For over a decade, paid media like Google Ads and organic search (SEO) have been the major marketing channels for driving B2B SaaS growth. Industry benchmarks show that year over year paid media is getting more expensive and driving profitable growth is becoming a challenge.
G2’s recent AI Search Insight report shows that 51% of b2b software buying decisions now start inside AI search systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude.
B2B SaaS marketing teams focus shifts from metrics such as search impressions and clicks to increase visibility in AI search via Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).
Why GEO Matters for B2B SaaS
Instead of visiting a search engine like Google and searching for “best ERP software”, b2b software buyers ask AI assistants:
- “What is the best ERP software for ecommerce businesses?”
- “Which bookkeeping tools integrate with Shopify?”
- “What are the top alternatives to Magento?”
As discovery moves into chat interfaces, B2B SaaS marketing teams should start evaluating how their brand is being interpreted and summarized by AI tools.
Here are some best practices B2B SaaS marketing teams are already applying AEO and GEO.
Measuring AI Visibility
As Peter Drucker said: “You can’t improve what you don’t measure.”
Analyze which AI systems reference your brand and measure its visibility relative to competitors. Monitor queries that align with your product space, ideal customer profile, and competitive landscape.
Tools like PromptWatch and Searchable makes it easy to track your brand’s visibility in AI chatbots like ChatGPT.
Bridging content gaps in AI answers
A synonym for GEO is also AEO (Answer Engine Optimization). Being cited by AI assistants is a good starting point. But winning the answer seals the deal.
69% of software buyers G2 polled said that “an AI chatbot led them to select a different software vendor than initially planned.“
If you want to turn AI search to a growth channel as a B2B SaaS, you have to make sure that you provide the answer to your potential buyer’s questions.
- Look for prompts containing queries starting with “how, what, why, best, vs, is, can, should”. Example: “Best alternatives to HubSpot” or “affordable ERP software”.
- Create comparison pages and informational content matching the query intent.
Before starting with content creation, I would also recommend taking Surfer’s “AI Search Optimization Masterclass” (free).
Create citeable Answer Blocks
AI assistants crawl pages in a different manner than traditional search engines like Google and Bing.
AI engines don’t read your whole article. They pull one paragraph, maybe 60-80 words ,and ignore the rest of your written content. Write your content structured, short and crispy focusing on facts and citeable explantions and don’t think in keywords.
Measure commercial impact from traffic via AI assistants
In this economic climate, B2B SaaS marketing teams need to figure out how to do more with less. Commercial results matter more than ever. Therefore, measure the impact of AI visibility and traffic precisely.
Measure and report following metrics and KPIs:
- Which AI assistants brings in the most traffic?
- On which pages do visitors from AI land and how much time do they spend on these pages?
- Is there a correlation between signups, opportunites and recurring revenue with AI search visibility trends?
GEO/AEO as an ongoing process
B2B SaaS marketing teams mastering AI Search integrate AEO/GEO continiously into their marketing operations by:
- Monitoring relevant queries and brand mentions
- Analyzing answer gaps and competitor visibility
- Creating AEO content from insights
- Measuring AI visibility and connecting them to commercial outcomes.
Next steps
Do you want to turn GEO into your next growth lever? Go beyond tracking your brand’s visibility. Track your entire category.
Integrate AI discoverability to your go-to-market (GTM) efforts because it is one of the most influential touchpoints in your b2b buyer’s journey.