Managing large catalogs in Google Performance Max can feel like handing the algorithm your wallet and hoping for the best.
La Maison Simons faced that exact challenge: too many products and not enough control. Then they rebuilt their segmentation with Channable Insights and turned a “black box” campaign into a revenue-generating machine.
Step 1: Stop segmenting by category
Simons originally split campaigns by product category. It sounded logical – until their best-selling sweater ate the budget and newer or overlooked products never had a chance to surface.
Static segmentation meant limited visibility and slow decisions.
Marketers stayed stuck making manual tweaks while Google kept auto-prioritizing only what was already working.
Step 2: Segment by performance
Enter Channable Insights. Product-level performance data (ROAS, clicks, visibility) now powers dynamic grouping:
Products automatically move between these segments as performance shifts – no manual work needed. As Etienne Jacques, Digital Campaign Manager, Simons, put it:
“One super popular item no longer takes all the money.”
Step 3: Shorten your analysis window
Instead of waiting 30 days for signals, Simons switched to a rolling 14-day window.
The result: faster reactions, sharper accuracy, and less wasted spend in a fast-moving catalog.
Step 4: Push the strategy across channels
Why stop at Google? The same segmentation logic was automatically applied on:
https://i0.wp.com/dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Channable-SEL-Sponsored-Post-Feature-Image-Final-pgWBTD.webp?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=110801920http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-12-16 12:00:002025-12-16 12:00:00How to boost ROAS like La Maison Simons by Channable
Doing SEO well often means knowing what to focus on and when to do so. That is not always easy, especially when you are juggling content, updates, and day-to-day site management. That is why we are introducing a new SEO task list in the Yoast plugin.
The Task List helps you improve your SEO step by step, directly inside your dashboard. It turns best practices into clear, actionable tasks, so you can make progress with confidence and without second-guessing your work.
Why the SEO checklist matters: Turn SEO advice into clear actions
Instead of vague recommendations or long documentation, the Task List shows you exactly what to do next. Each item focuses on a crucial SEO fundamental, helping you take meaningful action rather than getting lost in details that don’t move the needle.
This makes SEO more approachable, especially if you are not an expert. You do not need to keep up with every update or technique. The Task List guides you through what matters most.
Build better SEO habits over time
The Task List is not just about finishing tasks. By following it regularly, you start to recognize patterns and best practices that lead to stronger content and a healthier site. Over time, this helps you build better SEO habits that carry over into everything you publish.
For teams, the Task List also brings consistency. It helps everyone follow the same SEO standards, regardless of skill level or experience.
SEO guidance where you already work
Because the Task List lives inside Yoast SEO, you can improve your SEO without switching tools or breaking your workflow. It supports you where the work happens, making SEO a natural part of creating and maintaining your content.
The foundational version of the SEO Task List is available in Yoast SEO, and a more comprehensive list is available for Yoast SEO Premium users.
http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png00http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-12-16 10:37:442025-12-16 10:37:44Introducing the new SEO Task List in Yoast SEO
Reddit is an online forum that’s part search engine, part social network.
Millions of people use it to swap advice, review products, and argue about virtually every topic under the sun. It all happens inside niche communities called subreddits.
All this makes it a powerful place for Reddit marketing. As long as you know how to play by its rules, that is.
The No. 1 rule? You can’t treat Reddit like another broadcast channel. Users hate obvious self-promotion and call out spam instantly. They reward brands that show up to add value, so just popping in and dropping links won’t cut it.
The upside? If you’re useful and authentic, the reward is real trust and traffic you won’t get anywhere else.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to market on Reddit the right way, including both organic and paid strategies. We’ll also toss in some tips on etiquette to keep you from getting buried (or banned).
Key Takeaways
Reddit is a network of niche communities. Winning here means respecting each sub’s rules and culture.
Organic comes first. Use a Crawl-Walk-Run approach in your Reddit marketing strategy: Listen and comment, then start useful threads, then scale into branded subs, SEO plays, and selective paid campaigns.
Self-promotion is allowed but heavily policed. Contribute more than you pitch and follow Reddiquette and subreddit rules to avoid bans and backlash.
Reddit ads run on an auction model and work best when they feel native to the feed.
Reddit threads influence Google results, “Discussions and forums” boxes, and even AI answers.
Why Is Reddit Important as a Marketing Platform?
Reddit is massive and growing fast. Recent estimates put it at around 100 million daily active users and hundreds of millions of monthly users, spread across more than 100,000 active subreddits.
It’s basically a giant ecosystem of niche communities where people compare products, troubleshoot problems, and share unfiltered opinions.
What makes Reddit especially relevant today is how often its content shows up outside Reddit. Google’s “Discussions and forums” search feature appears on millions of queries and is heavily dominated by Reddit threads, especially for product reviews and how-to topics.
Check out the “Discussions and forums” results for “best VPN for travel.” Reddit grabs the top spot above Facebook groups, which tells you two things: Google trusts Reddit threads for experience-based queries, and real travelers would rather hear from other travelers than from brand pages.
When someone searches “running shoes for bad knees,” for example, a Reddit discussion appears on page one.
“Google, specifically, is prioritizing the platform because it highlights true first-hand experiences,” says Becky McManus, senior SEO strategist at NP Digital.
Reddit’s also a growing force in AI search. It has data-licensing deals with Google and OpenAI, which use Reddit posts to train and power their large language models. In some analyses, Reddit is one of the most commonly cited domains in AI-generated answers.
So, when you show up on Reddit, you’re not just reaching users on one platform. You’re influencing search results, AI-generated summaries, and the conversations that shape buyer decisions.
Fundamentals to Know About Reddit
Maybe the most fundamental thing to know about Reddit is that it isn’t one big audience. It’s a web of niche communities (subreddits). Each has its own rules and culture. And not all of them have a high tolerance for brands.
“Reddit is a different kind of digital marketing space,” McManus says. “It’s all about being real and adding value to the conversation, not just pushing promotions, which you can do more of on standard social media platforms.”
That’s what makes Reddit marketing powerful. It’s also what makes it easy to screw up.
Start with the basics by reading Reddit’s page about self-promotion and what’s allowed and what isn’t. Once you’ve read that, look at the “Reddiquette” page so you can see Reddit’s main rules.
The list includes:
Contributing more than you promote and avoiding spammy, link-only posts
Being transparent about who you are and any affiliations you have
Speaking to other users respectfully, even when you disagree
Following each subreddit’s specific rules instead of assuming they’re all the same
Next, zoom in on each subreddit.
Read the sidebar and pinned posts. Some communities allow links only on certain days. Others ban surveys, coupon codes, or branded content of any kind. Moderators (mods) enforce those rules, and they won’t hesitate to remove posts or ban accounts.
Take a look at how the r/digitalmarketing subreddit clearly spells out its rules.
Your job is to show up as a helpful user first and a marketer second. Answer questions, share experiences, post useful resources, and only occasionally mention your product when it genuinely fits the thread.
If you’re unsure whether something crosses the line, message the mods and ask.
Organic Reddit Strategies
Organic participation is the name of the game withReddit marketing.
Ads can help, but many brands win by showing up as real users first. That means answering questions and sharing useful resources, which helps build karma over time.
Done right, this also feeds into your Reddit SEO strategy before you ever touch paid campaigns.
Use a Business Account
If you’re going to do anything promotional on Reddit, start with a branded account. Redditors care a lot about transparency, and a handle that clearly represents your company or team builds more trust than a random personal username that secretly belongs to “Marketing.”
Create an account that signals who you are (for example, BrandName_Official or FirstNameAtBrand). Add a short bio that explains your role and what people can expect from you, such as support or product questions.
Here’s an example profile from Cleveland.com, whose parent company, Advance Local, has had success with organic Reddit marketing strategies.
From there, resist the urge to start dropping links. Instead, comment, answer questions, and join existing threads. That way, your profile doesn’t look like it was created only to push content. If teammates also use personal accounts, have them be open about their affiliation when it’s relevant.
An honest business presence boosts the credibility of every future promo. It also looks less like spam.
Provide Value to Communities
Reddit rewards accounts that make threads better. If your first instinct is “Where can I post my link?”, you’re already in trouble.
Focus on being useful long before you mention your brand.
Look for questions you can answer in detail. Share things like:
How-tos
Real examples
What actually worked for you, even when the answer doesn’t involve your product.
Summarize complex topics in plain language.
Drop frameworks, checklists, or quick diagnostics people can try on their own.
You can also add value by recapping good resources, explaining trade-offs between options, or sharing honest pros and cons from your experience. Link sparingly and only when it clearly adds context.
Over time, that kind of participation builds karma, name recognition, and trust. Then, when you occasionally share something from your own site, it feels like a contribution, not an intrusion.
Ask Me Anything (AMA)
AMAs can be useful, even if you’re not a household name. The key is to find a clear, interesting angle that fits the subreddit.
Instead of “I’m a founder; ask me anything,” pitch something specific to the mods first:
“I run growth for a bootstrapped SaaS that just hit $1M ARR. Ask me anything about what actually moved the needle.”
“I’ve moderated a 200K-member fitness community for five years. Ask me anything about what keeps people engaged.”
For example, this AMA works because it leads with a high-stakes, personal hook: someone risking their life savings on a mobile game. People want to hear the story and ask what happened next.
Most subreddits require proof and mod approval, so follow their instructions closely. During the AMA, focus on being candid and helpful. Share stories, mistakes, and lessons. Avoid turning every answer into a soft pitch.
If people like you, they’ll click through to your profile and brand on their own. The AMA’s job is to build credibility, not to read like a live ad.
Start a Subreddit
Starting your own subreddit is more of a “phase two or three” move than a starting point. If you don’t already have people talking about you on Reddit, a brand-new sub will sit empty and make you look inactive.
Once there’s clear interest—mentions in other subs, recurring questions, or an existing community elsewhere—you can launch a subreddit as a hub. Think of it as a place for support, feature requests, user wins, and deeper discussions around your niche, not just announcements.
Set clear rules, pin a simple “Start here” post, and seed the sub with genuinely useful threads: FAQs, guides, templates, product walkthroughs, or office-hours posts. Commit to moderating and replying.
When you promote the subreddit, invite people in for the value (“Come ask questions and see real use cases”), not just to “follow” your brand.
Reddit Paid Advertising
Organic participation is the foundation of your Reddit marketing efforts, but paid ads are how you scale once you know what resonates.
Reddit now reaches a massive, mostly younger audience across thousands of active communities, and a lot of those users are actively researching products (not just scrolling).
The big advantage for marketers is context.
You can target by subreddit, interest, keyword, location, and device, so your ads show up inside conversations that already match your offer. Formats range from promoted posts and video ads to conversation placements and takeovers, with newer options like dynamic product ads for e-commerce.
