Hi all!

We got your feedback on our LinkedIn poll, so here’s our take on tracking AI Visibility:

Tracking your visibility on AI platforms takes some sleuthing and, unfortunately, there is not yet a single source of truth. Here is a list of tracking tools and their limitations… all in one convenient place (you’re welcome:).

Free for all:

• Google Analytics
  Positives: GA4 tracks AI-driven traffic from Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini, ChatGPT and other AI chatbots.
  Negatives: AI Overviews or AI Mode cannot be tracked separately from all Organic Google Search traffic. Also, while you can track sessions and key events like any other session source, you’re not going to see the original prompts the users clicked to get there.

• Bing Webmaster Tools
  Positives: The AI Performance tracker that shows you CoPilot grounding queries used in prompts people used to click to your website and the number of citations gained for pages on your site.
  Negatives: Grounding queries are the shortened phrases the AI used to do its backend search and not the actual prompts entered, so they are directional at best. Bing Webmaster Tools does not show actual clicks on citations so you only have a sense of citations “impressions”.

• Temporary Chat Prompting
  Positives: Certain AI chatbots can give you a snapshot of example responses, without the bias of previous conversations. See rules on Perplexity Incognito Mode, ChatGPT Temporary Chat, and Claude Incognito Chats. (Note that there are data retention periods for safety purposes, but they shouldn’t influence future chats.)
  Negatives: It is unconfirmed whether Copilot and Gemini use previous chats to influence temporary chat options. There is no data on the number of times these prompts were used (like we can see with Google’s Keyword Planner for average keyword search volume).

• HubSpot AEO Grader:
  Positives: Analyze your presence on ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini while seeing competitive and perceptive “topical” data.
  Negatives: AI Overviews, AI Mode, Claude, and other AI chatbots are not included in the analysis.

Paid Options:

• Answer the Public
  Positives: Known for long-tail traditional search query research, ATP has a newer AI Model research feature to show you how people are prompting AI bots around specific topics.
  Negatives: The charts are pretty, but this is another directional tool as there is no way to gauge the volume of usage for the suggested prompts.

• Moz
  Positives: The new AI Visibility feature (requires a medium subscription plan) may be interesting as it advances out of Beta. Their Prompt Suggestion and True Competing Content features are great places to research topics for content and how your content is faring from search and AI chatbot perspective, respectively.
  Negatives: We won’t know until the Beta rolls out.

How We Use Them:

Our team integrates the Google Analytics AI-Source traffic data into our dashboards. Then, once a month, the Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance feature provides insight on which pages are being cited in Copilot and the grounding query topics that are driving clicks. Temporary chat prompting shows how a brand performs in specific, high-value prompts. To get a zoomed out perspective of how a brand is viewed by AI chatbots, HubSpot AEO Grader offers generalized insights. Answer the Public gives great ideas on prompts that can be helpful for fueling future content creation and refreshing previously published content. Moz features are also great directional tools to further enhance your content creation strategy against competitors.

Follow to stay tuned for the next LinkedIn poll, so we can answer your burning SEO/SAIO/digital marketing queries!

• We got a Google Spam update — the first of 2026! It’s relatively new, and you can peek at your rankings to see if you’ve been affected. If you’re following white-hat SEO best practices and releasing relevant content, you should be good, fam. ✌🏼
  • Also, we’ll keep you posted on the March 2026 Core Update that’s going live during the next 2 weeks.

• 🎥 OpenAI is shutting down ChatGPT’s video generator, Sora, and thus its $1b content partnership with Disney. As OpenAI has still yet to make a profit, Sora’s struggle with copyright violations, the public distaste of AI deep fakes, and vast competition influenced the decision.

• Fan-out queries tell us how people and Google/AI chatbots may be looking for your brand. Moz labels 10 fan-out query types to help with prompt research.

• Is AI ruining the job market? We need to flip that: how can AI enhance the job market? Catch this enlightening conversation between Erin McGoff, career advice creator, and LinkedIn CEO Ryan Rolansky.

• Speaking of using AI to enhance, let’s discuss using GenAI in high-trust industries (think healthcare, legal, etc.). Alexander Amatus in Marketing Profs lays the steps for use without jeopardizing trust:
  • Clearly deciding AI’s uses
  • Defining non-negotiables to AI
  • Creating content workflows with AI to upskill marketers
  • Setting boundaries with what AI can and can’t do/access

• It’s a 🎶”tale as old as time” (if you only go back to the 80s), but it is still lingering and languishing. What is it? The Sales vs. Marketing silo mentality. Only 56% of companies say they feel highly aligned across functions. Understand the challenges and solutions for those yearning for alignment via this Unbounce survey, MarketCharts visual, and Marc’s LinkedIn Musing.

