Here’s a quick way to see how your company performs across all three:

Step 1: Decide on a prompt set you’ll use to measure your visibility.

Here are 5 prompts I recommend starting with:

1. Best [category] for [audience]?

2. What should [audience] use to [solve problem]?

3. Alternatives to [competitor]

4. [brand] vs [competitor] for [use case]

5. What does [brand] do?

Prompts 1-3 tell you if a buyer who has never heard of you can find you. Prompt 4 tells you if you appear in a comparison. Prompt 5 tells you if the AI describes you accurately.

Step 2: Run each prompt in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google (look for the AI Overview).

Track mentions, citations, and accuracy in a spreadsheet. Repeat this every month.

Step 3: Use the citations to inform your strategy for each AI search engine.

I’ve seen ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google pull from completely different sources.

Here’s an example from a client’s category: ChatGPT relied heavily on vendors’ own websites—particularly product, category, and pricing pages. Perplexity went almost entirely to third-party listicles. Google mixed Reddit threads, review-platform alternatives pages, and listicles.

Step 4: Do the work each engine already rewards. Improve your category, product, and pricing pages for ChatGPT. Earn inclusion in roundups and “best tools” posts for Perplexity. Complete your review-platform profiles and participate genuinely in relevant communities for Google.

Step 5: Profit!

If you try this, hit reply and let me know what you found out. I’d genuinely like to compare notes.

– JP

60% of Google searches now end without a click. 77% of ChatGPT users in the US already treat it as a search engine. And when a B2B buyer asks an AI tool to recommend software in your category, your product either shows up in the answer, or it doesn’t exist.

You’ve built a great product and put it in a nice looking shop, but the shop is on a street where nobody walks anymore. That’s what traditional SEO is starting to feel like for a lot of companies. The footfall is moving to AI answers, and if you’re not there, nobody’s finding your storefront.

The good news: the playbook isn’t complicated, the competition is thin, and the payoff is disproportionate. AI-sourced traffic converts at 12x the rate of traditional search, according to data from Onely. Not 12% more. Twelve times.

This guide covers what AI search optimization actually is, why it matters for B2B marketing, and the practical first moves to make, even on a one-person team.

What is AI search engine optimization?

AI search engine optimization is the practice of structuring your content so that AI systems (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Claude) cite it when answering user questions. Where traditional SEO gets you onto a list of ten blue links, AI SEO gets you into the answer itself.

You’ll see a few terms thrown around for this. They all describe slightly different angles on the same shift:

• GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is shaping how generative AI systems understand and reproduce your content over time. It’s about long-term influence in the datasets and models that power AI answers.

• AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is optimizing to appear in direct AI-generated answers: the single summarized response, not one of ten links.

• AI SEO is the umbrella term most people use. It covers both.

The mechanics are different from traditional SEO. Google ranks pages. AI engines cite sources. Google rewards backlinks and domain authority. AI engines reward clarity, structure, and trust signals. Google shows you a list. AI gives you one answer, and either you’re in it or your competitor is.

The two approaches compare like this:

Traditional SEOAI Search OptimizationGoalRank on page 1Get cited in the AI answerUnit of successClick-through rateShare of AnswerWhat matters mostBacklinks, keywords, domain authorityBrand mentions, content structure, E-E-A-TContent formatLong-form, keyword-optimizedAnswer-first, extractable, question-basedVisibility metricSearch positionCitation frequencyHow fast it changesMonths40–60% of cited domains rotate monthly

They’re complementary, not competing. Strong traditional SEO fuels AI visibility because AI systems draw from authoritative, well-structured domains. But the emphasis is different, and if you’re only doing traditional SEO, you’re optimizing for a shrinking slice of how people find software.

Why does AI search matter for B2B marketing?

Your buyers are already using AI to research tools. When a founder asks ChatGPT “what’s the best CRM for early-stage startups” or a VP of Engineering asks Perplexity “top API monitoring tools,” the AI gives them a short list. If you’re not on it, you don’t get evaluated.

I’ve been watching this shift closely, and the numbers make the case better than I can:

• 12x higher conversion rate. AI-sourced traffic converts at 27% compared to 2.1% for traditional search, according to Onely. These aren’t casual browsers. They’re people who got a direct recommendation and followed it.

• 26% of brands have zero AI Overview mentions. That’s one in four companies completely invisible in AI search results, according to Ahrefs data reported by Onely. For startups, the number is almost certainly higher.

• Organic CTR for informational queries dropped 61% since AI Overviews launched.The traffic you’re used to getting from “what is [category]” searches is evaporating. It’s going to zero-click AI answers instead.

The conversion data matters most if you’re watching burn rate. Someone who clicks through from a ChatGPT recommendation has already been told “this is worth looking at.” They skip the comparison phase. They convert faster. That changes your CAC math.

And because so few brands systematically track AI search performance there’s a genuine first-mover window. Most of your competitors haven’t started. The ones who move now build a compounding advantage.

How do AI search engines decide what to cite?

AI systems don’t rank pages the way Google does. They extract and cite. Understanding what drives their citation decisions is the difference between optimizing effectively and guessing.

I think about it as four levers. Pull any one and you improve your odds. Pull all four and you’re in a very strong position.

Lever 1: E-E-A-T (your trust score). E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, Google’s quality framework that AI systems have adopted as a citation filter. It’s not a vague quality signal. AI systems evaluate specific things: Does this content have a named author? Do they have credentials? Are claims backed by cited sources? Is the content recently updated?

The data backs this up. Author profile optimization yields up to 50% higher citation rates, according to Onely. That means a page with a real author bio and linked credentials gets cited meaningfully more often than the same content without one. For technical founders, your engineering background is an asset here. Use it.

Lever 2: Brand mentions (your reputation signal). This is the biggest shift from traditional SEO. Web mentions (linked and unlinked references to your brand across the web) correlate at 0.664 with AI visibility, according to Ahrefs data analyzed by Onely. Backlinks correlate at only 0.218. That’s a 3x difference.

For a lot of companies, this reframes where to spend time. Getting mentioned on Reddit, in industry roundups, on review sites like G2 or Capterra, and in community discussions does more for your AI visibility than a traditional link-building campaign.

Lever 3: Content structure (your extractability score). AI doesn’t read your page like a human skimming a blog post. It extracts discrete, citable units: a definition, a comparison, a direct answer to a question. Content structured with answer-first paragraphs, question-based headings, comparison tables, and short paragraphs (2–4 sentences) is measurably more extractable.

