Your Brand Doesn't Exist to AI (And That's the Problem)

Speaker A: A lot of brands are marketing to that top of funnel and they're not actually thinking about how they can either show up or steer that prompt response for the human. They're essentially really cutting out the website, which is this web less web concept we're talking about. This is a real danger for brands of all sizes because they're not paying attention to how the AI is talking about them.

Speaker B: Um, before a buyer visits your website, speaks to your team or compares you with a competitor, AI may already be shaping what they believe about your brand. And if that answer is unclear, outdated or pulled from the wrong source, you may never know how much trust was lost. I'm Kia Johnson and this is the Design Rush podcast. Today I'm joined by Jordan Brannon, President and co founder of Coalition Technologies. Jordan has spent more than 16 years helping E commerce and B2B brands improve how they are found, understood and chosen online. In this episode, Jordan breaks down what business leaders need to know now that tools like ChatGPT, Gemini Claude, Perplexity and Google AI overviews are becoming part of the buyer's decision making process. If you want to better understand how AI systems read, cite and frame your brand, open the free Design Rush resources linked in the episode description below. For more marketing and business growth insights, visit designrush.com for now, let's dive in. Jordan A uh, Coalition has worked with hundreds of e Commerce and B2B brands. When a company is not appearing in ChatGPT, in Perplexity or in Google AI overviews, where do you usually find the first failure point?

Speaker A: If a brand is not showing up anywhere in any major LLMs, the first thing I'm going to look for is some kind of technical blocker. Especially, especially if you're not showing up in Google. Google is much better at indexing and crawling the web at large. And so if your site is just vanished or gone, usually there's some sort of technical issue and going to Google search console or tools like that can be a really helpful starting point. Uh, to understand exactly why it is that you're not ranking. We've seen a lot of websites a uh, year ago when they saw a big spike in bot type behavior coming to their pages. Implement these blockers where they essentially are trying to disallow crawling of their site from unknown, uh, AIs or unknown bots. And as a result they've actually effectively blocked themselves off from ChatGPT and others today. So that's usually the first place that we're going to go.

Speaker B: You have seen how AI search visibility performs across real client data. What are the patterns that you feel founders and CMOs should really understand before they increase, um, content budgets?

Speaker A: I think the most important thing for the executive team or a C suite to understand about LMS is just how rudimentary and unreliable most tracking is in these particular categories. Uh, the big LMS are not really publishing meaningful reports. Today we're starting to see a little bit of a wind of change with uh, both Google and Bing publishing some AI focus through their main, uh, Webmaster tools or search console platforms. But right now ChatGPT and Claude and Perplexity and others really don't offer meaningful insights into what users are actually doing, what they're prompting when you're showing up. And so I think the very first thing a C suite has got to grasp is that you're really going to be trying to uh, almost create one of those blurry, uh, posters where if you squint just right, you can start to tell the picture that's coming through. Uh, and if you, if you're in this place where you have the mindset that I can know exactly what's happening like I do with other analytics and marketing, uh, channels, you're just going to miss out on a lot of what needs to happen to keep AI search and AI prompt, uh, work moving. The, the next thing that I would really highlight is uh, a lack of understanding about how users prompt today. It's very different from search and the fact that uh, most people aren't doing one search, clicking on a link and then deciding if they want to do another search. It's one prompt, another prompt, another prompt, another prompt, another prompt and maybe a click at that particular point. And so, uh, uh, executive teams that don't understand, um, either the top of funnel prompt or how LLMs are steering their customers as they navigate that prompt sequence are really going to miss out on opportunities to insert their brand, insert their marketing, uh, marketing language, uh, into the LLM itself. Which means that you really are going to be marketing to an echo chamber. You're marketing to yourselves. Really.

