Web Design Archives - Dubado Solutions

Omnichannel Marketing: Definition, Tips, & Strategy

October 5, 2025/0 Comments/in Web Design/by

Omnichannel marketing is a way to make your brand feel the same everywhere: website, email, ads, social, SMS, app, and in-store. People can start on their phone, switch to a laptop, and buy later without friction.

Why is this important?

Your customer doesn’t think in channels. They see one brand. If your ads, emails, site, app, and store don’t match, money slips through the cracks. Omnichannel marketing closes those gaps and moves more people to buy.

But how many more people are buying from omnichannel campaigns versus single-channel campaigns?

A lot, actually.

An Omnisend study found the purchase rate of omnichannel marketing campaigns to be 287% higher than single-channel campaigns.

Creating a seamless experience for your customers means better brand perception and higher revenue. It’s a real win-win.

This guide walks you through omnichannel marketing strategy benefits, best practices, and examples. By the end of it, you’ll understand what goes into creating an omnichannel campaign that drives results.

Key Takeaways

Omnichannel marketing creates a seamless customer experience across every touchpoint, including website, email, ads, SMS, social, app, and in-store.
Brands using an omnichannel strategy saw purchase rates 287 percent higher than single-channel campaigns in one study.
Unlike multichannel marketing, omnichannel connects your data and messaging across platforms so everything works together, not in silos.
Benefits include better customer experiences, stronger brand recognition, more personalization, higher loyalty, and increased revenue.
To get started, map your customer journey, centralize data, integrate your channels, and follow clear brand guidelines for a consistent feel.

What Is Omnichannel Marketing?

Omnichannel marketing is a marketing strategy that seamlessly integrates all of a business’s marketing channels to create a cohesive shopping experience for each customer.

As customers move through the sales funnel, an omnichannel strategy ensures all touchpoints seamlessly speak to each other so that no matter where a potential customer makes contact with your business, it feels like the same channel.

Here’s how it looks in practice.

A customer might check out a product on a brand’s website. They decide they’re not yet ready to make a purchase, but then they’re met with ads for that product across different social media channels. They can easily click through and buy the product, even though it’s not the same channel they initially used to shop.

This is what omnichannel looks like on a small scale. At enterprise scale, the same idea gets bigger. Your teams share a single customer profile, so service reps, store staff, and ads all see the same context. POS and ecommerce pull from the same inventory. Loyalty rewards apply online and in-store. Buy online, pick up in store just works.

That’s an omnichannel marketing strategy: connect data and creative across channels so customers move forward, and your revenue does too.

Omnichannel Marketing vs. Multichannel Marketing

Before we dive deeper into what omnichannel looks like, let’s talk about how it differs from a similar tactic called multichannel marketing. Both obviously occur across different channels. But they work slightly differently.

Omnichannel marketing uses multiple channels, but it ensures that all channels are integrated seamlessly, creating a connected experience. Meanwhile, multichannel marketing just occurs across different channels, treating them more as separate entities than trying to build an interconnected ecosystem.

A graphic comparing multichannel and omnichannel.

Source

Multichannel is useful for quick reach and simple campaigns. Think one-off promos, early tests, short cycles, or when tools and data are basic.

Omnichannel is best for cross-device shoppers, syncing online and in-store experiences, and longer, more complex customer journeys.

Bottom line: start with multichannel, then shift to an omnichannel marketing strategy when you’re ready to connect data and deliver one continuous experience.

Why Omnichannel Marketing Is Important

Your buyers don’t stick to one platform. They search on Google, watch a review on YouTube, see a Reel, ask ChatGPT for a product comparison, click an email, price-check on Amazon, and walk into a store. If you only optimize for organic search, you miss the moments that push customers to act.

Omnichannel marketing lets you show up at key points in the customer journey and connects those touchpoints so the experience feels cohesive. Your ad matches the email. The site matches the app. The cart follows the customer across devices. Service and store teams see the same history. That consistency builds trust and cuts friction, which leads to more sales.

An omnichannel marketing strategy also spreads risk. If one channel slows down, you still have paid social, SMS, marketplaces, and retail working together.

It improves measurement, too. Shared data tells you which mix drives first purchases, repeat orders, and higher order values.

People discover, compare, and buy across many platforms. Brands that coordinate messages and data across those platforms win more often. If you’re serious about growth in today’s digital world, build an omnichannel marketing strategy so your brand is clear, consistent, and present at every step.

Benefits of Omnichannel Marketing

Omnichannel marketing has a number of benefits. These advantages can provide your business with better results and happier customers.

Think of omnichannel marketing as the glue that holds your entire shopping experience together.

Improved Customer Experience

Omnichannel marketing focuses on creating an interconnected experience no matter where your customers are interacting with your business. Because of this, it creates a seamless customer experience that’s vastly better than if the different channels couldn’t speak to each other.

Here’s what that means for customers: progress carries over (carts, wish lists, support tickets), and context follows them from device to device. If they ask a question on chat, your email workflow resurfaces it. If they browse a size in the app, your site remembers.

Abandon cart emails are great examples of omnichannel marketing in action. A customer visits your website and adds an item to their cart. They leave your site without completing the purchase. That action is sent to and triggers an ‘Abandon cart’ workflow in your email marketing platform.

They receive an automated email with the item in their cart and some encouraging words and/or a discount to get them to complete the purchase.

Source

An omnichannel marketing strategy reduces repeats, dead ends, and mixed messages so buyers feel understood and move forward faster.

Better Brand Awareness

Creating a consistent experience across platforms (including in-store) makes it easier for customers to recognize your brand. Plus, as more people have positive omnichannel experiences with your brand, they’re more likely to share it with their friends and family, boosting word-of-mouth referrals and awareness.

Consistency is a key component of a strong brand strategy. When people see the same appearance, messaging, and offers across channels, recall and trust in your brand grows. Pair that with targeted campaigns across search, social, and marketplaces, and your brand shows up more often for relevant terms with the same look and promise.

Personalization

When your marketing channels speak to each other, you’re presented with even more opportunities for gathering customer data that can be used to personalize experiences across all channels, and not just the ones they’ve used before. This personalization is just another way to improve the overall experience with your business, making it easier for customers to work with you.

Use customer actions, like product views, cart adds, and website searches to customize messaging. Recommend items that fit past behavior, pause promos after a purchase, and nudge at the right time (not just more often). Keep consent and preferences front and center.

Done well, omnichannel personalization feels like help, not hype.

Customer Loyalty

As customers discover how easy it is to work with your business, they’re more likely to stick around and continue to buy from you again and again. Why bother finding a competitor if your business has created such a seamless shopping experience?

Loyalty grows when every interaction feels smooth and familiar. Connect rewards across store and online, recognize returning customers, and close the loop on issues fast.

Use lifecycle triggers, like welcome, re-engagement, and win-back, to stay relevant without spamming. The easier you make repeat buying, the less tempted people are to price-shop elsewhere.

Competitive Advantage

Just like we mentioned, there’s no need for customers to shop around and test out your competitors if you’ve provided such a great shopping experience. Omnichannel marketing gives you a major competitive advantage, fueling more of your target audience to head straight to you rather than others in your industry.

Most teams still run channels in silos. You’ll move faster because your data, inventory, and messaging are already in sync. Creative can be reused, offers are consistent, and measurement is clearer. That speed compounds into lower costs and better customer outcomes, an edge that’s hard to copy without a true omnichannel strategy.

Higher Revenue and Conversion Rates

Naturally, if people are sharing their positive experiences, sticking around longer, and ultimately having a great relationship with your brand, you’re going to reap those benefits in the form of higher revenue and conversion rates. Which is the ultimate goal, right?

More relevance and less friction mean more adds to cart, more checkouts, and bigger orders. Omnichannel marketing also improves attribution, so you can double down on the mix that actually drives purchases and repeat business.

Over time, the flywheel kicks in: Better data leads to sharper targeting, which leads to stronger retention, which leads to higher revenue.

Best Practices for an Effective Omnichannel Marketing Strategy

Your goal is simple: build an omnichannel marketing strategy that feels consistent everywhere and moves people forward. Start with what customers do today, not what you wish they did. Then connect the channels and tools you already use, fill the gaps, and measure what actually changes behavior.

Follow along with these steps to learn more about creating an effective omnichannel marketing strategy that will boost your customer satisfaction.

Collect & Analyze Customer Data

Start by centralizing truth. Pull website analytics, email metrics, ad performance, POS data, support logs, and audience sentiment into one view so you can spot insights like:

The channels your customers prefer to use when interacting with businesses
Which devices your customers spend the most time on
The types of messaging that seem to resonate most with them
How your customers feel about your current shopping experience

Then, pick an attribution model that fits your business. Each model is tailored to different types of customer journeys and campaign goals.

For example, position-based tracking is better for businesses with longer sales cycles, like B2B and lead gen. And data-based attribution is great for omnichannel e–commerce strategies, marketplaces, subscription apps, and retailers with steady traffic.

Check out the graphic below for a full breakdown of attribution models you can use to measure the success of your omnichannel marketing efforts.

A graphic showing types of attribution models.

Map Out the Customer Journey

Your next step is to map out your current customer journey. Outline each step that a Your next step is to map out your current customer journey. Outline each step that a customer would have to take from first discovering your business all the way to becoming a repeat customer.

As Matthew Santos, SVP of Products and Strategy at NP Accel, explains, “Customer journey mapping involves visualizing a customer’s various touchpoints with your brand, from initial awareness to purchase and beyond. By understanding these touchpoints, you can identify which channels are most important at different stages of the journey.”

To create your map:

Identify your customers: Identify your customers’ names, addresses, and other demographic information. Look in your CRM or use a current buyer persona.
Understand their pain points: What drives your customers to make a purchase? What challenges do they want to solve?
Find out where they hang out: What platforms do your customers use during the purchase process?
Track the conversion path: How do most of your customers convert? Their path is unlikely to be straight. They might visit your website, view your Instagram reels, and then purchase in-person, in your store. Aim to define the most common paths.

In the end, your customer journey map might look something like this:

Source

Choose & Integrate Your Channels

Now it’s time to identify and integrate your different sales and marketing channels, which could include:

Social media
SMS marketing
Email marketing
Your website and online store
A physical store
A mobile app

Make sure to include all channels that you’re currently using to reach your target audience plus any channels you’ve discovered your customers prefer.

For example, you might not have previously incorporated SMS messaging into your overarching marketing strategy, but your customer data analysis showed you that your target audience prefers that method of communication.

Once you’ve selected the different channels you’ll use to communicate, market, and sell to your customers, it’s time to get them to work together.

To properly integrate your marketing avenues and create a successful omnichannel strategy, you’ll need the right technology. Some tools to consider include:

CRM: A CRM can help you store customer information so that it’s accessible across channels. It can also help you segment out your audience to create even more tailored and personalized experiences. Omnisend is a great option for building out specific segmentations.

Omnichannel segments feature information.

Source

Marketing Automation Software: To build an effective omnichannel marketing strategy, you need marketing automation tools to engage more on social media, send scheduled emails, or move users through the conversion process. Many tools you already use, like email marketing, CRMs, and social media management, have built-in automation features. You can also use a tool like Zapier to build custom triggers.

Source

Social Media Management Tools: This type of tool can make it easy to communicate with your audience across various platforms. Get access to a social inbox that puts all conversations across all platforms in one single messaging dashboard. Use auto-replies or canned responses that ensure communication is consistent across the board. Hootsuite and Sprout Social are both great options to consider for your social media management.

Source

Customer Data Platforms (CDPs): A CDP pulls data from all your touchpoints—site, app, ads, email, POS—into a single customer profile. That unified view makes it easier to segment audiences, personalize campaigns, and keep experiences consistent across channels. Tools like Segment or mParticle help you clean, connect, and activate data without needing a dev team for every change.

Source

Create & Follow Brand Guidelines

Once you’ve set up the right tools and integrated all your channels, it’s time to make sure your teams are all on the same page. If your customer support team is using different messaging than your social media team, your overall strategy is going to feel disjointed.

By creating documented brand guidelines that cover how your customer-facing teams should be communicating with customers and talking about your products, you can ensure your channels feel connected.

Your brand guidelines should include things like:

Guidance for brand visuals, like logos, imagery, colors, and graphics
How to handle customer support issues or questions to create positive and consistent experiences
Tone and voice guidelines with “do’s and don’t’s” examples
Copy guidance with channel-specific examples (e.g. email subject lines vs. educational blog content)
Legal guidelines on what you can and cannot discuss, if applicable

Share your brand guidelines with your entire team and make sure everyone is familiar with them. Give constructive feedback when you see people straying.

Brand consistency is the glue that holds an omnichannel marketing strategy together.

Test & Measure Your Efforts

After sharing your brand guidelines across your company and implementing your omnichannel approach, it’s time to test everything out. Run through each of your marketing channels the way you might if you were a new customer to make sure the experience feels seamless from discovery to purchase.

Then, think about how you’ll measure success.

In omnichannel marketing, you need to consider metrics that touch every part of the funnel. For example:

Discovery: Impressions, educational blog traffic, mentions in the media
Consideration: Engagement on social media, product views, visits to company pages
Conversion: Orders, checkout rate, CPA
Loyalty: Repeat rate, time between orders, customer reviews

Use clean UTM rules, consistent naming, and dashboards that show both channel and journey views. Review the data weekly for anomalies, monthly for trends, and quarterly for bigger bets.

3 Examples of Omnichannel Marketing

Let’s look at a few examples of omnichannel marketing in practice so you can get an idea of what this could look like for your own business.

1. Sephora

Sephora offers an amazing omnichannel experience for its customers. First-time customers are able to sign up for a Sephora account using their phone number, and then keep track of all purchases there.

Customers can figure out what they’ve purchased before and when, which makes it easier for them to restock on the products they love. It also makes it easier for the marketing team to tailor messaging and special offers to each customer’s unique shopping preferences.

Sephora accounts also track customer rewards points, as well as when their birthday month is. Whether they make a purchase online or in the store, Sephora sends the customer a little sample-size product as a birthday gift.

This omnichannel strategy makes shopping with Sephora feel easy and personal, no matter where someone is making a purchase.

2. Starbucks

The Starbucks app makes for an amazing omnichannel experience that the coffee brand’s customers love. Not only can customers order through the app then pick up in a nearby store, they can also reload gift cards, pay in-store, earn and redeem rewards, and more.

The app also makes it extremely easy to find stores near you and personalizes its offerings based on the local weather. Starbucks is already a wildly popular coffee chain, but their omnichannel marketing strategy helps boost sales even more.

3. Target

Target is another great example of what omnichannel should look like. Again, customers can create an account and easily track past purchases so they can reorder products again and again with ease.

Target also has its own rewards program called Target Circle that allows users to rack up rewards they can put towards future purchases.

But one of the best things about Target’s omnichannel strategy is that customers can check online if a product is in stock at stores near them. And it’s wildly accurate, even during huge sales events like Black Friday.

The Future of Omnichannel

Omnichannel isn’t standing still. AI, automation, and privacy changes are reshaping how brands connect with customers. Search engines and social platforms now answer questions directly, sometimes before a click. In fact, nearly 60% of searches result in zero clicks.

So how does this apply to an omnichannel marketing strategy?

For marketers, it means two things.

First, you’ll need stronger first-party data—think email lists, purchase history, loyalty programs—to fuel your targeting as third-party cookies fade. Second, you’ll need systems that can use that data in real time, adjusting offers and content across every channel without manual work.

Expect channels themselves to keep expanding. Voice assistants, connected TV, chat apps, and even in-car systems are becoming part of the customer journey. The brands that win will be the ones that stay consistent across all of them.

The future of omnichannel marketing is smarter, faster, and more connected. Get your data house in order now so you can adapt as AI and new platforms evolve.

FAQs

What is omnichannel marketing?

Omnichannel marketing is the practice of connecting all your marketing and sales channels so customers get one seamless experience. Instead of each channel running in isolation, they work together. For example, a shopper might browse on mobile, add to cart on desktop, and finish in-store, with their data and offers synced across all steps. This consistency builds trust, reduces friction, and increases conversions by making every touchpoint feel like part of the same journey.

What is the difference between multichannel and omnichannel marketing?

Multichannel means using multiple platforms, but each runs separately. Omnichannel connects those platforms so the experience is unified, not siloed.

How to implement omnichannel marketing?