Lever 4: Freshness (your recency advantage). Forty to sixty percent of cited domains in AI answers change within a single month. Content that was cited last month might not be cited this month if a fresher, better-structured alternative appears. This actually favors small teams who can update quickly over large organizations with slow publishing cycles. If you can refresh a page in an afternoon, you have an edge over the company that needs three sign-offs and a sprint cycle.

What should I do first?

The full AI search optimization checklist runs to 50+ items. You don’t need all of them. You need the right first moves, the ones that create the most visibility with the least effort for a small team.

I’d tackle these seven in this order.

1. Test your current visibility

Before optimizing anything, find out where you stand. My go-to approach: open ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Google Gemini, and run through the same set of queries in each.

Use this formula to generate your test queries:

• "best { your category } for { your audience }"

• "what tools do { your users } use for { your problem }"

• "{ your category } vs { competitor category }"

Record whether you appear, who does, and what sources get cited. This takes 30 minutes and tells you exactly how big the gap is. You might be surprised. I’ve seen companies with great products that don’t show up in a single AI answer for their core use case.

2. Let AI crawlers in

Check your robots.txt file. Make sure you’re not blocking GPTBot, ClaudeBot, or other AI user agents. If your site uses client-side JavaScript rendering, AI crawlers may not see your content at all. Consider server-side rendering or static site generation. Implement llms.txt to communicate your AI crawling policies explicitly.

This is a technical prerequisite. If AI can’t read your site, nothing else matters. I recommend checking this before you touch anything else. It’s a five-minute fix that unblocks everything downstream.

3. Add structured data

Implement JSON-LD schema markup at the template level so it scales across your site:

• Organization schema: defines your brand entity

• Article schema with author and dateModified: signals freshness and authorship

• FAQPage schema: feeds Q&A pairs directly to AI systems

• Product schema: on your product and pricing pages

FAQ schema pages are 30% more likely to appear in rich results, according to VideoBlog.ai. Structured data doesn’t rank you. It makes AI more confident about what your content is and when to cite it. Template-level implementation means you do it once and it applies everywhere.

4. Restructure your key pages

Pick your top 5–10 pages and restructure them for extractability. This is the framework I use for making content “AI-readable”:

RuleWhat to doWhy it worksAnswer firstLead every section with the key point in 1–2 sentencesAI extracts the first statement, not the conclusionQuestion headingsUse H2s that mirror how people ask AI (“What is…?”, “How do I…?”)Maps directly to the queries AI is answeringShort paragraphsKeep to 2–4 sentences maxAI extracts discrete units, not flowing proseComparison tablesAdd tables wherever you have side-by-side content35% higher extractabilityDefine termsUse “[TERM] is…” pattern with 2+ defining sentencesAI systems extract these directly as definitions

This is the single highest-impact content change you can make. It doesn’t require new content, just restructuring what you already have. I’d start with your homepage, your pricing page, and your top 3 blog posts.

5. Build founder credibility

Create a dedicated author page for the founder (or whoever writes your content). Include credentials, experience, links to external profiles (LinkedIn, GitHub, publications, speaking). Add a 1–2 sentence author bio to every piece of content.

This directly strengthens E-E-A-T signals. Pages with author attribution get cited up to 50% more often. Most technical founders don’t realize their engineering background is a credibility signal. “Built by a former [role] at [company]” or “10 years building developer tools” is exactly the kind of expertise AI systems weight heavily. Don’t hide it.

6. Earn brand mentions

Brand mentions correlate 3x more with AI visibility than backlinks. Focus your off-page effort here:

• Answer questions on Reddit and community forums where your expertise is relevant, not self-promotion, genuine help

• Get listed on review platforms relevant to your category (G2, Capterra, Product Hunt, relevant directories)

• Contribute to “best of” roundups and listicles. These directly influence ChatGPT’s recommendations.

• Pursue coverage in industry publications through original data, expert commentary, or guest posts

You don’t need a PR budget. You need consistent presence in the places AI systems look when building answers. My recommendation: start with Reddit and review sites. They’re free, they compound over time, and they’re exactly where your buyers are already hanging out.

7. Track AI-specific metrics

Set up measurement from day one so you know what’s working:

• Share of Answer: how often your brand appears in AI responses for your target queries (manual testing weekly using the query formula from Step 1)

• AI referral traffic: configure UTM parameters and referrer tracking for ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other AI platforms

• AI conversion rate: measure separately from other channels so you can see the 12x difference in your own data

Few brands do this systematically. Doing this properly means you can iterate while competitors fly blind. Nothing beats watching a conversion come through from a ChatGPT referral for the first time. It makes the whole thing real.

How to save dozens of hours on your AI SEO audit

I built an AI skill that automates the SEO, GEO, and AEO auditing process. It runs 38 checks on any webpage across the four levers above and delivers a prioritized report with exact fixes to make. Hand this off to your devs, content team, or coding agent, and you’re golden.

• ✓ 38 checks across SEO fundamentals, content structure, AI/GEO readiness, and E-E-A-T

• ✓ Specific fixes with suggested text, code, and rewrites you can copy-paste

• ✓ Compatible with Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, Codex, or any LLM with access to the internet.

• ✓ Specify a webpage URL and get a full report in under 5 minutes

What you get: a SKILL.md file containing the full 38-point audit instructions, plus a setup guide for Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Codex, and any other LLM. Install it once, use it on every page you publish.

Grab the Search Audit AI Skill — FREE

What are the biggest mistakes to avoid?

Four patterns actively harm AI visibility, and they’re all common among early-stage teams:

Keyword stuffing. AI systems penalize content that appears optimized for manipulation rather than user value. Write for clarity, not for keyword density. If your content reads like it was written for an algorithm, AI will treat it accordingly and ignore it.

Volume over quality. Publishing three mediocre posts a week might spike short-term visibility, but AI systems detect repetitive patterns within 2–3 weeks and stop citing the source. One well-structured, data-backed post per week outperforms a firehose of thin content. I’d much rather see a founder publish one genuinely useful post per month than four forgettable ones per week.

Treating it as a one-time project. Forty to sixty percent of cited domains change monthly. Optimizing your pages once and moving on guarantees you’ll lose visibility to whoever updates next. Build a monthly content freshness cycle: update statistics, refresh examples, check that your pages still answer current queries.

Not measuring. You can’t improve what you don’t track. If you’re not checking your AI visibility regularly, you won’t know when a competitor displaces you, and you won’t know which of your changes actually worked.