If your creative matches the culture of the communities you’re in, Reddit ads can drive serious awareness and consideration.
Reddit Advertising Policies
Reddit’s ad policies are strict because ads sit right next to user posts. If your campaigns feel spammy or misleading, you’d better believe they’ll get rejected fast. Even when they’re approved, users will downvote them into oblivion.
Creative and Video Quality
Ads should look and sound professional. Make sure your audio and visuals are clear and text is readable.
Also be sure your video is relevant to the audience you’re targeting and correctly labeled if it includes mature themes. Anything graphic or heavily profane needs the proper rating and warnings, and strobing or flashing effects are off limits.
Style and Copy Standards
Reddit expects clean, honest copy. So, check your spelling and grammar, keep emojis and symbols to a minimum, avoid shouty all-caps, and don’t stuff personal data into your ad unless regulations require it. And be sure that your images are high quality and match what you’re promoting.
Accuracy and Transparency
Your ad has to reflect the real product or service. That means no clickbait headlines or no bait-and-switch offers. And don’t promote specific Reddit comments or posts unless you’re using approved formats.
URLs and Landing Pages
Your landing page should clearly feature the product you advertised. You’ll also want it to load reliably and stick to Reddit’s content rules. Keep the language consistent with your ad and avoid aggressive pop-ups or spammy tactics.
When in doubt, review Reddit’s full advertising policy before you launch. It’s easier to fix issues in draft than after a denial.
What Are the Different Types of Reddit Ads?
Reddit’s ad formats are designed to feel like part of the feed, not banner clutter. Here’s how the main options break down in Reddit’s own language:
Free-form ads: Reddit-native units that can mix text, images, video, and GIFs in one post. Great for storytelling or more complex messages.
Image ads: Single-image promoted posts that look like standard Reddit posts with a “Promoted” label. Solid for simple offers and clear CTAs.
Video ads: Autoplay video in the feed, built to grab attention and work across awareness, consideration, and conversion.
Carousel ads: Swipeable units that showcase multiple images or videos in one ad—perfect for product lines, before/after stories, or feature highlights.
Conversation ads: Let you join or spark discussions directly in conversation spaces, so your brand shows up where people are already talking.
Product ads: Shopping-focused units that pull from your product catalog and recommend items to redditors who are ready to buy.
AMA ads: Sponsored “ask me anything” experiences that put a subject-matter expert or brand rep at the center of a Q&A thread.
Most of these are available in the self-serve ads manager, so you can test formats quickly and double down on what your audience actually engages with.
Examples of Great Reddit Ads
Before diving and creating your own Reddit ad, let’s look at a few examples.
ChatGPT
This ad works because it feels like a Reddit post, not a banner. The headline clearly promises the benefit (“transform your words into works of art”), and the creative shows the product in action—a funny, hyper-specific dog portrait that fits Reddit’s meme-y culture.
The user interface screenshot makes it obvious how ChatGPT is used, so there’s no learning curve. The copy is light, the visual does the selling, and the single “Sign Up” call to action (CTA) keeps the next step simple.
All in all, it’s fun, clear, and native to the feed.
The Coupon Nerd
This ad works because it leans into Reddit’s strengths: story and specificity.
The headline (“I’m a massive savings nerd… stupidest money mistakes…”) sounds like a real thread you’d click, not brand copy. The post leads with concrete value—numbers, personal savings, and clear next steps—before it ever feels promotional.
It’s written in plain language, framed as advice from a fellow user, and backed by strong engagement (upvotes, comments), which signals social proof right in the feed.
How to Build Your Reddit Marketing Campaigns
Reddit doesn’t reward brands that rush in with a big ad budget. It rewards the ones that show up and learn the culture first.
That’s why it helps to think about Reddit marketing in stages instead of “launching a campaign” overnight.
Start with low-risk actions that teach you how each community works. Then layer on more visible content and light promotion. Once you know what lands, you can treat Reddit like a full channel.
In the sections below, we’ll walk through a practical Crawl → Walk → Run model you can use to move from basic participation to a scalable Reddit program that drives traffic and revenue (and not just karma).
Crawl
In the Crawl stage, your main job is to learn the ropes of Reddit and show up like a real user. You’ve set up a branded account, know the Reddiquette, and have your eyes on the subreddits where your audience already hangs out.
From here, keep it simple:
Read top and “hot” posts to get a feel for tone and what flies.
Comment on existing threads where you have real experience to share.
Answer questions in detail without instantly pushing your product.
Use Reddit search and “site:reddit.com” Google searches around your main topics to find the discussions that matter most to your buyers.
This screenshot shows the Crawl stage in action using a site search to see which subreddits and threads already rank for “gravel bikes.” It includes threads on clarifying the definition of a gravel bike and calls for product recommendations.
As you explore, pay attention to the phrases people use and the problems they describe. Also take note of the kind of answers they upvote.
Crawl is about listening and learning. You’re gathering intel on which communities are worth investing in. That way, you don’t sound like a marketer who just discovered Reddit yesterday.
Walk
In the Walk phase, you’re moving beyond “lurking” and turning your Reddit presence into a repeatable habit. Now, you’re showing up in a handful of high-value subreddits on purpose. You’re not just scrolling anymore.
Start by narrowing your focus. Pick three to five communities where your audience already hangs out and where you can add real expertise. Look for threads that match your core topics and keywords.
Your job at this stage is to:
Comment thoughtfully on existing threads, especially questions you can answer from experience.
Share occasional links to genuinely useful resources (yours or others), but always wrapped in context.
Track what gets upvotes, saves, and replies so you can see which angles resonate.
Think of Walk as your calibration stage. You’re learning the language and formats that work in each subreddit. You’re also starting to spot patterns you can later turn into content pillars, SEO topics, and even product ideas.
You’re not trying to dominate Reddit yet. You’re trying to become a familiar, helpful name in the spaces that matter.
“It’s all about trust,” says Becky McManus, the senior SEO strategist at NP Digital.
“Teams should expect to earn trust gradually by engaging authentically and consistently within the communities that genuinely care about what they offer.”
Run
Run is where Reddit becomes a proper channel, not just a side experiment.
By this point, you know:
Which subreddits respond best.
Which topics reliably spark quality discussion.
Which profiles (brand and team) have real credibility.
Now you can scale intentionally. This may include launching and actively moderating a branded subreddit as a hub for FAQs, feedback, updates, and success stories. You might also keep a presence in adjacent communities and jump into high-impact threads quickly.
From there, you can coordinate with your SEO and content teams to help keep responses and resources consistent.
Reddit becomes:
A content engine: Your best threads turn into blog posts, landing pages, videos, and email content.
An SEO asset: More of your conversations show up in SERPs and “Discussions and forums” modules.
A live focus group: You see unfiltered reactions to ideas, messaging, and features in real time.
At this stage, you can also layer in paid campaigns, but be sure to promote angles you already know resonate organically. That way, you’re not just guessing with ad dollars.
What Reddit Marketing Success Looks Like
A good example of Reddit done right is NP Digital’s work with TurboTax.
From January to April 2025, TurboTax-branded profiles joined relevant tax and personal finance threads, adding 159 thoughtful comments and starting targeted conversations during filing season.
The impact showed up well beyond Reddit. Several of those threads were pulled into Google’s “What people are saying” for searches like “quarterly tax deadlines” and “turbotax early refund,” and one comment was cited in AI-generated Reddit answers within days.
Brand mentions hit 5,404 (up 10 percent year over year), and positive mentions nudged up even in the middle of tough conversations about pricing and early refunds.
We also paired that Reddit work with SEO. A refreshed “Ways to File for Free” guide captured the featured snippet for “is turbotax free,” helping outrank older negative Reddit threads and giving TurboTax more control over how the brand shows up in search.
FAQs
How do you do marketing on Reddit?
Act like a helpful user, not a billboard: join relevant subreddits, add value in threads, then layer in carefully targeted information that can be tied back to your brand.
Can you self-promote on Reddit?
Yes, but only within strict limits. Reddit and most subreddits take a hard line on spammy self-promotion. If most of your activity is just dropping your own links, you’ll get downvoted or banned. Read Reddit’s self-promotion and Reddiquette guidelines and participate in conversations, but make sure any link you share is genuinely helpful and clearly relevant to the thread.
How do I create a Reddit marketing strategy?
Start with your goal (awareness, traffic, leads, or support), then map the subreddits your audience already uses. Create a branded account, learn each community’s rules, and spend time commenting before you post anything promotional. From there, plan a mix of organic participation (answers, explainers, AMAs, resource threads) and small paid tests once you know what resonates.
How do I market on Reddit without getting banned?
Read the FAQs, Reddiquette, and each subreddit’s rules before you start posting anything. And be sure to contribute more than you promote: answer questions, share experiences, and only link to your own content when it clearly adds value.
How much do Reddit ads cost?
Reddit ads run on an auction model, so prices vary widely. It sets its rates at $5 a day minimum, and costs vary from $1.50 to $10 per 1,000 impressions (or more for premium placements).
Conclusion
Reddit is a unique platform with millions of active users. It might seem like the ideal place to promote your business, but you could get banned (or ridiculed) if you aren’t careful.
Although Reddit is tougher on self-promotion on other platforms, that doesn’t mean marketers should steer clear of it altogether. Provided you stick to the rules and don’t stray into spamming or being “salesy,” you have the opportunity to grow a keen, engaged following.
Reddit can become one of your most valuable channels if you do it right. You can build trust inside niche communities, earn traffic from threads that rank in search, and even shape how your brand shows up in AI summaries.
With thousands of subreddits, there’s almost always a corner of Reddit where your audience is already talking. Show up to listen and answer questions as you learn the ropes.
Promotion comes later, after you’ve proven you’re there to add value, not just to cash in.
B2B marketing often gets treated like a second-class citizen compared to B2C. But here’s the truth: business-to-business marketing is growing fast and generating real results across industries.
Eighty percent of B2B buyers expect a B2C-like experience when interacting with brands. That means the old-school, relationship-only playbook won’t cut it anymore. You need a digital-first strategy that attracts high-quality leads, builds trust at scale, and drives measurable revenue.
In this guide, we’ll walk through proven B2B marketing strategies that actually work in 2026 and how to build your own roadmap from scratch.
Key Takeaways
B2B buyers are research-driven, digital-first, and selective.
Content marketing, SEO, and email are foundational for long-term growth.
LinkedIn and Google Ads are ideal for paid B2B campaigns.
You need a strategy built on your ideal customer profile, clear goals, and constant testing.
Trends like AI-generated content, video, and ABM are shaping the future of B2B digital marketing.
What is B2B Marketing?