Start by collecting customer data, mapping the journey, and picking channels your audience uses most. Then integrate tools like CRM, automation, and analytics to sync messaging and measure results.

Create Your Omnichannel Marketing Strategy Today

Your customers want an omnichannel experience, so it’s your job to give it to them. Figure out how to make your channels work together so your customers get a personalized, consistent, and seamless experience every time they shop with your business.

Sounds like a lot, but if you follow the steps above, you can start to build a more cohesive journey for your customers. And if you’re looking for additional help, an omnichannel marketing agency like NP Digital can bring your strategy to life.

Read more at Read More

Topical Authority: What Is It, & How Does It Work?

October 3, 2025/0 Comments/in Web Design/by

You’ve probably heard the term “topical authority” thrown around a lot in SEO circles lately. And for good reason.

If Google recognizes your site as a trusted source on a subject, your chances of ranking higher increase. It’s not just in organic search, but now in AI-powered answers too.

So what is topical authority? How does it work? And why should you care?

It’s simple. When you consistently create high-quality content around a specific topic, you prove to both users and search engines that you know your stuff. You’re not just tossing out a few blog posts. You’re building trust.

If you want to become the authority in your space, I’ll show you how. In this article, we’ll break down what topical authority means, why it matters, and the exact strategies you can use to build it.

Ready to increase your authority? Then let’s begin.

Key Takeaways

Topical authority is a signal to Google (and AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity) that your site is the trusted source on a subject.
You build topical authority by covering a topic in-depth, not just with one article but across a network of related content.
More topical authority means better rankings, stronger visibility in AI-powered answers, and more qualified traffic.
Internal links, backlinks, and consistent brand voice all play a role in reinforcing your authority in search.
There’s no single score for topical authority, but tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Ubersuggest can help you track keyword coverage and content gaps.
Adding subject matter expert (SME) insights and publishing under real authors can boost your trustworthiness and increase your chances of LLM citation.

The Basics of Topical Authority

Topical authority tells search engines and AI tools whether your site is a credible expert on a subject. This goes beyond publishing one article to creating a library of content that covers every angle.

The more accurate, relevant, and well-organized your content is, the more trust you build. That trust leads to higher rankings, stronger visibility, and more traffic.

Let’s take this site as an example. Because I’ve built topical authority on SEO and digital marketing, my new content on related subjects often ranks faster and performs better than sites with less focus in this area.

You’re also more likely to get cited by AI tools that draw on expert sources. Take a look at the ChatGPT answer below, which cites a variety of different sites to answer a digital marketing question:

“LLM example showing cited source in AI-generated result — a sign of topical authority.”

The History of Topical Authority

Google didn’t always care about how deep your content was. In the early days, ranking was mostly about keywords and backlinks. Then came Hummingbird in 2013, and that changed everything.

Hummingbird marked the shift from keyword matching to semantic search. Google started understanding meaning, not just strings of words. That shift laid the foundation for what we now call topical authority.

Since then, updates like RankBrain, BERT, and the Helpful Content System have continued pushing in the same direction. Google now evaluates how well you cover a subject, not just how often you mention it. You can see how these shifts connect with other critical Google ranking factors.

And with AI Overviews and tools like ChatGPT pulling content from trusted sources, topical authority isn’t just about search rankings, but being the kind of content AI is most likely to reference.

The bar keeps rising. If your content doesn’t go deep, connect across topics, and come from real expertise, you’ll lose visibility both in organic results and AI-driven answers.

Why Topical Authority is Important For SEO

Topical authority in SEO isn’t optional anymore. If Google doesn’t see your site as a trusted expert on a subject, your rankings will stall.

When you build topical authority the right way, you earn better rankings, attract more links, and increase your chances of being cited by AI tools that rely on trusted sources.

Achieving topical authority is great for your SEO, but it can also help you achieve broader marketing goals. Here’s what it can do for your website.

More Organic Traffic

One of the best things about having topical authority is that it ensures more potential customers head to your website instead of your competitors. That’s because better topical authority means higher Google rankings and higher rankings mean more traffic.

When your site covers a topic in full, including related subtopics and common user questions, you rank for more long-tail keywords and
increase your chances of winning more SERP features. This also improves your chances of being cited in AI Overviews, which pull from trusted content to answer queries directly.

While AI keeps more users on the SERPs, the ones that do click through to your website are more intentional, engaged, and ultimately higher quality.

More Backlinks To Your Website

That visibility creates a feedback loop. The more backlinks you earn, the more authority you build.

It also signals to search engines and AI systems that your content is trustworthy, which boosts your chances of being featured in search results and AI Overviews.

Instead of chasing links, you start attracting them naturally just by owning the topic.

Increased Brand Reputation

Consumers trust experts. And if your website appears at the top of every search result related to a particular topic, you’re naturally going to be considered an expert.

Ranking at the top gives people a reason to trust your brand before they even click.
You become the name people associate with credible advice, helpful insights, and solutions that actually work.

Over time, this trust turns into customer loyalty, word-of-mouth referrals, and bigger opportunities for your business.

Supporting E-E-A-T

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust — and it’s one of the ways Google evaluates content quality.

You can’t fake these signals. You earn them by consistently publishing content that reflects deep knowledge, solves real problems, and shows first-hand understanding of your topic.

That’s exactly what topical authority is built on. When your site covers a subject from every angle, connects related ideas, and links to reputable sources, you’re hitting the same benchmarks Google looks for with E-E-A-T.

Signs A Website Has Topical Authority

It’s not always obvious whether a website has strong topical authority. There’s no single score or tool that can tell you outright.

But there are clear signs Google and AI models look for, patterns that show you know your topic inside and out.

Let’s break down what they are.

A Strong, Authoritative Domain

Websites with strong topical authority usually have strong domain authority too. That’s because backlinks fuel both.
The more high-quality links you earn, the more your domain gains trust in the eyes of Google, and that trust helps your content rank.

Metrics like Moz’s Domain Authority and Ahrefs’ Domain Rating are two reliable metrics you can use to track this. They aren’t perfect, but they give a useful snapshot of how authoritative your site looks from the outside.

A good example is MayoClinic.org. It ranks consistently for health-related terms because its content is accurate, comprehensive, and backed by years of trust signals like backlinks and citations.

When your site earns that kind of authority, your topical coverage becomes harder to compete with.

Robust Internal Link Profile

A strong internal link profile suggests that a website has a lot of pages about a similar topic. After all, you’d only link to another page on your website if it is related to the topic you’re currently writing about.

Internal linking also helps distribute authority across your site, making it easier for your pillar content to rank. Building a structure of relevant, topic-aligned pages linked together is one of the core tactics in effective internal linking.

One site that nails this is Healthline. Articles on conditions, symptoms, and treatments all connect cleanly through relevant anchor text. That structure helps readers and search engines navigate the topic more easily, and it boosts the site’s topical authority.

Number of Ranking Keywords

Generally speaking, the more keywords a website ranks for, the more topical authority the website will have. Each ranking keyword is another signal that Google trusts your content to answer a specific query.

It’s easy to see how many keywords a website is ranking for using Ubersuggest. Just run a Site Audit on your own or your competitor’s website, and organic keywords is one of the headline figures you see.

Site audit of neilpatel.com from Ubersuggest.

You can click on the tab to get a complete rundown of all the keywords that the site ranks for.

A keyword overview of neilpatel.com from Ubersuggest.

LLM Citations

Large language models like ChatGPT and Perplexity pull answers from high-authority websites and getting cited by them is a growing sign of topical authority.

These tools are designed to favor high-quality, well-structured content. That means the more consistent, well-organized, and trusted your content is, the more likely it is to be referenced in AI-generated responses.

Sites that rank well in search and demonstrate strong E-E-A-T signals tend to show up in these results. So do sites that use clean HTML structure, clear headings, and publish under real authors.

Citations in AI tools reflect what Google and LLMs are both looking for: consistent, trustworthy expertise.

Best Practices To Build Your Topical Authority

You don’t become a topical authority by accident. It takes a focused strategy, consistent publishing, and a deep understanding of what your audience actually cares about.

The good news? There are proven ways to get there, and they work across industries, niches, and business models.

Here’s how to start building real authority in your space.

Create an Awesome Content Strategy

A solid content strategy is the foundation of topical authority, but it needs to go beyond just publishing regularly. You need to identify content gaps, map out supporting subtopics, and prioritize the questions your audience is already searching for.

Start by auditing your existing content to see where you’re weak, then use tools like Ubersuggest or Ahrefs to find the topics your competitors are covering and you’re not.

Each piece you publish should serve a clear purpose: build depth, target a keyword cluster, or reinforce your site’s expertise.

Over time, that structure signals to search engines and AI models that your site isn’t just participating in the conversation, it’s establishing leadership and authority within it.

Build Topic Clusters

When selecting topics to write content about, focus specifically on a couple of key topics, and use them as pillars for your website, creating content clusters.

Make sure you create the very best piece of content about these core topics, then start branching out into other related topics, most of which will have a smaller search volume than your key topics.

When you write about these smaller, related topics, make sure you are linking back to the bigger topics and between all of the other smaller topics that are related to your key topic.

It will look something like the diagram below from HubSpot.

This structure helps search engines recognize your site as an expert on the subject, improving crawlability and reinforcing your topical authority.

Understand User Intent

Google ranks content that aligns with what users are really trying to accomplish, not just what they type.

Most content marketers will implement a plan surrounding user intent to improve their topical authority. It is no secret that Google’s search engine algorithm has become extremely good at understanding user intent.

If a user searches for information on a subject via a given fact or specific keywords, Google’s algorithm tries to establish the intent behind that particular search and deliver the most relevant result.

That means your content strategy must take into account the intent of the user searching for that keyword. If it’s informational, write a how-to article. If it’s transactional, consider targeting an e-commerce page. This varies based on your platform of choice, as the chart below shows:

NP Digital research showing how people search on ChatGPT vs Google.

You can go even further by reverse-engineering the search results. For instance, run a Google search yourself for a target keyword and see what kind of articles come up.

Below I’ve run a search for the term “Keyword research.” As you can see, the results are a mixture of how-to articles and tools.

This tells me that I can either market my keyword research tool, Ubersuggest, or create a how-to guide that includes my keyword tool and others like it. This satisfies the user intent and what Google thinks the user intent is.

That’s why I created a full breakdown of keyword research strategies, because the content format matches what users actually want.

Build High-Quality Links

One final strategy you should use to improve your website’s topical authority is to build high-quality backlinks with other authoritative websites.

The key is to get links from websites that have strong domain ratings and that are relevant to your industry. For example, if you have an SEO tool, getting a link from my blog would be a great link.

But it’s not just about volume, quality matters. The best backlinks come from sites with topical relevance, natural anchor text, and contextual placement within content.

Strategies like guest blogging, HARO outreach, and contextual mentions can all support high-quality backlink building when used the right way.

Strong links help boost your rankings and strengthen the authority signals search engines and AI tools rely on.

Define Your Brand Voice

A consistent brand voice makes your content more recognizable, trustworthy, and easier to connect across related topics.

If your tone, structure, and perspective shift from post to post, it’s harder for users and search engines may struggle to recognize your expertise.

That consistency becomes especially important when you’re building out topic clusters. Each piece should sound like it comes from the same point of view, even if multiple people contribute.

Clarity, tone, and editorial consistency are part of what makes your content feel authoritative, not just to readers, but to algorithms evaluating how well you cover a subject.

Add SME (Subject Matter Expert) Insight<h3>

One of the fastest ways to build topical authority is to bring real subject matter experts into your content. That could mean using named authors, pulling in expert quotes, or publishing under people who have actual experience in the field.

I love doing this on this blog. You hear a lot from me, but I like having other experts from my agency chime in when it comes to topics they have specific expertise on.

Example of SME insight on one of Neil Patel's blogs.

Users want to hear from people who’ve actually done the work. Adding expert input isn’t just for show, it’s what separates credible content from filler.

Topical Authority Metrics

While there’s no single topical authority score, these metrics show you’re building credibility:

Number of ranking keywords: Shows how well your site covers a topic at scale
Keyword depth: Measures how many related long-tail queries you rank for in a cluster
Content-to-topic ratio: Indicates whether your site goes deep or just scratches the surface
Internal linking coverage: Signals whether you’re connecting related ideas effectively
Growth in backlinks to topic-related pages: Suggests rising authority within that subject
LLM citations (like ChatGPT) offer indirect proof that your content is seen as trustworthy

Once you know what to look for, you can use tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs to track keyword clusters, compare topic coverage against competitors, and audit internal link paths.

Ubersuggest lets you monitor keyword growth over time, check traffic by page, and spot gaps in your content strategy.

Ubersuggest's keyword tracking capabilities.

And while no tool will hand you a “topical authority” badge, tracking the right metrics will show whether you’re moving in the right direction, and where to focus next.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is topical authority?

Topical authority is how search engines evaluate your site’s credibility on a specific subject. The more high-quality, in-depth content you create around a topic, and the better you organize, link, and structure it, the more likely Google is to trust your site to rank for related searches.
It’s not about one post. It’s about building a library of connected, expert-level content that proves you know the space.

How do I build topical authority?

You build topical authority by going deep, not wide. Start with a few core topics, publish content that covers every angle, and connect everything with a strong internal structure.
You also need to align with user intent, bring in subject matter expertise, and keep your content updated. That shows search engines and readers that you’re committed to covering the topic thoroughly.

Do backlinks play a role in establishing topical authority?

Yes. Backlinks matter. When trusted sites link to your content, it signals to Google that others see you as credible. But it’s not just about quantity. Relevance, context, and anchor text all affect how much a backlink supports your authority.

Conclusion

Topical authority is one of the most valuable assets in modern SEO. It helps you rank, earn trust, and get cited by AI tools looking for expert sources.

You won’t build it overnight, but if you commit to going deep on the topics that matter to your business, the results compound. Solid on-page SEO and forward-looking strategies like LLM seeding help position your content where it matters most.

If your content consistently delivers real value, Google will notice. Your audience will too.

Read more at Read More

How to Use SEO to Build Your Brand

October 2, 2025/0 Comments/in Web Design/by

Most marketers treat SEO like a traffic tool. They get the clicks, but the brand still doesn’t stick.

Here’s what I see happening: Marketers chase clicks but forget about recognition. You get the visit, but not the return customer.

That’s a problem. If people can’t remember you, they won’t come back. If Google doesn’t see signals of your brand’s authority, you’ll lose visibility in search.

AI search is shifting how people find answers. Instead of 10 blue links, people now see answers. And those answers often include brands Google already trusts.

This makes brand SEO a must. You need to show up and stand out.

I’ve been tracking this shift for months: 1 out of every 3 search queries on Google is branded. That means you’re already behind if you’re not building brand recognition.

In this post, you’ll learn how to build a brand that ranks, earns clicks, and sticks in people’s minds. No gimmicks. Just smart, brand-first SEO.

Key Takeaways

Brand SEO helps you rank for branded searches and builds trust with users and Google.
Strong branding increases click-through rates (CTR), backlinks, and visibility in AI-driven results.
Brand mentions across trusted sites, combined with consistent content and E-E-A-T signals, reinforce your authority in search. Owning your branded search engine results page (SERP) is just as important as ranking for non-branded keywords.
AI summaries and featured answers pull from trustworthy brands. If your content feels human and credible, you’ll be in the mix.

What Is Brand SEO (and Why It Matters More Now)?

Brand SEO builds your reputation in search results. You want to control how you appear, not leave it to chance.

In newer AI features like AI Overviews (AIOs), I’m seeing trusted brands surface more often. If you’re not showing credibility, you’re not showing up.

Brand SEO closes that gap. It tells search engines and users who you are, why you matter, and why they should click.

You still need the foundations: SEO basics like page speed, keyword optimization, and mobile responsiveness.

But technical SEO alone won’t build your brand’s reputation. You also need signals like brand mentions, consistent content, and trust indicators, especially those tied to E-E-A-T.

Key brand SEO signals include:

Branded keyword visibility (e.g., company name, product names, founder name)
Brand mentions on credible sites, even without links
High-quality content that aligns with your brand values
Clear authorship and real-world experience across pages

Brand SEO works across platforms. Google is no longer everyone’s go-to. Many now use TikTok, Reddit, YouTube, ChatGPT, and other platforms to search and discover brands.

That shift is why I call it search everywhere optimization. Your brand needs to be visible wherever your audience is searching.