Frequently asked questions

What is AI SEO called?

The most common terms are AI search engine optimization (AI SEO), generative engine optimization (GEO), and answer engine optimization (AEO). They describe slightly different aspects of the same practice: optimizing content to be cited by AI systems rather than just ranked by traditional search engines. GEO is gaining traction as the specific term for optimizing for generative AI.

Is AI search optimization different from regular SEO?

They’re complementary, not competing. Traditional SEO focuses on ranking in search results. AI search optimization focuses on being cited in AI-generated answers. The tactics overlap (authoritative, well-structured content performs well in both), but AI optimization places more weight on content structure, brand mentions, and E-E-A-T signals than on backlinks and keyword density.

How do I check if my company appears in AI search results?

Use the query formula from the action steps: "best { category } for { audience }", "what tools do { users } use for { problem }", and "{ category } vs { competitor }". Run these in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Google Gemini. Record whether you appear, who gets cited instead, and what sources the AI references. Do this weekly to track changes.

Can I do this myself or do I need to hire someone?

A technical founder can handle the high-impact moves without hiring. The technical prerequisites (robots.txt, schema markup, page speed) are straightforward engineering tasks. Content restructuring takes time but not specialized skills. The ongoing work (earning brand mentions, updating content, tracking metrics) is a few hours per week. Where most founders benefit from help is in the content strategy layer: knowing which pages to prioritize and what structure AI systems actually reward.

How long does it take to see results from AI search optimization?

Faster than traditional SEO. Technical fixes (schema, robots.txt, page structure) can affect AI citation within weeks because AI systems re-crawl frequently. Brand mention building is slower. Expect 2–3 months of consistent effort before seeing movement in Share of Answer. The key difference from SEO: because 40–60% of cited domains change monthly, improvements can show up quickly, but so can losses if you stop maintaining.

Today we’re going to talk about marketing tech for B2B SaaS, specifically:

• What a good marketing stack looks like

• The vast landscape of marketing tools

• The lean marketing stack

Let’s dive in.

What does a good marketing stack look like?

Picture this -

Someone sees one of your scheduled posts on LinkedIn which links back to your website. They click through to your website, look around, and a pop-up for a cookie consent banner shows up. Like most people, they click ‘Accept All Cookies‘ to dismiss the annoying banner.

This triggers a tag manager to load scripts for tracking tools. You now have access to a whole host of info, including their location, their scroll behaviour, how they arrived on your website, etc. You can see their actions in real-time as they look around your website.

Before long, they create a free account to test out your product. This:

• creates a new record in your CRM system containing all the information they used to sign up, and any additional info that your web analytics picked up

• triggers enrichment of the data in your CRM - populating their social media profiles and company website

• notifies you in Slack, Teams, or Discord that you’ve got a new signup

• adds the person to your marketing email list and email nurture sequence

• creates a user record in your CDP platform and product analytics platform

As they log on for the first time, a guided product tour and onboarding flow starts. Their usage info gets logged into your product analytics platform as they click around. They stop the tour halfway through and don’t log in for a couple of days.

This lack of activity triggers an email to go out to them asking if they need any help with your product, linking them to your calendar to book a demo. When they sign up for a demo, your calendar, CRM, and Slack/Teams/Discord sync up.

The next day, you have a demo with the person. The prospect discovers that your product is indeed a good fit and signs a deal on the spot. You mark the deal as won in your CRM, triggering your billing system to ask for first payment and notifying your team of the good news. This customer gets removed from your email nurture sequence and gets put on your company and product updates newsletter.

Once a month, you do a deep dive into your marketing, product, and finance data looking for trends and insights. You run a cohort analysis in your BI tools using your marketing and product usage data to see what factors influence signups which convert to paying customers. You notice that users who came in via specific channels and landing pages were more likely to become paying users. You decide to double down on your marketing efforts on these channels, eventually leading to more and more happy customers.

The end.

Now, every company is different but the above is what you can expect to see in those with a solid marketing stack. In that short example, at least 17 different types of marketing tools were used. Crazy right?

A good marketing stack does the following things well:

1. Gathers data about your prospects and customers including how they interact with your website, product, support team, emails, content, etc.

2. Transforms data into insights (or allows your team to do so)

3. Captures and nurtures leads throughout the buying journey

4. Personalises interactions at scale, helping with conversions, upgrades, support, communication, etc.

5. Automates routine tasks and alerts humans when decisions or input is needed

6. Keeps your data in sync across all tools

So what are the different types of tools that exist?

The vast landscape of marketing tools

There are a LOT of marketing tools out there.

If you've never worked in sales or marketing before, the sheer number of tools on the market can feel overwhelming. To add to that, a lot of tools do seemingly the same thing but in a slightly different way. It’s all a bit confusing, to be honest.

So here’s a crash course:

Website & Content Management

• Content Management Systems (CMS) & Website Builders

  • Build and manage your marketing website

  • Examples: Webflow, Framer, WordPress, Contentful, Strapi, Next.js

• Landing Page Builders

  • Create dedicated campaign landing pages

  • Examples: Unbounce, Leadpages, Instapage, Carrd

• Website Performance/Monitoring

  • Monitor site speed and uptime

  • Examples: GTmetrix, PageSpeed Insights, Pingdom

• Content Creation/Design

  • Create marketing assets and content

  • Examples: Canva, Figma, Adobe Creative Suite

• Video Creation/Recording

  • Create video content and record meetings/demos

  • Examples: Loom, Riverside.fm

• Documentation

  • Create and manage marketing docs, branding, guides, knowledge bases

  • Notion, GitBook, Confluence

• Collateral Management

  • Organize and distribute marketing/sales materials

  • Examples: Seismic, Highspot, Showpad, Brandfolder

Web Tracking & Analytics

• Web/Visitor Analytics

  • Track who visits your site and what they do

  • Examples: Google Analytics, Plausible.io, PostHog, Heap, Adobe Analytics, Amplitude, Fathom

• Tag Management

  • Deploy tracking codes without touching your codebase

  • Examples: Google Tag Manager, Adobe Launch, Tealium

• Cookie Opt-in Banners

  • Legal compliance for GDPR, CCPA, etc.

