In-House Marketers: How To Use Customer Insights To Boost Sales Now From AI Search

The State of SEO and AI Search

Confusion in the space: multiple terms (GEO, LMO, AO, ASEO, etc.)

“I just wanted to acknowledge how confusing this space has become. I want to say that SEO space or AI search space, whatever this space is called, became truly a notion of confusion with so many different opinions with people talking about authority, brand building, PR, E-E-A-T, E-E-E-A-T, long tail, LLM.

And with all of these challenges, whenever I have five SEOs in the room, I have more than 11 opinions. So today we’re going to dive deep into it and see how we can go through this huge conundrum of geo. We cannot even agree on the name of Geo, LMO, AO, A SEO and so on.”

Challenge of tracking meaningful metrics (clicks, conversions, prompts)

“The main challenge I believe we had ahead of ourselves is what to track. So we’re still looking at clicks. There is more.

How do you measure conversions? If you track 700 prompts, that actually coming from zip data very often is which ones are actually important.”

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Role of AI models (OpenAI, Anthropic) consuming content without driving clicks

“If we look at the same data point, OpenAI is visiting 1,500 pages for every one click it send and anthropic. So cloud is visiting 60,000 pages for one click because cloud’s architecture and anthropics architecture is built that they’re trying to answer all of the questions with huge internal knowledge and they only run searches if they have to.

So to summarize that with the words of Matthew pre the CEO of cloud is people trust AI more and they’re just not following the footnotes.”

User Behavior & Changing Expectations

Shift from traditional marketing lingo to trusted peer advice

“So right now the biggest challenge that I see outside of AI search and these two come together is we want really trusted peer advice, not the corporate marketing lingo. And that shows in Reddit exploding, that shows in how we ask questions that show that we need to look at reviews for even no consideration or low consideration items that’s coming from Google.”

Importance of authentic, unfiltered human insights vs. polished brand messaging

“So marketing over the years was like, everything is perfect, our product is zero problems. But then you would have this challenge, this reality check, you go on Reddit, you go on trust advisor, you go anywhere else. And you see this is actually what sucks when you buy Tesla, you don’t have the physical knobs when you buy 1500 in the us, you have a problem with replacing the radio 11 times and that is something you will not find on CarGurus and so on. So which one would you choose?”

Rethinking Metrics & Success Measures

New scoreboard: being the recommended solution throughout the customer journey

“So I want to propose this new scoreboard. This is what we’re looking at and some of the case studies we’re going to go over today…

So the first one is I will look at the recommended solution, not just mentioned instead of just being as a source, even if my domain is not listed as a source, but if I’m listed as a preferred recommended solution, that’s amazing, but that’s not enough. I want to be a recommended solution throughout the customer journey. So from the first question… to the moment of what is the best lease deal for this car that they’ve chosen?”

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Strategic Framework

Focus on user context and hero’s journey framework

“So let’s go deeper into user context… So if we have a problem, so call to adventure, let’s use the customer, the hero journey example, we’re going to go cross the threshold of that problem. We’re go into Google AO with a simple click question. Then maybe we need to see some of the reviews. We’re going to go into red and that’s the app, best part in the bottom of the journey. Then we’re going to go into perplexity to run deeper searches, maybe run deep research within Reddit and so on. We need to sprinkle a bit of child GPT and then we’re going to get to purchase.”

Role of short, contextual advice vs. polished product copy

“So just having a very nice polished copy that starts with you and that talks about the benefits of the product. I believe this is in the nineties.

This is a vintage approach to marketing. It’s nice to see, but it’s not what I’m looking for online. I want to see contextual advice.

So if I have a problem with my car, with my vacuum cleaner, I want this advice to be short, understandable and solving my specific problem. So I want to feel like they see me, they understand me.”

Importance of attribution: connecting influence to sales conversions

“So let’s talk about attribution because I think this is really critical to understand is looking at attribution, the biggest question I’m having, and I’m building a little bit of tension here, the biggest question I’m having most of the time is how do we prove that this is actually converting?

If we look at that in this case, action only vacuum for wool carpet, you can see multiple mentions of people buying this vacuum… because all of the conversations online on Reddit, on small blogs and small forums point people to this solution. So if you find this path, you can hijack that with your product.”

Best Practices for Brands

Entering conversations authentically (Reddit, forums, communities)

“So if you’re in B2B space, and depending on what that is, trust me, Reddit, there is a subreddit about this and it’s not really going in and say, guys, look, this is my solution. It’s just going the party and screaming like, look, I’m amazing and I want to sell something to you. It’s coming in being a part of that group really providing value… and that is how we should, I believe, be in marketing of come and solve the problem.”

Solving problems, not chasing clicks

“So we’re not really answering the query or a prompt. The case for us it’s coming back to basic is really understand the problem that users have and get into that conversation. Understanding the needs is more valuable than anything else. So if you understand what people need with Tesla… Answer questions, solve problems, not focus on search volume and clicks. They will come later through that impact.”

Questions From Live Attendees

Q: How do businesses build authenticity and trust when participating in Reddit discussions?

A: To be authentic, you have to talk about positives and negatives. Number one challenge I have in discovery calls with huge brands, with small brands, it’s like we cannot say we don’t do this or we don’t do this well. So first of all, to be authentic, you have to kind of own yourself… Being very open about negatives and positives, that is going to filter out the audience quite a bit. – Bart

Q: How can data-driven insights like GEO data help tailor healthcare services to individual needs?

A: If I’m looking for superfoods, if I’m looking for a DNA test, if I’m looking for nutritional powders, I will do research. Like a lot of research… That is where Reddit is massive. And when Google SG launched two years ago, number one vertical until today is health… So I think for both of these cases, getting deep into customer insights is critical because when you build a product in health space that is not meeting this validation points… your product is going to go south. – Bart

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