80% of the Web is Bots, Half of Searches are Zero-Click—Is Online Customer Acquisition No Longer Viable for Small and Medium Enterprises?

Do you know how many “humans” visited your company’s website this month?

According to Imperva’s 2024 report, approximately 49.6% of total web traffic is generated by bots. Furthermore, a study by Barracuda reports that when including malicious bots, automated access accounts for up to 64% of all traffic. In some industries and sites, the proportion of bot traffic has been confirmed to exceed 80%.

The so-called “Dead Internet Theory,” once dismissed as a conspiracy theory—that most content and traffic on the internet is no longer human—has begun to be substantiated by numbers.

The question now is: how much will this structural change increase customer acquisition costs for local small and medium enterprises?

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The Model of “People Coming from Search” is Breaking Down

First, let’s examine what’s happening with customer acquisition through search engines.

Gartner predicts that organic traffic from search engines will decrease by 25% by 2025. According to an analysis by SparkToro, about 58.5% of Google searches (as of 2024) end in what is known as “zero-click”—where users find answers on the search results page without visiting any sites.

As Google’s AI Overview (formerly SGE) is rolled out, this ratio is expected to increase further. Since AI summarizes answers and displays them at the top of search results, there will be less reason to click on links.

What does this mean for small and medium enterprises?

Consider a local construction company that receives 1,000 search visits per month. If the zero-click rate rises from the current 58% to 70%, the actual traffic to the site would drop from 420 visits to 300—a decrease of about 29%. To maintain the same number of inquiries, they would have to either increase their advertising budget or dramatically improve their conversion rates.

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Advertising Costs are Already Rising

So, can we just compensate with advertising? It’s not that simple.

According to data from WordStream, the average cost per click (CPC) for Google Ads has risen by about 10-20% across industries from 2020 to 2024. This increase is particularly significant in local services (such as legal services, renovations, and healthcare) due to intensified competition.

Adding to the complexity is the issue of bot-generated ad clicks. Juniper Research estimates that global losses from ad fraud will reach approximately $100 billion in 2024. A portion of the limited advertising budget for small and medium enterprises may be consumed by bots. If 10,000 yen of a 50,000 yen monthly ad budget is lost to bots, the effective CPC increases by 25%.

In summary, the structure looks like this:

• Organic Traffic → Decrease due to zero-clicks
• Ad Traffic → Increased CPC + bot clicks lead to higher effective costs
• Social Media Traffic → Increased reach costs due to the flood of AI-generated content

In all three areas, customer acquisition costs are rising.

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Cost Increase Estimate: A World Where 100,000 Yen Becomes 150,000 Yen

Let’s run some specific calculations.

Consider a case where a local small business spends 100,000 yen on web customer acquisition (outsourcing SEO + listing ads) monthly.

This results in an additional cost of about 660,000 yen annually. For a company with fewer than 10 employees, this is a significant figure.

Moreover, this is the cost to “maintain the status quo,” not an investment for growth. It’s like running on a treadmill while the conveyor belt beneath you speeds up.

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The Flood of AI Content is Changing the Premise of SEO

Another change that cannot be overlooked is the explosive increase in AI-generated content.

According to a study by NewsGuard, over 1,000 news sites are identified as having been largely generated by AI as of 2024. Music streaming service Deezer reported that a significant number of songs on its platform are AI-generated. Text, images, videos, music—AI content is surging across all media.

How does this impact SEO?

Google has officially stated that it evaluates content based on “quality and reliability” rather than “who wrote it.” However, in reality, if a large number of AI-generated articles fill the index, the chances of a well-crafted piece from a small business being buried increase. The competition to appear on the first page of search results is increasingly becoming a battle of content volume.

Large corporations can produce hundreds of articles a month using AI. It is impossible for small businesses to compete on the same playing field.

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So, What Should Small and Medium Enterprises Do?

There’s no point in being overly pessimistic. If the structure is changing, we should adapt to leverage that change.

1. Have Customer Acquisition Channels That Are “Not Dependent on Search”

If traffic from Google decreases, create pathways that do not rely on Google. Specifically, build a “customer list that connects directly with your company,” such as through official LINE accounts or email lists. This can start at a few thousand yen per month. Once connected, zero-clicks and bots become irrelevant.

2. Compete with Content That AI Cannot Create

AI excels at writing “generally correct information,” but it cannot write about “the actual results of what was done in this specific field.” The greatest weapon of local small and medium enterprises is their access to real, first-hand information from the field. Case studies, customer testimonials, and region-specific know-how—these are things that AI cannot generate, no matter how hard it tries.

3. Become a User of AI

Article writing, ad copy creation, drafting customer responses—tasks that previously cost 50,000 to 100,000 yen per month to outsource can now be done for under 10,000 yen using AI tools. While costs are rising in some areas, there are also areas where costs can dramatically decrease with AI. The savings can be allocated to cover the increase in customer acquisition costs.

4. Reassess Offline Touchpoints

The rise in online customer acquisition costs means that the relative value of offline channels is also increasing. Local events, referrals, word-of-mouth, flyers—channels that small businesses have excelled at since before the digital age can be made more efficient with digital tools. Combining analog and digital methods, such as adding QR codes to referral cards to encourage LINE registrations, can be effective.

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What’s Truly Scary is “Not Realizing Costs Are Rising”

Finally, there’s one more thing I want to emphasize.

The increase in customer acquisition costs does not happen suddenly. It rises gradually, by a few thousand yen each month. Access numbers decrease slightly, ad response rates drop gradually, and before you know it, you find yourself thinking, “Has the number of inquiries decreased recently?”

That’s why it’s crucial to understand your company’s customer acquisition structure in numerical terms at this point.

• What percentage of monthly site visitors are bots?
• Is search traffic increasing or decreasing compared to six months ago?
• Is the CPC for ads rising?
• How much does it cost to acquire one inquiry?

By tracking these four numbers every month, you can quickly notice structural changes.

Even if 80% of the web is bots and searches become zero-click, local small and medium enterprises have the advantage of being able to “connect directly with customers in front of them,” a strength that large corporations lack. The question is whether you will create a system to leverage that strength now. That’s where the difference will be.