Marketing — Build How People Discover You

✦ MARKETING · PILLAR 02

AI-first growth marketing is marketing designed alongside the digital experience rather than after it, across three channels at once: traditional search, AI search and the human channels your buyers already trust. It starts before the website exists, because the research into what buyers search for, ask AI systems and need to see before they trust you is what the website should be built around. And it’s measured to pipeline and revenue, not to traffic.

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[01]WHAT CHANGED

Discovery now happens in three places, and most marketing only covers one

For twenty years, discovery meant Google. You ranked, they clicked, they arrived. Marketing was built around that sequence.

In 2026, three things are true at once.

50%

AI SYSTEMS BUILD THE SHORTLIST

Half of B2B software buyers now start their research with an AI chatbot more often than with Google, up from 29% a year earlier. Seven in ten chose a different vendor than they planned because of what the AI told them. One in three bought from a company they’d never heard of.

G2, 2026 BUYER BEHAVIOR REPORT

96%

GOOGLE STILL SENDS THE TRAFFIC

AI search accounts for under 2% of B2B search sessions; organic search is still above 96%. Anyone telling you Google is finished is selling something.

OCTANE11, Q2 2026

24×

AI VISITORS ARE WORTH FAR MORE

In one analysis of B2B SaaS sites, AI-referred visitors were 0.5% of sessions and 12% of signups, because they arrive already researched. And the numbers are undercounted: a large share of AI referrals land in analytics as "Direct" because the referrer is stripped.

AHREFS, 2026

✦ THE BUYER JOURNEY, REWIRED

OLD

Search→Click→Website→Enquiry

NOW

AI answer→Shortlist→Search to verify→Website→Reviews→Enquiry

So the shortlist is formed in AI, the traffic comes from Google, and the conversion happens on a website that has to satisfy both. Marketing that only optimises one of these is leaving the other two to chance.

[02]SEO AND GEO

SEO vs GEO: what’s the difference, and do you need both?

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the work of being found and ranked by Google and other search engines. Generative engine optimisation (GEO), sometimes called AEO or AI search optimisation, is the work of being understood, trusted and cited by AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google’s AI Mode when they answer a buyer’s question.

They share foundations. Both reward clear structure, real expertise and trustworthy sources. But they reward different things on top of that, and strong rankings don’t guarantee AI citations: several studies put the overlap between Google’s top ten and AI-cited sources well below 20%.

✦ FIG. 02 / TWO ENGINES, ONE DISCIPLINE

	SEO	GEO
Goal	Rank on the results page	Be cited or recommended in the answer
Unit of success	Position for a keyword	Presence and accuracy in a response to a prompt
What it rewards	Relevance, authority, technical health, links	Clear entity definition, direct answers, statistics with sources, consistency across the web
Content shape	Comprehensive pages, topic clusters	Self-contained paragraphs, definitions, tables, FAQs
Trust signals	Backlinks, domain authority	Reviews, directories, third-party mentions, structured data
Measurement	Rankings, clicks, Search Console	Citation share, brand mentions in AI answers, AI-referred sessions
Where it’s won	Your website	Your website plus everything else the web says about you

You need both. The foundation is shared, so doing them together is cheaper than doing them separately, and a site built with both in mind from the start avoids rebuilding content later. We do them as one discipline.

[03]WHY MARKETING COMES BEFORE DEVELOPMENT

What marketing knows that the website needs

Here’s what happens when marketing research is done before the website is designed.

The people who’ll be responsible for traffic and conversion sit down first and work out: who the buyer is, what they type into Google, what they ask an AI, what objections they have, what proof they need, what they compare you against, and what they do when they’re ready. That research produces a list of questions the website has to answer, in the buyer’s language, in the order the buyer asks them.

The website is then designed around that list. Every page has a question to answer and an action to prompt. Content is structured so both Google and AI systems can parse it. The CRM is wired in so marketing can see which page produced which lead.

When marketing is hired after the website ships, none of this is available. The agency inherits a sitemap somebody guessed at, sends traffic to pages that weren’t built to convert, and spends the first six months recommending changes to a site the client just paid for.

That’s why marketing sits in stages 01 and 02 of our method, before a wireframe exists.

[04]WHAT WE DO

Marketing work that connects to the rest of the system

✦ FIG. 03 / MEASURED TO PIPELINE, NOT TRAFFIC

Marketing strategy

Who you’re selling to, how they’ll discover you, what they need to see, and how it’s measured. Written alongside the brand, digital and technology strategies so they agree. Includes channel priorities and a budget logic, not a wish list.

SEO

Technical foundations, content architecture, on-page optimisation, and the ongoing content and authority work that earns rankings. Built into the website from stage 03, not retrofitted.

GEO / AI search visibility

Making the business understood, trusted and cited by AI systems. Entity clarity across the web, structured content with direct answers, statistics with named sources, schema markup, and the third-party trust signals AI systems weigh. Plus monitoring: we track how your brand appears in AI answers across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude, and how that changes.

Content

Content that answers real buyer questions, in your voice, with an original point of view. We use AI for research, structure and first drafts; a person with judgement writes, edits and signs off. We don’t publish at volume for its own sake, because neither Google nor AI systems reward that any more.