How Branding Impacts SEO (and Vice Versa)

Google doesn’t just rank websites. It favors recognizable and trusted brands.

If your name is recognizable and trusted, people are more likely to click. If they stick around and engage, Google sees that as a signal you’re worth ranking higher.

Here’s something most people miss: Good branding actually improves your technical SEO metrics. It improves click-through rates. It builds trust. It earns backlinks and mentions without you having to ask.

And it works both ways. Showing up at the top of search results makes your brand look more credible, even to people who’ve never heard of you before.

This creates a growth loop. If your brand shows authority and credibility, you have a better shot at getting pulled into AI-generated summaries, carousels, and featured snippets.

Your brand strategy and SEO plan can‘t sit in separate silos. They have to work together.

Even unlinked brand mentions count as credibility signals. If someone references your business in a blog or Reddit thread, Google sees that as a sign your brand is real.

Strong brands get ranked. Ranked content strengthens the brand. That’s the loop. You want to be in it.

Strategies to Improve Your Brand SEO

A lot of brands don’t think about how they appear in search until there’s a problem. But by then, you’re already lagging.

People are going to find you in search anyway. Brand SEO decides whether they trust what they see or bounce.

The strategies below are designed to boost visibility and build credibility, helping your brand stand out where it matters most: directly in the search results.

1. Optimize for Branded Search Queries

When someone Googles your brand, what do they see? Your homepage? A competitor ad? A half-filled profile on a review site?

Not actively managing your branded search presence means giving up control of your first impression.

Go search your brand name right now.

You should see your site, social profiles, top content, third-party reviews, and, ideally, Google’s Knowledge Panel. If anything looks off, you’ve got work to do.

From there, tighten the basics.

Claim and optimize your listings on review platforms and business directories. Add schema markup to your site. Build out your brand’s presence on YouTube, LinkedIn, and other authoritative channels.

Don’t forget your core pages, either.

Use your home and About pages to clearly state who you are, what you do, and why people should trust you. These pages often show up first in branded searches.

These searchers already know your name. Now your job is to make sure you look like the obvious choice.

2. Build E-E-A-T with Your Brand

Google rewards brands that demonstrate real experience and clear expertise. Those are the exact qualities E-E-A-T is built to measure.

So, how do you show that in search?

Start by putting a face to your brand. Make it visible in search. How?

Add real authorship to your content.
Use bios with credentials.
Publish original data.
Share customer stories that prove you’ve done the work.

Your About page matters, too. It tells both users and search engines why you’re credible.
That includes your track record, leadership team, certifications, and partnerships. These are all signals that support your SEO.

You can also strengthen E-E-A-T through off-site brand mentions. Even unlinked references from trusted sources help Google connect your brand to your niche.

If your brand is missing from expert conversations, you’re not getting full credit in search.

3. Generate Brand Mentions (Without Needing Links)

Google tracks brand mentions across the web, even when they aren’t linked. That includes product roundups, reviews, Reddit threads, and press coverage.

These mentions act as trust signals. They show Google that your brand exists, has a reputation, and is relevant in your space.

Start by identifying the sites, creators, or communities that already talk about your niche. Then pitch them stories, data, tools, or quotes that tie back to your brand. You don’t need a backlink to make the mention count.

You can also earn mentions through original research, expert commentary, or sponsoring newsletters and industry events.

Track your results with a tool like Brandwatch, Mention, or Google Alerts. When you see new mentions, screenshot them. Use them in pitches. Mention them in your About page. They build credibility fast.

4. Use Content to Reinforce Brand Values

Your brand strategy isn’t what you say about yourself. It’s what people remember after reading, watching, or hearing from you.

Every piece of content sends a signal. Blog posts, product pages, even your FAQs: Each shapes how people see your brand and how search engines define it.

If your blog is friendly but your homepage sounds like legal copy, that disconnect hurts both trust and SEO. You want a consistent voice, message, and point of view across all channels.

That’s how you build long-term recognition. And it’s also how Google learns what your brand actually stands for.

The fix starts with content that reflects your values. Are you positioning yourself as an educator? A disrupter? A resource for beginners? That should come through clearly in your headlines, body copy, and calls to action.

Take a look at NerdWallet’s homepage and recent blog.

NerdWallet leans hard into being a trusted guide. On the homepage, it’s all about making finance simple and approachable: “The Nerds can find your next financial product in minutes.”

In the article, it’s about being relatable and human, explaining a tough job market with plain language, real data (and even a touch of humor).

Brand stories aren’t marketing fluff. They’re how you show what your business does, who it helps, and why it matters.

Common Mistakes That Hurt Brand SEO

Brand SEO breaks down when your signals don’t align. These aren’t technical SEO errors. They’re brand gaps. Good news, though: They’re fixable.

Here’s what weakens your visibility and trust in search:

1. Mixed or Inconsistent Messaging

I see this constantly: brands that sound corporate on their homepage, casual on social, and educational in their blog. Pick a voice and stick with it.

People notice. Google picks up on those mixed signals too. You lose credibility if your voice, offer, or positioning shifts depending on the platform.

2. Neglected Branded SERPs

If you’re not ranking for your own name or product terms, someone else will fill that gap.

Check your branded queries regularly. Do your homepage, social profiles, and About page show up? Do review sites outrank you?
Own your real estate by optimizing those pages and building out what’s missing.

3. No Authorship or Trust Signals

Google wants to know who’s behind the content.

If your blog posts have no author bios or credentials, they look like filler. Add real names, real expertise, and clear reasons to trust the advice. These are key SEO trust signals.

Here’s an example featuring NP Digital’s VP of SEO, Nikki Lam, who contributes thought leadership expertise to this blog:

Author pages like this help reinforce transparency and authority, making your content harder to dismiss.

4. Lack of Off-Site Brand Presence

If your brand never shows up outside your own website, it creates a credibility gap for both search engines and users.

This usually happens when all your energy goes into content on your blog, but no one else is referencing your brand. That might be because you haven’t done outreach, you’re not sharing anything unique, or you’re not part of the conversations happening in your industry.

The fix doesn’t have to be overwhelming.

Start small. You might share original insights or research on LinkedIn or pitch a quote to a roundup post. Or you could jump into relevant Reddit threads or sponsor a niche newsletter or event.

The goal is to get your brand name mentioned on trustworthy third-party sites, even if there’s no backlink.

FAQs

How do I improve brand awareness with SEO?

Start by creating helpful content that solves problems for your audience. Focus on long-tail keywords tied to your niche. From there, own your branded SERPs by optimizing your homepage, About page, and key product or service pages. And don’t stop with your own site: Build authority by earning mentions on trusted third-party sites, even without links.

How important is branding for SEO?

It’s bigger than most people realize. Google favors content from trusted, recognizable sources. A strong brand improves click-through rates, time on page, and off-site signals like mentions and reviews. All feed into your organic performance.

What is a brand mention for SEO?

A brand mention is any time your business is referenced online, even if there’s no hyperlink. This could be in a product roundup, blog post, news article, forum thread, or podcast transcript. Google can interpret these mentions as signals of authority and relevance.

Conclusion

SEO has evolved beyond traffic generation. It’s how your brand earns visibility, trust, and authority across search and AI-driven platforms.

If you’re not showing up as the trusted choice in branded queries, featured snippets, AI overviews, or other AI-generated answers, someone else will.

Brand SEO helps you fix that. It gives you control over how your business appears, what people say about it, and whether Google sees you as credible.

Doing this well goes beyond technical fixes. It’s about your content strategy, review signals, authorship, off-site presence, and everything in between. It’s not optional if you want to grow.

You don’t build a brand by hoping people recognize your logo. You build it by showing up everywhere they look and giving them a reason to trust you.

Read more at Read More

What Is Paid Media?

October 1, 2025/0 Comments/in Web Design/by

Turning paid ads into profit is a proven path to scalable, predictable growth.

When you nail it, paid media gives you a steady stream of customers, without depending on Google’s latest update or social media’s shifting algorithms. In fact, digital ad spend hit $259B in 2024 and is expected to keep growing.

But which channels are right for you? How can you weave them together into an effective strategy? And what’s the best way to measure your performance?

Here’s what you need to know.

Key Takeaways

Paid media is any form of advertising you pay to place on platforms you don’t own, like Google ads, Facebook posts, banner placements, or influencer partnerships.
The big three categories are display ads (banners and videos that stand out), native ads (sponsored posts that blend in), and traditional media (billboards, TV, radio).
Search ads and influencer partnerships are the most trusted paid channels because they catch people with intent or leverage existing relationships.
A winning campaign has seven steps: get your team aligned, set specific goals, budget for real costs (not just ad spend), know your audience, pick the right channels, create compelling ads, and optimize relentlessly.
Track five key metrics: return on ad spend (ROAS), overall return on investment (ROI), cost per click (CPC), impressions, and click-through rate (CTR). These tell you whether you’re making money or just spending it.

Paid Media Basics

Paid media is any kind of promotion that meets two criteria: it happens on a platform you don’t own, and you pay for it.

Banner ads are everywhere, like the ones shown in the Wired article below.

Paid media drives real revenue, whether you’re running a startup or managing a global brand.

In research from my team at NP Digital, we found that paid ads make up a meaningful chunk of revenue across businesses of all sizes.

A chart showing percentage of revenue from paid ads by company size.

Paid Media vs. Earned Media vs. Owned Media

Think of marketing like a three-legged stool. The three legs here are paid, earned, and owned media.

Understanding how they work and how they work together can help you build a strategy that covers your blind spots and scales over time.

As mentioned earlier, paid media is any promotional placement you pay for. Think search ads, social ads, banner placements, influencer partnerships, and more.

Earned media is unpaid publicity that your business receives from other people and websites. It’s what others say about your brand mentions in news articles, influencer shoutouts, customer reviews, backlinks, or viral social shares.

Owned media is the stuff you fully control. Your website, blogs, social media accounts, newsletters, and email list, fall into this category. You manage the content, the experience, and the message.

Here’s how they fit together:

Paid media helps you get visibility fast, especially when you’re just starting out or entering new markets
Owned media builds trust, it’s where your brand message lives
Earned media amplifies both. It kicks in when people start talking about what you’re already doing well

The best campaigns use all three. Paid gets attention. Owned keeps it. Earned multiplies it.

Categories and Examples: Paid Media in the Wild

Paid media is evolving fast. Search, social, video, and display are table stakes, but newer formats are gaining traction too, including ads inside large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Gemini.

Even with all this growth, most formats fall into three core categories: display, native, and traditional. There’s often overlap between them, but these labels help keep things simple.

Display ads: These are visually distinct image, video, and text ads that appear alongside content on the web. Website banners, YouTube ads, and interstitial pop-ups are all examples.
Native ads: These are ads that fit within the flow of content and are often indistinguishable from it at first glance. Influencer recommendations, advertorials, and sponsorships are well-known forms of native advertising.
Traditional media: Commercials, billboards, and direct mail are examples of traditional media. You don’t get the same tracking or targeting you’d see with digital, but these channels still play a role in large-scale brand awareness.

Now that we’ve covered the broad categories, let’s break down some of the most common paid media channels, and where each one fits.

Search Engine Advertising (Search Engine Marketing)

Google, Bing, Yahoo, and even Amazon.

While Google Ads dominates the space, Bing Ads (now part of Microsoft Advertising) can offer lower CPCs (cost per click) and a different audience, especially for B2B brands. Amazon Ads also work well for product-heavy businesses.

We found that search ads across platforms drive some of the highest conversion rates in paid media, second only to channels like LinkedIn and influencer marketing.

A graphic showing average conversion rate by channel for ads.

Here’s what the advertising process looks like:

Open an account with the ad network (like Google or Bing)
Choose the keywords you want to appear for, such as “gardener in Arizona”
Set your maximum bid for those keywords (top bidders appear first)
Create your advertisement, which will be text-based
Launch your campaign and let Google serve your ad on relevant SERPs

The benefit of SEM is intent. You’re targeting users who are already searching for what you offer, which puts them closer to a buying decision.

And if you’re willing to bid competitively, your ad can appear above the organic result, even above your competitors.

Here’s an example of search engine ads for the keyword “paid media consultant.” Note the “Sponsored” label, which helps users distinguish paid ads from organic results.

Third-Party Banner Ads

Banner display ads are shown on a third-party online property, usually a website or app.

Most people think banner ads only appear at the top of pages. Not true. Inline banner ads also show in the flow of content. A banner ad is simply a square or rectangular display ad (an ad that is distinct from surrounding content).

NP Digital research shows that banner ads are the least trusted of all paid media formats, underperforming search and influencer ads significantly.

An NP Digital graphi showing trust in advertising by channel.

That said, banner ads are good at raising brand awareness. As customers see the same ad repeated across different websites, “brand memory” strengthens. The average person needs to see a brand at least seven times before they make a purchase.

Here’s an example of a fairly conspicuous banner ad on UK news site the Daily Mail:

The Google Display Network, the world’s biggest display network, consists of over two million websites and mobile apps that businesses can display their ads on—reaching 90 percent of web users worldwide. When someone clicks on an ad, Google Ads and whoever hosted it share the spoils.

Paid Social Media Advertising

Social media advertising is big business. The global market was worth an impressive $252.95 billion at the end of 2024, and this is set to grow in the future.

According to NP Digital research, Facebook generated over $100 billion in ad revenue last year, making it the top-performing social ad platform. Instagram followed at $70.9 billion.

NP Digital graph showing ad revenue by social network.

Here’s an example of paid media advertising on Facebook. This sponsored post is by McDonald’s and appears in relevant customers’ newsfeeds, enticing them to try their $8 Chicken McNugget Meal. These ads blend into the feed but still offer clear calls to action.

McDonald's ad for chicken nuggets and fries.

And it’s not just for B2C. In the LinkedIn ad below, Microsoft targets professionals in banking with an ebook download offer.

Social ads work because they meet people where they’re already scrolling. Nearly 60 percent of the world’s population has at least one social media account.

Even better, social platforms give you advanced targeting tools. Most platforms let you target people by age, gender, and location, as well as their hobbies and other social media accounts they follow.

Video Advertising

Video content gets more engagement than static text or images. In fact, one NP Digital study found that short-form and long-form videos accounted for 31.38% and 15.51% of all engagement, respectively.

NP Digital graph showing the type of content that generates the most engagement.

That kind of engagement makes video a powerful paid media tool, especially on platforms like YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.

Video ads show up before or during content users are already watching.

What makes video ads effective is how they combine storytelling with visual cues. Create a stylish, funny, or cool video, and people will naturally want to discover your brand. Like display ads, videos are great for capturing people’s attention on mobile as well.

In-App Ads

In-app ads are paid placements that show up inside mobile apps while someone is using them. These can be banner ads, video ads, interstitials (full-screen takeovers), or rewarded ads where users watch a video in exchange for in-app perks.

You’ve probably seen these in gaming apps, news apps, or streaming services. They appear between levels, in feed scrolls, or before content loads.

Source

These ads work well if your audience spends a lot of time on mobile, and even better if you’re targeting users by behavior, interest, or location. App data gives you targeting options you won’t always get on the open web.

Performance varies by industry, but in-app ads tend to perform best for consumer apps, entertainment, retail, and local services.

Digital Out of Home (DOOH) Ads

DOOH ads are digital billboards, transit screens, and signage in public spaces. You’ve seen them in malls, airports, gas stations, elevators, and even gym treadmills.

Source: BMedia Group

Unlike traditional out-of-home ads, these use screens and software, which means you can update them in real time and target by location, time of day, or audience segment.

They’re a great fit for local campaigns, brand awareness pushes, or national advertisers who want visibility in high-traffic areas. You won’t get click data, but they can be effective for driving searches, visits, and offline conversions.

DOOH is especially useful when paired with mobile or geotargeted campaigns. Seeing a screen ad in a gym, then getting a related offer on your phone, is the kind of multi-touch experience that performs well.

Connected TV (CTV) and Over-the-Top (OTT) Advertising

Connected TV (CTV) and Over-the-Top (OTT) ads show up inside streaming content, on platforms like Hulu, Roku, YouTube TV, and Peacock. These are the ads you see while watching shows or movies on smart TVs, streaming boxes, or even mobile apps.

The big difference? CTV runs on television screens. OTT can run on any device.

Source: Madhive

These ad formats are great for reaching cord-cutters who’ve moved away from traditional cable. They’re also more trackable than old-school TV ads, with options for targeting by location, device, behavior, and even interests.