• It’s not just Sales and Marketing either. Here’s a story about “Why CMOs struggle and how aligning with CFOs changes everything.” Bottom line: success lies in getting agreement on measurement values and the analytics attribution to prove it. It’s not the easiest of tasks, but improving the lines of communication is a good start.

Building supportive, stable communities by helping families build and improve their homes is what Habitat for Humanity is all about. Learn more, and consider a team project for your company that can help your community too!

“Perfectionism kills curiosity by telling us that we have to know everything or we risk looking “less than.” Perfectionism tells us that our mistakes and failures are personal defects, so we either avoid trying new things or we barely recover every time we inevitably fall short.”

~ Brené Brown Atlas of the Heart

You are more than your knowledge, your mistakes, your failures; you are the phoenix that rises from them to be the human you are.

Keep sparkling ✨

Natalie

Because we all deserve to laugh, here’s one of my favorite memes for ya.

We all know an adult like this in our lives — this kid’s performance 10/10.

Heyo,

I am still in the boat that we can trust AI… with a human babysitter. 

And the news is constantly reiterating this point. Catch the specifics below. ⬇️

• Prompt research: the next layer of SEO and GEO. SEL shares some insights on how prompt research can identify opportunities for new content with intent-based clustering to help map your current content strategy.

• Most consumers use AI, but few fully trust it — only 13% according to a MarTech study. Sorted into four AI personas: Enthusiasts, Evaluators, Skeptics, and Holdouts. Knowing the general buckets in which your audience falls can determine SAIO strategy.

• If you’re thinking about jumping on the mass-produced, AI content bandwagon, please read this article first: “You’re Not Scaling Content. You’re Scaling Disappointment.” It includes a historical timeline of how volume-content plays have consistently failed for one basic reason: the “qualitative wall.” Quality always matters over quantity. A-L-W-A-Y-S.

• Google is testing regenerating page titles through AI in traditional search results. This could be a real eeeek if the new title doesn’t accurately represent what the article is about. If that’s the case, Google could be causing clickbait, something it has been actively fighting against with each Google Core Update.

• Meta’s content moderators are being replaced by AI. As there weren’t enough human moderators to the amount of flagged content, this makes sense in a way. This does not come without risks, as a rogue AI agent exposed sensitive Meta employee data. I’m curious to see how human oversight will be implemented, because it seems we still need that. 

• Meta’s Horizon Worlds, their virtual reality social network, is shutting down on VR to be just a standalone mobile app. It seems Meta is shifting focus from the metaverse to AI. Honestly, it may have been too early to introduce Ready Player One, sci-fi concepts and may stay a dream for when VR is more readily used and available.

Habitat loss is the single largest threat to birds. For 30 years, the American Bird Conservancy has been championing the bird conservation movement throughout the Americas. They innovate and build on rapid advancements in science to halt extinctions, protect habitats, eliminate threats, and build capacity for bird conservation. Check them out: American Bird Conservatory.

Flow state – complete immersion in the moment.

If I could sum up total presentness, it would be in the band Jungle’s music videos.

From each coordinated dancer to the camera person running around to get it all in one take — they are all completely engrossed in their art.

What things in your life cause you to forget time and live mindfully? And can you do more of them?

For your viewing and listening pleasure: Busy Earnin’, Keep Moving, & Heavy California.

Sending good vibes your way, ✌🏼

Natalie

In case you’re a new Jungle fan, find more funky fun music here!

Hi all –

Ready yourself for Perceptive Marketer: Friday Edition. 😎 

*Commence playing “Oh Yeah” by Yello.*

• Remember when you could look at the queries that ChatGPT used to generate its response? Well, it looks like ChatGPT queries are no longer visible. 😢 While sad, at least you can still see grounding queries in Bing Webmaster Tools through the AI Performance tab.

• ChatGPT Ads 📢: You can sign up online to stay informed as they expand their advertising capabilities.

• YouTube is the 2nd biggest Social Media source used by AI (next to Reddit) according to Otterly AI. What videos are getting cited? Long-form videos with timestamps!

