Case Study · Digital Marketing
How a Digital Marketing Agency Grew AI Search Presence From 0% to 9.6% in One Month
AEO & GEO Growth for a European Digital Marketing Agency
SERVICES
AEO & GEO Monitoring · Technical GEO · Content Strategy · Website & Content Optimisation · Competitor & Source Analysis · External Visibility · AEO / GEO Strategy
CLIENT
Digital Marketing Agency
INDUSTRY
Digital Marketing
MARKET
Europe
PROGRAMME
Ongoing
Results at a Glance
0% → 9.6%
Presence across the monitored prompt set in one month.
0 → 3 models
The agency expanded from no presence across the target AI models to all three.
New website launched
A new website was built around stronger service, industry and AI search coverage.
The Challenge
The client is a European digital marketing agency operating in a competitive market with established agencies already appearing regularly in AI-generated recommendations.
The first monitoring found the agency in 0% of the monitored prompts. It did not appear through any of the three target AI models, while competitors were being recommended across a much wider range of relevant service, agency-selection and industry queries.
The project focused on understanding what was limiting that visibility and improving the areas that could influence it: launching a new website with a stronger technical and content foundation, expanding service and industry coverage, developing content and building external presence.
The Baseline
The initial monitoring tracked the agency and its competitors across the target AI models.
The analysis covered:
- Brand mentions and recommendations.
- Competitor visibility.
- Queries where other agencies appeared instead.
- Pages and sources used in AI answers.
- Service and industry coverage on the website.
- Third-party sources supporting recommendations.
- AI crawler access.
- Structured data and entity signals.
- Indexability and website structure.
The first monitoring found the agency in 0% of the monitored prompts, with no mentions across the three target models.
This gave our team a baseline for identifying where the gaps were and deciding which parts of the website and wider digital presence needed to change first.
What Was Done
1
Ran repeated AEO / GEO monitoring
The same core prompt set was monitored across three target AI models. The monitoring tracked where the agency appeared, which competitors were recommended instead, which types of queries generated visibility and which sources were used in the answers. Each round was compared with the previous one so changes could be measured over time.
2
Launched a new website
A new website was launched to create a stronger foundation for the agency's AI search visibility. The new site introduced an improved website structure and provided a stronger foundation for the agency's service, industry and editorial content, as well as for the technical GEO and ongoing content work.
3
Completed technical GEO work across the website
The technical work focused on making the website easier for AI systems to access, understand and use as a source. The work covered AI crawler access and site discoverability, sitemap and indexability setup, structured data across the website, website architecture and page structure, and technical checks affecting content accessibility and extraction. The technical work ran alongside the content and external visibility work throughout the project.
4
Expanded service and industry coverage
New pages were developed around priority services, industries and audience needs identified through the monitoring. Existing pages were also reviewed and expanded where the agency had relevant expertise but was not appearing in AI answers. The goal was to give AI systems more specific pages to retrieve instead of depending on a small number of general website pages.
5
Developed new editorial content
The content strategy was built around gaps found in the monitoring. 22 new articles were created for questions and topics where competitors were already appearing or where the agency needed stronger supporting content. 17 existing articles were also updated when monitoring showed an opportunity to improve coverage without creating another similar page.
6
Analysed competitors and the sources behind their visibility
Our team analysed 36 competitor agencies appearing in the answers, looking beyond mention counts to understand why particular agencies were being recommended. This included the pages associated with their recommendations and 243 third-party sources being used alongside them. The analysis helped separate gaps that could be addressed on the client's own website from those that required stronger external visibility.
7
Worked on external visibility
The programme also included the agency's presence outside its own website. The work included placements across 12 relevant cited platforms with 21 pieces of informational content and news releases, presence in recommendation services and targeted activity on Reddit. This was developed alongside the owned-content work because competitor analysis showed that AI recommendations were not based on company websites alone.
8
Used each monitoring round to update the strategy
The strategy continued to change as new monitoring data became available. Our team used each monitoring round to identify which topics were gaining visibility, where the agency was still missing and which pages or sources needed more work. This allowed technical, content and external work to be prioritised around measured gaps rather than a fixed checklist.
HIGH LEVEL OUTLOOK
From 0% to 9.6% in One Month
The first monitoring found the digital marketing agency in 0% of the monitored prompts.
At that point, it was not being mentioned by any of the three target AI models.
Over the following month, work continued across the new website, technical GEO, website and content optimisation, competitor and source analysis and external visibility.
In the next monitoring round, three weeks later, the agency appeared in 9.6% of the monitored prompts.
It was also mentioned across all three target AI models.
The programme is ongoing, so this represents the change between the initial and latest monitoring rounds with the final result still ahead.
Interim Results
The agency reached 9.6% presence across the monitored prompt set, up from 0%, and expanded from 0/3 to 3/3 target AI models.
The new visibility included relevant service and industry query types.
The new website, expanded content coverage, technical GEO work and external placements strengthened both the agency's owned presence and the third-party signals supporting its visibility in AI search.
The programme is ongoing, with the latest results now being used as the new baseline for the next round of technical, content and external visibility work, as well as three more models being included.
Current Focus
The current focus is on increasing visibility across the remaining priority service and industry queries, strengthening presence across relevant third-party sources and continuing technical and content improvements based on each monitoring round.
In marketing since 2009. In AI search since it became a category.
Our team has worked with international brands across SaaS, e-commerce, fintech and professional services for over fifteen years, originally as ContActive Tech Communications.
Today, that same senior team applies its strategic and technical expertise to answer engine optimisation, generative engine optimisation, and AI search visibility.
If AEO and GEO are on your radar, we would be glad to talk.