CTV and OTT ads are especially useful for brand awareness, product launches, and retargeting. You can run short video ads in high-attention environments—and often get better completion rates than on social.

Large Language Model (LLM) Ads

LLM ads are an emerging format of paid placements that appear in large language model tools like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Perplexity. These ad types are still in the early stages, but they’re gaining momentum as AI assistants become part of everyday search behavior.

Right now, some platforms are testing sponsored response blocks or product carousels within AI-generated answers. These typically appear when users ask for recommendations, product ideas, or service comparisons.

For marketers, LLM ads offer a new way to show up during early-stage research, especially in verticals like travel, consumer products, software, and education.

Unlike traditional search ads, these placements are more dependent on content quality and relevance than keyword bidding. That gives brands with helpful, trustworthy content an advantage.

This space is still evolving, but it’s one marketers should keep a close eye on. Testing early gives you a head start as AI search platforms build out their ad offerings.

Sponsorships and Advertorials

Sponsorships, advertorials (paid articles), and influencer marketing are the most prominent examples of paid native advertising.

These ads blend in with regular content.

Here’s an example: an article written by a company executive who’s part of Forbes Council, a paid program that entitles members to publish a set number of articles every year. It looks like editorial content, but it’s paid for, and the author gets guaranteed publishing rights.

An article written by a company executive that's a part of Forbes Council.

Sponsored posts are everywhere, especially on social. The Instagram post below is clearly labeled as a “Paid partnership with Gymshark.” This post feels authentic because it comes from a trusted influencer, not a brand’s ad account.

Along with that, since the influencer has a loyal, engaged following—the post has over 140,000 likes—the ROI will likely be positive for the advertiser.

An Instagram post labeled as a paid partnership with Gymshark.

What makes these work? Trust. When the message comes from someone users already trust, it tends to land better, and perform better.

Benefits of Paid Media as a Marketing Channel

Here are some key benefits of paid media for marketers:

You have more control. As you pay to advertise, you get more say over your ad’s appearance. Conversely, if you submit a press release to a publication, they may edit it to suit their in-house tone of voice.
You get immediate visibility. Search engine optimization (SEO) costs less than paid media, but it can take three to 12 months to see optimal results. With paid media, if you’re happy to pay, you can appear in front of prospective customers immediately.
You can measure results. Paid ads platforms offer detailed analytics so you can see how your ads are doing. Some even provide a quality score so you know which campaigns you need to optimize.
You can tailor your ads. You can target your ads to specific groups of customers and even tailor content toward a location. This increases the chances of people responding positively to your advertisements. Similarly, you can advise who you don’t want your ad to show to.
You can implement automation. You can be as hands-on or hands-off with your advertising as you want. For example, Google Ads offers automated bidding where it automatically optimizes your bids to appeal to people more likely to help you achieve your goals.

Top 5 Paid Media Metrics for Paid Media

You could track dozens of metrics, but these five matter most.

List of key metrics for paid media success.

There are lots of metrics you can use to track the success of your paid media campaigns. The risk is that you get lost in a sea of data.

I recommend a simplified approach. One that lets you hone in on channels with potential, drop those that aren’t working, and demonstrate a clear ROI throughout.

Here are my top five metrics for paid media:

These give you a clear picture of performance and help you decide where to optimize or pull back.

Return on ad spend (ROAS): ROAS tells you how much revenue you’re generating for every dollar spent on ads. It’s important to measure this separately because it’s the first thing you need to remedy if you’re not achieving a positive ROI overall. If your ROAS drops, you may need to adjust your targeting, creative, or offers.
Return on investment (ROI): This is the big one. If you’re generating more from your paid media campaigns than it costs to run them, you’re on the right track. Account for everything—creative costs, time managing ad accounts, A/B testing, etc.—and not just the ad platform fees. Paid media without ROI is just spend. Use this number to decide whether to scale or pause.
Cost per click (CPC): This is the average amount you pay whenever someone clicks on your ad. Ideally, this should be as low as possible. It’s a ripe area for optimization. CPC is most useful when viewed alongside CTR and conversion rate. A low CPC doesn’t help if nobody converts.
Impressions: This is the total number of times users see your ads. A high reach shows that you’ve chosen a channel that gives you exposure to a large audience, which is important for brand building. Low impression count? It might be time to evaluate the reach of your chosen channel. Impressions alone won’t drive results but they show whether your ads are getting visibility in the first place.
Click-through rate (CTR): This is the percentage of people who see and click on your ad. A high CTR shows that people find your ad interesting and valuable.

How to Create a High-ROI Paid Media Campaign: 7 Steps

Illustration of the steps to create a high-ROI paid media campaign.

Paid media can generate traffic, leads, and revenue, but only if you approach it with a clear plan. Skipping strategy and jumping into ad spend is one of the fastest ways to burn through your budget.

Because large amounts of money are involved, caution is your ally. Many businesses burn through cash before giving up on paid media, wondering what went wrong.

Your paid media strategy should clearly cover the following:

Which internal stakeholders you need to include
Goals you want to achieve
Characteristics of your audience
Platform-specific budgets
Viable paid media channels
Products and services you want to promote
Metrics for gauging success

The process doesn’t need to be complicated. These seven steps will help you build a campaign that’s focused, efficient, and ready to scale.

1. Obtain Internal Stakeholder Buy-In

Getting buy-in goes beyond simple approval. Your team needs to fully understand what’s happening, why it matters, and what role they play.

Start by identifying who needs to be involved. At a minimum, that usually includes:

Marketing leadership (budget, goals, channel mix)
Creative teams (ad copy, assets, landing pages)
Analytics (conversion tracking, attribution setup)
Sales (if the campaign impacts lead gen or pipeline)

Don’t wait until after launch to bring these teams in. Paid media works best when everyone is aligned from day one.

Set up a short kickoff meeting to walk through the campaign plan. Cover what you’re promoting, who you’re targeting, what platforms you’re using, and how results will be reported.

It doesn’t have to be a big formal process. A shared doc, quick sync, or even a Slack thread can go a long way.

The goal is to eliminate surprises and make it easy for other teams to support the strategy.

2. Set clear goals and KPIs

You need to know exactly what you’re trying to accomplish. Metrics are important (we’ll come to those later), but goals lay the foundation.

If you don’t know what success looks like, it’s easy to waste money. That’s why clear goals are the first thing to lock in, before budgets, platforms, or creatives.

Start by asking one question: What do you need this campaign to accomplish?

This could include:

Lead generation
Product sales
Free trial signups
App installs
Event registrations
Traffic to a specific landing page
Brand awareness in a new market

Be specific, not general. “More leads” isn’t a goal. “Generate 250 demo requests this quarter at a CPL (cost per lead) under $80” is. Pass your goals through the SMART test: are they Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely? The more detailed you make the goals, the easier they will be to achieve.

After that, you can pick KPIs and metrics that match your objective, which we will be talking about in a little bit.

3. Determine budget

With paid media campaigns, it’s essential to set a budget and stick to it. Many paid media platforms let you set a definite upper limit for your ad campaigns. If you exceed this budget, the platform stops showing your ads.

Your budget isn’t just ad spend, but it fuels the entire campaign. Along with the baseline budget for your paid media ads, you must also consider additional costs. These include ad copywriting, graphic design, and videography. If you use an agency, you’ll have to cover ongoing account management fees.

Start by figuring out what success looks like. If your goal is to get 100 leads at $50 each, you’ll need to spend at least $5,000 in ad budget alone. That’s your baseline.

Then add in the supporting costs:

Ad creative (copy, graphics, video, landing pages)
Tracking and analytics setup
A/B testing budget to compare variants
Management costs if you’re outsourcing or using tools

Different platforms also have different minimums and cost expectations. Running paid social on Facebook or Instagram can be more flexible for smaller budgets. Search ads on Google or Bing often require more competitive bidding to see traction.

Don’t spread your budget too thin. It’s better to run fewer campaigns with enough spend to test and optimize properly, instead of trying to be everywhere with limited reach.

And whatever number you start with, keep a reserve. Paid campaigns almost always need tweaking in the first few weeks.

4. Know Your Audience

The more specific you get with your targeting, the less you waste on clicks that go nowhere. If you’re paying for media on a publication or newsletter, you can compare your ideal customer profile (ICP) to the audience specs.

Research all the following points for your ICP:

Industry or niche
Company size or household income
Job titles or demographics
Location
Pain points and goals
What platforms they use most
What influences their buying decisions

Here’s how your audience research translates into paid media results:

Ad platforms: Choose based on where your audience actually spends time
Creative: Match tone, visuals, and messaging to their mindset
Offers: Promote what solves their problem, not what you want to sell
Targeting settings: Use demographics, behaviors, and interests to narrow reach
Retargeting: Build separate campaigns for cold traffic vs. returning visitors

The goal is to reach the right people at the right stage and give them a reason to click.

5. Choose Channels

Not every platform fits every goal. The right channel depends on who you’re targeting, what you’re promoting, and how fast you need results.

Take the following into consideration when choosing where to advertise:

Use search ads (like Google or Bing) if you’re targeting high-intent keywords. People searching are already looking for solutions.
Use social ads (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn) to create demand or raise awareness. These platforms are great for targeting by interest, behavior, or job title—even if people aren’t actively searching yet.
Use display or retargeting to stay in front of people after they’ve engaged. These can bring users back to your site to finish what they started.

You can also learn a lot by seeing where your competitors are advertising. Tools like Meta Ad Library, Google Ads Transparency Center, and manual Google searches will show you what channels they’re using and how often they show up. Look at their messaging, creative, and landing pages. If it’s working for them, it might work for you.

Budget matters, too. Some platforms are better suited to lower ad spend. Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok can give you meaningful reach on a modest budget. Search or YouTube may require more competitive bidding to see real traction.

For smaller budgets, focus on one or two channels where your audience is most active. Don’t try to be everywhere if you can’t afford to run meaningful tests.

And don’t lock yourself into one format. The best campaigns evolve. Start with the highest-potential channel, then expand once you’re confident in performance.

6. Create Compelling Creative

Here are some of my top tips for designing paid media ads that drive clicks:

Don’t be afraid of being “loud”—you want an ad that customers stop and look at.
Keep your ad copy clear and concise.
User-generated content and testimonials show prospects why existing customers love your brand.
If you’re using search advertising like Google Ads, take advantage of assets that tell customers more about your business for no additional cost.
Run multiple variants of your ads from the get-go for some quick A/B test wins.

But good creative is more than just how your ad looks, it also covers what you say and how fast you get to the point. Lead with the benefit, keep the message tight, and match your CTA to the user’s intent.

Make sure your offer matches the awareness stage also. A discount works well for bottom-of-funnel buyers. But for top-of-funnel, try a quiz, guide, or video to build interest first.

Finally, try to avoid launching with just one ad. Rotate in multiple headlines, formats, and visuals early so you can learn what actually converts before you scale spend.

In addition, some paid media platforms have ad libraries where you can see examples of paid media ads from your competitors. Meta (Facebook and Instagram), TikTok, LinkedIn, and Google Ads all have libraries. They’re fantastic sources of inspiration.

7. Optimize Your Campaigns

Like all digital marketing campaigns, paid media is not something you can set and forget. When it comes to optimization, little and often wins the race.

I recommend checking your paid media accounts at least once a week, even once a day if you’re running a short-term campaign.

Paid media is excellent for running multivariate and A/B testing. You can create multiple ad versions with small differences—such as CTA texts or color schemes—and test them against statistically significant sample sizes.

But don’t stop at testing creative. Optimization includes your audiences, bidding strategy, landing pages, placements, and even campaign structure.

Here’s what to review regularly:

Which ads are getting clicks but not conversions? Pause or adjust those.
Which campaigns are spending without results? Reallocate that budget.
Are certain audiences or geos outperforming others? Double down where it counts.
Is your cost per result trending up or down? That’s your early warning system.

Document what you’re testing and why. Optimization doesn’t mean quickly reacting without thinking. Your team needs to learn over time and building a smarter strategy with every round.

Paid Media and AI: Trends You Need to Know

AI is already shaping how campaigns are built, optimized, and scaled. My team and I ran research looking at AI vs. human-generated ads, for example, and found that AI ads converted at 1.28%, less than half a percentage point below human ads, which converted at 1.54%. Yes, human ads performed better. But not by a huge margin.

NP Digital graph showing the difference between AI-generated ads vs Human-generated ads and which converts better.

I would urge digital marketers to keep the following four points in mind when it comes There are already a growing amount of applications for AI in the world of paid media:

Marketers are using AI to:

Write ad copy faster (especially for high-volume campaigns)
Build and test ad creative using AI image and video tools
Generate audiences automatically based on existing customer data
Optimize budgets in real time across channels
Predict what offers or creatives will perform best, before spending anything

These aren’t experimental use cases anymore. They’re being built directly into the tools marketers already use.But things are changing fast. Here’s some key points to keep in mind:

Paid media isn’t going anywhere: Most paid media channels will remain viable. People will continue to read their favorite publications, open newsletters, follow influencers on social media, listen to podcasts, and so on. Even if traditional SEO and search ads vanish, LLMs like ChatGPT will need to monetize at some point.
Revenue from ads provides stability: As AI changes the way people consume content online, revenue from ads can actually provide more stability. Unlike organic traffic, they’re not dependent on algorithms over which you have no control.
Paid media helps you build brand citations: Branding will be more important than ever in the age of AI. Citations around the web are one of the ways LLMs identify and measure the relevance of your business to a particular query. For example, if “NP Digital” appears often in AI training materials next to “advertising agency,” my brand is more likely to be referenced in response to related questions.
Now is the time to start experimenting with AI: As was shown in the research by me and my team, AI can perform nearly as well as humans. For a head start when AI is truly ready to assist with paid media campaigns, you should start experimenting and learning now.
That said, AI is a tool, not a strategy. You still need strong positioning, good creative, and clear goals. But if you’re not testing AI workflows now, you’re going to fall behind the brands that are.

Should You Focus on One or All Channels?

Most marketers think they need to be everywhere. That’s usually wrong.

To be clear, I’m a big proponent of omnichannel digital marketing.

When you’re everywhere, you reach more of your prospects. Yet you would be amazed at how many businesses fail to grasp this simple fact.

With that said, for paid, omnichannel may sound great, but isn’t always the right move.

With large amounts of money at risk, you need to do two things: research and test.

If you’re just getting started with paid media, stick to one or two platforms where your audience is most active. That gives you enough budget and data to learn what works without spreading yourself too thin.

Once you’ve found a winning message and offer, then it makes sense to expand. You can start repurposing creative, retargeting across platforms, and building a true full-funnel system.

Here’s the truth: omnichannel paid marketing only works when you have the team, budget, and systems to support it. Otherwise, it turns into a mess of disconnected campaigns.

Ask yourself:

Do you have the creative capacity to build for multiple formats?
Do you have enough budget to collect meaningful data across platforms?
Can you track performance in a way that ties everything together?

If the answer is yes, go for it. If not, focus and scale intentionally. The best paid media campaigns start small, then scale up.

FAQs

What is paid media?

Paid media refers to any marketing or advertising content a brand pays to place on a third-party platform. Common examples include search engine ads, social media ads, display banners, video ads, influencer sponsorships, and traditional placements like radio, print, or TV.

The key benefit of paid media is the ability to generate visibility and traffic quickly, often with precise targeting and measurable results. Brands typically use paid media to reach new audiences, promote offers, or support other marketing efforts. It works best when paired with earned and owned media in a broader strategy.

How often should you evaluate your paid media budget?

Most brands should evaluate their paid media budget weekly. This allows time to monitor spend, performance, and early signals on what’s working.

For short-term or high-investment campaigns, daily budget checks are recommended to catch issues before they impact results.

Monthly or quarterly reviews are useful for larger budget adjustments, channel planning, or reallocation based on return.

Consistent monitoring ensures your budget is supporting your goals and allows for real-time optimizations, rather than reactive fixes after performance dips.

How do you build a paid media strategy?

A strong paid media strategy starts with setting a clear objective, such as lead generation, product sales, or brand awareness.

From there, define your target audience and select platforms that align with where they spend time. Creative should match the platform and campaign goal, while KPIs like ROAS, CPC, or conversion rate help track progress.

Budget should be allocated based on priorities and expected return, with room for testing.

Successful strategies are built on iteration—launching, analyzing, and optimizing based on what the data shows.

