that an AI motor can lift cleanly. Short-keyword pages answer a inquiry nobody types into ChatGPT.
Add one endeavor metric to your SEO report. Revenue per visit, conversion charge from AI referrals, or content-influenced pipeline volition all inform your CMO additional than sessions will. Ask revenue to log whenever prospects say an AI tool recommended you. Bodnar admits that indication is correlative, and it motionless moved HubSpot’s investment.
One caution. If you build a Taste Profile or a Buyer Sim, don’t class it yourself and halt there. Bodnar’s own test is whether the simulation’s feedback matches what genuine buyers do following launch. That’s the class that counts.
Traffic Was The Scoreboard
My perspective is that Bodnar’s most crucial admission isn’t the 80% traffic loss. It’s that HubSpot watched the incorrect scoreboard for 15 years and lone established out whenever the scoreboard broke. Plenty of SEO teams are motionless observing it.
Inbound told marketers to get established using Google. Loop tells them to get chosen by buyers who’ve already asked an AI. The second job is harder. HubSpot’s own numbers propose it pays better.
Start checking a distinct scoreboard first.
More Resources:
- HubSpot Stock Crashed 19% – What It Means For Partner Agencies
- So Your Traffic Tanked: What Smart CMOs Do Next
- How To Define & Report SEO KPIs That Actually Move The C-Suite
Featured Image: Piotr Swat/Shutterstock
