AI search is now part of the buyer journey. Here's how in-house marketing teams can implement AEO alongside their existing SEO and content programs.
43% of B2B buyers now use AI assistants to research software before visiting a vendor's website. That number was near zero three years ago. The buyer journey has added a new channel — AI research — that sits between awareness and your website visit.
Traditional SEO gets you found when buyers search Google. AEO gets you recommended when buyers ask AI. The brands missing from AI answers are losing consideration before they ever get a chance to pitch.
The good news: AI-referred visitors convert at 3× the rate of organic search visitors. These are buyers who have already done their AI research and are arriving with high intent. [MentionShare](/features/mentionshare) is the metric that quantifies how much of this high-intent traffic you could be capturing.
AEO is not a replacement for SEO — it's a complementary channel that targets a different moment in the buyer journey:
| Channel | When it matters | Primary metric |
|---|---|---|
| SEO | Buyer searches Google | Keyword rankings, organic traffic |
| AEO | Buyer asks AI for recommendations | MentionShare score |
| Paid | Buyer sees targeted ads | CPL, ROAS |
The content team writes the FAQ blocks and answer paragraphs. The SEO team adds structured data and fixes technical signals. Demand gen uses MentionShare data for attribution reporting. Everyone can point to the same rising metric.
For a deeper look at channel interaction, read [AEO vs SEO](/blog/aeo-vs-seo).
Week 1 — Baseline scan. Set up TrueCite, add your 20 target buyer-intent prompts, run your first scan. Your baseline [MentionShare](/features/mentionshare) score tells you where you stand across each AI engine. [Start your baseline scan](/sign-up).
Week 2 — First fix sprint. Identify the 5 prompts with the highest commercial intent where AI is ignoring you. Use the [Fix Generator](/features/fix-generator) to generate FAQ blocks and JSON-LD schema for each. These go to your web team for implementation.
Week 3 — Publish and connect. Publish the 5 fixes. Connect Google Analytics 4 to TrueCite to measure AI-referred traffic alongside MentionShare. This closes the loop from AI visibility to actual website visits.
Week 4 — Rescan and report. Run a new scan. Show leadership the MentionShare delta. Even a 3–5% improvement in week 4 demonstrates the approach is working and sets the stage for a longer program.
Monthly cadence: Repeat for the next 5 prompts. Publish fixes, measure, report. Most teams reach 30–40% MentionShare within 90 days of consistent execution.
MentionShare is uniquely suited for executive reporting because it's a single, trackable percentage that tells a clear story:
Supplement with GA4 data: "AI-referred demos grew 67% after AEO fixes." Pipeline attribution through the AI channel, tied to your standard revenue reporting, turns AEO from a marketing experiment into a board-level growth channel.
TrueCite's Starter plan is $89/month — less than the cost of a single backlink placement. The content implementation time is 2–4 hours per month for a team already doing SEO. ROI is measurable in 4–8 weeks. For companies doing $1M+ ARR, even a 5% improvement in demo conversion from AI-referred traffic pays for the tool many times over.
[Add AEO to your marketing program today](/sign-up) — Starter and Pro plans include a 7-day free trial.