What’s the difference between earned media and paid media?

Paid media includes advertising you pay for, such as social ads, search ads, sponsored content, and display banners. It gives you control over placement, timing, and messaging.

Earned media refers to organic exposure you don’t pay for—such as press coverage, backlinks, user reviews, or social shares.

While paid media drives immediate visibility, earned media builds trust and long-term authority. Most marketing strategies benefit from a mix of both, with paid media often used to accelerate early reach.

Conclusion

Most marketers treat paid media like throwing money at a wall and hoping something sticks. That’s expensive and frustrating.

The brands winning with paid media treat it like a system. They start with one platform, nail their message and targeting, then scale what works. They track the right metrics, test relentlessly, and aren’t afraid to kill campaigns that aren’t delivering.

If you’re just getting started, pick Google Ads or Facebook—whichever platform your audience uses most. Set a budget you can afford to lose while you learn. Create multiple ad variants from day one so you can see what resonates.

Want to see what’s coming next? Check out the latest paid media trends shaping the industry.

Read more at Read More

Why A Mobile Measurement Partner (MMP) Is Crucial In A Privacy-First Mobile Ecosystem

September 30, 2025/0 Comments/in Web Design/by

The app marketing space is hugely competitive, and at the same time, data privacy has become the defining challenge for marketers. From Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) to Google’s Privacy Sandbox, user-level tracking is harder than ever. To stay competitive, you need partners that give you visibility while keeping you compliant. Among these, one of your most important allies is your Mobile Measurement Partner (MMP). MMPS play a central role in any app’s marketing strategy, both for user acquisition and retention.

Key Takeaways

MMPs unify your data: They consolidate insights across paid, owned, and earned channels in one dashboard.
True performance visibility: Go beyond just installs by tracking cost per impression, click, install, and deeper engagement metrics.
Better budget allocation: Identify which channels deliver real value and optimise spend accordingly.
Unlock user insights: In-app event tracking shows not just where users come from, but what they do after downloading.
Essential for privacy-first marketing: MMPs help navigate iOS privacy changes and ensure accurate measurement.
Stay scalable: They simplify your tech stack, replacing multiple SDKs with a single, integrated solution.

What is an MMP?

App marketers typically run user acquisition (UA) campaigns across multiple platforms and channels, including:

Paid – Meta, Google, Snapchat, TikTok, Apple Search Ads, etc.
Owned – Website, blog, email
Earned – App reviews in independent magazines and review sites

Source: Apple Search Ads

All this activity should lead to people downloading and installing your app, all of which is great, but also meaningless if you can’t track which activity generated each download. And in today’s privacy-first ecosystem, that visibility is harder to achieve than ever. With Apple and Google limiting user-level tracking, attribution can feel like a black-box.

An MMP helps you cut through the complexity by attributing, collecting, and organizing app data in a privacy-first way, delivering a unified view of campaign performance across channels, media sources, and ad networks. It gives you this visibility of which channels are performing, and which aren’t.

For each channel, it will deliver metrics such as:

Cost per impression
Cost per click
Cost per install
Cost per acquisition

These insights enable you to optimise your marketing spend towards the best-performing channels so that you can scale up your UA activities most efficiently. This is particularly important when you consider that app user acquisition costs have increased by 60% in the last five years, reaching an average of $29 per user in 2024, according to research from SimplicityDX, reported by Business of Apps. Understanding where your budget delivers the best results is essential for staying competitive. 

But it doesn’t stop at downloads. The data MMPs generate enables you to dig deeper into the value of each install by looking at what happens “down-funnel” by setting up in-app events.

Use In-App Events to Generate Valuable Insights from your MMP

In-app events allow you to track what users do in the app after installing it. Each event is a key conversion point in the user’s journey through the app. They will differ depending on the type of app, but will typically include things like:

User registration
Newsletter sign up
Clicks on a push notification
Makes a purchase 
Join your loyalty program

You can set up the in-app events that are most relevant to your app and most useful in understanding the value of each user. Your MMP then enables you to track these back to where the install came from. This might reveal, for example, that Meta generates twice as many installs as Apple Search Ads, but that the users who install after clicking on an Apple Search Ads spend three times more in the app than those who came in via Meta. 

A graphic showing the value of different channels.

Simplified Reporting in one Dashboard

An MMP delivers all these insights in one unified dashboard, across all the platforms you use to find new users. It’s a far easier way to get a consolidated, real-time view of what’s happening. Even if you’re only active in one or two channels, the insights an MMP delivers into things like Customer Lifetime Value, churn, and conversion against the in-app events you set up far exceed what each platform will typically offer in terms of reporting.

The Benefits of Using an MMP

In summary, the key benefits of using an MMP are:

Unified reporting across all platforms in one dashboard
Granular insights into cost per impression/click/install, customer lifetime value, churn, conversion in in-app events
Insights that enable you to optimise your marketing spend and better allocate your budget.

Why Skipping an MMP is a Risky Move

Falling Behind in Privacy Compliance
With iOS privacy updates transforming the landscape, MMPs are critical for adapting to new tracking systems and ensuring accurate data collection. They provide the agility needed to stay ahead in a rapidly changing privacy environment.

Misleading Performance Data
Without an MMP, you’re forced to rely on self-attribution from platforms like Google, which often overinflate their numbers. We’ve seen examples of platforms over-reporting key metrics like installs, leading to inaccurate performance insights. This kind of misreporting can lead to budget misallocation and misguided strategy decisions.

Missing out on Critical Insights
MMPs allow you to measure and optimise performance beyond just installs, providing a more comprehensive view of user behavior and value. Leveraging MMP data can reveal that a lower CPI doesn’t always translate to higher-quality users. By analyzing the relationship between CPI and downstream metrics like trial start rates, marketers can refine their bidding strategies to drive better results. Without an MMP, such nuanced insights, and the resulting optimizations, wouldn’t have been possible.

Overcomplicating your Tech Stack
Skipping an MMP requires integrating multiple SDKs, such as Meta, which not only complicates the setup but also raises significant data and privacy concerns.

Setting up your MMP for Success: Best Practices

Most of the main MMP providers will have integrations across your tech stack, but this is a point worth checking with them when you are assessing providers. If the MMP is integrated across your tech stack, it will be easier to set everything up and gain the insights that will feed your app’s success. For example, if you have already set up in-app events in an in-app analytics tool such as Mixpanel, these can be carried across to the MMP platform to avoid duplicating effort.

1. Define the In-App Events to Optimize Towards

The first step to maximizing the investment in your MMP is to define the in-app events you want to track. The chosen events should reflect meaningful interactions that signal user engagement or progression toward higher-value actions. It’s vital to define these events, not only to monitor when and how frequently they occur, but also to optimise your user acquisition campaigns to align with each funnel stage. Once the user completes an event, i.e.., installs or registers, the point of optimization within the campaigns may change to encouraging conversion to purchase, for example.

2. How many In-App Events should I Track?

It’s not possible, or even desirable, to track everything that happens in your app. We normally recommend around 5-10 in-app events. These should be the key points you want users to convert against, and the ones you can optimise your campaigns towards. Events should describe an action a user takes and should be a combination of a verb and noun, for example:

Registration Completed

Watched Video

Product Page Viewed

Purchase Completed

Subscription Purchase Completed

Event names should be easy to read and not overly descriptive. Upper/lower casing is supported, and it is recommended that the verb should be in the past tense (see the example below).

Once you have defined the in-app events, create a tracking plan that details the naming convention for each event (e.g. subscription purchase completed); the point where it triggers (once a user selects the ‘confirm payment’ button on the billing page); and any parameters that provide more detail on that event (e.g., ‘monthly’, signaling that it is the monthly subscription they’ve purchased), then pass that onto your developers to in build as part of the SDK setup. Now you’re ready for testing.

3. Test Everything to Ensure Success

Testing is vital to ensure that your app behaves as it should and that the in-app events are triggered correctly. Once the in-app events are set up, set up an app testing account to simulate the potential user journey and ensure the events show within the MMP testing environment. Use this account to complete each in-app event, ensuring that:

The events are triggered at the appropriate points

The tracking is functioning properly

The data returned is accurate and reliable.

How to Choose the Right MMP to Boost your App’s Growth

A graphic showing how to choose the right MMP.

Choosing the right MMP to work with is all about finding one that is best aligned with your needs and expectations. Choosing the best mobile attribution platform is a detailed process, but essentially this breaks down into four key areas:

Cost and scalability – When allocating your budget for an MMP, you need to look at the bigger picture. As you expand your marketing efforts using an MMP, the associated costs are likely to rise, not just from increased spending on channels but also due to the higher volume of reported conversions within the platform. Remember to evaluate these costs and ensure they remain within your budget as your campaigns grow.

Functionality – Ask yourself, does the MMP do everything you need it to do? For example, does it provide a holistic view across multiple traffic sources and in terms of the granularity of data you require to understand each channel’s performance? Or, can it show you how much it’s costing you to acquire a click and a conversion?

Support level provided – Are you looking/able to run everything on the MMP platform yourself, or do you need the support of a managed service? Consider the level of support the MMP offers, especially for troubleshooting setup challenges or addressing questions about the data displayed in the platform.

Tech stack integration – Consider what level of integration the MMP offers with your existing tech stack, including in-app analytics tools, CRM tools, and DMPs (Data Management Platforms), and any other tools that you rely on to market and sustain your app.

Final Word: Making the Smart Choice

Even the best app needs a constant influx of new users to replace those who churn and deeper engagement with loyal users. Your MMP is key to achieving this, offering a unified view of marketing performance across platforms. It reveals how many installs each platform drives, their cost, and long-term value. Without an MMP, you’re marketing blind as ASO’s future rapidly evolves.

Read more at Read More

How to Build High Quality Backlinks (2025)

September 29, 2025/0 Comments/in Web Design/by

Wondering why your site’s not ranking or showing up in large language model (LLM) results, even though your content is solid?

The answer might be backlinks. Specifically, the lack of high-quality ones.

Tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews are starting to summarize answers without always linking to a source. That means fewer clicks, more brand mentions, and a big shift in how SEOs need to think about authority.

It’s important to remember, though, quality backlinks are still one of the strongest signals of trust and relevance even as search evolves. They play a key role in how Google evaluates which brands earn visibility and can increase the chances of a source being cited or surfaced in AI-generated answers.

If you want to show up in AI Overviews, earn brand mentions, or rank higher in organic search, you need a solid backlink strategy: one that’s built on quality, not shortcuts.

Let’s break down what that looks like in 2025, and exactly how to do it.

Key Takeaways

High-quality backlinks still matter, even in an AI-driven search world.
One link from a trusted, relevant source beats 100 weak ones.
Quantity and quality both have a place in your strategy, but quality should lead.
You can earn strong links through content, partnerships, and digital PR.
Smart SEO means earning links by adding value, not tricking Google.

Why Building Backlinks Is Important

Backlinks are votes of confidence for your site. Each tells Google, “Hey, this content’s worth checking out!”

Sites with more (and better) backlinks tend to rank higher. In fact, a study from last year noted that over 96% of websites ranking in Google’s top 10 positions had more than 1,000 backlinks from unique domains.

But—and this is a big one—not all backlinks are created equal.

Low-quality links from shady sites can hurt your content more than help. What you want are editorial, relevant, and trusted backlinks that align with your content and brand. These quality links can:

Drive referral traffic
Build brand visibility and trust
Boost your domain authority

With that in mind, how do you know the difference between a high-quality backlink and a poor one?

What Makes A Quality Backlink?

High-quality backlinks check three boxes:

Relevance: The linking site is topically related to yours. Backlinks from respected tech blogs to your AI tool are good as gold.
Authority: The linking domain has strong credibility and trust. Think of industry publications, .edu sites, or even top-ranking competitors.
Natural placement: You’ve earned this link editorially. No one paid for it or jammed it into a comment thread.

As Alex Horowitz, Digital PR Specialist at NP Digital, explains: “A good backlink comes from a site with solid domain authority (DA 35+), consistent organic traffic of at least 1,000 visitors a month, and content that’s trustworthy and relevant to the client. A poor backlink opportunity usually is on sites with little to no traffic, low authority, or content that feels spammy or off-topic. If the link won’t add value for readers or align naturally with the brand, it’s likely not worth pursuing.”

There are other bonus factors to consider, too. Keyword-rich anchor text, used sparingly, can help. So does placement high in the page’s content. The signals are even better if the page linking to you has strong traffic or links.

Getting these links takes work, but the payoff lasts for a long time.

The Quality vs Quantity Backlink Debate

How many backlinks do you need? This is a common question, and the answer is every SEO’s favorite:

“It depends.”

Do you need hundreds of backlinks? Not really.

Would you like to earn hundreds of great backlinks? Absolutely.

Quality and quantity both matter, but quality always wins. Quantity helps build a diverse link profile, especially from mid-tier, niche, or enthusiast sites. Quality delivers the real authority, trust, and rankings boost.

The problem is when people and marketers chase quantity for the sake of it by buying links, trading links, or spamming blog comments. That behavior isn’t just unsustainable, it’s unwelcome. It’ll tank your reputation among those sites you want cachet from and won’t help your rankings long-term.

Tips to Build Quality Backlinks

We know backlinks matter. We know good backlinks matter. How do we get them?

Never fear. These 14 tried-and-true strategies can help you earn high-quality backlinks in 2025 and beyond.

1. Emphasize What Benefits the Site Gets

Asking specific sites to link to you can work, but it requires being strategic. When reaching out, make it about them, not you. Instead of asking, “Can you link to my blog post?” you might try a message like,

“Your readers might find this guide helpful. It includes a breakdown that expands on your section about [topic].”

Show them the value their audience will get. If it plugs into content already performing well for them, even better.

2. Write Relevant and Competitive Content

People don’t link to average content. They link to the best. That means standing out among the crowded pack. What does that look like?

Go deep. Cover the topic more thoroughly than your competitors.
Add visuals, statistics, and original research.
Include expert quotes or insights.
Match search intent. Don’t write a blog post when searchers want a product comparison.

No matter what you create, ensure your content reflects E-E-A-T: experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness.

You should be able to find several ways to make your content stand apart from the existing results, whether that’s creating a more in-depth and actionable article or citing research no one else has.

That’s the exact approach my digital marketing agency used to get 20 top-tier media links like CNBC and Retail Wire for one of our clients in the personal finance industry.

We created a data-driven asset that resonated with a large audience and was different from anything else out there. This allowed us to pitch to dozens of relevant media outlets that were more than happy to give us a link in return for a good story.

A personal finance case study from NP Digital.

3. Prove Your Site Is Legitimate

Getting links is a lot easier if your website positions you as a professional, trustworthy, and legitimate organization.

There are several elements that signify trust, and I recommend including as many of them as possible:

HTTPS certification (as well as other certificates)
A branded domain
High-quality web design
Links to your social profiles
Contact information, including the address of your company
E-E-A-T signals like an about page, editorial standards, and author bios.

You can see I’ve got almost all of these elements in place in my website’s footer:

4. Make Your Pitches Short

Want to increase the response rate of your pitches? Practice brevity to make it easy for recipients to understand your pitch.

Take a look at an example of a pitch:

There are many single lines, and it’s easy to find and click on the links. The email is to the point, and there’s no question what it’s about.

Here’s my advice for making your pitches concise and clear:

Keep paragraphs to two sentences or fewer
Write no more than five sentences
Use bullet points and bold font to make it easy for readers to spot the key points
State what you are asking for clearly

5. Leverage Digital PR

Digital PR (DPR) may initially feel like a focus on building a personal brand, but that’s not the real focus. Instead, consider creating newsworthy stories for journalists, bloggers, and industry outlets to cover and link to.

This matters because PR campaigns can often land backlinks from the highest-authority sites; places like Forbes, TechCrunch, or industry trade publications are significant wins. Those links carry way more weight than dozens of smaller blogs.

Here’s how to use it:

Data-driven stories: Package up survey results or industry insights. Journalists love citing fresh numbers.
Expert commentary: Offer quick takes on trending news. Tools like HARO or Qwoted connect you with reporters in real time.
Unique hooks: Tie your brand to bigger conversations. For example, a fintech startup might publish a “State of Student Debt in 2025” report.

High-quality backlinks come when your story provides genuine value to readers and publishers. A strong DPR campaign earns more than mentions. You get citations that boost rankings.