B2B marketing stands for business-to-business marketing. Instead of selling directly to consumers (like B2C), you’re selling to other businesses.
That means longer sales cycles, more stakeholders, and a bigger focus on ROI. B2B decisions are driven by logic, not emotion. Buyers want to solve a pain point, improve operations, or generate a clear return.
In B2C, you might sell running shoes to a single customer. In B2B, you could be selling supply chain software to a procurement team of 12. That’s a very different game.
But even though you’re selling to companies, it’s still humans making the call. So your B2B strategy still needs to connect on a personal level.
How B2B Marketing Works Today
The modern B2B buyer looks a lot like a B2C consumer:
They start online.
They do extensive research.
They talk to peers.
They want to be educated before they talk to sales.
According to Gartner, 83% of a typical B2B purchasing decision happens before a buyer speaks with a sales rep. That means your marketing needs to do the heavy lifting.
The journey isn’t linear either. One stakeholder might download an e-book. Another might follow your brand on LinkedIn. A third might attend your webinar two months later. You need to stay visible and valuable at every stage.
Digital-first, multi-touch, always-on marketing wins in B2B today. It’s about building trust long before the sales team gets involved.
Core B2B Marketing Strategies That Work
There isn’t one silver bullet for B2B growth, but there are a handful of tried-and-true strategies that consistently deliver results. From attracting leads to nurturing them into customers, each of these plays a key role in your overall marketing mix.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is at the heart of every successful B2B strategy. It’s how you build authority, answer buyer questions, and stay visible throughout long sales cycles. Whether it’s blog posts, whitepapers, or customer success stories, great content gives prospects a reason to trust you before they buy.
Create a content calendar that includes top-of-funnel topics (like how-to posts or industry trends), mid-funnel pieces (case studies and solution guides), and bottom-funnel assets (ROI calculators, product comparisons). Use SEO research to guide your topics, and always write with your ICP’s pain points in mind. Update old content regularly to stay relevant, and use internal linking to guide users deeper into your funnel.
Blogs, whitepapers, guides, and case studies all play a role in educating and nurturing your audience. For example, security software provider Entrust does an annual report on fraud, relevant to their audience of enterprise, finance, and government professionals.
Long-form SEO-driven content builds authority and captures top-of-funnel traffic. Tie your strategy to the funnel. For example, TOFU is best suited for blogs, MOFU for case studies, and BOFU landing pages.
SEO
Search is where most B2B buyers begin. If you’re not showing up for high-intent keywords, you’re missing out on warm leads who are actively looking for a solution like yours. That’s why SEO is a non-negotiable for any serious B2B strategy.
Start by identifying search terms your audience uses throughout their buying journey through tools like Ubersuggest. Prioritize informational and commercial keywords, not just branded terms. Sometimes a low MSV may be okay if it’s relevant to your core audience, like the example below:
Optimize your site structure, title tags, meta descriptions and content. Build backlinks through guest posts and digital PR. Use schema markup to help search engines understand your pages. B2B SEO takes time, but it compounds, make it part of your long game.
Email Marketing
Email marketing continues to be the highest-performing B2B channel when it’s done right. It’s personal, direct, and measurable. But today’s buyers won’t tolerate one-size-fits-all blasts. You need segmentation, automation, and value in every send.
Use gated content and lead magnets to build your list, then segment it based on industry, buyer stage, or behavior. Set up automated drip campaigns that educate and nurture. Include useful resources, not just sales CTAs. Monitor open and click rates, and A/B test everything from subject lines to CTA placement. Good email marketing feels like a helpful nudge, not a pushy pitch.
Segment your lists by persona, behavior, and funnel stage. Use lead magnets like checklists or templates to grow your list. Automate nurture flows, and track opens, clicks, and replies.
Paid Ads
Organic takes time. Paid gives you speed and scale, especially when targeting high-value buyers. The key is precision. B2B paid ads work best when you combine targeting capabilities with smart messaging.
LinkedIn ads let you reach decision-makers by job title, industry, and company size. Google Search ads help you show up when someone searches for your product or service. Retarget website visitors with display or video ads to stay top of mind. Use UTM tracking to measure effectiveness, and continuously refine your copy and creatives. Paid ads work best when they amplify a strong organic strategy.
Webinars and Events
Webinars and virtual events are lead generation machines when done well. They give you the chance to educate prospects, show off your expertise, and interact with potential buyers in real time.
Pick topics that align with pain points your audience is actively researching. Bring in subject matter experts, use polls to engage viewers, and offer the replay as a gated asset post-event. Promote your webinar via email, social, and paid channels, especially after the initial release where it will show the most impact:
Events are also a content goldmine—turn recordings into short video clips, blog recaps, and nurture emails to extend their value.
They let you demonstrate expertise, answer objections, and collect leads. Keep topics specific. Invite prospects already in your pipeline. Repurpose the content as video clips, blog posts, or gated downloads.
B2B Vs B2C Marketing: How Do They Compare?
The biggest difference between B2B and B2C marketing comes down to the buyer’s mindset and how they make decisions.
Here’s a breakdown of how each approach typically differs:
B2B Marketing
Driven by ROI, efficiency, and logical outcomes
Longer sales cycles with multiple stakeholders
Higher-value deals and more complex products or services
Content is educational, technical, and data-backed
Messaging targets decision-makers and buying committees
B2C Marketing
Driven by emotion, desire, and personal benefit
Shorter sales cycles with individual decision-makers
Lower price points and more impulse-driven purchases
Content is entertaining, persuasive, and brand-oriented
Messaging targets individuals based on lifestyle or interests
These differences also extend to the type of content that performs well for each segment based on these needs.
How To Build a B2B Marketing Strategy From Scratch
You don’t need a huge team or budget to build a powerful B2B strategy. What you do need is clarity: on who you’re targeting, what you want to achieve, and how you’ll measure success. These are the building blocks every marketing plan should be built on.
Know Your Ideal Customer (ICP)
Everything starts with knowing who you’re selling to. Your ideal customer profile (ICP) should be specific and rooted in data—not assumptions. Outline key characteristics like industry, company size, annual revenue, and tech stack. Then go deeper: what roles make the buying decisions? What keeps them up at night? What objections do they raise in the sales process?
Use interviews, win/loss analysis, and CRM insights to map these out. A strong ICP informs your messaging, targeting, offers, and even product positioning. Without it, your marketing will feel generic—and miss the mark.
Who do you want to reach? What are their roles, pain points, objections, and decision criteria? Use interviews, surveys, and CRM data to build accurate personas.
Set Goals and KPIs
A marketing plan without measurable goals is just guesswork. Define success using metrics that align with business outcomes. Think beyond vanity metrics like impressions or traffic. Focus on KPIs such as MQLs, SQLs, CAC, CLV, and pipeline velocity.
Set benchmarks based on past performance or industry standards. Make sure sales and marketing agree on definitions and expectations. Use dashboards and regular reporting to track progress. When your team knows what “good” looks like, they’re more likely to hit it.
Track MQLs (marketing qualified leads), SQLs (sales qualified leads), CAC (customer acquisition cost), and CLV (customer lifetime value). Tie your KPIs to revenue.
Choose Your Channels
Don’t spread yourself thin trying to be everywhere. Choose marketing channels based on where your ICP actually spends time and how they make decisions.
LinkedIn is a powerhouse for targeting professionals. Email is ideal for nurturing. SEO brings long-term compounding returns. Paid ads provide immediate visibility. Webinars and events build authority. Select a mix of 2–4 core channels and go deep before you go wide.
Document how each channel maps to your funnel. Assign ownership and set clear goals for each.
Use a blend of organic and paid. For example: content + SEO + LinkedIn Ads.
Create a Content Plan
A content plan connects your ideas to outcomes. Start by mapping topics to each stage of the funnel: awareness, consideration, and decision. Awareness content (like blog posts) attracts traffic. Consideration content (like case studies or webinars) builds trust. Decision content (like pricing pages) removes friction.
Balance evergreen content that compounds over time with campaign-specific pieces tied to launches or seasonal priorities. Repurpose content across formats, turn webinars into blog posts, or blogs into LinkedIn posts. Make distribution part of the plan, not an afterthought.
Test and Optimize
No B2B strategy is perfect out of the gate. The best teams test constantly. Start with A/B tests on subject lines, CTAs, landing pages, and ad copy. Measure what actually moves the needle, not just what looks good.
Review performance weekly or monthly, depending on volume. Use heatmaps, CRM data, and attribution tools to identify where leads drop off. Small improvements add up fast, especially in long sales cycles. Optimization is where great marketing gets better.
A/B test CTAs, landing pages, ad creatives, subject lines. Run monthly reviews and adapt based on performance.
B2B Marketing Trends To Watch
Staying ahead in B2B marketing means paying attention to what’s gaining traction across digital channels.
AI Content Creation: Tools like ChatGPT, Jasper, and Writer.com are speeding up workflows and lowering content costs. That said, AI is best used for drafts, outlines, or ideation. Final outputs should still go through human editing to preserve quality, tone, and brand voice.
Video for Trust: Short-form video continues to dominate attention spans. Think beyond YouTube. Platforms like LinkedIn and TikTok now prioritize native video. B2B brands are using testimonial videos, product explainers, and founder messages to build credibility fast.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM): ABM is moving from enterprise-only to mid-market and even SMBs. With more tools available, it’s easier than ever to target specific accounts with personalized content, ads, and outreach. Align sales and marketing to increase close rates and shorten cycles.
First-Party Data Focus: With the decline of third-party cookies, companies are investing more in building their own data. Expect more gated content, newsletter offers, and community-building plays to capture emails and preferences directly from users.
Sales and Marketing Alignment: Marketing can no longer just focus on lead gen. It’s also about sales enablement, creating assets that help close deals. Look for tighter integration between CRM systems, shared KPIs, and ongoing collaboration between both teams.
Conversational Marketing: Chatbots and live chat are becoming standard on B2B websites. Instant answers and qualifications can speed up pipeline velocity. Use tools like Drift or Intercom to build conversational flows that feel personal, not robotic.
FAQs
What is B2B marketing?
B2B marketing stands for business-to-business marketing,strategies used to sell products or services to other businesses. B2B marketers use a mix of digital channels, from content, SEO, social media, email, PPC, and webinars to gain authority and interest from customers.
How do you do B2B marketing?
Build a strategy based on your ideal customer, set measurable goals, pick the right channels, and consistently test and improve.
How does content marketing help B2B?
Content builds trust and educates potential buyers before they talk to sales. It drives organic traffic and supports every stage of the funnel.
Conclusion
If you’re serious about growing in B2B, you need a digital strategy that reflects how modern buyers behave. They expect value at every interaction. They need proof that your solution works.
Focus on building trust through content, SEO, email, and targeted campaigns. Measure what matters. Optimize relentlessly.