Speaker B: Many, um, you know, leaders or organizations assume that AI visibility, it's more, you know, you just keep posting more and more. And so, you know, there's just this volume of content that you just bring in and then of course your problem is going to be resolved. You're just going to be showing up magically in all the LLMs. And actually that is not really the case. Um, why do you see it more often as a disability digital infrastructure problem,

Speaker A: would you say one of the Biggest issues we have is that because people have been doing digital marketing and producing content to their website and to other websites for the better part of 15 or 20 years. They had this massive inventory of uncurated, untracked, frankly unpaid attention to ah, content that's out there. And so it becomes an infrastructure issue because you have this massive volume of unknowns that you've already done the work of publishing, reviewing, editing, QA and making sure it goes live. And so usually the issue is not about the recency and uh, newness of a post, it's really about why is the old content no longer relevant for an LLM search today. And that again, that has to do with internal linking, it has to do with site search and site maps, it has to do with crawl instructions, it has to do with um, how you're refreshing and updating older content as it does, does again persist in relevance. And again it's just usually a structural issue more than it is just a, we're missing that silver bullet piece of content for the LLM and for a prompt response ranking.

Speaker B: When you talk about, you know, inconsistent, um, entity signals, weak third party citations, um, unclear content architecture, what would you say then that means in practical terms for a brand that's actually trying to get discovered? I think especially if you're looking at, so there's two, two different brands is where I'm seeing this, right? The one is the, the starter up, um, you know, the brand that's new, the brand that's trying to get into the market. The market's already saturated and there's so much going on, right? Then you've got your traditional brand, your legacy brand. It's been there for a while. It, it always thought it's just going to be there, but things are changing so much and so there's you know, recognition on that end that also needs to, to be implemented. And so you got to change your thinking within the traditional brand itself.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think we'll start with maybe that startup sort of mentality. I think one of the differences from like a traditional SEO campaign and an AI SEO approach is that in traditional SEO, if you were a startup, you often went broadly in terms of your content publishing. You often tried to really thoroughly cover a topic in its entirety, um, as part of your content publishing efforts so that you would show up for all of the related and granular terms that might be relevant to your particular commercial objective. Now as a startup in an AI, uh, uh, ecosystem, an AI world, you have this problem of really uh, being the unknown entity, uh, that isn't well matched to any particular prompt or prompt, uh, response. And as a consequence, uh, if you go broad, you tend to have less relevant because the AI can't really define your entity well enough. And so, uh, again being that new startup, you're trying to be known for this and this and this and this and this. But if you really are describing yourself in all of these different ways across your different link building and social media and PR activities, you're going to find that the uh, AI really doesn't see you as being clearly relevant to any one of them without some really substantial social media or PR type work. And that can be cost prohibitive if you're that startup. So being disciplined about how you describe your product or your service or your brand, and really making sure that you have a key message, uh, around your offering in the market, it can be very helpful in getting you to show up inside of an AI prompt response that much sooner. For traditional brands, part of our SEO strategy, because this is again something that coalition has even done that, uh, we often are focusing on trying to rank in lots of different areas because we have the authority, we have the legacy site, we have lots of links, we uh, have reviews, we have all of these things that work in our favor. Uh, and really one of the biggest challenges that we run into is that um, these traditional brands have described themselves or their services in so many different ways. They essentially are doing that same thing where they've created this sort of lack of relevance to a prompt. Because again, if you think about most big LLMs as frankly just being that next best word, um, predictor, um, if they start to talk about design, Rush is blank or Coalition Technologies is blank. And we've offered 50 different adverbs, verbs, uh, adjectives, uh, to describe ourselves. All of a sudden that LLM doesn't have that clear next best word. And so we've actually maybe undermined a little bit of our opportunity. And so again for that entity consistency, we want to go out and start to say like, hey, going forward we need to be more disciplined about how we're describing ourselves, maybe even go back to legacy pieces of content and platforms and starting to update how we're described so that we can create this really clear picture for the LLM.

Speaker B: Um, so it's almost like with a traditional brand then it would be in essence, uh, going back, um, you know, reaching back, back to basics. Why did we start this? You know, why, why are we here and just answer all the questions and then of course from there be able to to, you know, understand exactly what your way forward will be. Very interesting. I want to stay on coalition right now. I mean you've done some amazing work, right? I mean you've actually helped generate millions of E commerce transactions, qualified leads. Uh, what do revenue producing brands do differently would you say, after they earn the visibility?

