Email and Paid Search Gain as Organic Traffic Slides

Email visits grew 16.3% in the US and 17.0% in France between January–August 2026 and the same months in 2025, while paid search grew 20.8% and 20.3%, according to a Similarweb-based analysis published in Growth Memo by Kevin Indig. The study is part two of a series asking which marketing channels absorb demand as organic search declines.

The backdrop is steep. Between August 2024 and August 2026, organic traffic fell 13% in the US and 24% in France — a pace Indig notes is two to four times faster than the roughly 6% erosion of US dollar purchasing power over the same window. Publishers lost about 42% in both markets, while the smallest quartile of sites stayed flat. He attributes the decline to a mix of AI answers, more and sneakier Google search ads, and tighter site selection — not AI alone.

How big are the email gains?

Email added more absolute visits than paid search: 3.94 billion versus 3.70 billion in the US, and 462 million versus 401 million in France. The median site grew email traffic 14.7% in the US and 17.7% in France; the median US site grew paid search 17.4%. Growth is broad-based, not concentrated in giants. Some email traffic may be functional — order confirmations, notifications — but Indig calls email "severely underrated and a prime audience-building channel," noting no asset is more portable and unfiltered than an email address.

The paid-search figures carry a wrinkle. Including googleadservices.com — Google's ad-routing and measurement domain — cuts US growth from 20.8% to 13.5% and France's from 20.3% to 10.7%. In a fixed sample of 1,896 domains present in both countries, paid search grew 21.0% (US) and 15.2% (France); with the Google domain included (1,897 sites), growth was 2.1% and -7.3%. It's unclear whether the domain's estimated drop reflects ad activity, routing or measurement changes — tool-signal uncertainty, not a confirmed shift.

Why direct traffic matters

Direct (visits with no referrer, including dark social and word of mouth) is the largest channel: a 43.5% median share in the US, 39% in France. It's shrinking year over year (-2.7% US, -3.1% France) but far less than organic — from August 2024 to August 2026, combined direct visits fell 3.4% in the US and 5.3% in France versus organic declines of 13.2% and 23.4% on the same fixed site set.

Size splits the market. Median small sites gained 14.4% (US) and 21.2% (France) in direct; median large sites lost 13.0% and 7.1%. News and information sites lost 30.7% (US) and 4.0% (France) in combined direct visits — the median French news site fell 20.6%. Editorial publishers lost 34.4% (US) and 18.7% (France).

Attribution noise is real. When OpenAI shipped GPT-6 in early October, links stopped carrying referrer or UTM tags for about a week. Adobe's Cedric Huesler measured roughly 31,000 fewer daily ChatGPT visits and 26,000 more daily direct visits across 500 pages — a bug that temporarily inflated direct.

Which industries grow where?

US retail and marketplace sites gained 26.6% in email and 24.9% in paid search, with organic up 7.0%. In France, the same category gained 20.7% email and 14.5% paid search while organic fell 10.7%. US news and information sites lost 15.1% organic and 13.6% direct but grew paid search 29.8%. Brave, TikTok, Pinterest and Canva grew direct in both markets; Claude.ai grew average daily direct visits 990.0% in the US and 1,474.7% in France from January 2025 to August 2026, from a small base.

Indig's conclusion: SEO was scalable enough to build foundations on before AI, and that era is ending because the AI experience is far less unified per user. Growth teams should watch email, direct and brand-driven habit formation — and monitor whether direct's relative resilience holds as AI answers keep absorbing clicks.