Rand Fishkin, founder of SparkToro and also famous SEO guy had this slide at a conference that shows: Where is your audience influenced -vs- Where companies allocate their budget.

For example it's showing not a ton of people are influenced by Google Search as much, but MOST of the budget is going towards it.

And A LOT of people are being influenced by emails and newsletter, but only 1% of the budget is going towards it.

The slide compares where audiences are influenced (inner circle) versus where marketing budgets are allocated (outer circle). Here's a breakdown of the data:

Google Search Keywords (Unbranded)
- Influence: 33% (145K)
- Budget Allocation: High
Industry Websites & Blogs
- Influence: 15% (140K)
- Budget Allocation: Low
Social Feeds (Social Media Platforms)
- Influence: 15% (140K)
- Budget Allocation: High
YouTube Channels
- Influence: 6% (110K)
- Budget Allocation: Low
Email Newsletters
- Influence: 1% (100K)
- Budget Allocation: Low
Social Ads
- Influence: 3% (90K)
- Budget Allocation: High
Conferences & Events
- Influence: 7%
- Budget Allocation: Medium
Slack, Facebook & WhatsApp Groups
- Influence: 4%
- Budget Allocation: Low
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google Discover & Apple News
- Influence: Growing
- Budget Allocation: Low
Traditional News Media
- Influence: 8% (75K)
- Budget Allocation: Medium
Podcasts
- Influence: 2% (45K)
- Budget Allocation: Low
SubReddits
- Influence: 2% (40K)
- Budget Allocation: Low
Comparison Sites
- Influence: 2% (35K)
- Budget Allocation: Low

Key Takeaways from the data:

Google Search (Unbranded) is the most influential but also receives high budget allocation.
Industry Websites & Blogs have strong influence but receive relatively lower budget allocation.
Social Media Feeds (15%) receive a lot of budget despite being less influential than Google Search.
YouTube is a significant influencer (110K) but receives low budget allocation.
ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI news aggregators are emerging, but investment is currently low.
Podcasts, Reddit, and Comparison Sites have small but noteworthy influence, yet budgets remain minimal.

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Rand Fishkin's "Audience Influence Spending" Slide

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