  • Examples: OneTrust, Cookiebot, Termly, self-coded

• Heatmaps

  • Visualise exactly where users click, scroll, and interact on your pages

  • Example: HotJar, Microsoft Clarity, PostHog, CrazyEgg, FullStory, LogRocket

• Data Visualisation

  • Create dashboards and reports from your marketing data

  • Examples: Looker Studio, Tableau, Power BI

• Attribution/Multi-Touch Attribution

  • Track which touchpoints drive conversions

  • Examples: Adobe Analytics, HubSpot Attribution, Google Analytics 4

Customer & Lead Management

• CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

  • Manage leads, customers, and sales pipeline

  • Examples: HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Odoo, Zoho

• CDP (Customer Data Platform)

  • Unify customer data from all touchpoints

  • Examples: Mixpanel, Segment, Amplitude

• Lead Intelligence/Prospecting

  • Find and research prospects, enrich contact data

  • Examples: Apollo, ZoomInfo, Cognism, Instantly, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Lusha

• Data Enrichment/Verification

  • Clean and enhance your contact databases

  • Examples: Clay, Clearbit, ZeroBounce, Hunter.io

• Sales Intelligence/Prospecting Automation

  • Automate prospecting and sales outreach

  • Examples: Outreach, SalesLoft, Instantly, Lemlist, Apollo, Reply.io

Email & Communication

• Newsletters

  • Email marketing and newsletter platforms

  • Examples: Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Substack, Beehiiv, MailerLite

• Email Sequencing

  • Automated email campaigns and drip sequences

  • Examples: ActiveCampaign, Customer.io, Drip, ConvertKit, Klaviyo

• Live Chat/Customer Support

  • Real-time customer communication

  • Example: Intercom, Zendesk, Drift

• Community Building

  • Build and manage user communities

  • Examples: Discord, Slack, Circle, Mighty Networks, Discourse, Skool

Marketing Channels

• SEO Tools

  • Optimize for search engines and track rankings

  • Examples: Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz, Screaming Frog, Google Search Console

• Social Media Management

  • Schedule and manage social media posts

  • Examples: Hootsuite, Buffer, Sprout Social

• SMS Marketing

  • Text message marketing campaigns

  • Examples: Twilio, SimpleTexting, EZ Texting, Postscript

• Push Notifications

  • Send mobile and browser push notifications

  • Examples: OneSignal, Firebase

• Webinar Platforms

  • Host educational and sales webinars

  • Examples: Zoom, WebinarJam, GoToWebinar, Demio

Conversion & User Experience

• A/B Testing

  • Test different versions of pages and campaigns

  • Optimizely, VWO, Unbounce

• Surveys & Forms

  • Collect feedback and market research

  • Examples: Typeform, SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, JotForm

• Onboarding Tools

  • Guide new users through your product

  • Examples: Intercom, Appcues, Pendo

Automation & AI

• Automation/Integration

  • Connect tools together and automate workflows

  • Examples: n8n, Zapier, Make

• Marketing Automation Platforms

  • Advanced multi-channel automation

  • Examples: Marketo, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, HubSpot

• AI-Powered Marketing Tools

  • Leverage AI for content, design, and optimization

  • Examples: ChatGPT, Claude, Copy.ai, Jasper, Midjourney, DALL-E, Synthesia, Grammarly

Specialised Tools

• Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

  • Target specific high-value accounts

  • Examples: Demandbase, 6sense, Terminus

• Competitive Intelligence

  • Research competitors' tech stack and strategies

  • Examples: BuiltWith, SimilarWeb, SEMrush, Ahrefs, SpyFu

• Affiliate/Referral Management

  • Manage partner and referral programs

  • Examples: ReferralCandy, Extole, Friendbuy

• Calendar Bookings

  • Schedule demos, consultations, and meetings

  • Examples: Calendly, Chili Piper, HubSpot Meetings, TidyCal

Annnnnnd I’ve probably missed a bunch. The landscape is constantly evolving. But truthfully, you don’t need much.

Introducing the lean marketing stack

Given the vast landscape of tooling available, it’s easy to overthink your marketing stack. Fear not. There are only two tools you really need:

1. Web analytics to track traffic sources and conversions, and

2. Heatmapping to visualise user behaviour

With this lean marketing stack, you’ve got everything you need to acquire customers. You can see which channels are working, what content converts, where users drop off, what features people use, and which campaigns drive results.

Essentially, you can focus purely on understanding what works and optimising for better conversions. Anything extra is a bonus. Of course, add any other tools as needed to facilitate your customer journey (e.g. a calendar booking integration if you're inbound-sales-led), but start simple and expand as your needs grow.

If you're just starting out then check out Microsoft Clarity and PostHog. Either tool will serve you well for a long time.

Both of these solutions (at the time of writing):

• Are free / freemium

• Can handle UTM parameters

• Can build funnel visualisations

• Can handle conversion events

• Have heatmapping

• Can be deployed as a simple script in your <head> tag

• Can be run cookieless (a plus depending on the cookie laws of the countries you are targeting)

And that wraps up today’s post. Hope you found it useful. As always, please leave a comment if there’s any topics that interest you.

PS: I’m currently writing a marketing playbook which helps early-stage B2B SaaS companies build repeatable customer acquisition systems. If you’d like to be notified when it goes into early access simply subscribe today:

Subscribe now

Everyone talks about product-market fit.

takes it further and talks about the four fits: product/market fit, market/model fit, channel/model fit, and product/channel fit.

These fit frameworks are great heuristics but the reality is a bit more complex.

Everything is linked.

I’ve been riffing on a framework for my growth consultancy and wanted to share a rough draft of a second order effects analysis-

What you will find is that your target customer selection is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT STRATEGIC DECISION YOU WILL MAKE.

Naturally, the second most important lever is the problem(s)/use cases you choose to solve.

This might seem obvious to some, but I see a lot of startups and software companies that start by building a solution to a problem FIRST, without a specific customer in mind. This approach is not necessarily wrong, but it makes things a lot harder.

Your customer choice cascades into everything else: which problems matter, which channels work, how big your market is, who you're competing against, what brand resonates, and how they buy.

So what’s the takeaway? Choose your customer like your company depends on it — because it does.

PS: I’ve rebranded this newsletter to ‘Customer Acquisition Engine‘ - expect actionable channel playbooks, growth strategy deep-dives, customer journey optimisation, and go-to-market frameworks.

PPS: If you’re an early-stage B2B SaaS founder, check out the Agile Founders Slack community.

Customer acquisition is expensive and a lot of tactics fail.

BUT, there’s a shortcut…

Instead of guessing what might work, study companies that are already successfully reaching your target audience.