Speaker A: I think one of the biggest stories that's not talked a lot about in LLM marketing right now is how do you navigate the sequence of prompt, uh, responses that are offered by the LLM to the human. We like to call these the human prompt. Uh, we prompt the LLM, but the LLM and the AI is now prompting us back. They, they want to keep you engaged, they want you to stay in that chat context and they want you to keep asking questions or taking next steps because eventually they're going to try and get you into their own commercial objectives. And a lot of marketers are just not paying attention to what that is. Because ChatGPT may take your uh, prompt about what's best running shoe for a mid-30s male who's just picking up long distance running again after years away, like all of my prompt inputs and it could have a specific action at the bottom of its prompt response. It's like, would you like me to look for more shoes that offer this particularly? A lot of brands are marketing to that top of funnel and they're not actually thinking about how they can either show up or steer that prompt response for the human. And so that's that massive opportunity because it's a place where you can be producing new content that is more LLM relevant. We had a great case study with a large online uh, subscription brand and uh, they only operate online, they only ship to home. And what they found was that when someone was doing that prompt search, hey, how do I, uh, buy this product online? I'm looking for this product online. Uh, what the specifically chatgpt was the point of focus for this campaign. We found that ChatGPT said you can buy online here, but they'll actually allow you to pick it up uh, in store. And so ChatGPT's prompt for the human was buy from a retailer who offered in store pickup. And that created an issue for this particular brand because they didn't have the local presence. And so we had to think about how do we formulate a strategy that inserts them more into those conversations.

Speaker B: So as an organization I would think, I mean that's like tenfold because you're speaking to your buyers right there. Um, you know, at the end of the day A lot of people are looking at that first before they actually make the decision to buy. So by the time they reach you, they've already made the decision within the LLM space. So it's important to obviously be seen there. Jordan, you've talked about the webless web. The web, yeah, where AI agents, you know, sit between brands and buyers. And if that becomes a reality, I mean what role does a company website they need to play in growth?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean there's, there is a long history there. I mean I think part of the impulse for dot com domains was that when we didn't have effective channels as consumers, we just instinctually went to brandname.com and that created this, this perceived value of owning the dot com. Now our channels of accessing those sites have shifted pretty dramatically partially by design. With big tech, you know, they've wanted to intermediate uh, that, that handoff more and more. So we have Google taking over Chrome, inserting Google search into Chrome and all of a sudden they're the gateway to the web and it worked wonderfully while uh, they were really open to promoting a uh, sort of a very democratic uh, picture of the web where any small business, any individual content creator could have access to a massive search audience very quickly with the right piece of content and the right mix of SEO. Now today of course we have this situation where again AIs are increasingly shifting away from being a pipeline of delivering um, activity to you or to your website. They're now uh, essentially cutting that off entirely and willfully uh, either through the chat context, just pulling all of the information in from your website, never really releasing a consumer to your website. Google of course is now offering buy functionality, shop functionality. You can have Google's AI call your restaurant to make a reservation. They're essentially really cutting out the website, which is this web less web concept we're talking about is a future where you could be in ChatGPT or in Gemini and doing all of the things you used to do through a website or even through some apps and now you have no incentive or reason to do that. And so uh, what we've talked about with uh, brands is they really have to have this mindset and be thinking about their website in two ways. One is that they, that feed that offers data and experience and functionality to AIs and to agents. And two, as a place of brand loyalty and brand uh, differentiation similar to where we were maybe 15 or 20 years ago with websites where something unique was offered to your consumer so there was still an incentive to come back to that website. And if you're not doing those two things well, I think your website will become increasingly less relevant and frankly you'll be increasingly relevant. That's relevant as a brand in our digital future.

Speaker B: Jordan. You know also a lot of agencies, they're now talking about AI SEO, GEO and then answer engine optimization. So what separates a real AI discovery strategy from old SEO with new languages?