6. Do an Original Study

Original research is often a backlink magnet. Why? Because everyone needs data to support their content, and they’d rather cite your study than come up with their own.

You don’t need to be a research firm to pull this off, though. Here’s how:

Run a survey with your customers or audience.
Use public datasets and analyze them in a new way.
Combine anonymized data from your own tools (if applicable).

For example, look at my agency’s route when building links for a logistics client. We used multiple, varying datasets to see how different roadside restaurants in America compared to one another for truck drivers and roadtrippers.

The trick is to tell a compelling story with your data, the kind journalists will want to write about. In our case, every driver wants to know the best place to stop, and the geo-specific nature of the report meant local news outlets could report on truck stops in their state.

As a result, we garnered over 1,400 shares, likes, and comments across social media, a massive amount for such a niche industry. We also won a host of new rankings like “best truck stop food”.

7. Create an Infographic or Original Image

Infographics aren’t dead. They’re just evolved. In 2025, they’re bite-sized knowledge hubs that provide real value to readers.

These visuals are often easier to share, embed, and link to than walls of text. A great infographic travels across social media and blogs and can even get picked up by news outlets.

Here’s how to do it right:

Use tools like Canva or Venngage to create professional designs.
Focus on one core statistic, process, or concept. Don’t cram everything in.
Include embed codes so other sites can easily share and link back.

Look at this infographic example from Venngage that talks about the psychological impact of font choices on audiences. It’s a pretty robust dive into the typography of several popular Netflix shows and how title choices can play with mood and genre:

A Netflix infographic on font psychology.

Source: Venngage

8. Write Testimonials for Other Websites

This one’s simple, but it works. Companies love showcasing happy customers. When they feature your testimonial on their site, they usually link back to you. Here’s how to make it happen:

Reach out to SaaS tools, agencies, or vendors you use.
Offer a detailed testimonial that highlights specific results.
Make sure to include your full name, role, and website.

See examples below from MarketHire:

These links aren’t just filler. They come from trusted, established brands that want to show off real customer success. That credibility makes them high-value backlinks, and all you did was share your experience.

9. Link Externally and Then Reach Out

Linking out to other sites doesn’t mean you’re giving away visibility. The trick is to follow through. Here’s how this works:

Write a blog post and naturally link to a relevant site, tool, or expert.
Reach out to the site or personality and tell them they’ve been included.
Start a conversation. Eventually, they may return the favor with a backlink.

You can strengthen this strategy with your own internal linking. Google sees that your page is well-connected both internally and externally, boosting your crawlability and authority.

This is not an overnight backlink hack. Instead, it’s a trust-building move that snowballs into collaborations, mentions, and citations from quality sites.

10. Comment on Other Relevant Blog and Social Posts

Comments on blogs and social media posts are a great way to build relationships with people in your industry and occasionally snag yourself a backlink.

But before you start passionately commenting on posts and throwing out backlinks everywhere, let me explain something.

You might occasionally have an opportunity to include a backlink in your comment. However, the comment should primarily focus on building a mutual relationship with the author:

If you don’t know what to say, make the author’s day.
If you want to share a bit more, you can add some meaningful insight into the topic at hand.
If you want to craft a comment that merits a response from the author and helps build the relationship, add your own commentary to the discussion.

Here’s an example from Leanne Wong on how a comment can start a conversation that might lead to a backlink:

A comment conversation from Leanne Wong that could lead to a backlink.

Source: Leanne Wong

Whatever you do, add value with your comment. The more value you can add, the stronger your relationship will become— and that’s a recipe for a future backlink if ever I saw one.

11. Align Social Signals

If you’re serious about building out your link building strategy and rising through the ranks, then aligning social signals is a must.

Social signals communicate to search engines how active and updated your website is. The more active your website, the better your rankings. You’ll notice I link to all of my social profiles in the footer of this website and keep them all updated:

You may not have the time to leverage every single social platform. In that case, choose one or two that you can keep up with, and post at least once a day on the platforms you’ve chosen.

Check that all of the information on your social profiles matches the information on your website. The company name, address, and phone number need to be aligned to communicate to search engines that your website is up to date.

This is a simple but effective way to build your rankings with very little extra work.

12. Find What’s Newsworthy

Timing is everything. If you can tie your content to breaking stories or trends, you can increase your odds of earning backlinks from journalists and bloggers covering it. Seek out opportunities in the following spots:

Google Trends: See what’s gaining traction right now.
BuzzSumo: Track topics being shared most in your niche.
Exploding Topics: Spot up-and-coming trends before they blow up.

Picture this: Google rolls out a major algorithm update, and an SEO agency could publish a quick analysis within 24 hours. Journalists writing about the update may cite that content, earning authoritative backlinks.

Prefer a real life example?

My agency used this tactic to get backlinks from sites like The New York Times and The Atlantic for our client in the entertainment industry. Competitor research told us that a rival website had a lot of high authority backlinks to a page where fans could watch a trending television show from our client. But the link sent users to a broken page.

An entertainment case study from NP Digital.

Our strategy was simple. We contacted every linking publisher and asked them to swap the broken link for our client’s, letting fans actually watch the show.

13. Find Brand Mentions

People may already be talking about your brand but not linking to it. That’s low-hanging fruit.

Use tools like Mention, BuzzSumo, or Ahrefs Alerts to track unlinked mentions. Then reach out:

“Hey [Name], thanks for mentioning us in your piece on [Topic]. Would you mind adding a link so readers can easily find the resource?”

These links are easy wins. The writer already trusts you enough to mention your brand—now you’re just helping readers (and your SEO) with a clickable source.

14. Look At Competitor Backlink Profiles

Your competitors’ backlinks are a roadmap for your strategy. If it’s working for them, it could work for you. But how do you start and what should you look for?

Use Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, or Semrush to pull competitor backlink reports.
Examine their homepage links, most-linked blogs, and referral domains.
Identify patterns: Are they earning links from industry directories? Guest posts? Data-driven reports?

Once you know what they’re doing, ask the big question:

Can I create something better?

If your competitor earned a link for “2024 Social media Trends,” why not publish a deeper “2025 Social media Playbook?” Provide more value. Pitch it to the same sites.

Competitor backlinks are more than insights. Use them as valuable opportunities for growth and wins.

Writing the Pitch to Get Your Backlink

Your content or idea may be strong, but the pitch determines whether you actually earn that backlink.

Today’s editors, journalists, and site owners are bombarded with outreach. Generic templates don’t cut it. A valuable pitch is:

Short and personal: Under 100 words, customized for the recipient.
Value-driven: Show how your resource improves their article or helps their readers.
Clear: Include the exact link and context—don’t make them dig.
Credible: Reference your expertise, unique data, or why you’re a trusted source.
Timely: Tie your pitch to something current—like a trending topic or recent update.

Here’s an example of a pitch that works in 2025:

Hi [Name], I really enjoyed your recent piece on [Topic]. I noticed you mentioned [related stat], and we just released a new study with fresh data on this in 2025. I thought it might add value for your readers. Here’s the link: [URL]. Would you consider including it?

This kind of outreach blends relevance, authority, and timeliness: the same qualities that make backlinks valuable in the first place.

FAQs

How to get quality backlinks?

Use digital PR, original studies, expert content, and smart outreach strategies. Focus on building real relationships and offering value, not tricks.

How many high quality backlinks do I need?

For those in competitive spaces like finance or software, more high-quality backlinks will help you stand out. But it’s not just about the overall total. A good benchmark for many key pages is 20-30 strong backlinks. This number can make a real difference. Even five to 10 backlinks from top-tier domains can beat out hundreds from low-authority sources.

What is a high quality backlink?

It’s a link from a trusted, authoritative site relevant to your content and placed editorially.

How can I leverage social media to build backlinks?

Promote your content, join conversations, and tag influencers. When people see and share your content, backlinks tend to follow.

Is it okay to pay for backlinks?

Technically, it’s against Google’s guidelines. Tread carefully and focus on sponsored content, not spammy link buys.

How do I approach website owners to request backlinks ethically?

Be personal, brief, and helpful. Show them why linking to your resource benefits their readers.

How can I identify websites that are relevant and authoritative for link building?

Look for sites in your niche with real traffic, strong content, and domain authority (DA). Tools like Ubersuggest or Ahrefs help.

Conclusion on How to Get Backlinks

If you focus on creating content worth linking to and getting it in front of the right people, you’ll earn links that matter. These links improve rankings, boost traffic, and build long-term authority.

Want help building your backlink strategy? Check out how NP Digital can support your SEO goals. And if you’re new to this, view your backlinks today with our free backlink checker.

Read more at Read More

September 2025 Digital Marketing Roundup: What Changed and What You Should Do About It

September 25, 2025/0 Comments/in Web Design/by

September marked seismic shifts for digital marketers. Google launched user-controlled preferred sources. TikTok’s search ads started delivering 2x purchase lift. AI tools cited Reddit more than Wikipedia. Meta rolled out culture-first targeting that actually works.

These aren’t incremental tweaks but major changes with how visibility works across every platform that matters.

Key Takeaways

Google’s “Preferred Sources” changes mean visibility now depends on user opt-in, not just algorithmic SEO.
Community platforms like Reddit are leading the way in LLM citations, AI trusts people more than publishers.
TikTok is officially a bottom-funnel platform. Search ads are driving 2x purchase lift.
Influencer marketing is evolving, from content partners to product creators and campaign co-leads.
LinkedIn is now delivering measurable B2B ROI and rewarding volume with visibility.
Generative SEO requires structured, comprehensive content and strong off-site signals to earn citations.

Google Gives Users More Control—And Publishers More Uncertainty

Google’s new “Preferred Sources” feature lets users choose which publishers they want to see in their Top Stories feed. Right now it’s only live in the U.S. and India, but the ripple effect could be global.

Google's new Preferred Sources function.

Why it matters: Google just changed the rules. Algorithm optimization isn’t enough anymore, users decide who gets seen. Publishers banking on SEO alone will lose traffic to brands that earn the opt-in.

What to do:

Add a “Make us your preferred source on Google” CTA to blogs, email footers, and resource pages.
Incentivize returning users through newsletters or community content.
Don’t assume visibility is earned by merit alone anymore. Earn the opt-in.

Google’s Spam Update Tightens the Screws

The August 2025 spam update started rolling out late in the month, and it’s still shaking things up. Cloaked content, hacked sites, thin AI pages, Google’s targeting them all.

Why it matters: Google’s first spam update in eight months targeted the obvious stuff, which isn’t a surprise. But I’m seeing legitimate sites get hit for “over-optimization.” Google’s tolerance for search-first content is shrinking fast.

What to do:

Audit your thin content and internal links for anything that feels “search-first.”
Replace AI filler with genuine perspective or proprietary data.
Watch for ranking drops that point to a need for quality upgrades, not technical fixes.

Instagram’s iPad App Goes Full Reels Mode

Instagram rolled out a native iPad app, but the real headline? It launches straight into Reels.

Source

Why it matters: Meta isn’t hiding its priorities. This signals a possible shift to Reels-first UX across all devices. If it performs well on tablet, expect mobile and desktop to follow. Short-form video is becoming Instagram’s front door.

What to do:

Monitor Reels metrics for signs of boosted distribution.
Prioritize thumb-stopping video formats with strong hooks.
Keep visuals mobile-first, but prep higher-res assets for larger screens.

Focus Friend Hits #1—Influencer-Built, Not Just Backed

Hank Green’s Focus Friend, an ADHD productivity app, soared to #1 on the App Store—outranking ChatGPT, Threads, and Google itself.

Source

Why it matters: This goes beyond just influencer reach. It’s a blueprint for product-led storytelling. When creators build tools rooted in their audience’s needs, they win big.

What to do:

Co-create with creators early, ideally pre-launch.
Think of influencers as collaborators, not just promoters.
Build products with shareability and emotional design.

Meta Leans Into Culture-Led Ad Targeting

Meta is expanding Reels trending ads, rolling out new Threads formats, and extending value-based bidding rules to brand campaigns.

Why it matters: Meta’s new targeting focuses on trending topics and cultural moments, not just age and location data.

What to do:

Build creative that aligns with trending topics or cultural moments.
Use value rules to allocate budget based on predicted conversion quality.
Test Threads ad formats before competition drives up CPMs.

Reddit is AI’s Most Cited Source

SEMrush analyzed 150,000 AI-generated responses and found Reddit is cited more than Wikipedia, YouTube, and traditional websites combined.

A SEMRush graphic showing the overlap between AI Citations and Top 10 Google Search Rankins.

Source

Why it matters: Generative AI tools trust communities over content farms. If you’re ignoring Reddit, you’re invisible to AI discovery tools.

What to do:

Audit where your brand shows up in Reddit conversations.
Engage authentically in niche threads—don’t spam.
Use Reddit as a visibility play for both SEO and LLM inclusion.

Top Strategies for LLM Visibility: Structure, Schema, Mentions

Organic Labs analyzed over 10,000 LLM responses to crack the code on AI citations. The winning formula: clear content structure (FAQs, bullets), schema markup, and consistent brand mentions across the web.

A chart from Organic labs analyzing weightage of LLM optimzation strategies.

Source

Why it matters: This moves generative SEO (GEO) out of theory and into actionable strategy. We have data-backed tactics now that marketers can start putting into action.

What to do:

Add FAQs, bullets, and concise summaries to long-form content.
Use schema to identify key entities and page context.
Build brand mentions through digital PR, digital citations, and guest content.

TikTok Search Ads Deliver 2x Purchase Lift

TikTok isn’t just an awareness tool anymore. Their Search Ads are now driving 2.2x lift in purchases for enterprise advertisers, with 86% of Gen Z searching on the platform weekly.

Why it matters: Search volume is up 40% year-over-year. TikTok has become a discovery engine where intent meets inspiration—users search out of curiosity and convert through creativity.

What to do:

Test TikTok Search Ads alongside your in-feed campaigns
Target curiosity-driven keywords, not just branded terms
Create discovery-moment content that answers “how” and “why” questions

Influencers Join Super Bowl Creative Teams

Brands are integrating creators into Super Bowl 2026 campaigns, not just for amplification, but for strategy, storytelling, and on-site activation.

Why it matters: Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that creators are just media buys. They’re narrative architects who bring human relevance to big-budget campaigns.

What to do:

Involve influencers in campaign strategy and creative development, not just content promotion
Use them across the full event cycle: pre-launch buzz, live coverage, and post-event storytelling
Think bigger than social amplification. Creators can handle on-site activation and audience engagement

AI Still Sends Users to Broken Pages

Ahrefs found that 1% of AI-recommended URLs lead to 404s. Google’s rate? Just 0.15%. AI assistants account for just 0.25% of site traffic compared to Google’s 39%, but their error rate is six times higher.

Why it matters: AI tools are already crawling and citing your content, whether you know it or not.

What to do:

Optimize your 404 page like it’s a landing page.
Create a comprehensive sitemap that helps AI tools find and reference your best content.
Don’t sleep on technical SEO, as it could be your AI safety net.

LinkedIn Rewards Brands That Show Up

Buffer analyzed 2 million posts and found that companies posting 11+ times a week get 16,000+ more impressions. But there’s bigger news: LinkedIn Ads now show 113% ROAS—the only platform delivering positive returns across the board.

A Buffer post showing average reach per post by posting frequency.

A graphic showing average engagement per post by posting frequency.

Source

Why it matters: Frequency doesn’t just maintain reach—it multiplies it. But quantity only works when paired with quality.

What to do:

Post 3–5 times weekly at minimum.
Blend thought leadership, employee advocacy, and industry reaction.
Prioritize value, not volume.

LinkedIn’s new CAPI integration and advanced conversion tracking let B2B marketers prove pipeline impact like never before. The platform rewards volume with visibility, but only if your content sparks professional conversations.

Final Word: Visibility Is About Trust, Not Just Tactics

It’s not enough to rank. Or go viral. Or show up in someone’s inbox.

The playbook changed in September. Visibility now spans platforms, algorithms, user preferences, and AI models. And each one has its own logic, signals, and expectations.

Google wants trust. LLMs want structure and mentions. Social wants stories. Users want relevance. None of it works in isolation.

Start with three moves: Set up Preferred Sources CTAs this week, audit where your brand appears in Reddit discussions, and test TikTok Search Ads if you’re in retail or direct-to-consumer. The brands moving first on these changes will own the advantage while others catch up.