Whether it's a direct competitor or just a company targeting your ideal customers, here are 11 ways to reverse-engineer their customer acquisition strategy:

• Track their ads - Check Google Ads Transparency Center, LinkedIn Ad Library, Meta Ad Library, Reddit Ad Library for current campaigns

• Analyze their landing pages - Look at different audience-specific pages, CTAs, and conversion strategies

• Study their content - Analyze blog topics, publishing frequency, their search engine keyword rankings, and which pieces get the most engagement/backlinks

• Download lead magnets - See what free resources they offer and how they position the value

• Map their sitemap - Website pages reveal targeting, messaging, and audience focus (feature pages, comparisons, use-cases, personas, industries)

• Check their tech stack - Use BuiltWith to see marketing tools, tracking pixels, chat tools, and CRM setup

• Track social presence - See which platforms they're active on, community building efforts, and organic vs paid social strategy

• Sign up for emails - Document the timing, content, and CTAs of their nurture flow

• Book a demo call - Find out what discovery questions they ask and what their pitch is like

• Scope their employees - Go on LinkedIn and check their team structure. Do they hire a lot of salespeople? Or a lot of specific types of marketers (content, demand generation, SEO, paid advertising, social)?

• Check careers page - See hiring priorities (sales = outbound focus, marketing = inbound, enterprise vs SMB roles)

Work through this list and you'll get a better understanding of how a company operates including their target markets, messaging, channels, customer journey, and team structure.

Do this on 2-3 companies and you'll start to spot patterns for what might actually work for your target market.

Take action: Pick one competitor or company targeting your market and analyze them using these tactics.

Until next time,
JP

Welcome to the series on “5 Fatal B2B SaaS Marketing Mistakes“. If you missed part 4, you can read that here.

Today we're talking about—

MISTAKE #5: HAVING NO CLEAR STRATEGY

First off, what is a strategy? Your strategy is how you plan to win and achieve your goals.

Most B2B SaaS startups have what I call a non-cohesive strategy—or worse, no strategy at all.

A weak or missing strategy shows up as:

• Unclear positioning in the market

• Difficulty clearly explaining your competitive advantage

• Internal confusion about company direction and priorities

• Inability to say "no" to opportunities that don't align with your core vision

• Excessive pivoting without validating assumptions

• Messaging that fails to resonate with customers

• Marketing channels that don't reach the right people

• Products that don't stand out from alternatives

Without strategy, you're just throwing tactics at the wall hoping something sticks.

SO WHAT'S THE FIX?

First, determine your market type and choose a clear strategic position:

For existing markets (customers already use competitor products):

• BE THE BEST: Create a product that solves specific problems better than anyone else

• BE THE CHEAPEST: Offer a solution that is significantly cheaper than incumbents

• BE FOCUSED: Serve a specific customer segment better than anyone else

For emerging markets (customers use makeshift solutions like spreadsheets or VA services):

• BE INNOVATIVE: Provide a purpose-built solution that's substantially better than DIY approaches

• BE THE PLATFORM: Package existing workflows into software that others can build upon

• BE THE ONLY: Create an entirely new market category rather than competing in existing ones

For new markets (no existing solutions or awareness):

• BE EDUCATIONAL: Invest in content that helps customers recognize the problem you solve

• BE PATIENT: Build relationships with early adopters who feel the pain most acutely

• BE REVOLUTIONARY: Introduce a solution to a problem people don't yet recognize they have

Whichever strategy you choose must shape your entire business.

Going with the cheapest option? Ruthlessly eliminate costs. Serving a niche? Tailor every feature to their specific needs. Creating a new market? Have a long runway and a strong market education strategy.

Your strategy should guide every daily decision. When someone asks what you do, your answer should instantly communicate your strategic position: "We're the ONLY automated invoicing solution for independent truckers" or "We're the CHEAPEST analytics platform for e-commerce stores."

ACTIONS

• Determine which market type you're in (existing, emerging, or new)

• Choose ONE clear strategic position that aligns with your unique advantages (e.g. be the cheapest, the best, the first, etc.)

• Review all aspects of your business to ensure they support this strategy

• Consider how this strategy will guide your daily decisions

IN CLOSING

Well there you have it. Hope you enjoyed this course. Here are the 5 fatal mistakes we've covered:

1. Targeting a broad market

2. Using slow marketing tactics

3. Creating a weak product offer

4. Not setting clear goals for your business

5. Having no clear strategy

WHAT NEXT?

I'm developing a customer acquisition system for early-stage B2B SaaS founders. It covers everything from strategy to marketing playbooks.

If you'd like early access, leave a comment below, and I'll keep you in the loop when it goes live.

Wishing you all the success,
JP

Welcome to the series on “5 Fatal B2B SaaS Marketing Mistakes“. If you missed part 3, you can read that here.

Today we're talking about—

MISTAKE #4: NOT SETTING CLEAR GOALS

Many founders launch without clear goals, only to discover later they've built something that doesn't align with their vision.

Goals help you do three things:

• They give you a target to measure against

• They filter which opportunities are worth pursuing

• They tell you what NOT to do

Here's an example—

Let's say your goal is to build a business reaching $20k MRR with 40 hours of work per month.

With this goal you can target niches too small for VC-backed competitors. You can charge more to fewer customers. You can ignore opportunities that demand 60-hour weeks.

On the other side, let's say your goal is to build a unicorn reaching $200M ARR.

You will probably need tens of thousands of customers. You will need to target large markets. You will need to hire employees and build systems that scale.

Without clear goals from the outset, you might build a business you hate or one that can't fundamentally support your dreams.

SO WHAT'S THE FIX?

Set clear revenue goals with hard numbers. Revenue is your north star—it proves customers are willing to pay for your your product.

They should:

• Include specific targets (MRR/ARR)

• Have clear timeframes

• Define your time commitment

• Stretch beyond what feels comfortable

For example: "$25K MRR from 50 customers at $500 per month within 12 months, working 20 hours per week."

These goals help constrain your key business decisions: Goals → Market → Strategy → Product → Messaging → Price

Without specific goals, you risk doing what everyone else is doing rather than what you want to be doing.

Before pursuing any opportunity, simply ask: "Does this align with my goals?"

ACTIONS:

1. Define your ideal work commitment (hours per week)

2. Decide if you're building to exit (and at what valuation)

3. Write down your 1/3/5/10-year revenue goals

4. Validate that your market can support these goals

5. Reject opportunities that don't align with your goals

NEXT TIME:

The final mistake that kills customer acquisition — bad strategy.

