Most marketers I talk to are paralyzed by this. They see AI as a threat to their traffic, their MQLs, their entire funnel. They're not wrong to worry. But they're asking the wrong question. The question isn't "how do I get my traffic back?" It's "how do I get cited when AI answers the question?"
I spent a decade optimizing for clicks.
Every funnel, every landing page, every ad campaign was built around one thing: getting people to my website. Track the click, measure the conversion, optimize the CAC.
Then AI platforms started answering questions without sending anyone anywhere.
ChatGPT hit 5 billion visits per month. Perplexity grew 243% year over year. Nearly 60% of Google searches now end without a click.
Your content still exists. People just aren't visiting it anymore.
Most marketers I talk to are paralyzed by this.
They see AI as a threat to their traffic, their MQLs, their entire funnel. They're not wrong to worry. But they're asking the wrong question.
The question isn't "how do I get my traffic back?"
It's "how do I get cited when AI answers the question?"
This is LLM seeding. And you have about six months before everyone else figures it out.
Here's what most people don't realize.
Almost 90% of ChatGPT citations come from positions 21+ in traditional Google rankings. That's page three, page four, sometimes deeper.
Your competitor ranking number one for "SaaS marketing strategy" might never get cited. But your detailed comparison table buried on page four? AI platforms love that.
The game changed. The rules didn't.
Structured content wins. Lists, tables, clear comparisons, first-hand data. AI can parse it, extract it, reference it.
Generic SEO content designed to rank? It gets ignored.
When a SaaS CMO asks me "how do we track AI citations?" I tell them the truth.
You become the tool yourself.
There are no perfect dashboards yet. No automated reports. You go into ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini. You ask the questions your target audience asks. You document where you show up and where you don't.
Once a week, test your top 10-15 questions. Track unlinked mentions. Watch referral traffic patterns.
It's manual. It's tedious. It's the only way that works right now.
But here's what I've noticed in that testing: structured content with specifics gets cited. Comparison tables, bullet points, concrete numbers from real cases.
Long-form thought leadership that could have been written by anyone? Never cited.
This is where it gets interesting for performance marketers.
There's no direct conversion path when AI cites you. No click to track. No form to fill out. No MQL to pass to sales.
But something more valuable happens.
When ChatGPT cites your brand three times before someone ever visits your website, they don't land as a cold lead. They land pre-warmed. They already know you. They already trust you.
That's funnel preparation.
And AI search visitors convert 4.4x better than traditional users. Lower CAC. Higher conversion rates. Better CLV.
You're not losing the funnel. You're warming leads before they enter it.
Here's the tension.
For years, I preached control. Everything on your website. Everything behind a lead magnet. Every click trackable.
LLM seeding requires the opposite.
AI platforms crawl Medium, Reddit, Quora, industry publications. If your best content only lives on your website, you're limiting your citation chances massively.
So you give content away. No gate. No form. No direct lead capture.
You get brand authority instead.
The people who read your content on Medium and find it valuable? They'll search for you. They'll look you up on LinkedIn. That's a different funnel. Not direct opt-in, but brand-driven pull.
And people who actively search for you convert better than people you lured with a lead magnet.
It's not either-or. Owned content for the funnel. Distributed content for authority. Two different playgrounds, two different goals.
In 12 months, your competitors will show up in AI answers and you won't.
Because you kept everything gated. Because you optimized for MQLs that look good in dashboards but don't build authority.
Gated content doesn't get crawled by AI. It extracts emails from people already interested. But it doesn't create that interest in the first place.
The companies that win will be the ones sharing knowledge publicly right now. Answering questions on Reddit. Publishing on Medium. Getting cited in AI responses.
This is SEO 2015 all over again.
Back then, people who started early built authority that still dominates today. The ones who waited tried to catch up with mass-produced content. Keyword stuffing. Thin articles. No real expertise.
They lost.
The same pattern is playing out now. Except faster.
SEO had years to develop. LLM seeding has months. And AI platforms are smarter. They spot generic content immediately.
Quality over quantity wins. But you need to start now.
I'm being honest here. I'm early in this journey too.
I test manually whether my content shows up in AI answers. And it doesn't happen as often as I want yet.
So here's my experiment.
I'm writing 5-7 highly structured articles solving specific SaaS marketing problems. Clear comparison tables. Bullet points. Concrete numbers from client work.
"VSL Funnel vs. Webinar Funnel for SaaS: Conversion Rates, CAC Impact, and When to Use Each" with exact metrics in a table.
"5 Message-Market-Fit Frameworks I Use for SaaS Clients with Real Results."
Not just LinkedIn posts. Medium articles. Reddit threads in r/SaaS and r/marketing where people ask these exact questions.
Then I test weekly in ChatGPT and Perplexity. "What's the difference between VSL and Webinar funnels for SaaS?" I document whether my content appears.
The goal isn't mass. It's highly citable, authoritative content that AI platforms see as the best answer.
If 2-3 pieces get cited regularly, I have proof of concept. Then I scale.
You don't have to choose between LLM seeding and performance marketing.
You do both. Your ads perform better when people already recognize your name. Your funnel converts better when leads come in warm.
Invest 10-20% of your content budget. Test parallel. Track manually for three months.
Then look at whether leads who already knew your brand convert better.
Spoiler: they will.
But your competitors are waking up. In six months, everyone will be fighting for AI citations. The authority will already be built elsewhere.
The window is closing.
Start planting seeds now. You'll harvest the results for years.
Schedule a demo call to uncover how our elevize Conversion Engineering™ turns your funnel into a
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