This is the new search. It’s happening everywhere. And your brand needs to be ready for it.

Read more at Read More

Brand Mentions SEO: How to Use Them to Improve Rankings

September 24, 2025/0 Comments/in Web Design/by

Brand mentions are a form of social proof, and they carry more weight than many marketers realize.

They work because people trust what others say about you more than what you say about yourself.

Search engines are starting to act the same way.

When your brand gets mentioned online, even without a link, it sends a strong signal. It tells Google you’re credible. It tells AI models you’re relevant. And it influences how your brand gets pulled into AI summaries and what search engines consider credible.

So, if you’re only chasing backlinks, you’re missing part of the SEO equation.

In this article, I’ll break down what brand mentions are, why they matter for SEO and large language models (LLMs), and how to get more of them.

Key Takeaways

Brand mentions, linked or unlinked, build trust with both Google and AI models.
Search engines treat mentions as implied links, which support rankings and authority.
Large language models (LLMs) use brand mentions as signals for credibility in AI Overviews and generated answers.
Digital PR, guest posting, and thought leadership are proven ways to earn high-quality mentions.
Tools like Google Alerts, Brandwatch, and Mention help you track where and how often you’re mentioned.
You can often convert brand mentions into backlinks with a simple outreach email.

What Is a Brand Mention, and Why Do You Need Them?

A brand mention is any time your business, product, or domain name gets referenced online. It doesn’t need a link to carry value.

Mentions show up in blog posts, podcasts, review sites, and even Reddit threads. These are known as implied links: non-clickable references that tell Google your brand matters. For example, Asana is mentioned (but not linked to) in this article about project management tools.

Source: Lark

Search engines use mentions to connect your brand to key topics and measure your credibility. A steady stream of mentions from trusted sites strengthens your authority and signals that you’re relevant in your space.

Mentions also help with AI discoverability. Large language models use brand references to learn which companies to trust. The more often your brand appears in high-quality content, the more likely you are to show up in AI-generated answers.

The benefits don’t end there. Mentions also build brand recognition, drive referral traffic, and often lead to backlinks over time.

If you’re building a visibility strategy, brand mentions need to be part of it. They’re a core signal of authority in both traditional SEO and AI-powered search.

Implied Links and Google

The key thing to know about brand mentions? Google treats them as implied links.

Trusted references, even without a hyperlink, strengthen your credibility and relevance in the algorithm’s eyes. They’re extra signals that help Google connect your brand to topics and decide if you should rank.

LLMs rely on them, too, scanning unlinked mentions across reputable sources to figure out which companies belong in AI-generated answers.

The takeaway? Think of mentions not as background chatter, but as authority signals that influence rankings and AI results.

How Search Engines and LLMs Process Brand Mentions

As we’ve established, search engines and LLMs rely on signals that help them understand how your brand fits into the broader digital ecosystem.

How Google Processes Brand Mentions

Google’s algorithms crawl billions of web pages to find context around specific entities. When your brand name is mentioned, even without a link, Google uses that data to:

Associate your brand with key topics
Measure how often and where your brand is discussed
Evaluate the credibility of sources that mention you

These signals contribute to an entity profile that shapes how Google understands your brand. That profile helps determine whether your content is a good match for user queries. Take a look at the Knowledge Panel that pops up when you enter my name.

If you are mentioned consistently on high-authority, topic-relevant pages, your chances of ranking increase regardless of whether you earned a backlink.

How LLMs Process Brand Mentions

Large language models do not crawl the web in real time. Instead, they are trained on massive text datasets that include web pages, articles, transcripts, and public databases.

When your brand appears frequently in quality sources, LLMs begin to associate it with specific topics, qualities, and relevance. That’s how you get:

Included in AI-generated responses
Suggested as a resource in conversational tools
Recognized as a relevant entity in related topics

See some of the brand names mentioned in the AI Overview below.

Just like Google, LLMs reward consistent, high-quality brand visibility. Mentions lay the groundwork for trust and inclusion.

While backlinks are still useful, brand mentions are more likely to appear in AI-generated responses. That’s because LLMs extract entities and context from plain-text references, not just hyperlinks. Check out how Ubersuggest gets namedropped along with several other tools in the ChatGPT answer below.

Even without links, brand mentions increase the likelihood of being cited in tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google’s AI Overviews, or Bing Copilot.

Mentions help models “learn” that your brand is relevant to a topic. The more consistently you appear across reputable sites, the more likely you are to become part of the model’s output when users search for solutions.

The Role of Brand Mentions in an SEO Strategy

Most SEO strategies focus on content, backlinks, and technical fixes. But brand mentions for SEO are just as important.

Think of them as the connective tissue between your content and the broader web. They help search engines confirm that you’re a real entity doing real work, and that people are talking about it.

Mentions complement what you’re already doing. If you’re investing in content marketing, digital PR, or thought leadership, you’re likely earning mentions already. Now it’s time to track and amplify them.

Source: Campaign

The bottom line is this: Brand mentions don’t replace traditional SEO efforts. They strengthen them. And in an environment where visibility is increasingly AI-driven, you can’t afford to overlook them.

Find Sources for Brand Mentions

Once you start earning brand mentions, the next step is knowing where they show up.

Most brands get mentioned more than they realize. It could be a blog reference, a podcast quote, a casual shoutout on social media, or a Reddit discussion.

The key is to track these mentions consistently so you can measure your reach, spot missed opportunities, and even turn unlinked mentions into backlinks.

Here are a few tools that can help you find, monitor, and manage brand mentions across the web.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a free, simple tool that tracks brand mentions across indexed web pages.

You can set up alerts for your brand name, product, domain, or even competitor names. When a new mention appears, you’ll get an email notification.

To set one up:
1. Go to google.com/alerts.
2. Enter your brand name in quotes (e.g., “Neil Patel”).
3. Click “Show options” to customize frequency, sources, and region.
4. Hit “Create Alert.”

You can create multiple alerts to monitor different products, team members, or brand terms.

It’s not the most advanced tool, but it’s great for catching early mentions and easy wins.

Mention

Mention is a real-time media monitoring tool that tracks brand mentions across websites, blogs, forums, and social media platforms.

It offers far more data than Google Alerts, with filters to segment mentions by sentiment, platform, or influence level.

You can set alerts for your brand, product names, executives, or even keywords your audience cares about. Mention also assigns influencer scores, helping you identify which mentions are worth acting on.

It also lets you respond to mentions directly inside the platform, making it easy to engage or follow up when it matters.

While it’s a paid tool, the extra visibility is worth it, especially if you’re running a content or PR-driven strategy.

AnswerThePublic

AnswerThePublic isn’t a traditional mention-tracking tool, but it’s one of the best for discovering how people talk about your brand (or brands like yours) online.

Enter your brand name or a relevant keyword, and you’ll get a visual map of real user questions, comparisons, and search phrases.

This helps you spot indirect mentions and gaps where people are asking about your product category but not naming you yet.

You can use this data to create content, launch PR pitches, or see how people discuss competitors in public conversations.

It’s especially helpful if you’re building a strategy around long-tail mentions or brand positioning.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is best known for social media management, but its monitoring features make it a strong tool for tracking brand mentions across multiple networks.

You can set up custom streams to monitor your brand name, product terms, or campaign hashtags in real time.

Source: Blackbird Publishing

These streams work across platforms like X, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, giving you a consolidated view of what people are saying.

You can also respond directly from within the dashboard, making it easy to engage or de-escalate in the moment.

Hootsuite is especially useful for spotting fast-moving mentions and user-generated content (UGC) that might not show up in traditional web results.

Brandwatch

Brandwatch is a powerful brand intelligence platform built for teams that need enterprise-grade insights.

It monitors millions of sources, including blogs, forums, news sites, reviews, and social platforms.

Brandwatch uses AI to detect patterns in sentiment, topic clusters, and brand perception across these different areas.

Source: Brandwatch

For SEO teams, this means you can track how often your brand is mentioned, what context it’s being mentioned in, and whether those mentions are trending positive or negative.

Brandwatch is especially useful if you’re running large-scale PR campaigns, managing multiple brands, or need to report on brand visibility over time.

How to Get Brand Mentions

If you want more people talking about your brand, you need to give them something worth talking about.

Earning mentions is about showing up in the right places, with the right message, at the right time.

Here are five proven ways to earn more brand mentions across blogs, media, social, and communities.

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging still works, when you do it right. Forget the old tactics of mass-pitching templated posts to low-quality blogs. Instead, focus on targeting high-authority, niche-relevant sites where your content can actually deliver value.

Here’s how to approach it:

Start with Ubersuggest. Type in a topic your audience cares about. Then go to the Content Ideas report to see top-performing articles related to that topic.

Let’s use social media marketing as an example topic.

Make a list of 25 to 50 potential sites that already publish similar content and get solid engagement. Prioritize blogs with real audiences.

Maybe you want to create a blog post titled Must-Listen Social Media Podcasts for 2025. The fourth listing, businessgrowth.com, is a good website to target, as one of its top-performing pieces of content on this subject is The Best Social Media Books for Your Holiday Reading. It’s similar to what you want to pitch.

Pitch content that fills a gap. From there, visit each website, read the guidelines carefully, and follow the rules. Make sure you know exactly what the blog wants. Review their existing articles. What’s missing? What’s outdated? What fresh angle can you offer?

Include natural brand context. You don’t need to force a link. A casual mention of your brand as part of a relevant example or tip is enough.

Finally, promote the heck out of your post. Go social, email people, do whatever it takes. Every live guest post becomes another opportunity for people and platforms to talk about your business.

Launch Social Campaigns Built for Sharing

Want organic mentions across X, Reddit, LinkedIn, and beyond? Create campaigns people want to join. The right social campaign can make a huge difference.

Great campaigns are interactive, emotional, and aligned with what your audience is already doing.

Once you have a thorough understanding of your audience, create a campaign that capitalizes on their interests.

Make sure your campaign has clear-cut objectives, and make sure you choose the right platform for the right campaign.

After you have the baseline information, these tactics make great starting points:

Run a user-generated content challenge. Ask people to share photos, workflows, or tips related to your product. Incentivize with visibility rather than just prizes.
Create branded hashtags that are easy to remember and invite participation. Track these through tools like Hootsuite or Brandwatch.
Build real-time engagement. Respond to posts, reshare creative entries, and feature participants. This increases visibility and encourages more organic mentions.

Social media moves fast. When you nail timing and context, brand mentions follow naturally.

3. Use Digital PR to Earn Media Mentions

PR isn’t just for huge companies. Digital PR makes it possible for startups and solo founders to get featured in major publications, podcasts, and niche blogs.

Think of it as link building’s cousin: Instead of chasing backlinks directly, you’re landing coverage that earns you credibility and visibility in the form of implied mentions.

Here’s how to get started:

Sign up for HARO (Help A Reporter Out), Featured.com, or Qwoted. These services send daily prompts from journalists looking for sources.
Respond quickly. Reporters work on tight deadlines. Give short, quotable responses that make their job easier.
Don’t over-promote. Lead with value, and let your brand name appear naturally in your title or quote attribution.

Even without a backlink, appearing in articles in niche trade outlets or contributor-friendly sites like Forbes or TechCrunch gives your brand SEO value through implied mentions.

Deliver Experiences Worth Talking About

Customers talk about what stands out. If your onboarding is frictionless, your support is personal, or your product actually solves a real problem, people will mention you. In reviews. On Reddit. In tweets. In YouTube comments.

To maximize these customer service moments:

Ask happy customers to share their experiences. It doesn’t need to be a testimonial, just a screenshot or a quick post.
Monitor brand sentiment and UGC through review sites and brand monitoring tools. You’ll uncover mentions you didn’t know existed.
Respond. Publicly. Engaging with brand mentions, even untagged ones, builds community and visibility.

This is the long game. But it pays off with a steady stream of positive, authentic brand mentions over time.

If you have truly great support and guide your customers, you’ll get rave reviews all over the web.

You can also monitor your mentions on review sites like Yelp.

If you get positive feedback, thank the customer. If you get negative feedback, try to reconcile the situation.

It’s a simple tactic, but it brings big results.

5. Partner with Influencers and Creators Who Actually Use Your Product

Influencers aren’t limited to big names in the B2C space anymore. In fact, micro-influencers and niche creators can deliver more brand value than big names, especially if they’re embedded in your industry.

Here’s how to collaborate with these influencers strategically:

Identify creators who already align with your space. Look for podcast hosts, Substack writers, YouTubers, or LinkedIn voices who talk to your audience.
Offer them value. That could be early access, behind-the-scenes insights, or co-branded content.
Don’t force a script. Let them reference your brand in a way that fits their tone and audience.

These types of mentions often feel more real, get shared more often, and are more likely to be picked up as brand signals in search or AI-generated content.

Turn Mentions Into Links

I know what you’re thinking: “Didn’t you say Google is moving away from links?”

That’s true. But it hasn’t happened yet.

As of right now, high-quality backlinks still matter. They still influence your rankings in the SERPs.

So one strategy you can use is turning unlinked brand mentions into backlinks.

The first step is to find an unlinked mention using one of the tools I showed you. Hootsuite, Google Alerts, Mention, or Brandwatch all work well.

Next, use Ubersuggest to check the domain score of the site:

After entering the domain and clicking “Search,” you’re taken to the Traffic Overview with the following data:

Domain Authority
Organic Traffic
Backlinks
Top Pages

If the site has a good score (generally 40 or higher), contact the site and ask them nicely to change the mention into a link.

You should either contact the site owner or, if the mention is in an article, the author of the content.

Simple works fine. Try something like this:

Hi [Name of site owner or content creator],
I saw you mentioned my site in [name of article or content here]. Just wanted to say thanks for the mention.
If it’s not too much trouble, would you mind linking to our homepage here: https://example.com?
Either way—appreciate the shout-out.
Sincerely,
[Your name]

That’s all there is to it. No pressure. Just a friendly ask.

Most site owners and authors will be happy to take a few seconds and give you a link, especially if they already mentioned you positively.

You don’t have to use this technique for every single brand mention you find.

Focus on creating more brand mentions and turning some of the strongest ones into backlinks when it makes sense.

Brand Mentions vs. Brand Sentiment

Brand mentions don’t just feel good; they should move the needle.

If you’re investing in digital PR, guest content, or influencer outreach, you want to know if those mentions are actually paying off.

Here are a few smart ways to track the return on investment (ROI) of brand mentions:

1. Monitor Changes in Branded Search Volume

Use tools like Google Search Console, Ubersuggest, or Semrush to track whether more people are searching for your brand name or products over time. A spike in branded searches often follows strong media or influencer coverage.

2. Analyze Referral Traffic

Go to your analytics platform (like Google Analytics) and check referral sources. See which blogs, media outlets, or social posts are sending you traffic, even if they didn’t include a link.

3. Track Backlinks from Mention Campaigns

Not every mention includes a link up front. But if you’re running outreach or thought leadership campaigns, keep an eye on Ahrefs or BuzzSumo to see which mentions eventually earn backlinks.

4. Measure Lead Quality and Mentions in Sales Conversations

If your sales team uses a customer relationship management (CRM) platform, check notes and call transcripts for brand mentions from prospects. Ask: “How did you hear about us?” or, “Have you seen us mentioned anywhere recently?”

5. Set Baselines and Compare Month Over Month

Track your number of mentions, brand reach, and visibility in AI results. Tools like Profound can help you benchmark how often and where you’re showing up specifically in AI results.

FAQs

What is a brand mention for SEO?

A brand mention for SEO is any time your brand name appears on another website, even if there’s no hyperlink. Google uses these mentions (also called implied links) to assess your brand’s credibility, relevance, and authority in search results.

How do you get brand mentions?

You earn brand mentions by showing up where your audience is. That includes writing guest posts, getting quoted in articles, collaborating with influencers, delivering great customer experiences, and running campaigns that get people talking online.

Conclusion

Brand mentions aren’t just good for your reputation. They can boost your rankings, increase visibility across the web (indirectly increasing visibility in AI tools), and drive more traffic over time.

This strategy isn’t too complicated. Anyone can do it, and it works best when you already have a great product or useful content to share.

If you track your mentions, run campaigns to earn more, and turn high-value mentions into links, you’ll start seeing results.

It won’t happen overnight. But over time, it adds up.

Mentions help people find you, trust you, and talk about you in all the right places.

Add this to your SEO strategy, and you’ll get more out of the work you’re already doing.