Until next time,
JP

Welcome to the series on “5 Fatal B2B SaaS Marketing Mistakes“. If you missed part 2, you can read that here.

Today we're talking about—

MISTAKE #3: CREATING A WEAK OFFER

You've identified your beachhead market. You're using fast-feedback marketing tactics. You're reaching the right people. But no one’s buying.

This is the classic sign of a weak offer.

This happens when:

• Your solution doesn't deliver enough perceived value compared to existing solutions (the switching cost feels too high)

• You're solving a problem that customers don't actually care enough about

• You're addressing only part of a larger need, not the complete solution they're looking for

• You've failed to communicate your solution's value in a way that motivates people to take action

• Your pricing doesn't align with your solution's perceived value (too high OR too low)

SO WHAT'S THE FIX?

Research how your target customers handle this problem today:

• Analyze competitors thoroughly - Read customer reviews, compare pricing, test their products and services, and spot the gaps they're missing.

• Observe real behavior - Dive into online communities where your customers hang out. Look for repeated complaints and DIY workarounds.

• Talk directly to prospects - Ask about their current process, not your solution. What frustrates them? Where do they waste time? What have they tried before? Avoid pitching.

Then, make your offer dramatically better in ways customers actually care about:

• Price: Cut costs significantly below competitors

• Speed: Deliver results in half the time or better

• Reliability: Provide uptime when competitors fail

• Learning curve: Make it learnable in minutes, not days

• Scope: Solve critical problems competitors ignore

• Time saving: Automate hours of manual work

• Insights: Deliver actionable data for better decisions

• Workflow: Eliminate unnecessary steps

• Integration: Connect seamlessly with their daily tools

Don't aim for small improvements. You need a substantial advantage in at least one key area that matters to your customers. The more dramatic the improvement—and the more your customers care about that specific attribute—the stronger your offer becomes.

ACTIONS

• Do customer research (competitor analysis, observe real behaviour, talk to people)

• Choose ONE or TWO key attributes where you can deliver a measurable improvement

• Rewrite your value proposition to highlight this advantage(s)

• Test different price points that reflect your soluton's true value

• Retest your offer with new prospects

NEXT TIME

You've chosen your market. You're using fast-feedback tactics. Your offer is solid. Now you need to convert interested prospects into paying customers. But without defined goals, you risk building a business that can't actually support your vision.

Until next time,
JP

Welcome to the series on “5 Fatal B2B SaaS Marketing Mistakes“. If you missed part 1, you can read that here.

Today we're talking about—

MISTAKE #2: USING SLOW MARKETING TACTICS

A lot of early-stage founders waste time on marketing channels that take months to attract potential customers.

They post on social media. Write blog posts. Optimize for SEO. Create newsletters. These "slow" marketing tactics need months, sometimes years, to build meaningful traffic.

Examples include:

• Posting content on social media

• Publishing blog posts

• Posting videos on YouTube

• Sending articles to the press

• Doing podcasts

• Listing on directories

• Optimizing for SEO

Now don't get me wrong, these are all valid ways of generating leads and customers...

BUT, in the early-days, investing your limited time into these slow-to-grow channels is a big risk.

You're at the mercy of algorithms and gatekeepers. With AI flooding every platform, standing out gets harder every day.

Imagine spending six months building a LinkedIn audience or YouTube channel only to discover your leads don't convert. Wrong audience. Wrong messaging. Wrong product fit. Six months of work— gone. And you're back to square one.

Don't risk months of effort only to learn you've been targeting the wrong people or selling the wrong thing.

SO WHAT'S THE FIX?

Focus on tactics that deliver market feedback FAST, ideally within 24 hours. These include:

• Direct outreach: emails, calls, DMs, door knocking

• Paid ads: search, social, newsletters, snail mail

• Community engagement: Discord/Slack groups, Reddit, online forums, in-person events

With these fast-feedback activities, you can get responses within hours or even minutes. Send an email, get a reply 30 minutes later. Launch an ad, see clickthrough's in a couple of hours. Post in a community, get comments later that day.

Slow marketing channels have their place, but for your very first customers, focus on speed. Get feedback fast, iterate quickly, and learn what actually works.

ACTIONS

• Commit to focusing your limited time on using fast-feedback tactics

• Choose ONE fast-feedback approach: outreach, ads, or community engagement

• Experiment with it. Send out 100 cold emails, spend $100 on ads, or put in a couple of hours into engaging in communities

• What did you learn? Adjust your approach based on feedback before scaling further or testing other tactics

NEXT TIME

You've chosen your beachhead market. You're using fast-feedback marketing tactics. But if you don't get your product offer right, you'll still struggle to win customers.

Until next time,
JP

PS: I'm developing a customer-acquisition system for early-stage B2B founders. It covers everything from strategy to marketing playbooks. If you'd like early access, drop a comment, and I'll keep you in the loop.

Welcome to the 5-part series on “5 Fatal B2B SaaS Marketing Mistakes“.

Today we're talking about—

MISTAKE #1: TARGETING A BROAD MARKET

A lot of early-stage B2B SaaS businesses try to target too many markets at the same time.

This leads to:

• A poor product - because it tries to please everyone

• Weak messaging which doesn't sell - because it isn't specific to someone's context, use-case, and pain points

• Difficulty experimenting - because targeting several markets at once introduces an additional variable making it harder to figure out what's working and what's not

SO WHAT'S THE FIX?

You need a beachhead market. This is a specific market segment where you focus all your efforts before expanding.

With a beachhead, you'll be able to:

• Discover the right distribution channels for your target audience

• Write messaging that actually resonates and converts

• Build a stronger feature set which solves their specific problems

• Systematically test different market segments in search for product-market fit

Here's how to identify your ideal beachhead market—

STEP 1: SEGMENT YOUR TARGET MARKETS FUTHER

In B2B, you can segment potential markets using these two dimensions:

1. THE PERSON

• Job title

• Seniority (owner, C-level, VP, etc)

• Experience

• Skills and expertise

• Education

• Accreditations and qualifications

• Interests (hobbies, professional groups, etc)

• Location

2. THE COMPANY

• Growth stage (startup, scaleup, SMB, enterprise)

• Size (# employees, revenue, etc)

• Industry or vertical

• Geography

• Tech stack

For example, instead of targeting "HR professionals" you might target "Chief Human Resource Officers at Fortune 1000 companies".

STEP 2: SCORE YOUR MARKET SEGMENTS

Once you've identified several potential segments, how do you figure out which ones make "good" beachhead markets?

