Google and the Boston Consulting Group published research in 2025 that should have killed the marketing funnel. Their finding: 80% of consumers skip the traditional linear purchase path entirely. They do not move neatly from awareness to consideration to decision. They stream a YouTube video, scroll past an Instagram ad, search Google for a comparison, and buy from a TikTok Shop link, all within the same hour, in no predictable order (Think with Google / BCG, 2025).

Google calls these the "4S behaviors": streaming, scrolling, searching, and shopping. They are not stages in a funnel. They are simultaneous modes of behavior that your buyers move between constantly. And if your content strategy is only built for one or two of them, you are invisible for the moments that actually drive purchase decisions.

Most content strategies in SaaS and ecommerce are still built around search. Blog posts targeting keywords. Landing pages optimized for Google. Maybe some LinkedIn posts. That covers one of the four modes well and three of them poorly. The brands outperforming in 2026 are the ones with content calibrated for all four behaviors, served on the platforms where each behavior actually happens.

Our guide breaks down how to audit your content against the 4S framework, identify which modes you are underserving, and build the content infrastructure that captures buyers wherever they are in their nonlinear journey. For how to structure your search content into clusters that compound visibility, see our topic clusters guide.

What the 4S behaviors are and why they replace the funnel

The traditional marketing funnel assumes a linear path: awareness at the top, consideration in the middle, purchase at the bottom. Content gets mapped to funnel stages. Top-of-funnel blog posts generate awareness. Middle-of-funnel comparison guides nurture consideration. Bottom-of-funnel product pages close the deal.

The Google/BCG research shows this model no longer reflects how people actually buy. Over 75% of brand interactions now happen on smartphones, and consumers move fluidly between four behaviors without following any sequential path (BCG, 2025).

Here is what each behavior means in practice:

The critical insight from the BCG research is that these behaviors are not sequential. A buyer might discover your brand while streaming a YouTube video (stream), encounter your ad while scrolling Instagram two days later (scroll), ask ChatGPT to compare your product against a competitor that afternoon (search), and buy from your product page the same evening (shop). The next buyer might start with search and never touch stream at all. There is no single path.

BCG found that companies integrating AI into their marketing across all four behaviors report 60% higher revenue growth than those still operating with funnel-stage thinking (BCG / Think with Google, 2025).

How to audit your content against the 4S framework

Most marketing teams have never mapped their content output against these four behaviors. The audit is straightforward. List every piece of content you published in the last 90 days. Categorize each one by which behavior it serves. Count the distribution.

Here is what the typical SaaS or ecommerce content audit reveals:

The imbalance is obvious. Most teams produce search content because it is measurable (Google Search Console, keyword rankings, organic traffic). They produce some scroll content because they feel they should be on social media. They neglect shop content because product pages are "someone else's job." And they barely touch stream content because video production feels expensive and the ROI is harder to measure.

The problem is that the buyer does not care about your content production constraints. They move between all four behaviors, and the brands that show up across all four build more trust, close more deals, and get cited more often by AI search engines.

Search: the behavior most teams overindex on (and still get wrong)

Most SaaS and ecommerce teams already invest in search content. The question is whether that content is structured for how search actually works in 2026.

Search is no longer just Google's 10 blue links. It is Google AI Overviews (triggering on 48% of queries), ChatGPT (883 million monthly users), Perplexity (the fastest-growing research tool in enterprise), and Google's new Web Guide feature that organizes results into themed clusters using query fan-out (BrightEdge, 2026).

A search content strategy that only targets traditional keyword rankings is now optimizing for half the search landscape.

What strong search content looks like in 2026:

Build content clusters, not isolated pages. Google's Web Guide and ChatGPT's RAG retrieval both reward content that appears repeatedly across related queries. A hub page linked to 8-12 specific sub-topic pages covers more fan-out queries than a single comprehensive guide. For the clustering methodology, see our keyword clustering guide.

Structure every page for AI extraction. Write a direct 30-40 word answer after each H2 heading. Add FAQ schema. Include specific numbers and named examples. AI systems extract these as citation candidates. The Princeton/Georgia Tech GEO research paper found structured evidence boosts AI visibility by up to 40% (Aggarwal et al., ACM SIGKDD 2024).

Match content type to search intent. Google has already decided what content type it wants to rank for each query. If the SERP shows comparison guides and you published a product page, you will not rank regardless of content quality. Check intent before creating. For the intent classification framework, see our keyword intent guide.

For the complete AI search optimization playbook, see our GEO guide.

Scroll: the behavior that builds brand before search ever happens

Scroll content is where brand awareness forms and preferences begin to crystallize. By the time a buyer searches for your category, they have already scrolled past dozens of impressions from brands in your space. The brands they remember during the search phase are the ones that showed up during the scroll phase.

