HubSpot Lost 70% of Its SEO Traffic—But That Doesn’t Mean It’s Losing
Despite a dramatic drop in organic visits—from 24 million monthly visitors down to 6–7 million—HubSpot remains the market leader in AI-related brand visibility. And that tells us something important about the future of search, branding, and buyer behavior.
📉 The Data: SEO Traffic Plummets, But Brand Visibility Holds
Recent SEO analysis reveals a sharp decline in HubSpot’s traffic beginning mid-2023. This aligns with:
- Google’s Helpful Content and Core Algorithm Updates
- The rise of AI Overviews in search
- Shifting user behavior toward AI-powered answer engines
But while traditional traffic collapsed, brand exposure did not.
📊 Key Stats:
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Drop in SEO Traffic | ~70–75% |
| Current Monthly Organic Visits | ~6–7 million |
| AI Share of Voice (Category) | 35.3% |
| Total Brand Mentions (Category) | 52.5% |
| Top Prompt Mentions (CRM, Reviews) | 95–100% |
👉 HubSpot is still dominating AI-related queries, even if the traffic isn’t landing directly on their blog.
🧠 From High-Traffic Funnels to AI-Efficient Discovery
Traditional content strategy was built on volume:
100,000 blog visitors → 2,000 subscribers → 100 MQLs
But today’s funnel looks different:
10,000 AI-informed searchers → 500 high-intent, product-qualified leads
That’s because content is now often consumed indirectly—via AI-generated summaries, Perplexity, ChatGPT responses, and Google’s AI Overviews.
HubSpot’s brand keeps surfacing in these tools, which collapses the buyer journey and removes friction.
Instead of a user reading 5–10 posts, they get a summarized answer that includes HubSpot as a trusted brand.
⚠️ The Hidden Risk: What If Competitors Move First?
Here’s where it gets serious.
Right now, HubSpot's brand equity is carrying the load.
But what happens if competitors like Zoho CRM, Salesforce, or Pipedrive start optimizing their content specifically for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?
If they get mentioned more frequently in AI-generated answers:
- HubSpot could lose its top-of-mind position
- Buyer trust might shift earlier in the journey
- Conversions could drop, even if traffic never comes back
In the AI-first world, brand mention share is the new SERP position.
And whoever shows up first—consistently, contextually, and accurately—wins the trust of the AI... and the buyer.
🏛️🛡️How AthenaHQ.ai Helps Companies Protect Their Moat
This is where a platform like AthenaHQ.ai becomes a game-changer.
AthenaHQ tracks and optimizes AI search visibility across all major platforms—ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google SGE, Claude, Gemini, and more.
Although Hubpost holds 53% of the CRM market share in AI search, competitors are mentioned twice in some responses, leading to a 35.2% share of voice.
🚀 Key Capabilities:
| Feature | What It Does |
|---|---|
| AI Share of Voice | See how often your brand is mentioned across AI-generated answers |
| Prompt Performance Tracking | Know which questions you dominate—and where you're invisible |
| Competitor Benchmarking | Compare your brand's AI visibility vs others in your space |
| Content Optimization Guidance | Get recommendations to improve AI visibility and prompt targeting |
| Alerts + Opportunity Reports | Be notified when you're losing ground to a competitor or gaining it |
Athena turns reactive SEO into proactive GEO—so you're not waiting to lose visibility to realize you had it.
It answers the big questions:
- Are we being recommended by AI when customers are researching?
- What prompts do we need to rank for in this new discovery layer?
- Who’s outranking us in AI, and how do we catch up?
In a world where AI is the new homepage, Athena is your radar, GPS, and growth engine.
🧭 What Marketers Should Learn from HubSpot’s Shift
This isn’t just a HubSpot story—it’s a playbook for modern marketers navigating the AI-first search era.
✅ 1. Traffic ≠ Growth
Vanity metrics are out. Focus on:
- Brand mentions in AI results
- Product-qualified leads
- Positioning in AI-overview summaries
✅ 2. Own Your Prompts
Just like we optimized for keywords in classic SEO, now we must optimize for prompts in AI.
Ask:
- Which prompts lead to your category?
- Is your brand being cited in those summaries?
✅ 3. Don’t Dilute—Go Deep
HubSpot’s past SEO strategy was to publish everything—including generic content like “resignation letter templates.”
Now, search rewards:
- Topical authority
- Expertise
- Depth over breadth
🎯 Focus your content strategy accordingly.
✅ 4. Be AI-Visible
This is the new visibility layer. To win:
- Structure content with clear, authoritative answers
- Get cited in public datasets and reviews
- Use schema markup, Q&A formats, and listicles that AI can extract from
🔮 The Future: AI as the New Search Engine
What we’re seeing is the rise of the “AI Discovery Layer.” It’s like SEO, but powered by large language models, conversational agents, and search hybrids.
And in this new world:
- Being mentioned matters more than being clicked
- Being summarized is as good as being read
- Fewer visits can still lead to better buyers
💬 Final Thought
HubSpot lost 70% of its traffic. But it didn’t lose market presence, or possibly even pipeline performance. That’s a powerful lesson. If your business is mentioned by AI, your influence travels further—even with fewer clicks.
⚡ Ready to See How You Rank in AI?
AthenaHQ.ai can show you:
- Where your brand appears in AI search
- Where you’re missing out
- And what you need to do to lead the next era of discovery
Let’s make sure your brand stays ahead—even if traffic doesn’t come back.