Score each segment against the following:

1. Can you identify customers through specific channels or job titles?

2. Are there enough potential customers to support your business goals?

3. Is competition manageable in this segment?

4. Do these customers have specific problems your solution can address?

5. Do customers in this segment have similar use-cases and requirements?

6. Does word of mouth exist among these customers?

7. Would you enjoy serving these customers?

The more confident you are in these answers, the stronger the potential of the market segment.

STEP 3: SELECT ONE MARKET SEGMENT

Once you've scored your options, rank them, and then pick one which you feel good about. Go with your gut here. You can always change focus later if you learn this market does not work for you.

ACTIONS:

• Run through the three step process above for identifying a beachhead market (segment -> score -> select). Try to come up with as many ideas for beachhead markets as possible before picking one

• Focus RUTHLESSLY: realign your product features, rewrite your messaging, and focus your marketing channels exclusively for this market segment

NEXT TIME

Even with perfect targeting, you'll still struggle to win your first customers if you use the wrong marketing tactics... But that's a topic for next time.

In this series, we explore best practices analysed from over 69+ landing pages. Today we’re going to look at — call-to-actions —.

What is a call-to-action (CTA)?

A call-to-action (CTA) is a prompt that encourages you to do something.

For example, to click a link, sign up for an account, or to add an item to a cart. On your landing page, the CTA is an invitation for your prospect to take the next step along your customer journey. If your CTA is unclear, too big of an ask, or is lost amongst the rest of your landing page, then you won’t get the results you are after.

Let’s look at how B2B companies handle CTAs in the year 2024.

Types of CTAs

There’s 5 types of landing page CTAs common today:

• Sign up

  • Get started

  • Start free trial

  • Create an account

  • Sign up

• Sales demos

  • Book a demo

  • Request a demo

  • Speak to sales

  • Contact us

• Informational

  • Watch demo

  • Learn more

  • View features

  • Documentation

• Contextual

  • Start designing

  • Start building

  • Start tracking for free

  • Start your project

• Branded

  • Try X for Free

  • Join X

  • Get X Free

  • Demo X

What are the most common CTAs?

Here are the 10 most popular CTAs based on the amount of times they featured on different landing pages:

1. Get started (25x)

2. Sign up (13x)

3. Book a demo (9x)

4. Contact sales (6x)

5. Get a demo (6x)

6. Start free trial (6x)

7. Request a demo (5x)

8. Sign up for free (4x)

9. Start your free trial (4x)

10. Get started - free (3x)

Best practices

• Stick to two: Most landing pages have two CTAs. One primary (which is emphasised visually) and one secondary.

• Key market trend: The most common CTA pairing is a sign-up (primary) + book a demo (secondary). This applies to both B2C and B2B.

• Common words: “Get“, “Start“, and “Free“ are the most common words used in CTAs. For example “Start designing“ or “Get started — free“.

• Keep it short (or not): CTAs are rarely longer than 3 words (but that’s not to say longer CTAs don’t work - test!)

• The formula for a typical CTA: Action word (“Create”, “Book”, “Get”, “Start”) + __word__. Many include the word “free” inside the prompt.

• Repeat your CTAs throughout: Common placement for CTAs are in navigation, in the above-the-fold section, and at the bottom of the page.

• Split test your CTAs: Just like with headlines, you never know which ones will perform the best for your prospects.

A final call-to-action

That’s a wrap for part 2 of this landing page series.

If you’re an early-stage B2B founder subscribe today and get actionable marketing strategy and tactics straight to your inbox.

Subscribe now

In this post we look at distribution channels and marketing tactics for B2B companies. Specifically, how to create a shortlist of marketing methods you can test which give you the highest chance of success.

Before we begin, what do we mean by a distribution channel?

A channel (the WHERE) is any place you can reliably get eyeballs or ears on something. For example, potential channels might include search engines, social media, or online forums.

The tactic (the HOW) is the method used for leveraging the channel itself. This could be running paid ads, doing SEO, writing posts, DM’ing people, etc.

To give an example let’s use LinkedIn as a social media channel. You can apply several channel-specific tactics to get in front of people:

• Visit profiles (which notifies them)

• Add and connect with people

• Write posts and articles

• Comment on other people's content

• Direct message people

• Participate in groups and communities

• Run paid ads (sponsored posts)

• Run paid DMs

• Create an event / webinar

• Sponsor an influencer for a plug

• Partner with affiliates who do all of the above

With the distinction between a distribution channel and a marketing tactic out of the way, let’s look at the most common ones.

A breakdown of distribution channels and tactics

The following is a list of common distribution channels and tactics you can use in order to leverage them.

1. Search engines

• Create content and do search engine optimisation (SEO)

• Run search engine ads

• Partner with affiliates who do the above

2. Websites and Blogs

• Create your own website and/or blog

• Run ads on other websites and/or blogs

• Guest write on other people's blogs

• Partner with affiliates who do the above

3. Email

• Do cold outreach

• Build an email list and do email marketing

• Start your own newsletter

• Sponsor a newsletter

• Partner with affiliates who do the above

• Run display ads on email providers

4. Social Media Platforms

• Post content

• Participate in groups and communities

• Direct message people

• Engage with other people's content

• Run paid ads

• Partner with affiliates who do the above

• Sponsor an influencer for a plug

5. Video and Streaming Platforms (e.g. YouTube)

• Create your own videos

• Sponsor a video

• Run paid ads

• Partner with affiliates who do the above

6. Online Communities and Forums

• Create your own community or forum

• Participate in existing communities or forums

• Run paid ads on existing communities or forums

• Partner with affiliates who do the above

7. Podcasts

• Host a podcast

• Be a guest on a podcast

• Sponsor a podcast

8. Trade Shows and Conferences

• Attend a trade show or conference

• Exhibit at a trade show or conference

• Sponsor a trade show or conference

9. Q&A Sites

• Respond to Q&As

• Run paid ads

10. PR News Outlets

• Submit a press release

• Ping journalists

• Run paid ads

11. Product Directories and Marketplaces

• Submit your business listing

• Run paid ads

As you can see, there’s TONS of potential ways to reach your customers… But how do you figure out the best ones?

Let’s go fishing

Imagine you are going fishing.

You’ve got the following variables at play:

• The fish you are going after (tuna, salmon, trout, seabass, etc)

• The spot you are fishing in (lake, river, sea, etc)

• The method you are going to use (spear, rod, net, harpoon gun, dynamite, etc)

• The bait you are using (corn, worms, small fish, etc)

Think of different species of fish as different customer segments. They exhibit similar traits and behaviours to one another.