• Curious how Google Search & Discover pick images for thumbnails? Be clear in schema markup and use meta tag best practices to make sure the best images are selected! More here.

• What could you do with ✌🏾 SEO Vibe Coding ✌️? Hreflang matching, content decay, find related pages to link. Moz gives a top-level, and here’s a step-by-step example.

• Best article title I’ve seen in a while: “The Oz Paradigm: Why AI Still Needs a Human Behind the Curtain”. Y’all know I’ve been on Team Human for a while. Steve Bevilacqua’s article reminds us that AI still makes mistakes and doesn’t produce new ideas as it only predicts the best response to your prompt.

• Now, seemingly contradictory to the previous article… here are over 70 AI prompts for social media. Why? Because yes, you can still USE AI but just be wary about letting it do it all without human review.

• Three strikes —  your site is out! ⚾ Nothing makes a Google Ads marketer’s heart race like a warning or *gulps* a suspension. Here’s a case study from SEL on appealing a strike if you are not violating policies.

• Captions in Instagram posts??? *jaw drop 😲* Yes, it’s a test for paying subscribers. Will it increase the chance you’ll subscribe to Meta Verified?

Conserve Land. Combat climate change. Build vibrant communities. The Conservation Fund is working on all these through its comprehensive programs. They’ve protected over 9 million acres of land and water nationwide since 1985. Check out their mission, their success, and how you can help.

Let’s put on our spectacles for this quote examination: 🧐

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

It’s okay to look up from your desk. It’s okay to take a walk on an early spring day. It’s okay to leave the phone in the car when you’re out with friends. In fact, these things should be encouraged.

Life is worth the pause to acknowledge it.

Happy Spring! 🌷

Natalie

Pssh, I am sure you got the references, but here’s a few hints:

Hint.

The dead giveaway.

Your favorite digital marketing newsletter with a mindful twist has arrived!

You have permission to get pumped!

• AI Recommendation POISONING? 😲 AKA a new SAIO black-hat technique — it’s when “an external actor injects unauthorized instructions or “facts” into an AI assistant’s memory. Once poisoned, the AI treats these injected instructions as legitimate user preferences, influencing future responses,” as Microsoft wrote. Because Microsoft wrote that, it means all the major search/AI platforms are catching on and it won’t work much longer.

• If you are using AI to create your content, you may be falling into a “sameness” trap that won’t differentiate your content enough to gain competitive visibility advantages in SEO and AI. How to make your content stand out in the age of AI explains this issue in greater detail and offers solutions that may not sound new. One of the solutions we leverage is “refresh before you create”. Even small adjustments to existing content can attract reindexing by search engines and AI crawlers to improve visibility!

• Updates on the ChatGPT Ads test from SEL (originally from Ashley Fletcher’s LinkedIn post):
  • Note that ChatGPT ads are being piloted with a select group of brands and are not available to everyone yet (ChatGPT statement).
  • Placements seemed to fire on the first queries.
  • Ads appeared on simple prompts with strong commercial intent such as “I need to buy a new phone.”
  • Brands appearing in this test included Best Buy, Enterprise, Expedia, and Pottery Barn.

• “Most people will agree that the best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing.” That’s the magic of well-written copy, according to VP of Corporate Marketing at Later, Kira Klaas. In this piece, she shares some ingenious copy from campaigns and even microcopy that connects, engages and entertains!

• In that vein, Cyndi Zaweski breaks down the art of storytelling content for brands in 3 steps: (1) How to find ideas, (2) The 4 essential must-haves, (3) how to actually write the content. Because people don’t want random facts without context. Stories are the glue that connects the facts and holds your listener’s attention.

• 10 social media myths that need to die. This newsletter post by Jack Appleby mythbusts popular beliefs on Instagram shadowbanning (not real), posting too much (you can’t), hashtags (doesn’t increase reach), and more.

The International Rescue Committee’s goal is to help those affected by conflict and disasters with high-impact and cost-effective solutions. They focus on health, safety, economic wellbeing, education, and empowerment. Learn more about who they are and what they do: The International Rescue Committee.

You are introduced to someone at a meeting, the coffee shop, the gym. The banter’s been friendly, and you look at their face and curse to yourself. How in the course of 3 minutes did I forget their name?

Hot take 🔥: We (not just you) weren’t listening in the first place. The person’s mouth moved — breathing the shape of their name, but our brains weren’t paying attention.