Speaker A: Honestly I think a lot of this is uh, the new terms, the new acronyms and even the new strategies are being promoted by venture capitalists and private equity backed groups that are looking at this as a new money opportunity. They can scare your C suite into thinking that the old SEO is no longer relevant. You need to invest in this new $2,000 a month subscription, uh, uh, or rank tracking tool. I mean it just, it's, it's a very solid money grab and of course that creates and adds into the cycle of AI investment that we have. Um, so I think some of it you just kind of have to, to kind of tune out a bit. Um, and I would say that um, really the things that, to differentiate AI SEO or GEO or AEO from a traditional SEO strategy is that we really are talking about ordering and prioritizing things differently than what you might do in a Google centric 10 blue links centric, uh, sort of SEO campaign with AI, uh there is this preference for more recent content. Doesn't necessarily have to be newly created but there is a preference for content that is more recently updated. There's also a bias towards certain types of publications and certain types of forms forums online, which again had value in Google in the 10 blue links era but uh, today they've sort of leapfrogged ranking your own website. We also have some different technical things in terms of just how a website might be coded and how it might load that are differentiated from a traditional SEO campaign. Again we used to emphasize longer form, big uh, holistic pages of content because Google really was interested in uh, surfacing and understanding what that content was. ChatGPT and others are on a budget. Uh, they don't have the money to index the whole web and every single page there. And so because they're being cheap, they're only going to look at page content that loads quickly and towards the top. And so again we just, we're going to have some things that we want to prioritize different, uh, differently and we time differently, uh, just as a consequence of being AI SEO centric as opposed to traditional SEO.

Speaker B: You're making me feel like um, many organizations now probably have to have like their hand in a lot of, what do you call it, A lot of pie. So is that the, I don't think that's the correct way to say it, but it just, it is. And I guess that's where it's very important that you actually have, you know, an agency that understands this completely and can literally be unpacking this with you and assist you on this journey. Um, if you're a brand that know that really needs to sort of hit hard because you'd need to know exactly where to start, you know where to go for the next few months and then kind of where to finish off and then, you know, how are you going to sustain that obviously moving forward as well.

Speaker A: It's a real risk because there is so much hype around doing something for um, AI, SEO or geo. There's a lot of C suites out there that are applying pressure to mid level marketers. There's a lot of owners out there for small businesses who feel like they're on LinkedIn and they see everybody saying you have to do this, you have to do this for, for ChatG ranking or you're going to die. And that creates this sense of panic, right? Like we all log into LinkedIn and there's like this, this new thing, you know, like, oh my goodness, like and it's just sort of that cycle of, you know, the algorithm on those sites needing you to panic because then you're going to engage with that content more. So I do think there's real value in having an agency or a freelancer or an in house person who actually is sitting across and attentive to how do we balance our, our activities here? Because again a lot of studies are showing that the LLM traffic and traffic opportunity is much smaller than Google. Traditional SEO still is. Uh, there's a lot of uh, studies that show that Chat GPT, ah, both on the LLM front and just as a part of the bigger conversation. And search marketing is just a very small player. Um, Gemini has been eating their lunch. Cod of course in the last several months has really started to race up the charts. So all of a sudden brands that are going all in on Chat GPT have missed out on Google which is again a major running payday. They're now missing out on Gemini, they're missing out on uh, Google AI overviews and AI mode and they're now also not paying attention to Claude. And so I think again having that person who's really going to help you sort of um, have a lay of the Land, uh, figure out which actual pie you want to put a finger in. Um, you know, you can have, you can have 10 fingers and 10 pies perhaps, but you can only have one bite in your mouth. And so, uh, you know, I think there's, there's real value in that. You know, having somebody who has this expertise is sort of watching the market dynamics, tracking adoption rates, and then also just thinking about commercial value to your business based on who you're targeting. That's, that's such a, such a valuable addition, even if it's not necessarily driving immediate strategy. Just that intel is going to be super helpful for you.

Speaker B: I'm laughing because of the, the comment that you made. Obviously with the whole the pie eating can only have one piece, you'd be surprised, you would be surprised how many people try to try to put their hands in so many different pies and then try and eat from those pies too. But it definitely isn't, um, doable. I think that you would then also be spreading yourself quite thin at the end of the day. And so it's very important that you have someone that, that understands that and can really sort of get you over those hurdles. If a founder, a CMO or agency leader, you know, they want stronger discovery. In this agent era that we are in, what would you say are the first three things they should fix before spending more on traffic? I know we've covered quite a bit yesterday, but I feel like if you can just unpack like that top three right now, that'd be really great.