The mistake most teams make is treating scroll content as repurposed search content. Taking a blog post, pulling a quote, putting it on a branded template, and posting it to LinkedIn. That is not scroll content. It is blog content wearing a costume.

What strong scroll content looks like by platform:

LinkedIn (B2B): Personal narratives from founders and team members, contrarian takes on industry trends, behind-the-scenes of product development, original data visualizations, short text posts that provoke discussion. The algorithm rewards comments and conversation, not polished graphics.

Instagram and TikTok (B2C and D2C): Native short-form video shot for the platform, not cropped from a webinar. Product in context. User-generated content. Trending audio with brand relevance. The content that stops the scroll is content that looks like it belongs in the feed, not content that looks like an ad.

Reddit: Genuine participation in subreddits where your audience discusses their problems. Not promotional posts. Helpful answers, honest commentary, and community involvement. Reddit content increasingly feeds AI search engines: both Google and ChatGPT surface Reddit discussions prominently for purchase-intent queries.

The connection between scroll and search is tighter than most teams realize. Ahrefs found that branded web mentions correlated 0.664 with AI visibility, significantly higher than backlinks at 0.218. Being talked about on social platforms, forums, and communities contributes directly to whether AI search engines cite your brand.

Shop: the behavior where most brands lose the deal they already won

A buyer who reaches your product page, pricing page, or Amazon listing has already been through stream, scroll, and search. They have formed an impression. They have compared options. They are ready to transact. And this is where most brands drop the ball.

Product pages with thin descriptions, missing social proof, no reviews, and generic imagery lose buyers who were already convinced. Pricing pages that hide information or require a "contact sales" form for every plan create friction that sends buyers back to ChatGPT to ask "is [competitor] worth it?" instead.

What strong shop content looks like:

Product descriptions that answer the specific questions buyers ask at the point of purchase: what is included, how does it compare, what do real users say, and what happens after I buy. Not marketing copy. Buying copy.

Social proof placed at the moment of decision. Reviews, case study snippets, customer logos, and usage numbers on the pages where the conversion happens, not buried in a separate "testimonials" page.

Frictionless paths to purchase. Clear pricing. Visible CTAs. One-click purchase options on marketplaces. For ecommerce, optimized product feeds for Google Shopping and TikTok Shop. Live shopping events that convert 3-5x higher than static posts.

For how to optimize the pages that convert, see our landing page optimization guide.

Stream: the behavior that builds the authority AI search engines reward

Stream is the most underinvested behavior in most content strategies. It is also the one that increasingly determines which brands get cited in AI-generated answers.

AI tools draw on authoritative, in-depth content when constructing responses. A brand that publishes substantive long-form video content, hosts expert interviews, and maintains a podcast on topics relevant to its audience is building the kind of entity authority that makes AI engines confident enough to cite it.

This is not speculation. Muck Rack's analysis of over 1 million AI prompts found 85% of non-paid AI citations come from earned media and authoritative sources. The Authoritas 2026 study found that AI citability concentration is accelerating: the top 10 entities in a category captured 59.5% of all citability by February 2026. The brands building deep authority through stream content are compounding an advantage that becomes harder to close over time.

What strong stream content looks like:

YouTube videos that answer the same questions your blog posts target, but in a format that captures a different audience segment. Many buyers prefer video over text for complex topics, and YouTube is the second-largest search engine.

Podcasts that position your team as industry voices. Guest appearances on established shows in your category build the kind of third-party authority signals AI engines trust.

Webinars and live events that generate both real-time engagement and evergreen replay content. A 45-minute webinar can be repurposed into 10+ scroll clips, a blog post, a podcast episode, and multiple social posts. Stream content feeds every other behavior.

How to rebalance your content strategy across all four behaviors

The goal is not equal investment in all four behaviors. It is proportional investment based on where your audience spends time and where your current gaps are largest.

Step 1: Run the 90-day audit: Categorize every piece of content from the last quarter by behavior (search, scroll, shop, stream). Count the distribution. Identify the gap.

Step 2: Map your buyer's behavior pattern: For your specific audience, which behaviors dominate? B2B SaaS buyers typically overindex on search and stream (Google research, YouTube demos, podcast learning). D2C ecommerce buyers typically overindex on scroll and shop (social discovery, marketplace purchasing). Your investment should match your buyer's pattern, not the industry average.

Step 3: Close the largest gap first: If you produce 70% search content and 0% stream content, the highest-leverage move is not "more blog posts." It is a YouTube series or podcast that builds the authority signal search and AI are increasingly rewarding. If you produce strong stream content but your product pages are thin, fixing shop content will produce the fastest revenue impact.