And if you need help building a scalable, high-converting B2B strategy, NP Digital is here for you.
But AI search adds a new layer your team needs to master.
Here’s what I mean:
Traditional SEO gets your pages ranking in top search positions.
AI SEO gets your brand visible in AI-generated answers — through brand mentions, citations, or both.
You’re expanding what SEO covers. Not replacing it.
Let me break down what’s changed and what it means for your team.
What’s Changed
Search behavior itself has evolved a lot over recent years.
A growing number of people don’t just “Google” anymore. They discover, compare, and decide across multiple platforms. (And this has been the case since long before ChatGPT came along.)
Someone might start on TikTok, check Reddit reviews, search on Google, and ask ChatGPT for a summary before taking action. And they might revisit these platforms at various stages of the journey.
That journey looks less like a straight line and more like a network.
Here are five other changes reshaping how search works today:
Whole-web signals: AI pulls from your website and everywhere else your brand appears online. Your entire digital footprint influences your AI visibility.
Entity recognition: AI understands your brand as a concept it can connect to products, industries, and related topics, not just keywords to match (learn more in our guide to entity SEO)
Passage-level retrieval: AI extracts specific sections from your content to use in its answers, not entire pages. This means it needs to be clear what each section of your content is about.
Conversational search behavior: AI search queries tend to be longer and more specific. People describe problems in detail rather than typing short keywords, which means the AI often cites highly specific content rather than generic guides.
Zero-click reality: Users can now get complete answers without visiting websites. Traffic from search is no longer guaranteed, even with strong visibility.
What This Means for Your Team
These changes don’t require you to rebuild your team from scratch.
But they do require expanding what your team focuses on:
Your content team still writes. But now they also need to structure content so AI can easily understand it and extract sections for its answers.
Your technical SEO team still optimizes site architecture. But priorities shift toward AI crawlability, performance, and schema implementation.
Your strategist still tracks performance. But now they also need to measure citations and brand mentions across AI platforms.
Most of these skills build on what your team already knows. Again, they’re extensions, not replacements.
4-12 months is a typical timeline to get your team comfortable with AI SEO fundamentals.
You’ll need some combination of internal training, external guidance, and selective hiring — depending on your current gaps. I’ll talk more about this later.
First, let’s break down the specific skills your AI SEO team needs.
Essential AI SEO Skills Your Team Needs
Not everyone needs to be an AI SEO expert in all areas.
One person (typically a lead or strategist) needs strategic understanding. They understand how AI search works and can adapt when platforms change.
The rest of your team needs execution capability. They can follow guidelines and apply best practices.
It’s helpful if they show interest in understanding AI SEO, but it’s not required.
Here are the key skills that bridge traditional SEO and AI search.
Understanding AI Retrieval
AI platforms find and reference content differently from Google’s traditional ranking systems.
Some platforms, like Perplexity, search the web in real-time.
Others, like ChatGPT, can search the web or pull from their training data.
And AI Overviews use Google’s existing index and Gemini’s training data.
To optimize for and appear in these places, your team needs to understand how these systems select what to cite and mention.
When someone asks a question, these platforms look for content that directly answers the query. They prioritize sources that are clearly structured and contextually relevant.
Note: AI systems also use a process called query fan-out. This involves expanding one user prompt into multiple related sub-queries behind the scenes.
That means your content can surface even if it doesn’t match the original question exactly. If it covers a related angle or entity that the AI connects to the topic, it can be cited or mentioned.
Your SEO lead or strategist typically owns this skill.
They already understand search intent and ranking logic — the same foundations that AI retrieval builds on.
In smaller teams, a content strategist can also take this on with a shallow learning curve.
Typically, they’ll spend 2-3 hours monthly testing how your brand appears across AI platforms. Document patterns in what gets cited. And adjust content strategy based on what’s working.
Writing for AI Extraction
AI search tools don’t respond to user queries with entire articles. Instead, the AI pulls specific passages that answer those queries.
If a passage requires a lot of surrounding context to make sense, AI may be less likely to understand its relevance and therefore be less likely to use it.
This means each section of your content needs to still make sense even when taken out of the context of the rest of the article.
Each section should answer a specific question on its own, without relying on references to other parts of the article.
This is generally just good writing practice. If you find yourself making too many unique points in one section, it’s probably best to split it into subsections.
But clarity here is also key.
For example, avoid: “As we mentioned earlier, this approach works well…”
Instead, write: “Structuring content into self-contained passages helps AI extract and cite your information more effectively.”
Here’s another example of effective writing for AI extraction:
The second version makes sense whether someone reads your full article or sees just that paragraph in an AI response.
This doesn’t mean every sentence needs a complete context. It means key passages should stand alone.
Who Can Own It?
Your content or editorial team can handle this.
SEO provides the framework and guidelines. Writers implement it in their daily work.
For example, editorial reviews the article structure before publishing, ensuring each section has a clear, standalone takeaway.
Sometimes that means breaking a 500-word section into three shorter subsections with specific headers.
By the way: As a content marketer myself, I don’t think this shift is dramatic.
Most great content teams already write clearly and structure information logically. This just prioritizes ensuring key passages work independently.
Building AI-Readable Structure
AI needs clear signals to understand your site’s structure and how content relates to other pages on your site.
For example, schema markup makes your data more structured by defining what your content represents.
This can make it easier for AI systems to interpret and cite your content accurately.
While the full impact is still unclear, structured data makes your content easier to parse, which is helpful for search engines anyway. And since Gemini can lean on Google’s search infrastructure, it’s not all that unreasonable to expect that schema could at least indirectly affect your visibility in places like AI Overviews and AI Mode, now or in the future.
Similarly, internal linking shows how topics connect.
And a clear site hierarchy indicates which pages are most important.
Think of it as creating a map.
Instead of making AI infer relationships, you’re explicitly defining them.
Beyond your site: Entity databases
Once you have the basics down, consider registering your brand and products in databases like Wikipedia, Wikidata, or Crunchbase.
These knowledge bases help AI systems understand entity relationships and how your brand fits into broader industry contexts.
This bridges on-site structure (like schema markup) with off-site presence. You’re helping AI systems recognize your brand across the web, not just on your site.
You don’t need this starting out. But it’s worth exploring once your core AI SEO structure is in place.
Who Can Own It?
Your technical SEO can take ownership of this skill.
They already handle the fundamentals like implementing schema markup, managing site architecture, and optimizing internal linking structures.
The approach doesn’t change much. They’re just applying the same technical skills with AI systems in mind.
Tracking AI Performance
Traditional SEO metrics (like rankings, organic traffic, and click-through rates) still matter.
But they don’t say anything about your brand’s AI search visibility.
You need different metrics now, including:
Platform breakdown: Where you’re showing up (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, etc.)
Citation frequency: How often your content gets cited as a source in AI responses
Mention rate: How often your brand appears in AI-generated answers or recommendations
Mention sentiment: Whether those mentions are positive, neutral, or negative
These numbers indicate whether your AI SEO strategy is working.
Without specialized tools, you’ll need to manually search key queries across platforms and track when your brand appears.
Who Can Own It?
Your SEO analyst or whoever handles performance reporting can own this.
They’re already tracking traditional metrics. AI performance metrics become an addition to that dashboard.
If using AI visibility tools, they’ll monitor your visibility score and citation trends monthly.
Without specialized tools, they’ll need to manually search key queries across platforms, document when and how your brand appears, and track changes over time.
AI tools go beyond just looking at your website and pull from everywhere your brand is mentioned online. Including:
G2 reviews comparing tools
Reddit threads discussing your product
Forum conversations about your industry
News articles mentioning your company
If those mentions are sparse or outdated, AI has less information to pull from when someone searches for your brand specifically or asks about your product category.
This is where AI search extends beyond your domain.
Who Can Own It?
No single person can own this entirely.
PR, community management, and customer success each control different pieces of the puzzle.
Someone from SEO can take the coordination role, ensuring these teams understand how their work affects AI visibility.
In practice, this often means your SEO lead or director works cross-functionally to align off-site efforts with AI discoverability goals.
For example, they work with customer success to encourage reviews on platforms like G2 or Trustpilot.
They also monitor where your brand gets mentioned across forums, social platforms, and community discussions.
Different AI platforms retrieve and display information in their own ways.
For example:
Perplexity searches the web in real-time and shows numbered citations
ChatGPT can search the web or pull from its training data
Google’s AI Overviews draw from Google’s search index and Gemini’s training data
What gets you cited on one platform won’t automatically work on another because each platform follows patterns in what it mentions and cites.
For instance, I searched “which is the best camera phone of 2025” across three platforms.
ChatGPT cited multiple YouTube videos, a Reddit thread, Tom’s Guide, Yahoo, and Tech Advisor.
Google’s AI Mode cited one YouTube video along with a bunch of other websites — no Tom’s Guide, Yahoo, or Tech Advisor.
Claude cited Quora and Android Authority twice. No Reddit threads, YouTube, or Tom’s Guide.
Same query, completely different sources and mentions.
Your team needs to understand these differences when optimizing for AI visibility.
You don’t need separate strategies for each platform. But knowing how different platforms prioritize sources helps you structure your entire approach, from content to technical implementation to off-site presence.
Who Can Own It?
Your SEO lead or strategist can typically own this.
They can track how your brand appears across platforms and identify what’s working where.
They’ll spot gaps in coverage on LLMs that matter to the brand. For example, strong presence in ChatGPT but weak in Perplexity.
Then they work with content, technical, and other teams to adjust the overall strategy.
Query Intent Mapping
People search differently in AI platforms than they do in Google.
Traditional Google: “best CRM software”
ChatGPT: “I need a CRM for a 50-person sales team, budget around $10K annually, must integrate with Salesforce”
The queries are longer. More conversational. More specific.
I checked my own most recent 100 prompts to ChatGPT. They averaged 13 words each.
Compare that to traditional Google searches, which typically run 3-4 words.
Understanding these prompt patterns helps you create content that answers the actual questions people ask AI.
You need to think beyond traditional keywords.
What detailed questions are the people in your audience asking? What context are they providing? What outcome do they want?
Who Can Own It?
Whoever leads keyword research or content planning can take this on, usually your SEO strategist or content planner.
This builds directly on existing keyword research skills.
You’re expanding from “what keywords do people use?” to “what problems are people trying to solve?”
(Which you should have been doing all along, but now with a stronger focus.)
This person will analyze how people search in AI platforms and document the longer, conversational queries they use.
Then they’ll build content briefs that address those specific questions and scenarios.
The Build, Buy, or Borrow Decision: Getting AI SEO Skills on Your Team
You know which skills your team needs.
Now comes the practical question: how do you actually get them?