Read more at Read More

ChatGPT Advertising: A New Channel for Marketers?

September 23, 2025/0 Comments/in Web Design/by

OpenAI just dropped a hint that could reshape digital advertising forever. They’re exploring ads on ChatGPT.

Right now, ChatGPT doesn’t run ads. But OpenAI’s CFO recently confirmed they’re considering advertising for non-paying users as a way to monetize their massive free user base. With over 800 million weekly users asking high-intent questions regularly, this could become one of the biggest new ad opportunities since Facebook launched business pages.

Here’s what matters: ChatGPT users aren’t passively scrolling. They’re actively seeking solutions. What does this mean for marketers?

It opens up a potentially powerful new channel to reach highly engaged users who are already in problem-solving mode. And just like search or social ads, it could become a staple in your paid strategy.

Let’s break down what we know, what we can guess, and how to get ready.

Key Takeaways

OpenAI is exploring ChatGPT ad options to monetize free users, potentially creating a massive new advertising platform.
ChatGPT advertising will likely integrate directly into conversations, making ads feel more natural than traditional display formats.
Early ad formats may include sponsored responses, product recommendations within answers, and context-driven placements.
Businesses should start preparing now by optimizing for AI visibility through better content, stronger authority signals, and structured data.
Even without paid options, brands can already improve their chances of being mentioned in ChatGPT responses through smart SEO strategies.

What Do We Know About ChatGPT Ads So Far?

The short answer? Not much, but enough to get excited.

Sam Altman previously called ads a “last resort,” but that was before ChatGPT’s infrastructure costs skyrocketed. Running AI at this scale isn’t cheap.

The financial reality is pushing them toward advertising. And honestly, it makes sense.

ChatGPT’s user behavior is perfect for ads. People ask specific questions like “What’s the best project management software for remote teams?” or “How do I fix a leaky faucet?” This is what we would consider a high-intent query.

An example of ChatGPT questions and responses.

Compare that to social media, where users may be scrolling mindlessly through content. ChatGPT users come with problems they need solved. That’s advertiser gold.

Recent reports suggest OpenAI is testing different monetization approaches, including partnerships with publishers and potential sponsored content integrations. While they haven’t confirmed an advertising timeline, the infrastructure for targeting and personalization already exists within their platform.

The user base numbers tell the story. ChatGPT reached 100 million users faster than any consumer app in history, and that number has only grown since then. That’s a lot of advertising inventory waiting to be unlocked.

What Might ChatGPT Ads Look Like?

Nobody knows for sure, but we can make educated guesses based on other AI platforms and ChatGPT’s interface.

Sponsored Responses: Think Google Ads, but conversational. Instead of clicking a blue link, users might see a sponsored answer at the top of ChatGPT’s response, clearly marked as an ad. For example, someone asking “best CRM for small business” might see a Salesforce-sponsored response before the organic recommendations.

Native Product Mentions: This could be subtle. ChatGPT might naturally weave brand mentions into its answers, similar to how it currently references tools and services. The difference would be that some of these mentions are paid placements.

Contextual Recommendations: The AI could suggest specific products or services based on the conversation context. Ask about marketing automation, and you might see HubSpot mentioned alongside technical advice. We can see how this might play out in Google right now, where AI overviews and paid ads sit alongside each other.

AI overviews and Sponsored ads in Google.

Targeting Capabilities: ChatGPT already personalizes responses based on conversation history. Ads could use similar signals:

Query intent (what the user is asking about)
Conversation context (previous questions in the thread)
User behavior patterns (topics they frequently discuss)
Industry focus (B2B vs. consumer queries)

Pricing Models: Expect familiar models with AI twists:

Cost-per-click (CPC): Pay when users click on your sponsored links
Cost-per-engagement (CPE): Pay when users interact with your ad content
Subscription packages: Monthly fees for guaranteed mention opportunities
Performance-based pricing: Pay based on leads or conversions generated

The auction system will probably reward relevance over pure bid amounts, similar to Google’s Quality Score. ChatGPT won’t want to serve irrelevant ads that hurt user experience.

What ChatGPT Ads Mean For The Paid Media Landscape?

This isn’t just another ad platform. It could fundamentally change how advertising works. Let’s talk about why.

The Intent Advantage: ChatGPT captures intent differently than search engines by describing problems and solutions in natural language. That gives advertisers richer context about what people actually need.

Instead of bidding on “CRM software,” you might target conversations about “managing customer data across remote teams.” More specific, higher intent, better results.

Budget Reallocation: Smart marketers will test ChatGPT ads by shifting budget from other channels. Google Ads might lose some search volume as users turn to AI engines for answers. Social media budgets could move toward conversational platforms.

Screenshot suggestion: Pull up any major digital advertising spending report from eMarketer or Statista showing platform distribution. This visualizes how ChatGPT could disrupt current ad spend allocation.

Competitive Response Google won’t sit still. They’re already testing ads in their AI Overview results. Microsoft will push Copilot advertising harder. Meta might accelerate their AI assistant features. ChatGPT’s success will force every major platform to evolve their ad offerings.

The biggest impact might be on content marketing. If ChatGPT starts citing fewer sources in favor of sponsored answers, organic content creators will need new strategies to maintain visibility.

What ChatGPT cites most often in an infographic format.

Are ChatGPT Ads The Right Fit For Your Business?

The opportunity is exciting, but it’s not universal. Businesses should weigh their target audience, funnel stage, and goals.

Who might benefit most:

SaaS: Those solving niche problems where buyers ask “what’s the best tool?”
E-commerce: High-consideration products like electronics, fitness equipment, or B2B supplies.
Education: Online courses and certifications.
Professional services: Law, finance, healthcare, and marketing.

Who might not:

Brands selling impulse-buy, low-cost items.
Niche industries with limited digital demand.

User Demographics and Behavior: ChatGPT’s user base tends to skew younger and more tech-savvy than average. If your customers are primarily older or less digitally engaged, this platform might not deliver strong ROI initially.

Budget Considerations: Early adopters often pay premium prices on new platforms. Plan to test with smaller budgets initially while the auction dynamics stabilize. Think of it like Facebook ads in 2008—high potential, but expect to learn through experimentation.

How You Can Prep For Ads on ChatGPT

Smart marketers start preparing before the platform launches ads. Here’s your playbook:

Map Customer Questions: Use tools like AnswerThePublic, Google’s “People Also Ask” feature, and your customer support logs to identify common questions your audience asks that could end up being entered into ChatGPT.

Develop Conversational Ad Copy: Start writing ads that sound natural in conversation. Instead of “Buy Our CRM Today!” try “For remote teams managing customer data, many companies choose [Your CRM] because it integrates with existing workflows.”

Audit Your Brand Authority: ChatGPT pulls information from authoritative sources. Strengthen your presence on:

Industry publications and news sites
High-authority directories and review platforms
Academic or research publications in your field
Influential podcasts and media mentions

Test Conversational Marketing Now: Experiment with chatbot marketing on your website or social media. This gives you practice with AI-style interactions before ChatGPT ads launch.

Prepare Attribution Models: Conversational ads might not follow traditional customer journey tracking. Users might mention your brand to colleagues or search for you later without clicking directly through ChatGPT. Plan for longer attribution windows and multiple touchpoint tracking.

Build Your Knowledge Base: Create comprehensive FAQ sections, detailed product documentation, and thorough how-to guides. The more authoritative content you publish, the more likely ChatGPT will reference your expertise.

Getting Your Business Featured on ChatGPT Without Ads

You don’t need to wait for paid options. Brands already appear in ChatGPT responses organically.

Strengthen Your Content Authority: Focus on E-E-A-T signals (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). Publish detailed guides, case studies, and research that demonstrates deep knowledge in your field.

Optimize for Conversational Queries: Write content that answers questions the way people actually ask them. Instead of targeting “email marketing best practices,” create content around “how to write emails that people actually open.”

Build Relevant Brand Mentions: ChatGPT values brand mentions and links from trusted sources. Earn coverage from industry publications, news sites, and authoritative blogs in your space.

Use Structured Data: Implement schema markup on your website to help AI systems understand your content structure. FAQ schema, product schema, and organization schema can all improve your chances of being referenced.

Monitor Your Brand Mentions: Set up Google Alerts for your brand name and key executives. This gives you baseline data for how your brand is being discussed.

FAQs

Does ChatGPT have ads?

No, ChatGPT doesn’t currently run ads. OpenAI has acknowledged they’re exploring advertising as a revenue option, but no timeline has been announced. The platform remains ad-free for now.

Are ChatGPT recommendations sponsored?

Not yet. ChatGPT’s current recommendations come from its training data and real-time web access. No paid placements exist in the system today, though that may change as advertising features develop.

How can I get my business mentioned in ChatGPT?

Focus on building content authority through strong SEO, earning backlinks from reputable sources, and creating comprehensive content that answers user questions. While you can’t directly control it, ChatGPT is more likely to reflect information from well-established, authoritative sources.

Will ChatGPT ads work like Google Ads?

We don’t know the exact mechanics yet, but expect similarities in auction-based bidding and CPC pricing. The key difference will be conversational ad formats instead of traditional search result listings.

Should I shift budget from Google Ads to ChatGPT?

Not immediately. Wait for the platform to launch advertising features and establish performance benchmarks. When it does launch, test with small budget allocations before making major shifts from proven channels.

Conclusion

ChatGPT advertising isn’t live yet, but the foundation is being laid. Smart marketers are already preparing for what could become a massive new customer acquisition channel.

The opportunity is significant because ChatGPT users exhibit high-intent behavior in a conversational environment. That’s different from any existing ad platform and potentially more valuable than traditional search or social advertising.

Start building your authority now through better content, stronger industry connections, and optimized ChatGPT visibility. These investments will pay off whether you eventually run paid ads or simply want to improve your organic mentions.

Need help preparing your brand for AI-driven marketing? NP Digital specializes in emerging channel strategy and can help you build authority across all AI platforms.

Read more at Read More

Beyond Traffic: How To Drive Sales Through Google’s AI Mode and ChatGPT

September 22, 2025/0 Comments/in Web Design/by

Still measuring success by clicks alone? You’re falling behind.

AI tools like Google’s AI Overviews and ChatGPT have changed how people search for information. They’ve also created shifts in how they buy. Users today skip your homepage and make purchasing decisions inside the AI interface itself. That often means you’re either in the answer or completely outside the funnel.

There’s good news, though: This shift opens huge opportunities for forward-thinking marketers.

If you understand how to optimize for this new behavior, you can turn tools like ChatGPT into a sales engine. Let’s break down how it works.

Key Takeaways

Generative AI is collapsing the sales funnel. Users discover, compare, and convert all in one place.
Using ChatGPT to drive sales influences buyer behavior and purchase intent.
Visibility in AI tools involves designing content for citations as well as search rankings.
Use structured content, a curated off-site presence, and trust-building formats to boost your AI inclusion.
Mid-funnel tools like quizzes and calculators engage users and make your brand AI-citable.

How Generative AI is Changing The Sales Funnel

Buyers today don’t always click through multiple sites to make a decision. Instead, they’re finding discovery, validation, and recommendations right inside AI tools. Just check out these numbers:

44% of users say they’d purchase based on AI suggestions (GWI).
80% of AI answers include five or fewer sources (Bloomreach).
Perplexity monetizes over 1 million commercial queries per day (iPullRank).

If you don’t show up in the results, you’re not showing up in the decision. These tools compress the traditional sales funnel, leading to fewer clicks and faster decisions. While users might not visit your site, your influence can still drive sales.

AI Visibility and Purchasing Decisions

When we talk about AI, we’re not just talking about “being seen.” The best brands are trusted, referenced, and included in the places that now influence buyers the most.

The source list is short on platforms like Google’s AI Mode and ChatGPT results. Your content needs to live in the places these tools pull from. Blogs just won’t cut it anymore. Affiliate sites, YouTube demos, Reddit threads, and product roundups are all important spots for inclusion. Visibility does not equal volume. Instead, focus on smart placement. One strong citation can influence more than 1,000 impressions.

How To Design For Sales Instead of Clicks Using AI Tools

If you want to win in a world where AI is on top, stop thinking about blue links. Traditional SEO is no longer enough. Start thinking like an AI engine and focus on GEO. Your job is no longer to focus on traffic. Instead, prioritize being the answer. To do that, structure content in ways AI tools understand, cite, and trust.

Choose The Right Formats and Structure

AI loves content that it can summarize. Here’s what works well:

Comparison tables to help users evaluate options
How-to guides that break down actionable steps
FAQ-style layouts that clearly answer high-intent questions
Visual assets like product images and demo videos

WikiHow’s “How to Write a How-To Guide” is some Inception-level stuff, but it lays things out clearly.

Wirecutter’s dog bed recommendations include multiple options that compare price and explain why each one is a great pick.

Think outside of word count; high-level scanning and structure trump length. Break your content into sections with strong headers (while using H2s and H3s to break them up correctly!). Highlight key facts with short summaries. Keep important information above the fold.

Include CTAs and trust signals near the top, such as expert quotes, star ratings, or certifications. These aren’t just for the users’ benefit; they also help AI gauge authority.

Own The Mid-Funnel With Smart Tools

Want AI tools to reference your site more often? Give them something worth referencing. That includes mid-funnel tools:

Product quizzes
ROI calculators
“Find your fit” recommendation engines

Yes, these engage users and help make purchasing decisions. But they also create structured data AI loves.

Hat brand Melin offers a fit quiz to narrow down the types of hats a user might want to buy.

Here’s an example: Perplexity often cites sites that offer interactive decision tools. Why? Because they help guide the user journey. That adds value to citations. In addition, these tools collect first-party data. Every answer a user gives you is yet another chance to personalize their experience and move them closer to purchase.

Be Featured Where AI Is Pulling Results

Your site isn’t the only place that AI tools crawl. They can also pull information from:

YouTube demos
Reddit threads
Expert roundups
Affiliate review lists

By only optimizing your blog, you’re missing most of the playing field.

How do you get your information out there? Start partnering with trusted voices and submit your product to curated lists. Ask for mentions in credible roundups from publications. Every off-site citation is a new entry point to the AI’s answer box (and potentially the buyer’s journey).

Serve AI Crawlers and Consumers

It’s no surprise that many of the best practices for traditional SEO still work for AI crawlers. You may need to optimize for more specific questions. Write page titles that answer the query and use clean meta descriptions, not keyword-stuffed blurbs. Adding alt text to every image is critical, too.

For pages that feature lots of long-form content, consider converting it into short Q&A blocks or featured snippet formats. Don’t neglect schema, either; while it’s not enough on its own, it still supports AI discovery. At the end of the day, semantic clarity and good formatting win out.

Structure helps machines understand, but clear, helpful copy wins users.

Measure Impact and Capture Leads

Even though the traffic won’t look the same, AI impact is still measurable (and monetizable). Start with UTM parameters for AI tools like Perplexity, Bing, or Gemini. Short polls asking “How did you find us?” can help identify AI-driven exposure, while tools like Hotjar or session replays help you understand user behavior.

With this information in hand, you’re ready to act. Trigger notifications flow when AI-originated traffic hits your site, including “Why Gemini recommends us for [X]” or “Here’s why ChatGPT ranked us #1.”

If someone lands from an AI platform, they’re already pre-sold on the product. Your job is to make it easy to convert.

Common Mistakes To Avoid With AI

Even seasoned marketers can make missteps when they optimize for AI. Sometimes that means chasing traffic instead of conversions. After all, ranking high doesn’t matter if the content doesn’t drive decisions. Ignoring the affiliate ecosystem is another flag. Because AI tools lean hard on third-party validation, failing to appear on those comparison lists or review roundups could make you invisible.

Finally, don’t assume traditional SEO is enough. While many of the best practices for one can apply to the other, it’s not a pure apples-to-apples comparison. AI engines don’t think in blue links. They think in summaries, structure, and semantic relevance.

Treat AI platforms as their own ecosystems. Because they are.

Conclusion

The customer sales journey has rapidly evolved, and AI has played a big role. From ChatGPT to Google’s AI Mode, users form opinions, compare options, and convert before visiting your site. Ranking alone isn’t enough to win in this environment. You must become the answer.

That means structured content and AI-friendly formats. Build smart tools and a strategic off-site presence to earn more trust and citations.

AI has shifted from a current trend to the next phase of search. If you’re ready to lead in it, we’re here to help.

Read more at Read More