How to Increase Ad Revenue When AI Overviews and LLMs Eat Your Clicks

If you’ve opened Search Console lately and thought something looked off, you’re not imagining it. Impressions are rising, but clicks are falling. That familiar “crocodile mouth” graph, where the lines stretch further apart with each passing month, is showing up more and more. Ahrefs calls this the Great Decoupling — and it’s not just you. We’re seeing this across the board.

AI Overviews are doing exactly what they’re designed to do: answering user questions directly on the results page. In many cases, they’re doing it using summaries of your content. Add in tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Perplexity, and it’s easy to see why fewer people are clicking through to publisher sites.

CTR is down. And for many, so is ad revenue.

This hits especially hard if your site relies on single-intent visits, like calculators, converters, or quick how-to content. Users get the answer they need without ever leaving the SERP, and the visit (and the impression) never lands.

We know it’s frustrating. You’re still offering valueable content. You’re still showing up in search results. But the rules of engagement have shifted, and the value of each individual visit is higher than ever.

The upside? There’s still plenty you can do to adapt, both to protect revenue and to set yourself up for whatever comes next.

Why Is This Happening? A Quick Primer on AI Overviews and LLMs

Google’s AI Overviews now appear at the top of many search results, summarizing content from multiple sources. Sometimes it includes a link. Often it doesn’t. If your content gets pulled in, great. But if it doesn’t, users might still get their answer without ever scrolling further.

Large language models like ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and Perplexity are part of the same shift. These tools crawl the web, gather information from publisher sites, and repackage it into helpful responses. The user experience is fast and seamless. For publishers, it means fewer visits, fewer ad impressions, and fewer opportunities to get paid.

And this isn’t just theory. In many cases, we’re seeing real drops in click-through rate for pages that still rank well. According to a study by Search Engine Journal, the top organic result saw a 32% drop in CTR after the rollout of AI Overviews. The traffic is technically there, but it’s not making it to your site. The clicks are disappearing.

Sites with clear, direct answers or single-use utilities are feeling this first. But as AI tools evolve, broader content categories are starting to feel it too.

This is the landscape now. Content is still being consumed, but not always through your website. That changes how we think about value, visibility, and revenue. So the question becomes, what can you actually do about it?

How to Increase Ad Revenue: Your On-Site Strategy

If fewer people are clicking through, every single visit matters more.

That means your site needs to work harder. Not in a spammy, stuff-every-slot kind of way. In a smart, well-optimized, make-the-most-of-what-you-have kind of way.

We’re talking about tightening up the setup. Improving viewability. Reducing load delays. Making sure the ads that do get seen are actually earning their keep. These are the kinds of changes that can lift revenue without touching traffic.

Here’s where to start:

Prioritize Viewability

Advertisers care about viewable impressions. That matters even more on mobile, where smaller screens and faster scroll behavior can hurt visibility. If your top units aren’t loading fast enough or sit in places users scroll past too quickly, you’re leaving money behind. Keep high-value units in stable positions, make sure they’re visible early, and avoid anything that shifts or jumps once the page loads.

Every pixel counts (especially the ones above the fold).

Use Smart Refresh Tactics

Sites with longer session times are ideal candidates for ad refresh. But default settings often miss the mark. Instead of refreshing on a fixed timer, use scroll depth, interaction, or time on page to trigger reloads more intelligently. That way, you’re showing new ads when it makes sense, not just when the clock says so.

This becomes even more important on mobile, where average sessions are shorter and engagement windows are tighter. Triggering refreshes based on actual user behavior helps maximize impressions without killing performance.

Reduce Lazy Load Delays

Lazy loading is good for performance, but it needs to be tuned carefully. If your ads are taking too long to appear, they might not count as viewable at all. This is especially risky on mobile. A user might scroll past a slot before the ad even has a chance to load, which means you lose the impression entirely.

Check the load timing on your most important placements. Consider moving the lazy load threshold closer to the viewport, especially for mobile users. Ads that appear just a little too late might still register with the user, but not with the advertiser.

