The golden age of Google-only SEO is over. In this revealing conversation, Jeremy Rivera sits down with Claude Zdanow (CEO) and Chris Becker (President) of Onar—a publicly traded marketing technology and agency network—to explore how businesses must fundamentally reimagine their digital marketing strategies.
From tracking brand visibility in LLM responses to measuring “share of wallet” in ChatGPT, this episode tackles the measurement crisis facing every CMO today. You’ll discover why traffic is down but revenue is up for many brands, how to use AI agents to track your competitive position in AI search, and why meeting customers “knee to knee” in real life is more important than ever.
Key Topics Covered:
- Why the 2010-2020 “golden age” of SEO is definitively over
- The shocking reality of zero-click search and what it means for your business
- How to measure your brand’s “share of voice” in LLM responses
- A tactical 3-agent framework for tracking competitive positioning in AI search
- Why “get niche, get rich” is the survival strategy for mid-market brands
- The power of combining IRL (“knee to knee”) marketing with digital tracking
- How to reframe your entire data measurement strategy for 2025 and beyond
Guest Information:
Claude Zdanow – CEO, Onar
- Nearly two decades of experience scaling marketing and advertising enterprises
- Led Onar through four strategic acquisitions
- Previously worked with global brands like 7-Eleven, Disney, and Microsoft
Chris Becker – President, Onar
- Oversees all P&Ls across Onar’s agency network
- Maintained a lower than 5% annual churn rate for five consecutive years
- Leading Onar’s shift from traffic-based to behavior-based measurement
Host: Jeremy Rivera – Founder of SEO Arcade | Host of Unscripted SEO Podcast
Key Interview Highlights
On Client Retention and Trust
Chris Becker:
“One thing that my background lends itself to that I look at is we have a real focus on what value do we actually provide? What is the meaningful thing to companies? When companies come to us, any time a business engages with a piece of technology or an agency, especially an agency, they’re looking to make more money than they were charged for, just point blank.”
“I think there’s no metric that points to that than having lower than a 5% churn rate annually for five consecutive years at a performance marketing agency.”
On the Disruption in Search
Chris Becker:
“We’re seeing major disruption, frankly. And what I call major disruption is more about rate of change, not necessarily yet that change in high volume has been disrupted, but the rate of change is clearly headed towards LLM usage.”
“Historically, we had this concept of a pillar cluster strategy that was from your website built out and you get into these peak key terms that you’re trying to rank for. I think now you really have to look at the internet as a web of data which feeds into that more pillar cluster model.”
On the End of Google-Only SEO
Jeremy Rivera:
“I was speaking with my friend Michael McDougald of Right Thing Agency and we were kind of saying the golden age of SEO as Google-only was from 2010 to 2020. That’s when, if you could figure out backlinks and get your content strategy, you don’t have to worry about Microsoft anymore. Yahoo was gone. And the only game in town was Google, but that time is over. It’s so gone.”
On Reframing Data Measurement
Chris Becker:
“This is a topic I think that is in every boardroom, in every small business leadership circle, in every CMO’s mind right now. There’s no ignoring the elephant in the room that things are changing. Google is no longer your only pillar that you have on the search side.”
“You have simply got to look at your data differently now. There’s so many zero-click movements. We used to look at clicks to website and think, well, this was an informational click and this was a commercial click and so on. And now you only get commercial clicks, point blank. They’re coming to your website with high buyer intent.”
“We’re seeing a lot of people who are seeing their SEO down, but the revenue is slightly up from organic. And so you’re seeing these dynamic shifts.”
“Historically, we used to look at all of these clicks to the website and give credence to that. And now we need to look at how much—what’s my share of wallet on the LLM space? Within ChatGPT, relative to my competitors, what percentage of queries do I populate within the answer for relative to my competitors?”
On Audience Targeting
Chris Becker:
“We’re not just marketing to athletes, we’re marketing to amateur runners who enjoy 5Ks and may take on a marathon every year. As an example, we’ve really got to get down to the nitty-gritty of who we are marketing this key product to or this set of product category to, and make sure that we’re building an entire measurement framework for their behavior.”
On Content Relevancy
Claude Zdanow:
“I absolutely agree. I think it’s about relevancy, right? Based on the query, based on showing up in a place that matters. I think there used to be a lot of things that you would do just to get eyeballs, right? And then hoping those eyeballs would convert.”
“Whereas now it’s not necessarily the best solution, right? It’s like I want the best—I don’t know—shoes for running at 100-degree temperatures in Arizona. It’s like how do you solve for that query, right? How do you have content that speaks to that around your product and ties that all the way back?”