The next time you meet someone new, truly listen when their name is said and repeat it back three times in your conversation with them. Validate you’re listening and make a connection while you’re at it!

Best Wishes ✨

Natalie

Psychology Today tricks to remembering names for name-challenged individuals…

Heyo,

Let’s get down to the digital marketing business. 💼

Are your social posts working *for you*?

Social SEO is becoming increasingly important as AI platforms leverage social signals in citations and social algorithm resets are on the rise. Your content needs to be clearly labeled, so it can be found by both algorithms and people.

Dive in with social media SEO tips to uplevel your social account’s findability: Social SEO in 2026.

• Google’s got a new ROAS-based tool that suggests conversion values to help advertisers bid smarter for new customers. (You may have heard it first from our VP Marc Engelsman.) We love it because it is a reminder of an oft-overlooked metric that every marketer should be using when making budget allocations and assessing results: Life Time Value (LTV). We know it’s not always easy to get alignment on LTV data especially in today’s multi-channel universe. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t at least try to come up with some framework or assessment that will help guide decision-making.

• Reminder: forced indexing through Google Search Console is discouraged, according to John Mueller. Here’s why:
  • Forced indexing is not feasible for large sites with many pages.
  • Again, create good, useful content by following Google’s E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust) or DBE’s one-step-up H-E-E-A-R-T (Human, Experience, Expertise, Authority, Relevance, Trust) acronym. This will keep your content result-worthy.

• Let’s compare organic, top 10 Search Engine Result Page (SERP) URLs vs AI-powered citations overlap rates for the same queries/prompts:
  • There’s an 88% overlap between AI Overviews and top 10 organic SERP URLs beneath.
  • In AI Mode, there’s only a 12% overlap with the top 10 SERP result URLs. (This makes sense as AI Mode searches broader keywords/topics outside just the one typed by the user.)
  • What does this mean? You may be picked up by just AI Mode, AI Overviews, or just the SERP. Our best advice is to use the most popular terminology on your site and add in variations when relevant.

• What’s a T-shaped team? A team that has deep functional expertise (as represented by a T’s vertical bar) and the broad contextual understanding that allows the team to connect the dots across business functions (represented by the T’s horizontal bar). Put it together, and you get the idea behind this article “The AI era needs strategists grounded in expertise and guided by context.” Full disclosure: the author is using this foundation to make a case for agencies that are more likely to be T-shaped than in-house teams. We don’t subscribe to this notion. We do believe that the best teams — internal or external — need strategic thinking to best leverage AI to solve problems and drive success quickly.

• X is open source now, opening up its code every 4 weeks for 7 days. If you know coding and are passionate about X, you could make your mark!

• Big brands who are reacting to cultural moments the right way. My favorite from the list from Sprout Social is Dr. Pepper’s new theme song (partly because I can’t get it out of my head).

The Access Fund is working for sustainable access to climbing areas across the nation while educating others how to advocate. If you’re all about natural-area preservation and vertical adventure, check them out: Access Fund.

My heart was recently widened with a listen to the uplifting musical based on the people of Newfoundland who played host to 7,000 stranded travelers – Come From Away. Based on a true story, the show is a glittering reminder that love and kindness can be found anywhere… even on the edge of the world. It’s also a reminder that kindness starts with us, no matter how big or small.

Warning: If you take a gander and see the show or listen to the soundtrack, have your tissues ready.

Have a wonderful rest of your day,

Natalie

Looking for a way to make a difference with small acts of kindness, here’s a list to get you started. 🙂

Hiya,

Just a few stories for you today, but they’re good ones!

• Bing Beta Bulletin: Bing Webmaster Tools launched a new “AI Performance Dashboard” section in beta last week. It’s a good step forward in AI citations measurement but it comes with some caveats in this early stage:
  • Data is limited to Copilot and Bing Search platforms — no ChatGPT, Perplexity, etc.
  • November 2025 is the farthest the data goes back.
  • Only citation appearances are reported — no clicks, CTR, or Avg. Position. Also, citations may be acknowledgment of sources for the content presented and not necessarily links to that content.
  • It shows which pages on your website were cited.
  • The data shows “Grounding Queries” that Copilot used to retrieve the cited content — not the actual user prompts.
  • Still, we’re very excited by this new tool and are already exploring ways it can be used to track SAIO success as well as guide future optimizations. Here are links to more coverage from Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land, and Search Engine Roundtable.

