New Research! What's WRONG with Content Marketing Today

Andy Crestodina has asked more than a thousand content marketers the same questions every year since 2014, which makes him the only person holding a twelve-year record of whether content marketing works. This year's answers are the worst he has ever published. Only 13.9% of marketers report strong results from their blog, down from a range of 20% to 30% that held for nine straight years. Another 18.9% say they no longer know whether their blog works at all. What makes it stranger is everything that happened alongside it. Posts got 115 words shorter. Time spent per post fell by 50 minutes. And 92.4% of marketers adopted AI, which his data shows correlates with no improvement whatsoever. Andy joins Sandy Carter to explain what is actually driving the decline, which tactics still outperform, and why marketers are abandoning those exact tactics. Influencer collaboration runs at 2.6 times the benchmark and adoption dropped 22%. Guest blogging fell 29% in the same year AI systems started deciding which sources to cite. The episode closes with a round called Dead or Alive, where Sandy names a content tactic and Andy has to rule on it using his own numbers. Andy Crestodina is co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Orbit Media Studios and the author of Content Chemistry, now in its seventh edition. Read the full 2026 report: https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogging-statistics/ Connect with Andy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andycrestodina/ YouTube Title: How to Lose Readers and Influence Nobody | Andy Crestodina on the Worst Year in Blogging Data Description: 92.4% of marketers now use AI for content. Results just hit a twelve-year low. Those two facts are related, though not in the way you would expect. Andy Crestodina has surveyed over a thousand content marketers every year since 2014. His 2026 report shows strong results falling to 13.9%, the lowest number he has ever recorded, in the same year effort dropped across the board and AI adoption hit an all-time high. In this episode he tells Sandy Carter what is behind the decline, which tactics still outperform the benchmark, and why marketers are walking away from exactly those tactics. We also get into what belongs on a content dashboard instead of traffic volume, and why blocking AI crawlers hurts the brand doing the blocking. Chapters (producer: adjust to the final cut) 0:00 Trees, scuba, and why he started counting in 2014 4:00 The worst year in twelve years of data 11:30 The least popular tactics work best 18:30 You are counting the wrong thing 25:00 Dead or Alive: eight tactics, eight rulings The numbers from the report • 13.9% report strong results, an all-time low • 18.9% do not know whether their blog works • 92.4% use AI, with no correlation to better results • Average post: 1,312 words, down from 1,427 in 2023 • Influencer collaboration: 2.6x the benchmark, adoption down 22% • Guest blogging adoption: down 29% • AI citations convert at 4.55%, Google search at 0.71% Links Full 2026 report: https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogging-statistics/ Andy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andycrestodina/ Orbit Media Studios: https://www.orbitmedia.com/ Subscribe for new episodes of The AI Marketing Companion with Sandy Carter. #ContentMarketing #AIMarketing #SEO #MarketingStrategy #AISearch