HubSpot Lost 80% Of Its Traffic – CMO Kipp Bodnar Explains Why Revenue Kept Growing

HubSpot survived losing 80% of its blog traffic because it had already built channels beyond Google

Search Engine Journal interviewed HubSpot CMO Kipp Bodnar about "Loop", a book he co-wrote with Kieran Flanagan and published in 2026. HubSpot's blog peaked at more than 20 million organic visits a month and has since lost about 80% of that as AI answers spread. Bodnar says that when Google rolled out AI Overviews, HubSpot lost nearly 5 million visits in a single month. Revenue still grew nearly 20% in 2025, a figure SEJ's standfirst gives as 19%. Bodnar says about 90% of HubSpot's content leads now come from newer channels, and the blog supplies about 10%. HubSpot also pruned more than 3,000 blog pages.

Why did revenue keep growing while traffic collapsed?

Bodnar says much of the lost traffic came from topics that never drew buyers, and HubSpot had already built newsletter, podcast, creator and video channels that don't depend on Google.

The timeline he gives is specific. HubSpot bought The Hustle newsletter and built a podcast network in 2021, launched a creator programme in 2022, and added a YouTube network in 2023. Bodnar's description of the lost traffic is blunt: it was "never going to turn into revenue". He points to posts chasing queries such as famous quotes and the shrug emoji.

His claim that no AEO trick would have covered an 80% hole is the sound part of the argument. What protected HubSpot was diversification, and that takes years to build.

How much of the 80% was AI, and how much was HubSpot's own doing?

The reported figures don't separate the two. Because HubSpot deleted more than 3,000 pages itself, the headline drop mixes AI Overviews losses with deliberate pruning, and nobody has published the split.

This is the angle the coverage skips. "Lost 80% to AI" makes a cleaner story than "lost some to AI, removed some on purpose". The only AI-specific number we have is the nearly 5 million visits lost in a month, and that period is Bodnar's own choice. The 80% is "about", and the sources don't say who measured it or against which baseline.

Can buyers trust the conversion and revenue figures?

Treat them as self-reported. Bodnar is promoting a book, the revenue figure appears as both 19% and "nearly 20%", and "content leads" is HubSpot's own definition.

The rounding difference is probably trivial. The larger issue is that nothing independent is offered for the claim that AI-referred visitors convert much better than traditional search visitors. That comparison is between a shrunken, self-selected audience and the old mass of casual readers, so a higher rate is the expected result. It also counts only visitors who clicked through. Readers who saw HubSpot cited in an answer and never visited don't appear in the data.

Revenue growth also has many causes besides content. Nothing in the account ties the 19% to the traffic strategy, and a CMO has reasons to present it that way.

What should I ask my own team or vendor?

Ask for pipeline and revenue by channel instead of sessions. Ask any tracking vendor how it identifies AI-referred visits, what it excludes, and how long its baseline runs.

Before copying the pruning, check which of your lost sessions came from pages you would delete anyway. HubSpot's cushion of a large audience built elsewhere is not one a smaller publisher has. Our earlier coverage of Reddit's CEO tying referral losses to Google AI Mode, and of big brands dominating AI search, points the same way: scale and owned audiences absorb the loss better than search optimisation does.

Frequently asked questions

Did HubSpot's revenue grow despite the traffic loss?

According to Bodnar, yes: nearly 20% in 2025. These are the company's own figures, relayed through an interview, and nothing independent confirms them.

How much of HubSpot's content pipeline still comes from the blog?

About 10% of content leads, by Bodnar's account. About 90% come from channels that barely existed in HubSpot's mix a few years ago.

Should I prune thousands of pages as HubSpot did?

Not on this evidence. HubSpot removed pages that weren't reaching customers, but the reporting doesn't show what the pruning did to traffic or revenue. Check your own conversion data first.

Sources: Search Engine Journal.