• It’s been over a week since the Super Bowl. Which ads do you remember, and do you remember the brands the ads were for? Chances are the ad had a celebrity (or more) in it. Tom Fishbourne’s Marketoonist has an amusing take and the accompanying story is a good read about the importance of “fluency” — the accuracy and speed of brand recognition.

• Turning articles into short-form videos sounds like a great idea. (But how do you do it?) Here are some hot tips from SEJ:
  • How-tos, listicles, FAQs and case studies naturally lend themselves to videos.
  • Some tried-and-true hooks include a surprising stat, question, or direct stake.
  • Don’t forget to include related keywords in captions, on-screen text, hashtags, etc. for SEO purposes!

• When you hear the word “elite,” how do you react? What connotation do you glean? In her recent Fortune article, Alexa Beck, co-founder and managing partner of Quick Study, dives into American culture’s paradoxical love-hate relationship with elitism. She gives practical advice on how luxury brands should be marketed to signal status through confidence and authenticity instead of pretense. Luxury brand marketers… you should read this!

Their mission is to “provide free coats to children and adults in need while promoting volunteerism and environmental sustainability.” One Warm Coat is a national nonprofit that holds coat drives and donations to protect people from the cold. They repurpose used outwear to stay as sustainable as possible. We’re sure you’ll warm up to their mission. Visit their website: One Warm Coat.

Scientists still don’t agree on how the sport of curling works.

How and why do the stones curl the opposite direction of their launch? Regular stones don’t do that. Over a hundred years of research cannot explain it.

My perspective? This is modern magic. We’ve explained so many things in our world. We know the sun rises from the rotation of planets. We know deciduous trees unfurl their leaves based on the amount of daylight they receive.

A little mystery is good for us… keeps us wondering… keeps us discovering… keeps us creative. 💭

Keep on swimmin’ y’all!

Natalie

Did you catch the 2 sprinklings of a movie reference throughout the lower half of this edition? 

Well, here are some fun facts about the film!

Hello!

How goes it in the land of digital marketing? So glad you asked!

• How do you know if Google is indexing all the content on a longer page? Google’s John Mueller confirmed you can paste a quote from the bottom of a website page into Google. If a result pops up, you’re in the clear!

• Firefox will let you block GenAI features. Yes, they are still investing in AI features, but they know some people are not on board with AI. That’s a broader lesson in itself — How can you accommodate the people in your brand’s audience who are not thrilled with AI?

• The Feb 2026 Discover Core Update will be prioritizing locally relevant content while reducing clickbait. You may see some fluctuations or you may not… as always, we’ll keep an eye on it.

• LinkedIn posts (not just articles) are ranking on Google now, so keep optimizing your posts, y’all!

• Why isn’t leadership as thrilled with social meda results as you are? Have you tried really telling the story… picking out the most important metrics without being granular… leading with patterns instead of volume? This article from Later is a delightful refreshed take on data storytelling.

• YouTuber Modern Millie released an excellent 2026 social media trends breakdown with predictions. One of which was how the algorithm reset/preferences function may become more widespread. WHAT THIS MEANS: Creators and brands must be clear what their content is and who they are creating it for. How do you do that? *cough cough* Social SEO.

• Super Bowl 2026 Ads. Some were okay. Others were meh. In terms of the social scoreboard, Pepsi got the most mentions. What was your favorite ad?

Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) “promotes affordable housing with supportive services to ensure everyone has a safe home.” They are working to solve homelessness nationwide with supportive housing solutions including offering low-cost loans to affordable housing developers and consulting to communities in launching supportive housing. Check them out: Corporation for Supportive Housing.

AI can’t experience a warm cookie given to a weary traveler at a hotel.

Nor can AI fully understand the impact that moment had on the traveler’s mind for years after.

Generosity goes far for brand loyalty, and leadership has to trust in its power without knowing the exact ROI. Reid Holmes describes this beautifully in their Martech article “The brand moments algorithms will never understand.”

Zoom out of marketing for a bit: Generosity goes a long way (period). Helping someone, paying for another’s coffee or holding the door, could have profound impacts on how another’s day unfolds. Sometimes all it takes is a little bit of kindness to reset another’s mood. 😊

Ciao!

Natalie

Tell someone that they’re doing a good job today, and see how it impacts their mood 🙂