“We’re just in this hyper-catered world now where the expectation, I think by nature of these LLMs, is instant gratification, instant result that speaks to exactly what your question is, right?”
On Using AI Agents to Track LLM Performance
Chris Becker:
“Simply create an agent that comes up and that you work really hard to give it all the information about a specific persona that you have and let them—let that agent rather—think of every query that would come out of that audience member to your specific LLM.”
“If you give it enough time and enough duration, 10,000, 50,000 queries to come out, it should be able to over time create the largest list of queries. And then you match that with your query list historically on Google, and you can really get into an AI model creating all of the queries that you need.”
“Give another agent the task of prompting each LLM with those queries, and then give another agent a task of reviewing those answers and determining where they’re referencing the answers they give. LLMs always reference where they get those answers.”
“It can really give you tactical items of where do you go, what type of content do you create, and on which platforms do you need that energy to come from so that you can get those references over your competitors, or at least you can get in there and duke it out with them.”
On Niche Strategy
Chris Becker:
“If you’re not necessarily that top brand, focus in on one very specific area and maybe become that known for that one cohorted column or cluster, if you will, of queries.”
“Get niche, get rich. You’ve got to know those niche audiences that you have and go show up where they are.”
On Product Value
Chris Becker:
“The most important piece is create a great product and a great service that people want to talk about and then invite them to talk about it.”
“The most important thing is have a really valuable product and focus in on your value proposition against your pricing structure so that people have a real reason to go and talk.”
On IRL Marketing Integration
Chris Becker:
“Your brand needs to be meeting people knee to knee. And if you are doing that in great experiential ways, outstanding. You mentioned a couple of really great examples, but you really got to have a digital component to it.”
“If they go into GPT, they may reference that location. And if you have a custom homepage—I’m sorry, custom squeeze page or landing page built specific to that location—right? We’re creating connectivity across all platforms. We’re creating real unique juice, if you will, to point back to the brand.”
“Getting in and meeting knee to knee at that brand level with a digital connectivity piece, that hook—and that speaks very specifically to that audience that we talked about earlier. That is truly the area where I think we’re going to see marketing head toward.”
On Budget Reality
Claude Zdanow:
“At the end of the day, some of the things that a brand can do and cannot do besides how far to the dark side or the light side they’re approaching is also a factor of the amount of money they have to spend, right? And how competitive the market set is, right?”
“There are brands out there that essentially have endless amounts of money to do these things. And there are other ones that have to be scrappier and more creative in terms of how do they penetrate a market where you’re facing an army of ad spend and people working on these other brands that you’re competing with.”
Key Takeaways
1. The Measurement Paradigm Has Shifted
- Traffic down, revenue up is the new normal
- Zero-click search means only high-intent visitors reach your site
- Traditional metrics are actively misleading decision-makers
2. LLM Share of Voice is the New Critical Metric
- Track what percentage of LLM responses mention your brand vs. competitors
- Use a 3-agent system: query generator, LLM interrogator, citation analyzer
- Measure presence across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and other LLMs
3. Content Must Be Hyper-Specific
- Move from broad top-of-funnel to specific solution-focused content
- Target micro-niches with extreme buyer intent
- Think “shoes for 100-degree Arizona running” not “running shoes”
4. The Internet is Now a Web of Data
- Pillar cluster strategies must extend beyond your website
- Contextualization matters more than keyword density
- Presence on Reddit, Quora, and platforms is essential for LLM citations
5. Behavioral Measurement Trumps Traffic Metrics
- Build frameworks that track user behavior across platforms
- Get intimate with specific audience cohorts
- Measure the entire journey from platform engagement to conversion
6. “Get Niche, Get Rich”
- Mid-market brands can’t outspend category leaders
- Focus on dominating one specific query cluster
- Become THE authority in a narrow vertical
7. Digital + Physical Integration is Critical
- Meet people “knee to knee” with IRL experiences
- Create location-specific landing pages tied to events
- Build attribution models that connect offline to online
8. Product Value is Non-Negotiable
- No amount of sophisticated marketing saves mediocre products
- Focus on value proposition vs. pricing structure
- Authentic quality gets amplified organically in the distributed web
Connect with Our Guests
Claude Zdanow & Chris Becker
- Company: Onar
- Agencies: Onar’s Agency Network
- Technology: Onar Labs
- About: Company Overview
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
Related Articles:
- Onar Announces Onar Labs and Cortex Platform
- Onar Acquires Retina AI for Predictive Analytics
- Onar Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire JUICE
Other Guests Mentioned:
- Michael McDougald – Right Thing Agency
- Matt Brooks – SEOteric
- Timothy Jackson – Mercy’s Sake
- Permacast Walls
Onar Agencies:
