Turning Lurkers Into Leads in the Zero-click Era

The 1% Rule: Why Most of Your Audience Stays Silent

Nick built his talk around the 1% rule (also called the 90-9-1 rule), first described in 2006. In any online community:

• 1% create
• 9% contribute, comment, or add to what’s already there
• 90% consume, and never participate. These are the lurkers.

Jakob Nielsen documented the same pattern at Nielsen Norman Group, and found it’s often even more lopsided. On blogs, the split looked more like 95-5-0.1.

Nick made two points that marketers still miss. First, lurking is a sign of interest. There’s endless content out there, so if someone is consuming yours, that’s a positive signal. Second, the 90% is only your current audience. Beyond them are the “lookers,” people trying to solve a problem you solve who haven’t found you yet. And beyond them are the people who will need you someday. Nick extended the rule to 1-9-90-900-9,000, growing by a factor of ten with each ring.

Research has since put numbers to those outer rings. Professor John Dawes of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, working with the LinkedIn B2B Institute, found that businesses change providers of major services roughly every five years. That means only about 5% of your potential buyers are in the market in any given quarter. The other 95% are Nick’s future people.

Here’s the video from the webinar:

Marketers Create Value Long Before You Get the Lead

One of the ideas I loved most from Nick’s talk came from a story about his previous startup. A man walked up to him and said he’d put $30,000 in next year’s budget for Nick’s product. Nick had never heard of him. He’d been quietly following the company, and he’d made a buying decision before he ever said hello.

As Nick put it, “your marketing is actually creating value long before you can measure it. And that’s part of the problem.” It’s a challenge worth sitting with: Marketers create value long before you get the lead, which means the content you publish today is quietly shaping decisions you won’t see for months.

That problem has become the defining challenge of B2B marketing. Here’s what the current data says:

This is the zero-click era, and it isn’t going to reverse. More of your audience will lurk, not less, and more of that lurking will happen in places you can’t see. Any attribution model built on clicks will under-count it. It’s the natural consequence of a world where audiences consume but they don’t participate—and understanding why that happens is the first step toward doing something about it.

We can complain about that, or we can build for it. Part of building for it means rethinking how you reach people who haven’t raised their hand yet—and understanding why the instinct to be human, as others are with you, matters more than ever when buyers are watching from a distance.

Why Lurkers Don’t Step Forward

Before we get to the method, it helps to understand why a lurker stays in the shadows. Nick’s answer, drawn from the laws in his Unlurk Me project, is that it’s often something we’re doing. Here are a few of his laws, and what they mean today:

• The Law of a Million Thirds. Every conversation online has people listening in. Write knowing they’re there, in a way that invites them to say, “Tell me more.”
• Imperfection invites participation. When your content is too polished and too complete, nobody feels they can add to it. Leave some room.
• The Law of Adding Value. People won’t join a conversation unless they feel they can contribute. Be helpful, but not intimidatingly helpful.
• The Law of Culture. Newcomers mirror the behavior they see. If you respond to people in a welcoming way, that’s what they’ll expect, and that’s what they’ll do.
• The Law of Soft Signals. It takes many touches to convert someone, and memories leak. Keep showing up with regular, gentle signals instead of trying to dominate.
• The Laws of Learning and Info-Snacking. People learn on a need-to-know basis. Give them one useful bite at a time, with plenty of entry points, and leave them wanting more.

Underneath all of these is self-doubt. As Nick said, one of the reasons an audience member doesn’t join in “is because they don’t feel they are worthy of it.” That emotional barrier is real, and it’s worth understanding: what would it take for you to participate—and what emotional triggers make it feel safe enough to do so?

So ask yourself: when do you participate? What makes it comfortable for you? Here are some ways you can play with being:

• Be curious
• Be enticing
• Be friendly
• Be helpful
• Be intriguing
• Be supportive

And here are some things to check yourself on:

• Are you trying to be perfect?
• Are you too intellectual?
• Do you have to be the “expert” with all the answers?

This matters more now than it did in 2015. An AI assistant can summarize the textbook answer to almost any question. What it can’t offer is a real person who shares what they’ve seen with clients, admits what they’re still figuring out, and responds when you reach out. That’s what a lurker is looking for before they step forward. If you’re not sure whether your content strikes the right balance, it’s worth asking: Do you have to be the expert with all the answers—and what kinds of content push lurkers away instead of drawing them in?

The Lurker-to-Lead Ladder

Nick’s laws explain why lurkers stay quiet. Here’s how we help them step forward, one small rung at a time. Genoo’s Lurker-to-Lead Ladder is Genoo’s five-rung method for turning silent readers into leads: be found where the answer is given, be safe to approach, make the first step small, let their clicks do the talking, and keep the signals soft and steady. Each rung serves a different ring of Nick’s model, and each one makes the next step feel less risky.

Rung 1: Be Found Where the Answer Is Given

For lookers and future people, the first encounter often isn’t your website. It’s an AI Overview, a ChatGPT answer, or a post a colleague forwarded. You can’t control whether they click. You can control whether your expertise is the source.

That means publishing content built around your buyers’ real problems, and connecting it so that search engines, AI engines, and people all see a clear center of expertise. That’s the Anchor-Connect-Extend Framework, and we walk through it in The Architecture of Being Found. At this rung, measure presence, not clicks: when buyers ask the questions you answer, are you cited, named, or recommended?

Rung 2: Be Safe to Approach

When a lurker does land on your content, it has to feel human. This is where Nick’s laws live. Put a real name on your posts. Share opinions and client stories. End with a question you actually want answered. Respond to comments publicly and generously, because the lurkers are watching how you treat the people who speak up.

Rung 3: Make the First Step Small

Most websites offer a lurker exactly one way to step forward: “Book a Meeting.” But only 1 to 2 of every 100 visitors are ready for that. The other 98 need a smaller step.

Give them one. A checklist, a short guide, an email series, a replay, something useful on one topic, in exchange for a first name and email address. Once they’re in, behavioral segmentation for leads who never clicked gives you a framework for grouping them by what they actually do—so your follow-up speaks to where each person really is. Follow New Lead – Yeah! Now What?: ask for exactly as much information as your offer has earned.

This is also why we’re firmly in the opt-in camp, and not fans of the ungated content model. An opt-in is consent. It’s the moment an anonymous reader becomes someone you can actually help.

Rung 4: Let Their Clicks Do the Talking

A brand-new lead is still mostly a lurker. They’ve given you their email address, not their problem. Don’t interrogate them.

Welcome them with the GTKEO Sequence, then let the Self-Segmentation Loop take over: send valuable content on two or three distinct challenges, with scored links, and let each lead’s clicks sort them into the right nurturing sequence. Beyond-the-Click Segmentation captures what they read after the click. This is lurking you can see, and it’s the clearest data you’ll ever get about what a lead wants.

Rung 5: Keep the Signals Soft and Steady

Nick compared us to a leaking balloon: every touch fades over time. Our own list data puts a number on it. Past the 42-Day Memory Window, a silent lead no longer remembers opting in.

So keep a steady cadence, and follow the Value-to-Pitch Formula: three value-based emails for every pitch. Keep inviting small participation, too. Ask a question they can answer by replying, or a one-click choice about what they’d like to learn next. Many will never reply. That’s OK. They’re lurking in your inbox, and it still counts.

How to Measure What You Can’t See: The Shadow Signal Scorecard

Start by accepting this: you will never be able to attribute most of the influence your content has on lurkers. Last-click attribution was never going to capture it, and zero-click search makes that gap bigger every year.

Refine Labs showed how wide the gap can be. When they compared software attribution with what 620 of their own buyers reported, software credited web search for 78% of conversions, while buyers said 85% came from social media, podcasts, word of mouth, and community. Same buyers, very different stories.

So stop chasing perfect attribution, and start measuring the shadow. We call this Genoo’s Shadow Signal Scorecard. The Shadow Signal Scorecard is Genoo’s method for measuring the influence your content has on buyers you can’t see: pair every invisible touch with a signal you can measure, and judge your marketing by the trend of those signals instead of by click attribution.

Here’s how the pairings work:

Review the scorecard every month or quarter, and read the trend, not the touch. If you consistently publish valuable content, and your list, branded search, and inbound conversations keep growing, your lurkers are working for you.

This also gives you a better story to tell internally. Nick said it plainly: the value your marketing creates before a lead appears is “very hard to bank and to justify.” The 1-9-90 model, backed by current zero-click data, is how you explain to leadership why the leads you can see are only the visible part of what your marketing is doing.

Everyone You Talk to Was Once a Lurker

Nick closed his talk with a question: do you have a lurker strategy? Most companies don’t. They’re too busy with the people already talking to them.

But as Nick reminded us, “Everyone you’re talking to today was at some point a lurker.”

The zero-click era hasn’t changed that. It’s made the lurking deeper, longer, and harder to see. The companies that win will be the ones that make it safe for lurkers to step forward, give them a small first step, and keep showing up, whether or not anyone is clicking. That also means making sure the emails you do send actually land in front of them—reaching your audience where they actually are depends on deliverability working in your favor.

When a lurker does finally raise their hand, what you send them first matters most. Our post New Lead – Yeah! Now What? walks through how to welcome new leads and let their clicks show you what they want to learn next.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the zero-click era and why does it matter for B2B marketers?

68% of U.S. Google searches ended without a click to any website in early 2026, up from 60% in 2024. You can be the source of the answer and still not get the click. This is the zero-click era, and it isn't going to reverse. More of your audience will lurk, not less, and more of that lurking will happen in places you can't see.

Why do most online audiences stay silent instead of engaging with content?

Nick built his talk around the 1% rule (also called the 90-9-1 rule): 1% create, 9% contribute, comment, or add to what's already there, and 90% consume, and never participate. These are the lurkers. Underneath all of these is self-doubt. As Nick said, one of the reasons an audience member doesn't join in 'is because they don't feel they are worthy of it.'

How can B2B marketers turn lurkers into leads when buyers never click or identify themselves?

Genoo's Lurker-to-Lead Ladder is a five-rung method for turning silent readers into leads: be found where the answer is given, be safe to approach, make the first step small, let their clicks do the talking, and keep the signals soft and steady. Each rung serves a different ring of Nick's model, and each one makes the next step feel less risky.

How do you measure marketing influence when most buyers never click or fill out a form?

The shadow signal scorecard tracks what you can see as a proxy for what you can't. Signals include trends in return visitors, branded search, and direct traffic; what new leads did next beyond the click; self-reported answers from new leads; and a simple question in sales conversations: 'What were you reading before you reached out?' Review the scorecard every month or quarter, and read the trend, not the touch.

What percentage of B2B buyers are actually in the market at any given time?

Professor John Dawes of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, working with the LinkedIn B2B Institute, found that businesses change providers of major services roughly every five years. That means only about 5% of your potential buyers are in the market in any given quarter. The other 95% are Nick's future people.