You have three options:
Build internally
Hire new talent
Bring in outside expertise
Here’s a snapshot of the pros and cons of all three:
Most teams end up doing some combination of all three. The key is knowing which approach works best for specific skills.
Let’s look at each one in detail.
1. When to Build (Develop Internally)
Upskilling your current team is almost always the smartest first move.
They already know your brand, your workflows, and your audience. That context shortens the learning curve dramatically.
Focus on developing skills that evolve naturally from what your team already does.
For example:
Train writers to structure content for AI extraction
Help your SEO lead understand AI retrieval patterns and how citations work
Encourage your analyst to track AI visibility metrics alongside rankings
These are logical extensions of existing expertise. Not entirely new disciplines.
Now, training doesn’t have to mean building a full internal curriculum.
Start small. For example:
Run short internal workshops to explain how AI search retrieves and cites content
Review recent AI-generated answers for your top keywords and note which competitors get mentioned
Compare their cited passages to yours, and update one or two articles using those patterns
To make internal training effective, use this quick checklist:
Upskilling may not be the fastest route to output. It can take a few months before you see real traction.
But it is the most sustainable.
Once your team starts applying AI-first thinking, you’ll see compounding returns with every new SEO campaign.
Best For
Startups and mid-sized teams that already have strong SEO foundations but a limited budget for new hires.
Watch Out For
Don’t overload your team with theoretical “AI SEO” training.
Focus primarily on skills that directly connect to visibility outcomes, like structure, clarity, and retrievability.
Also watch for skill concentration. If one person (like your SEO lead) ends up owning 3+ new AI skills, that’s a bottleneck. Consider hiring or borrowing expertise to spread the load.
2. When to Buy (Hire New Talent)
When you need expertise faster than you can build it internally, it’s time to hire.
Bringing in new talent makes sense when the skill is both specialized and strategic.
Something that gives your brand a long-term edge, not just a short-term fix.
For example:
Hiring a data or visibility analyst who understands how to measure citations and brand mentions across AI platforms
Bringing in a technical SEO who can model entities and implement structured data at scale
Adding an AI content strategist who can guide how your content aligns with AI retrieval patterns
These hires extend the capabilities of your existing SEO team. They don’t replace it.
The key to finding the right people?
Clarity before you post the job. Decide what outcome you’re hiring for.
Do you need faster technical execution, deeper analytics, or dedicated AI visibility leadership?
Before you start recruiting, here’s a quick checklist to work through:
With clear hiring criteria, you’ll know which expertise to prioritize and what title makes sense for your organization.
Best For
Mid-sized and enterprise teams that have budget flexibility and want to move faster than internal training allows.
Watch Out For
Don’t over-index on shiny new “AI SEO” titles. Few people have that exact label yet.
Instead, look for specialists in areas like data, structured content, and retrieval systems. These are people who can bridge SEO and AI.
3. When to Borrow (Outsource or Consult)
Not every skill is worth building or hiring for.
Some are highly specialized. Others you only need for a short period.
That’s where borrowing expertise makes sense — through consultants, freelancers, or agencies.
Outsourcing works best when you need to move fast on projects that require niche expertise.
For example:
Hiring a consultant to set up AI visibility tracking before your analyst takes over
Partnering with a content firm to scale passage optimization across hundreds of pages
Bringing in a Reddit marketing expert to boost your brand’s presence in relevant subreddits
This approach gives you access to deep expertise without expanding headcount.
You can bring in specialists to handle complex projects, fill capability gaps, or run pilot programs that would slow your internal team down.
Sometimes that means a one-off engagement.
Other times, it’s a recurring partnership that supports your strategy long-term.
The goal isn’t to offload responsibility. It’s to fill gaps your team can’t cover yet and to get critical work done without slowing down larger projects.
When evaluating potential partners, here’s a quick checklist to follow:
Best For
Teams that need quick access to specialized expertise or extra hands for complex, time-bound projects.
Watch Out For
Don’t treat outsourcing as a default fix.
If a skill becomes core to your strategy, consider bringing it in-house. But for niche or technical projects, keeping trusted external support can be more practical.
Choose partners who understand your brand voice. AI-first SEO still needs human context.
In practice, it’s rare that a team is fully built, bought, or borrowed.
You’ll probably use all three, often at the same time.
How much you lean on each one depends on factors like:
Your current team’s strengths and bandwidth
Budget flexibility for hiring or contracting
The urgency of upcoming SEO goals
How quickly AI search is evolving in your industry
Leadership’s appetite for experimentation
In my experience, many teams land somewhere near a 70-20-10 split. Which is roughly 70% built internally, 20% borrowed through outside experts, and 10% bought as new hires.
The exact ratio matters less than how deliberately you manage it.
Here’s how to keep that balance right:
Prioritize by impact: Build skills that sustain long-term visibility. Borrow when you need speed or experimentation. Buy only when a role becomes essential to your strategy.
Keep ownership internal: Even if outside partners execute the work, ensure someone on your team owns the outcome and applies the learnings.
Plan for rotation: As new AI SEO trends emerge, your mix will likely shift. What starts as a borrowed skill may become core within six months.
Audit regularly: Review your mix every quarter to see which skills rely too heavily on outside help. If a borrowed skill becomes recurring, start building it internally.
Follow this quick team review checklist to keep stock of your built, bought, and borrowed setup.
The key is flexibility and adaptability.
As priorities shift, don’t hesitate to rebalance how your team works.
That might mean promoting someone internally to take ownership of AI visibility, bringing in a freelancer to handle off-site optimization, or hiring a new analyst to deepen your data capability.
Adjust your structure based on what delivers the most impact, not what’s written on the org chart.
Your AI SEO Adoption Roadmap
You don’t need a massive reorg to evolve your SEO team for AI search.
You need a plan that helps your team build capability, test what works, and scale what proves effective.
This roadmap gives you that plan.
It breaks down:
What to focus on in each phase
How to build momentum
What progress should look like along the way
By the end, your team will know how to apply AI SEO principles consistently.
Note: This timeline is a starting point, not a rule.
Startups with smaller teams might compress this into 6 months. Enterprises coordinating across departments might need 15-18 months.
The timeline matters less than starting now and making steady progress.
Phase 1: Foundation
Start by taking stock of where your team stands.
Before diving into new tactics, align everyone around what AI SEO means for your brand and how your current approach fits into it.
This stage sets direction and gives your team the confidence to move with purpose.
Here’s what to focus on in the first three months:
Assess current capabilities: Review your team’s strengths across content, technical, and analytical areas. Identify which AI-era skills exist internally and which ones you’ll need to hire for or outsource.
Establish your visibility baseline: Search your most important topics in tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Track if (and how) your brand shows up.
Pick 2-3 priorities to act on: Choose the areas with the clearest opportunity to improve. That might mean tightening content clarity, mapping entities, or aligning off-site mentions.
Run a small pilot: Select a few representative pages and update them based on what you’ve learned. Then recheck whether those updates help your brand appear more often in AI answers.
Document key learnings: Capture what worked and what didn’t in a short internal memo. This becomes the foundation for next quarter’s priorities.
Goal: Build clarity, alignment, and a shared understanding of how AI search changes what your team prioritizes.
By the end of this phase, your team should understand what makes content discoverable in AI search, have a documented baseline to track progress, and have at least one small win that proves the approach works.
Phase 2: Acceleration
Once you’ve built your baseline, it’s time to turn insights into action.
The second phase focuses on building capability and momentum. This involves scaling what worked in your pilot, closing skill gaps, and introducing systems that help your team move faster together.
Here’s what to focus on over the next few months:
Strengthen capability: Run short training sessions to deepen AI SEO understanding across functions. If a skill gap exists, bring in a freelancer, consultant, or new hire to fill it quickly.
Encourage cross-functional collaboration: Bring content, SEO, analytics, product, and brand together under one shared visibility goal. Clarify ownership so responsibilities don’t overlap.
Expand your pilot: Apply what worked from Phase 1 to more pages or campaigns
Build repeatable workflows: Turn early learnings into working systems. Standardize how technical, analytical, and content tasks are executed for AI-driven discovery. Each function should know what “AI-ready” means in its area.
Use shared dashboards: Track AI visibility metrics in one place and review them as a team so everyone sees how their work contributes to results
Run monthly reviews: Check how well your team is adapting to new systems and responsibilities. Identify where people need support, additional training, or outsourced help.
Goal: Build capability, consistency, and accountability across your team’s AI SEO initiatives.
By the end of this phase, your team should operate with clear workflows and defined ownership across technical, analytical, and content areas.
You should also have unified dashboards that let all stakeholders track progress and collaborate without duplicated work.
Phase 3: Scale
This final phase turns AI-first thinking into how your team operates by default.
The goal now is to make the new skills, workflows, and decision habits permanent. This way, your AI SEO capability grows without needing constant resets.
Here’s what to focus on in the next six months:
Integrate what works: Expand the proven approaches from earlier pilots across your full SEO and content programs. Keep the frameworks that consistently improve visibility; drop the ones that don’t.
Solidify roles and ownership: Define who leads AI-related strategy, measurement, and experimentation. Clarify responsibilities so the team stays agile even as you scale.
Strengthen internal training: Turn what your team learned into short onboarding sessions, playbooks, or process docs. This keeps new hires aligned and prevents knowledge loss.
Plan for selective specialization: As your AI SEO programs mature, assign ownership where consistent work is required. That could mean promoting a team member to lead AI visibility reporting, assigning an SEO specialist to oversee off-site signals, or partnering long-term with a proven external expert.
Create leadership visibility: Share quarterly reports on AI-driven results and learnings with senior stakeholders. This keeps support (and budgets) growing with your progress.
Goal: Make AI-first execution routine and scalable across your team.
By the end of this phase, your team should operate with defined roles and responsibilities. You should have internal systems for training, reporting, and process consistency.
Leadership should have visibility into AI performance outcomes so the team treats AI SEO as an integrated function, not an experiment.
Measuring AI SEO Team Success
You can measure your AI SEO team’s success by tracking how often your brand appears in AI-powered answers.
Here are important AI SEO metrics to track:
Citation frequency: How often AI platforms cite your content as a source
Brand mention rate: How often your brand appears in AI responses
Platform coverage: Which AI platforms reference you (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, etc.)
Sentiment: Whether those mentions align with your brand positioning
It shows your AI Visibility Score and how many times your brand is mentioned across different AI platforms.
It also shows which prompts your brand appears for, revealing which topics your team’s content strategy is successfully targeting.
In your Brand Performance report, you can compare your brand’s visibility against multiple competitors.
The report includes insights like your Share of Voice (percentage of mentions compared to competitors) and sentiment analysis. This tells you whether AI platforms present your brand positively or negatively.