Rethink Ad Layout and Density

There’s a balance between clean design and effective monetization. Too many ads can overwhelm users. Too few can flatten your revenue. Experiment with layouts that support multiple units without disrupting the experience. And if you’ve had the same setup for years, it’s worth revisiting. User behavior shifts over time, and so should your layout.

Use scroll tracking and heatmaps to identify dead zones or underperforming units. Shift them into higher-value placements where users actually engage. This can be one of the simplest ways to improve both revenue and user experience without adding more inventory.

This is all about squeezing more value from the traffic you already have. And right now, that’s one of the most reliable ways to defend your revenue.

How to Make Your Content More LLM-Friendly (Without Turning It Into SEO Fluff)

If language models are going to keep using your content to answer questions, then it makes sense to make that content easier to understand. You might not get traffic the way you used to, but there is still value in being the source that tools like ChatGPT and Copilot pull from, especially if you can maintain visibility or earn the occasional link.

Structure Matters

Pages that are well-organized, clearly labeled, and easy to scan tend to perform better across the board. You do not need to turn your site into an FAQ farm, but you should avoid burying key points in dense paragraphs or overcomplicated layouts. Keep it simple. Break things into sections. Make it obvious what each part of the page is trying to do.

This is not just for machines. A clean layout and clear headings help users stay engaged too, which means longer sessions and stronger ad performance. If you’re already thinking about how to improve revenue per visitor, this kind of clarity supports that goal.

Original Content Wins

The second thing that helps is uniqueness. LLMs are good at summarizing facts. What they are not good at is replicating nuance, opinion, or anything that sounds human. That is your advantage. If your content includes real examples, original comparisons, or context that does not exist elsewhere, it becomes harder to replace. That also makes it more valuable to your audience, which brings people back and improves monetization over time.

Clean Up the Basics

It is also worth checking your metadata and markup. Clean titles, clear descriptions, and crawlable pages are table stakes at this point. If your site has structured data, such as FAQ or how-to schema, make sure it is actually implemented and working. These small technical details help both search engines and AI tools understand what your content covers and how it should be used.

None of this is about trying to scrape back a few lost visits from AI tools. It is about making sure the content you already invest in continues to work for you, even as the rules of discovery keep shifting. Strong structure, clear value, and basic technical hygiene will carry your content further.

And it is one more thing you can still control.

When DIY Monetization Stops Working (And What Working with a Partner Really Means)

Running your own monetization setup makes sense for a lot of tech publishers. You built your stack. You understand your traffic. You’ve probably done more than most to squeeze value out of your site. And when everything is going smoothly, it works.

But, most solo setups were never built to survive a 30 percent traffic dip, a Core Web Vitals update, and Google shifting the rules of engagement all at once.

Monetization isn’t just about flipping a switch and watching the money come in. It involves constant adjustments. Bidding logic. Viewability tuning. Load order and layout shifts. Demand partner performance. Site speed. Session depth. Scroll behavior. And on top of all that, you still need time to actually build content or grow the business.

This is where a good partner can help. Not by adding layers of complexity, but by giving you support that adapts to how you like to work. You can stay fully involved, make changes, run experiments, and dig into the numbers yourself. Or you can step back and let someone else handle the daily details. Either way, a partner should feel like an extension of your team, not a replacement for it.

Here is one way to think about it:

Working with Publisher Collective means you decide how involved you want to be. Some publishers check in every week. Others prefer a quarterly report and let the results that speak for themselves. Either way, we work alongside you to improve performance and make sure your setup still makes sense as the landscape changes.

Because when traffic is down, you need every visitor to count. And it is easier to do that with a team behind you. Get in touch to find out how we can support you.

Final Thoughts

Traffic patterns are changing. Search is changing. And the old playbook for growing revenue might not hold up the way it used to.

But that doesn’t mean publishers are out of options. It just means the focus needs to shift. From chasing more clicks to making the most of every visitor. From broad strategies to sharper, more intentional setups.

Whether you keep things in-house or work with a partner, now is a good time to pressure test what you’ve built. Ask if it’s still working. Ask if it’s still built for what’s next.

Because traffic may be harder to earn, but the value you get from it is still in your hands.