Speaker A: Yeah, probably three things I would focus on. One would be that technical barrier. Is there something where you're just blocking your content from being accessible to an lm? Second, I would say this is a massive gap, especially for those brands that have been engaged in digital marketing and SEO for a long while. And now we're thinking about how to address agentic search and AI SEO. First, in that second category, I would say that the thing you need to do now is begin to inventory what content you have produced and what still holds some relevance and can be refreshed or updated for this LLM era. A lot of times, again, because of this budget challenge, you're going to find a lot of opportunities to pick up wins on the prompt response ranking while still also holding onto your Google rankings without way overspending your budget. By doing that, then I think the third thing that's so critical is, uh, watching your reputation. In the era of AI search, this is a real danger for brands of all sizes because they're not paying attention to how the AI is talking about them. And that really is backfired because you can win the prompt ranking, you can show up in most of the prompts, but again, that prompt is always going to go deeper and what will happen again, we just did this as an example with a jewelry brand. They were ranking for a particular term, but chatgpt said, like this particular claim that they make about their product is gimmicky. And they use that word gimmicky. And the source of it was a five year old Reddit thread and it was inserted into this conversation about their brand and they had thought, well, we think we're good on this AI SEO front. But all of a sudden ChatGPT is just undercutting, uh, any sort of search around their particular brand and product because of this old Reddit thread. And so again, that reputation management piece is really, really a critical aspect because ChatGPT is not only a search engine, Gemini is not only a search engine. They're now also the best buddy of that person using it who's going to give them some hot gossip about that brand or that product or that service and maybe poke some holes in your marketing campaign.

Speaker B: The fact is, is that, um, you, you can't also just rely on whatever is out there. You need to take care of your brand. And that is where that is vitally important. You have to take care of your brand and so you need to nurture it as if you're nurturing a little baby. That is your behavior. At the end of the day, it's your brand, it's your business, it's your company, and you need to do the research you need to look at. I've actually had this discussion in a couple of other podcasts where, you know, we spoke about the importance of also being okay with knowing the negative, um, in order to find out how you can best move yourself forward. You know, when you're looking at sales and holistically understand what it is that your buyer is perhaps not 100% okay with, don't be afraid of that. That's actually a strength in your brand to find that out because it helps you to know what to do, what not to do, et cetera. I'm sure you're hearing me here.

Speaker A: Yep. Yeah, no, I mean, it's one of the weird things we're seeing is AIs because they started out as being so, uh, positive about brands and products that it was really, uh, a turn off for the end consumer who is using them that they've now swung and they've started to insert more negative and more critical type questions around a brand or a product. And so for brands, absolutely. One of the thoughts you had there, which I would double click on, is just this idea of like, what are the uh, brand appropriate negatives? Like what are the, the things that are good for somebody to know, like um, with one of our fashion brands, like they intentionally make oversized garments. Like that's the style, it's the aesthetic is a little bit bigger, a little bit baggier, a little bit boxier. And so someone out there saying it runs large, uh, before they were, when they were kind of curating the reviews and their commentary, they didn't love that on their own website. But now we're saying like, hey, you actually kind of want this because you want ChatGPT and others to actually share that information rather than, you know, again, someone's buying a normally sized medium product or going up one size to try to achieve the aesthetic. And in reality they actually should have just stayed at the regular size. And it's going to be great anyways, like those are really important places for brands to be considering. Yes.

Speaker B: Jordan, thank you so much for joining us today on the Design Rush podcast. It was so lovely to have you here and looking forward to just seeing you soar to greater heights. Um, yeah, we'll be keeping an eye on your space. Thank you so much.

Speaker A: Thank you so much.

Speaker B: Curious about what top brands look for when choosing an agency? Tune into our latest episodes where we reveal the decision making secrets of leading brands. Subscribe to the Design Rush podcast and stay ahead of the competition. Mhm.