For larger organizations, Semrush offers Enterprise AIO, with team collaboration features and advanced analytics.
Specifically, your AI Visibility Score is a good overall indicator of your AI SEO team’s performance.
If it has improved over 3-12 months, it means your team is executing well. The skills are translating into real visibility.
If results aren’t showing after two quarters, revisit your priorities. You might be focusing on the wrong skills first or need to adjust your build/buy/borrow mix.
Pro tip: When you start building your team’s AI SEO skills, benchmark your brand’s AI Visibility Score alongside five competitors.
After 3-12 months, compare growth rates, not just final scores.
Your score might increase from 30 to 40 (+10 points). But if competitors jumped from 40 to 60 (+20 points), not only are they more visible — they’re also outpacing you.
Track relative growth to understand your true competitive position.
Get a Custom AI SEO Team Plan in 20-30 Minutes
AI SEO is built on traditional SEO. But there are more layers to it.
Your SEO team needs updated systems and upgraded skills so your brand gets mentioned (and your website cited) in AI search results.
We created the free AI SEO Team Building Assistant to turn everything you just read into a custom action plan for your team.
Download the file, upload it into your AI platform of choice (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini), and follow the conversation.
This is an interactive session that adapts to your specific team, budget, and constraints. It’s not just a cookie-cutter report after a basic prompt.
It takes around 20 minutes to work through (but you should take your time with it). At the end, you’ll walk away with a complete implementation plan.
Here’s an example of the output, starting with the one-page plan:
You’ll also get a “Skills Ownership Map” showing which team member owns which skill. And which skills to build, borrow, or buy.
Plus a Phased Roadmap, KPI Tracking Framework, Leadership Brief, and 30-day checklist.
Everything is tailored to the specific inputs you provide in the interactive conversation.
Here are some tips for getting the most out of this assistant:
Block 30 uninterrupted minutes so you can really engage with the conversation
Have your current team structure in mind
Be specific in your answers (vague input = generic output)
Be honest about constraints (like budget, time, and capabilities)
http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png00http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-12-12 17:58:082025-12-12 17:58:08How to Build an AI-Ready SEO Team: A Complete Guide
You’re investing in ads and other marketing strategies, but have you ever stopped to think about the data you’re using to inform those investments? For many companies, the biggest blind spot is tracking. Hidden misfires are skewing channel reporting and attribution, ultimately throwing off your marketing decisions.
At NP Digital, we’ve helped hundreds of clients uncover recurring patterns of tracking failure. Today, we’re sharing the most common issues we see and exactly how you can fix them. No fluff. Just real problems, real fixes, and proven next steps.
Key Takeaways
Attribution: Attribution bias is mitigated by using a shared taxonomy across data sources and maintaining clean first-party data.
GA4: Discrepancies around revenue and event tracking with business systems are solved by integrating GA4 data with those business systems.
Consent Management: Consent misconfigurations can lead to legal risk and lost data when CMPs are not mapped correctly to tag categories in the tag manager.
Cross-device: Use customer IDs to unify fragmented cross-device journeys.
Campaign Tracking: Custom setups need governance, so be sure to standardize campaign tracking structures, audit tags regularly, and align dashboards across marketing channels.
The Impact of Bad Data Tracking
Poor data tracking can be dangerous because it has the potential to distort every decision downstream. If your tags misfire, if a user doesn’t opt in and your scripts still run, or if your UTM query parameter structure breaks mid-campaign, you won’t know it until the numbers don’t add up. And by then, the damage is done.
We’ve seen firsthand how these silent issues erode marketing performance. The root causes usually fall into a few key categories:
Incomplete or incorrect tracking setups
Tracking that isn’t validated regularly
Misaligned naming conventions or taxonomies
And what happens when those issues go undetected?
Data gaps that make campaign comparisons impossible
Attribution errors that over-credit paid and undercount organic and vice-versa
Privacy violations if tags fire before consent, creating legal risk
Accurate tracking is the foundation of good marketing. And when it’s off, your strategy is too.
The Tracking Issues We See With Clients
Website tracking issues come in all shapes and sizes, but the same trends seem to emerge over the years of our experience working with clients. Across industries and platforms, we’ve found five tracking challenges that consistently disrupt clean data:
Broken or biased attribution
GA4 discrepancies.
Vendors restrict audience splits or don’t provide raw data
Algorithms self-optimize in ways that obscure true lift
Privacy-driven consent issues
Fragmented cross-platform journeys
Custom setups without a scalable structure
These issues don’t just mess with reporting, they impact performance and decision-making. In the next few sections, we’ll break down the causes of each issue and the solutions we provide to our clients.
Incrementality Measurement & Attribution Bias
Clients come to us with concerns about the accuracy of their reporting and questions on how they can determine what’s working/not working using their web analytics data. Once we dig into the attribution model, we realize it’s only telling half the story.
Attribution bias occurs when platforms over-credit or under-credit paid clicks and under or over-count the earlier part of the customer journey. Skewing the data this way creates inflated ROI on paid channels, while undervaluing organic search or even direct traffic.
It also leads to budget decisions based on faulty data. In either case, decisions made on data that consider attribution in a silo are faulty ones for most brands .Even with incrementality testing, that in theory controls for attribution bias, there can be issues.
Savings can be attributed to fixing attribution:
What we recommend:
Use a cross-platform testing platform that lets you build holdouts and unify taxonomy across campaigns.
Design holdouts that abide to allowed audience splits.
Leverage raw ad platform data mapped to a business, meaningful taxonomy, and business-sourced total conversions data to model incrementality.
When analyzing results, consider factors that might skew the measurement (e.g. self-optimizing platforms) and how that might change the decisions you make based on the results before you run the test, not after.
Run ongoing incrementality tests, not one-and-done experiments.
Map paid and organic together when evaluating top-of-funnel performance.
Incrementality doesn’t have to be a guessing game, but you need the right framework in place to get real answers.
GA4 Data Reliability & Integration
Since the switch to GA4, we’ve seen a surge in tracking headaches. It’s not that GA4 is broken, it’s that many teams rely on it to reconcile platform data and drive reporting dashboards. But GA4 doesn’t always sync cleanly with everything else.
Here’s what we’ve seen go wrong:
GA4 data lags behind real-time performance, which delays optimization
Revenue in GA4 doesn’t match backend systems, causing reporting conflicts
A/B test data often doesn’t align with GA4 sessions or events
Key events are misconfigured or underreported due to GA4’s stricter event model
How we help clients fix this:
Integrate GA4 with other platforms via a Customer Data Platform (CDP) to unify user-level data
Create source-of-truth dashboards that include backend data, not just GA4
Align testing platforms with GA4 event structure to ensure clean comparisons
GA4 can be a powerful part of your analytics stack, but only if it’s connected to everything else.
Consent Management & Privacy Compliance
Marketing teams need to prioritize tracking and consent management because tracking issues can occasionally turn into legal issues. Privacy regulations like GDPR and CPRA are becoming stricter, and many businesses aren’t ready. We’ve seen major data loss and even risk exposure due to simple missteps in consent setup.
Here’s what typically goes wrong:
Consent Management Platforms (CMPs) fire too late or not at all
Tags run before consent is granted, leading to compliance risks
Cookie categories aren’t mapped correctly in GTM, causing incorrect cookies to fire
Cookie deprecation isn’t planned for, so key audiences can disappear because steps haven’t been taken to solve for lost cookie data
These gaps could mean lost data and legal trouble.
How we help:
We run audits using tools like ObservePoint to check tag behavior against consent status
We configure CMPs (like OneTrust) to block tags until users opt in, mapped by cookie category
We support clients with server-side tracking and cookieless solutions to maintain data flow
You can’t afford to guess when it comes to consent. A single misfire can cost you visibility and trust.
Cross-Platform & Funnel Visibility
Even with great tracking on individual platforms, we still see clients struggle with stitching it all together. In our experience, teams often struggle to connect the dots between a user’s first ad exposure and their final conversion, especially across devices, platforms, and channels.
Common problems include:
No consistent customer ID across tools
Offline or backend actions (like CRM updates or sales calls) not tied to digital campaigns
Metrics that mean different things across platforms (e.g., “conversions” in Facebook vs. Google Ads)
The result is fragmented customer journey tracking and incomplete funnel visibility.
Here’s how we address it:
Implement first-party data strategies that collect and unify customer IDs
Use platforms like Segment or Tealium to connect CRM and analytics data
Build funnel dashboards that reflect the full customer path, not just last-click attribution
Without complete visibility, optimization becomes a matter of guesswork. Clean data across platforms turns your funnel from a black box into a roadmap.
Custom Tracking & Tagging Infrastructure
Every client wants data tailored to their business, but too often, custom tracking setups become unmanageable over time. We’ve seen teams inherit messy GA4 configurations, inconsistent UTM naming conventions, and dashboards that pull data from five sources with little to no alignment.
That makes auditing a nightmare and decision-making unreliable.
Common breakdowns we’ve seen:
Event tracking is implemented manually, inconsistently, or without clear documentation
Tools like Claravine or Funnel.io are underused or misconfigured
Data (SEO, paid media, etc.) and backend teams all report on different numbers
How we fix it:
Run full tag audits to spot inconsistencies or redundancies
Standardize UTM frameworks and naming conventions across channels
Set up integrated dashboards that map channel and revenue data in one view
Clients need a more complex measurement solution to accommodate today’s users. The modern customer is more mature and selective. They’re doing more research on who you are as a brand, across channels, before they convert. Teams are doing a great job of implementing multiple channels to bring these customers into the fold, but you need to implement a unified solution to make the most of the data they provide.
Tracking Issues in 2025 vs 2024
Tracking in 2025 looks very different from where we were just a year ago.
Last year, the biggest issues were setup-related: getting GA4 live, consistently tagging campaigns, and stitching data together across ad platforms. Clients were exploring tools and figuring out where things were breaking.
This year, the challenges have matured. Now it’s about optimizing what’s in place, shifting from basic implementation to smarter, scalable solutions.
What’s changed:
Tagging stability has improved, but the pressure is on to prove ROI with less data
Consent compliance and cookie deprecation are non-negotiable, not “nice to haves”
Incrementality testing and attribution refinement are top priorities
Teams are pushing beyond dashboards to revenue-backed insights
New platforms (like ArtsAI and OptiMine) are being evaluated with deeper scrutiny
The takeaway: In 2024, it was about getting things up and running. In 2025, it’s about whether your setup can scale, adapt, and stay compliant.
How You Can Start Improving Your Data Tracking Today
If you’re running into tracking issues or even suspect something’s off, don’t wait for a reporting crisis to assess the situation. You’ll save yourself time and headaches by looking into the issue now.