Performance marketing

Google Ads, LinkedIn, Meta and programmatic where they fit the buyer and the budget. Campaigns land on pages built to convert, and every lead is traced in the CRM. Optimised to cost per qualified opportunity, not cost per click.

Account-based marketing

For businesses selling to a definable list of accounts. Target account selection, personalised content and outreach, LinkedIn and email orchestration, and sales alignment. Works best when the CRM and the website are already connected.

Social

LinkedIn for most B2B businesses; other platforms where the audience is. Executive voice and thought leadership over brand announcements. Part of the third-party trust layer AI systems draw on.

Conversion rate optimisation

Continuous work on the paths from visit to enquiry to sale. Page testing, form design, calls to action, trust signals, speed. Informed by Clarity and Hotjar recordings, GA4 and CRM data.

Lead generation

The whole system, end to end: discovery, landing, conversion, capture, routing, follow-up. Measured as qualified pipeline, not form fills.

Marketing automation

Nurture sequences, lead scoring, lifecycle emails and sales handoffs in HubSpot, Zoho Campaigns, ActiveCampaign, Brevo or Mailchimp, depending on the business. Designed in stage 06 so it inherits clean data from a properly wired website.

[05]THIRD-PARTY TRUST

Being recommended depends on what other people say about you

AI systems decide what to recommend by cross-checking sources. Your own website is one. Reviews, directories, industry listings, LinkedIn, press, community discussions and what your customers say elsewhere are the others. When those agree, the AI is confident. When they’re thin or contradictory, it hedges or moves on to a competitor with a cleaner footprint.

Most businesses have never mapped where trust lives in their category. We do it in stage 01, then build a plan to be present there: review generation with real customers, directory and listing accuracy, industry platforms, partnership mentions, and the content that gets your business referenced by others.

This overlaps with the Brand pillar’s authority work on purpose. It’s the same layer, seen from two sides.

[06]TRACK RECORD

Marketing systems we’ve built

CASE 01

Global IT services, North American market

SITUATION

A fragmented brand and a stalling pipeline in the US. Acquisition costs rising, lead quality inconsistent, no single view of what marketing was producing.

WHAT WE DID

Rebuilt the marketing function as one system. SEO and high-intent content aimed at the questions buyers actually asked. Automated nurturing in HubSpot tied to the sales pipeline. The website transformed as part of the work, with content and conversion paths designed around the research. Brand positioning sharpened so every channel said the same thing.

WHAT CHANGED

Qualified B2B opportunities grew 2.5× within twelve months. Acquisition costs fell as the system compounded, because the content kept working after the spend stopped.

CASE 02

IT services provider, global markets

SITUATION

No marketing function. A growing services business with niche offerings and no plan for taking them to market.

WHAT WE DID

Built marketing operations from zero. Go-to-market playbooks for each niche service. CRM-driven lead nurturing. A thought-leadership presence on LinkedIn for the leadership team. Campaign measurement that tied activity to opportunities.

WHAT CHANGED

A repeatable, measurable marketing engine where none had existed, and a leadership team that could see what was working.

Client names are withheld at their request. Scope and results are available in a discovery call.

[07]SIGNS YOU NEED THIS

Six signs your marketing is working against your website

Your agency’s first recommendation was to redesign the site they were hired to drive traffic to.

You can’t say which marketing activity produced your last ten customers.

You rank for keywords but don’t appear when someone asks an AI assistant about your category.

Campaign traffic lands on the homepage because there’s nowhere better to send it.

Marketing and sales use different definitions of a lead, and different systems to track them.

Content is being produced on a schedule, but nobody can say what question each piece answers.

→ If three or more apply, the assessment will show it in your Discoverability score.

[08]FAQ

Questions about marketing

Generative engine optimisation: making your business understood, trusted and cited by AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Mode. It shares foundations with SEO but rewards clear entity definition, direct answers, sourced statistics and consistency across the web.

Yes, because AI’s influence happens before the click. Buyers form shortlists in AI answers, then search Google to verify. Small traffic share, large influence on who gets considered. And the visitors who do arrive from AI convert at a much higher rate.

Be clearly defined as an entity everywhere you appear. Publish content that answers buyer questions directly, with statistics and sources. Build third-party trust through reviews and listings. Use structured data. Then monitor how you’re described and correct what’s wrong.

We can, but we’ll first check whether the pages those ads land on were built to convert. If they weren’t, ad spend is expensive evidence of a website problem. The assessment shows that before you spend.

HubSpot, Zoho, Salesforce, Pipedrive and Freshsales for CRM. HubSpot, Zoho Campaigns, ActiveCampaign, Brevo and Mailchimp for automation. GA4, Tag Manager, Search Console, Looker Studio, Clarity and Hotjar for measurement. Plus AI visibility tracking. We pick per business.

Paid channels produce data in weeks. SEO and GEO take three to six months to build and then compound. Content authority takes longer and lasts longer. We set expectations per channel in the strategy, in writing.

Our deepest experience is B2B. The method applies wherever buyers research before they buy, which is most categories now. Tell us about your business in the discovery call and we’ll say honestly whether we’re the right fit.

It depends on channels, scope and where you’re starting from. The assessment and discovery call are free. Pricing comes with the Growth Blueprint, with channel-by-channel logic you can see.

✦ NEXT STEP

Find out how discoverable you are, across Google and AI

The assessment scores your Discoverability alongside four other dimensions, in 5–7 minutes.