Step 4: Build the repurposing system: One piece of stream content (a 30-minute video interview) can become: a full YouTube video (stream), 5-8 short clips (scroll), a blog post with key takeaways (search), and pull quotes for product pages (shop). The brands producing content across all four behaviors are not creating 4x the content. They are creating once and distributing across all four modes.

For how to structure this into a sustainable content operation, see our content marketing strategy guide.

Frequently asked questions

What are the 4S behaviors in marketing?

The 4S behaviors (streaming, scrolling, searching, and shopping) are a consumer behavior framework developed by Google and the Boston Consulting Group. They describe the four simultaneous modes of behavior modern buyers engage in: consuming long-form content (stream), casually browsing social feeds (scroll), intentionally researching products and solutions (search), and transacting at the point of purchase (shop). Unlike the traditional marketing funnel, these behaviors are not sequential. Consumers move between them fluidly and unpredictably, often engaging in multiple behaviors within the same session.

Why does the traditional marketing funnel no longer work?

BCG research found that 80% of consumers skip the traditional linear purchase path. Buyers no longer move predictably from awareness to consideration to purchase. They discover brands while streaming YouTube, form preferences while scrolling TikTok, validate with AI search tools like ChatGPT, and buy from marketplace listings or social commerce. A content strategy built around funnel stages misses buyers at the moments that actually influence their decisions, because those moments do not follow a linear sequence.

How do the 4S behaviors affect SEO and AI search visibility?

Search is one of the four behaviors, but all four affect search performance. Stream content (videos, podcasts) builds the entity authority that AI search engines use to determine which brands are credible enough to cite. Scroll content (social media, Reddit) generates the branded mentions that Ahrefs found correlate 0.664 with AI visibility. Shop content (product pages) captures the transactional queries that drive revenue. And search content (blog posts, comparison guides) directly targets both traditional and AI-powered search queries. Brands investing across all four modes build stronger authority signals than brands investing only in search.

What does the 4S framework mean for SaaS content strategy?

SaaS buyers typically overindex on search (Google research, AI tool comparisons) and stream (YouTube demos, webinars, podcasts). Most SaaS content teams produce search content heavily but underinvest in stream and scroll. The highest-leverage move for most SaaS brands is building a consistent YouTube or podcast presence that positions the team as category experts, while ensuring product and pricing pages (shop) are strong enough to convert the buyers that search and stream content generates.

What does the 4S framework mean for ecommerce content strategy?

Ecommerce buyers typically overindex on scroll (social discovery via Instagram, TikTok) and shop (marketplace purchasing via Amazon, TikTok Shop, Google Shopping). Most ecommerce teams underinvest in search content (blog posts, category guides) and stream content (video tutorials, expert reviews). Building search content clusters around category questions improves both Google rankings and AI citation. Creating stream content (product videos, tutorial series) builds the authority that differentiates branded search from commodity search.

How do I measure content performance across all four behaviors?

Each behavior has different primary metrics. Search: organic clicks, keyword rankings, AI visibility rate (via tools like Passionfruit Labs or Ahrefs Brand Radar). Scroll: engagement rate, reach, branded mention volume, referral traffic from social platforms. Shop: conversion rate, revenue per page, cart abandonment rate, average order value. Stream: view duration, subscriber growth, episode downloads, and the downstream impact on branded search volume. The unifying metric is revenue: which behaviors contribute to the conversion path, measured through multi-touch attribution in GA4.

How often should I audit my content against the 4S framework?

Quarterly. Run the 90-day content audit, count the distribution across the four behaviors, and compare it to your buyer's actual behavior pattern. If the distribution has drifted (which it will, because search content is easiest to produce and teams naturally overindex on it), rebalance for the next quarter. The audit takes 2-3 hours and prevents the slow drift toward a single-mode strategy that most teams experience without active monitoring.

Final thoughts

The marketing funnel was a useful model for a simpler time. Buyers followed a path. You mapped content to stages. You measured progress through the stages.

That model broke. Buyers now stream, scroll, search, and shop simultaneously, in no predictable order, across dozens of platforms. The brands winning in 2026 are not the ones with the most blog posts or the largest ad budget. They are the ones showing up in all four moments with content calibrated for each.

Run the audit. Find your gap. Close it. The 4S framework is not a theory to discuss. It is a diagnostic to use.

If you need help building a content strategy that works across search, scroll, shop, and stream, Passionfruit's team works with SaaS and ecommerce brands on full-funnel content systems. Track your AI visibility across all four modes with Passionfruit Labs (7-day free trial). See our case studies.