Here’s where we recommend starting:
Run a Full Audit: Use tools like ObservePoint to validate which tags are firing, where, and under what conditions. Focus on consent compliance, event coverage, and load order.
Standardize UTM and Taxonomy: Create a documented framework across your paid, organic, and internal teams. Inconsistent naming kills cross-platform clarity.
Reconcile GA4 With Backend Data: Build a dashboard that includes both GA4 and revenue data from your CRM or database. That’s your source of truth. Don’t only rely on platform-reported numbers.
Fix Consent Setup: Audit your consent management platform (CMP) setup and make sure no tags fire before consent. Use active group triggers (like in OneTrust) mapped to tag categories.
Rethink Attribution: Move beyond last click. Explore incrementality testing or multi-touch attribution models that actually reflect how your audience buys.
If your tracking setup isn’t solid, your data and every decision built on it is at risk. From attribution errors to consent gaps, we’ve seen how small misfires create major problems. But the good news is that most of these issues are fixable with the right audits and tools in place.
Whether you’re optimizing GA4, cleaning up cross-platform reporting, or getting your consent setup compliant, now’s the time to level up. Better data means better marketing, and it starts with tracking that works.
http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png00http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-12-11 20:00:002025-12-11 20:00:00Top Tracking Issues We Help Our Clients With
Today, we are excited to introduce a new feature in the Search Console Performance report: weekly and monthly views.
This new functionality allows you to adjust the time aggregation of any of the performance charts,
helping you smooth out daily changes and focus on the overall trend of traffic to your website.
https://i0.wp.com/dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/web-design-creative-services.jpg?fit=1500%2C600&ssl=16001500http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-12-10 05:00:002025-12-10 05:00:00Introducing weekly and monthly views in Search Console
Google is rolling out a new Data Manager API that lets you plug first-party data into Google’s AI-powered ad tools with less friction. The goal: stronger measurement, smarter targeting, and better performance without the hassle of managing multiple systems.
Why we care. The Data Manager API helps you get more value from the data you already have by sending reliable first-party data into Google’s AI. This improves your targeting, measurement, and bidding. It also replaces several separate APIs with one easy connection, cutting down on engineering work and getting insights back into your campaigns faster.
About the Data Manager API. It will replace several separate Google platform APIs with one centralized integration point for advertisers, agencies, and developers. It builds on Google’s existing codeless Data Manager tool, which tens of thousands of advertisers already use to activate their first-party data.
You can use it to:
Upload and refresh audience lists.
Send offline conversions to improve measurement.
Improve bidding performance by giving Google AI richer signals.
Partnership push. To speed adoption, Google is launching with integrations from AdSwerve, Customerlabs, Data Hash, Fifty Five, Hightouch, Jellyfish, Lytics, Tealium, Treasure Data, Zapier, and others.
Available today. The API is available starting today across Google Ads, Google Analytics and Display & Video 360, with more product integrations on the way.
https://i0.wp.com/dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GPT-4-or-Google-Clouds-API-library-What-should-you-choose-for-SEO-task-automation-800x450-iPTRnI.png?fit=800%2C450&ssl=1450800http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-12-09 17:32:552025-12-09 17:32:55Google launches Data Manager API
Generative systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity are quietly taking over the early parts of discovery – the “what should I know?” stage that once sent millions of people to your website.
Visibility now isn’t just about who ranks. It’s about who gets referenced inside the models that guide those decisions.
The metrics we’ve lived by – impressions, sessions, CTR – still matter, but they no longer tell the full story.
Mentions, citations, and structured visibility signals are becoming the new levers of trust and the path to revenue.
This article pulls together data from Siege Media’s two-year content performance study, Grow and Convert’s conversion findings, Seer Interactive’s AI Overview research, and what we’re seeing firsthand inside generative platforms.
Together, they offer a clearer view of where visibility, engagement, and buying intent are actually moving as AI takes over more of the user journey – and has its eye on even more.
Content type popularity and engagement trends
In a robust study, the folks at Siege Media analyzed two years of performance across various industry blogs, covering more than 7.2 million sessions. It’s an impressive dataset, and kudos to them for sharing it publicly.
A disclaimer worth noting: the data focuses on blog content, so these trends may not map directly to other formats such as videos, documentation, or landing pages.
With that in mind, here’s a run-through of what they surfaced.
TL;DR of the Siege Media study
Pricing and cost content saw the strongest growth over the past two years, while top-of-funnel guides and “how-to” posts declined sharply.
They suggest that pricing pages gained ground at the expense of TOFU content. I interpret this differently.
Pricing content didn’t simply replace TOFU because the relationship isn’t zero-sum.
As user patterns evolve, buyers increasingly start with generative research, then move to high-intent queries like pricing or comparisons as they get closer to a decision.
That distinction – correlation vs. causation – matters a lot in understanding what’s really changing.
The data shows major growth in pricing pages, calculators, and comparison content.
Meanwhile, guides and tutorials – the backbone of legacy SEO – took a sharp hit.
Keep that drop in mind. We’ll circle back to it later.
Interestingly, every major content category saw an increase in engagement. That makes sense.
As users complete more of their research inside generative engines, they reach your site later in the journey or for additional details, when they’re already motivated and ready to act.
If you’re a data-driven SEO, this might sound like a green light to focus exclusively on bottom-of-funnel content.
Why bother with top-of-funnel “traffic” that doesn’t convert?
Leave that for the suckers chasing GEO visibility metrics for vanity, right?
But of course, this is SEO, so I have to say it …
Did you expect me to say, “It depends?”
Here’s a question instead: when that high-intent user typed the query that surfaced a case study, pricing page, or comparison page, where did they first learn the brand existed?
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’ll have to keep making TOFU content.
You might need to make even more of it.
Let’s think about legacy SEO.
If we look back – waaaaay back – to 2023 and a study from Grow and Convert, we see that while there is far more TOFU traffic…
…it converts far worse.
Note: They only looked at one client, so take it with a grain of salt. However, the direction still aligns with other studies and our instincts.
This pattern also shows up across channels like PPC, which is why TOFU keywords are generally cheaper than BOFU.
The conversion rate is higher at the bottom of the funnel.
Now we’re seeing this shift carry over to generative engines, except that generative engines cover the TOFU journey almost entirely.
Rather than clicking through a series of low-conversion content pieces as they move through the funnel, users stay inside the generative experience through TOFU and often MOFU, then click through or shift to another channel (search or direct) only when it’s time to convert.
For example, when I asked ChatGPT to help me plan a trip to the Outer Banks:
After a dozen back-and-forths planning a trip and deciding what to eat, I wanted to find out where to stay.
That journey took me through many steps and gave me multiple chances to encounter different brands and filtering or refinement options.
I eventually landed on my BOFU prompt, “Some specific companies would be great.”
From there, I might click the links or search for the company names on Google.
What matters about this journey – apart from the fact that my final query would be practically useless as insight in something like Search Console – is that throughout the TOFU and MOFU stages, I was seeing citations and encountering brands I would rely on later.
Once I switched into conversion mode, I wanted help making decisions. That’s where I’m likely to click through to a few companies to find a rental.
So, when we read statistics like Pew’s finding that AI Overviews reduce CTR by upwards of 50%, and then consider what happens when AI Mode hits the browser, it’s easy to worry about where your traffic goes. Add to that ChatGPT’s 700 million weekly active users (and growing):
And according to their research on how users engage with it:
We can see a clear TOFU hit and very little BOFU usage.
So, on top of the ~50% hit you may be taking from AI Overviews, 700+ million people are going to ChatGPT and other generative platforms for their top-of-funnel needs.
I did exactly that above with my trip planning to the OBX.
The good news is that while that vacation rental company or blue widget manufacturer might not see me on their site when I’m figuring out what to do – or what a blue widget even is – I’m still going to take the same number of holidays and buy the same number of products I would have without AI Overviews or ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, etc.
Unless you’re a publisher or make money off impressions, you’ll still have the same amount of money to be made.
It just might take fewer website visits to do it.
More about TOFU
Traffic at the bottom of the funnel is holding steady for now (more on that below), but the top of the funnel is being replaced quickly by generative conversations rather than visits.
The question is whether being included in those conversations affects your CTR further down the funnel.
The folks at Seer Interactive found that organic clicks rose from 0.6% to 1.08% when a site was cited in AI Overviews.
And while the traffic was far lower, ChatGPT had a conversion rate of 16% compared with Google organic’s 1.8%.
If we look at the conversion rate for organic traffic at the bottom of the funnel – which we saw above – it was 4.78%.
Users who engage with generative engines clearly get further into their decision-making than users who reach BOFU queries through organic search.
But why?
While I can’t be certain, I agree with Seer’s conclusion that AI-driven users are pre-sold during the TOFU stage.
They’ve already encountered your brand and trust the system to interpret their needs. When it’s time to convert, they’re almost ready with their credit card.
Why bottom-funnel stability won’t last much longer
Above, I noted that “traffic at the bottom of the funnel is holding steady for now.”
It’s only fair to warn you that through 2026 and 2027, we’ll likely see this erode.
The same number of people will still travel and still buy blue widgets.
They just won’t book or buy them themselves. And at best, attribution will be even worse than it is today.
I spoke at SMX Advanced last spring about the rise of AI agents.
I won’t get into all the gory details here, but the Cliff Notes are this:
Agents are AI systems with some autonomy that complete tasks humans otherwise would.
They’re rising quickly – it’s the dominant topic for those of us working in AI – and that growth isn’t slowing anytime soon. You need to be ready.
A few concepts to familiarize yourself with, if you want to understand what’s coming, are:
AP2 (Agent Payments Protocol): A standard that allows agents to securely execute payments on your behalf. Think of it as a digital letter of credit that ensures the agent can only buy the specific “blue widget” you approved within the price limit you set. Before you say, “But I’d never send a machine to do a human’s job,” let me tell you, you will. And if you somehow prove me wrong individually out of spite, your customers will.
Gemini Computer Use Model API: A model with reasoning and image understanding that can navigate and engage with user interfaces like websites. While many agentic systems access data via APIs, this model (OpenAI has one too, as do others) lets the agent interact with visual interfaces to access information it normally couldn’t – navigating filters, logins, and more if given the power.
MCP (Model Context Protocol): An emerging standard acting as a universal USB port for AI apps. It lets agents safely connect to your internal data (like checking your calendar or reading your emails) to make purchasing decisions with full context and to work interactively with other agents. Hat tip to Ahrefs for building an awesome MCP server.
Why do these protocols matter to a content strategist?
Because once AP2 and Computer Use hit critical mass, the click – that sacred metric we’ve optimized for two decades – changes function.
It stops being a navigation step for a human exploring a website and becomes a transactional step for a machine executing a task.
If an agent uses Computer Use to navigate your pricing page and AP2 to pay for the subscription, the human user never sees your bottom-of-the-funnel content.
So in that world, who – or rather, what – are you optimizing for?
This brings us back to the Siege Media data.
Right now, pricing pages and calculators are winning because humans are using AI to research (TOFU and MOFU) and then manually visiting sites to convert (BOFU).
But as agents take over execution, that manual visit disappears. The “traffic” to your pricing page may be bots verifying costs, not humans persuaded by your copy.
The 2026 strategy
This reality pushes value back up the funnel.
If the agent handles the purchase, the human decision – the “moment of truth” – happens entirely inside the chat interface or agentic system during the research phase.
In this world, you don’t win by having the flashiest pricing page.
You win by being the brand the LLM recommends when the user asks, “Who should I trust?”
Your strategy for 2026 requires a two-pronged approach:
For the agent (the execution): Ensure your BOFU content is technically flawless. Use clean schema, accessible APIs, and clear data structures so that when an agent arrives via MCP or Computer Use to execute a transaction, it encounters no friction.
For the human (the selection): Double down on TOFU. Focus on mentions and citations. You need to be the entity referenced in the generative answer so that users – and agents – trust you.
As we move toward 2026 and then 2027 (it’ll be here sooner than you think), the “click” will become a commodity more often handled by machines.
The mention, however, remains the domain of human trust. And in my opinion, that’s where your next battle for visibility will be fought.
Time to start – or hopefully keep – making the TOFU.
https://i0.wp.com/dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/image-27-fh9XCo.webp?fit=1600%2C1364&ssl=113641600http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-12-09 15:00:002025-12-09 15:00:00Mentions, citations, and clicks: Your 2026 content strategy
Evaluating SEO tools has never been more complicated.
Costs keep rising, and promises for new AI features are everywhere.
This combination is hardly convincing when you need leadership to approve a new tool or expand the budget for an existing one.
Your boss still expects SEO to show business impact – not how many keywords or prompts you can track, how fast you can optimize content, or what your visibility score is.
That is exactly where most tools still fail miserably.
The landscape adds even more friction.
Features are bundled into confusing packages and add-on models, and the number of solutions has grown sharply in the last 12 months.
Teams can spend weeks or even months comparing platforms only to discover they still cannot demonstrate clear ROI or the tools are simply out of budget.
If this sounds familiar, keep reading.
This article outlines a practical framework for evaluating your SEO tool stack in 2026, focusing on:
Must-have features.
A faster way to compare multiple tools.
How to approach vendor conversations.
The new realities of SEO tooling in 2026
Before evaluating vendors, it helps to understand the forces reshaping the SEO tooling landscape – and why many platforms are struggling to keep pace.
Leadership wants MQLs, not rankings
Both traditional and modern SEO tools still center on keyword and prompt tracking and visibility metrics. These are useful, but they are not enough to justify the rising prices.
In 2026, teams need a way to connect searches to traffic and then to MQLs and revenue.
Almost no tool provides that link, which makes securing larger budgets nearly impossible.
(I say “almost” because I have not tested every platform, so the unicorn may exist somewhere.)
AI agents raise expectations
With AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity – along with the ability to build custom GPTs, Gems, and Agents – teams can automate a wide range of tasks.
That includes everything from simple content rewriting and keyword clustering to more complex competitor analysis and multi-step workflows.
Because of this, SEO tools now need to explain why they are better than a well-trained AI agent.
Many can’t. This means that during evaluation, you inevitably end up asking a simple question: do you spend the time training your own agent, or do you buy a ready-made one?
Small teams need automation that truly saves time
If you want real impact, your automation shouldn’t be cosmetic.
You can’t rely on generic checklists or basic AI recommendations, yet many tools still provide exactly that – fast checklists with no context.
Without context, automation becomes noise. It generates generic insights that are not tailored to your company, product, or market, and those insights will not save time or drive results.
Teams need automation that removes repetitive work and delivers better insights while genuinely giving time back.
Technical SEO tools remain the most stable part of the SEO stack.
The vendor landscape has not shifted dramatically, and most major platforms are innovating at a similar pace.
Because of this, they do not require the same level of reevaluation as newer AI-driven categories.
That said, budgeting for them may still become challenging.
Leadership often assumes AI can solve every problem, but we know that without strong technical performance, SEO, content, and AI efforts can easily fail.
I will also make one bold prediction – we should be prepared to expect the unexpected in this category.
These platforms can crawl almost any site at scale and extract structured information, which could make them some of the most important and powerful tools in the stack.
Many already pull data from GA and GSC, and integrating with CRM or other data platforms may be only a matter of time.
I see that as a likely 2026 development.
What must-have features actually look like in 2026
To evaluate tools effectively, it helps to focus on the capabilities that drive real impact. These are the ones worth prioritizing in 2026.
Advanced data analysis and blended data capabilities
Data analysis will play a much bigger role.
Tools that let you blend data from GA, GSC, Salesforce, and similar sources will move you closer to the Holy Grail of SEO – understanding whether a prompt or search eventually leads to an MQL or a closed-won deal.
This will never be a perfect science, but even a solid guesstimation is more useful than another visibility chart.
Integration maturity is becoming a competitive differentiator.
Disconnected data remains the biggest barrier between SEO work and business attribution.
SERP intelligence for keywords and prompts
Traditional SERP intelligence remains essential. You still need:
Topic research and insights for top-ranking pages.
Competitor analysis.
Content gap insights.
Technical issues and ways to fix them.
You also need AI SERP intelligence, which analyzes:
How AI tools answer specific prompts.
What sources do they cite.
If your brand appears, and if your competitors are also mentioned.
In an ideal world, these two groups should appear side by side and provide you with a 360-degree view of your performance.
Automation with real-time savings
Prioritize tools that:
Cluster automatically.
Detect anomalies.
Provide prioritized recommendations for improvements.
Turn data into easy-to-understand insights.
These are just some of the examples of practical AI that can really guide you and save you time.
Strong multilingual support
This applies to SEO experts who work with websites in languages other than English.
Many tools are still heavily English-centric. Before choosing a tool, make sure the databases, SERP tracking, and AI insights work across languages, not just English.
Transparent pricing and clear feature lists
Hidden pricing, confusing bundles, and multiple add-ons make evaluation frustrating.
Tools should communicate clearly:
Which features they have.
All related limitations.
Whether a feature is part of the standard plan or an add-on.
When something from the standard plan moves to an add-on.
Many vendors change these things quietly, which makes calculating the investment you need difficult and hard to justify.
Step 4: Involve only the people who will actually use the tool
Always ask yourself who truly needs to be involved in the evaluation.
For example, we are currently assessing a platform used not only by the SEO team but also by two other teams.
We asked those teams for a brief summary of their requirements, but until we have a shortlist, there is no reason to involve them further or slow the process.
And if your company has a heavy procurement or security review, involving too many people too early will slow everything down even more.
At the same time, involve the whole SEO team, because each person will see different strengths and weaknesses and everyone will rely on the tool.
Step 5: Evaluate results, not features
Many features sound like magic wands.
In reality, the magic often works only sometimes, or it works but is very expensive. To understand what you truly need, always ask yourself:
Did the tool save time?
Did it surface insights that my current stack does not?
Could a custom GPT do this instead?
Does the price make sense for my team, and can I prove its ROI?
These questions turn the decision into a business conversation rather than a feature debate and help you prepare your “sales” pitch for your boss.
Step 6: Evaluate support quality, not just product features
Support has become one of the most overlooked parts of tool evaluation.
Many platforms rely heavily on AI chat and automated replies, which can be extremely frustrating when you are dealing with a time-sensitive issue or have to explain your problem multiple times.
Support quality can significantly affect your team’s efficiency, especially in small teams with limited resources.
When evaluating tools, check:
How easy it is to reach a human.
What response times look like.
Whether the vendor offers onboarding or ongoing guidance.
A great product with weak support can quickly become a bottleneck.
Once you have a shortlist, the quality of your vendor conversations will determine how quickly you can move forward.
And this may be the hardest part – especially for the introverted SEO leads, myself included.
How to navigate vendor conversations
I’m practical, and I don’t like wasting anyone’s time. I have plenty of tasks waiting, so fluff conversations aren’t helpful.
That’s why I start every vendor call by setting clear goals, limitations, a timeline, and next steps.
Over time, I’ve learned that conversations run much more smoothly when I follow a few simple principles.
Be prepared for meetings
If you are evaluating a tool, come prepared to the demo.
Ideally, you should have access to a free trial, tested the platform, and created a list of practical questions.
Showing up unprepared is not a good sign, and that applies to both sides.
For example, I am always impressed when a vendor joins the conversation having already researched who we are, what we do, and who our competitors are.
If you have spoken with the vendor before, directly ask what has changed since your last discussion.
Ask for competitor comparisons
When comparing a few tools, I always ask each vendor for a direct comparison.
These comparisons will be biased, but collecting them from all sides can reveal insights I had not considered and give me ideas for specific things to test.
Often, there is no reason to reinvent the wheel.
Ask how annual contracts influence pricing
Annual contracts reduce administrative work and give vendors room to negotiate, which can lead to better pricing.
Many tools include this information on their pricing pages, and we have all seen it.
Ask about any other nuances that might affect the final price – such as additional user seats or add-ons.
Don’t start from scratch with vendors you know
Often, the most effective approach is simply to say:
“This is our budget. This is what we need. Can you support this?”
This works especially well with vendors you have used before because both sides already know each other.
What to consider from a business perspective
Even if you select a tool, that does not mean you will receive the budget for it.
Proving ROI is especially difficult with SEO tools. But there are a few things you can do to increase your chances of getting a yes.
Present at least three alternatives in every request
This shows you have done your homework, not just picked the first thing you found. Present your leadership with:
The criteria you used in your evaluation.
Pros and cons of each tool.
The business case and why the capability is needed.
What happens if you do not buy the tool.
Providing this view builds trust in your ability to make decisions.
Avoid overselling
Tools improve efficiency, but they cannot guarantee outcomes – especially in SEO, GEO, or whatever you call it.
Spend time explaining how quickly things are changing and how many factors are outside your control. Managing expectations will strengthen your team’s credibility.
But even with thorough evaluation and negotiation, we still face the same issue: the SEO tooling market has not caught up with what companies now expect.
Let’s hope the future brings something closer to the clarity we see in Google Ads.
https://i0.wp.com/dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/How-to-evaluate-your-SEO-tools-in-2026-E28093-and-avoid-budget-traps-L7Vakf.png?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=110801920http://dubadosolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/dubado-logo-1.png2025-12-09 14:00:002025-12-09 14:00:00How to evaluate your SEO tools in 2026 – and avoid budget traps