Fishing spots are like distribution channels and represent different congregation points for customers.

Your fishing methods are the marketing tactics you use to engage customers. Different methods work better depending on the species of fish.

And finally the bait represents the actual content your customer consumes via your chosen method. It is the copy in an ad you’re running, the words in an email you wrote, or the message in a post you made.

The most important thing in any marketing strategy is to have clarity on the customer segment you are going after and how you can reach them effectively.

Go where the fish are

If you’re fishing for a saltwater fish, don’t go fishing in a freshwater lake…

Unless you’re fishing for salmon of course, which can live in both freshwater and saltwater apparently. Who knew?

The same concept applies for customers. Find the channels they are already using, then leverage those. It might seem obvious, but it’s a very easy mistake for founders and marketers to make (myself included).

So how do we reverse-engineer this?

Use the following questions to get inside your customers head. If you find this exercise hard, you either don’t know enough about your target customer or you are targeting too broad of a customer segment (e.g. “small businesses“).

Ask yourself these questions about your target customers:

1. Do they use search engines? What are they searching for? What keywords/phrases?

2. What websites and blogs do they visit?

3. Which communities and groups do they hang out in?

4. What videos do they watch? Who do they subscribe to?

5. What social media platforms do they use? Which influencers do they follow?

6. What email newsletters do they subscribe to?

7. What podcasts do they listen to?

8. Do they have a work email address? Do they use LinkedIn?

9. Do they have any specific job qualifications or certificates? Do they do any job-specific training or courses? Are they part of any professional membership bodies?

10. Do they attend events and conferences?

11. Do they subscribe to any trade publications or industry news?

12. What books do they read?

Having this level of insight should start to uncover potential channels and viable tactics you can use for reaching your target customers.

With this information, you can build a laser targeted marketing strategy.

An example

Let’s run through an example. Say we have a SaaS productivity app which which organises your calendar, to-do list, and notes. We’ve decided that our target customer segment is “productivity geeks”.

Running through the questionnaire we learn that our target customer:

• Hangs out on the productivity subreddit

• Follows Ali Abdaal on YouTube and X/Twitter

• Searches for productivity methods like ‘Pomodoro‘, ‘Getting Things Done‘, and ‘Eat the Frog‘

Based on this information, we might decide to:

1. Fix the channel: based on observation, we think that YouTube might have the largest concentration of our target customers. We decide to produce video content and run ads to try and reach our target customers.

2. Fix the method: we decide to use ads. We run ad campaigns on Reddit (targeting the productivity sub), YouTube and X (targeting followers of Ali Abdaal), and on Google (targeting people who search for productivity-related keywords and phrases).

In running one of these strategies, we might learn that a certain channel or method works better than others. Or that a certain strategy is too expensive for the return. Or that we can further segment our target customer base. It’s only in doing that we learn.

In summary

If you’re looking to uncover viable distribution channels and marketing tactics, do the following:

1. Get inside your customers head. Run through the questions above for each of the customer segments you are targeting.

2. Make a bet. Pick a mix of channels and tactics to experiment with based on analysis or gut-feel.

3. Iterate and learn. Don’t forget, if you can get just one distribution channel to work, you have a great business.

Remember, you’re likely going to experiment A LOT with the different variables — customer segment, channel, tactic, content, and your product offer. Over time you’ll learn more about your customer, how to reach them, and what works to attract them.

Good luck.

PS: My three favourite tactics for attracting early customers are engaging in online communities, running paid ads, and doing cold outreach. At least two of these normally apply for most customer segments.

In this series, we explore best practices analysed from over 69+ landing pages. Today we’re going to look at — headlines —.

If there is ONE thing to get right on your landing page, it’s your headline.

A vague or crappy headline will have your potential customers drop out of your website faster than a billionaire tech founder at college.

Someone is on your landing page because they are looking for something. Your headline should sign post that they are in the right place. If it doesn’t do that, expect people to hit the back button, regardless of how pretty or persuasive the rest of your landing page is.

Based on my research there are a few things which stood out…

Five common types

1. Descriptive

• “The easy and effective CRM for closing deals” - Pipedrive

• “One Easy-to-Use Platform for Everything HR“ - BambooHR

• “Wireframe, Diagram & Whiteboard Online” - Moqups

• “Easy to use and privacy-friendly Google Analytics alternative” - Plausible

• “Scheduling infrastructure for everyone” - Cal.com

2. Promises

• “The simplest way to create forms“ - Tally

• “Beautiful Screen Recordings in Minutes“ - Screen Studio

• “Grow your audience on social and beyond” - Buffer

• “The platform for exceptional customer service at scale” - Front

• “A better way to collect customer feedback” - Frill

3. Outcomes

• “Organize your work and life, finally.“ - Todoist

• “Say goodbye to never-ending lists, and hello to daily bliss“ - Llamalife

4. Curiosity

• “My team has gone through four time tracking apps in the last two and a half years…“ - Noko

• “Everything you ever wanted to know about your website... but your analytics never told you.“ - HotJar

• “How developers build successful products” - PostHog

• “What will you design today?” - Canva

5. Bold branded claims

• “That meeting should have been a Loom video” - Loom

• “Great outcomes start with Jira” - Jira

• “Grow better with HubSpot” - HubSpot

Length doesn’t matter

The shortest headline I found was just 3 words — “Where work happens“ - Slack. The longest 17 words. What does that mean? Make your headline as long as it needs to be. Use as many words as needed to get your point across, but not a single word more.

A good approach for doing this is to imagine getting paid $100 for every word you can remove from your headline or copy. The goal being to remove or consolidate words without losing any meaning or impact.

Simple language

Avoid complex words or flowery language. If a fifth grader can’t understand your headline then it is too complex. Using simple English makes it easier to read, understand, and remember.

That said, feel free to use industry jargon if it is common for your intended market and helps get your point across faster.

Draw attention

Help guide people’s attention to your headline. Make it the first thing people WANT to read. This can be achieved by playing around with the following:

• Headline position - Typically headlines are placed as the first element following a (simple) navigation bar. A lot of companies these days are using centred headlines and single-column layouts above-the-fold.

• Font size and weight - Use large (but not too large) font sizes in bold or black font weight. Anything around 42-60px on desktop seems common.

• White space - Give your headline space to breathe with plenty of white space and padding around it.

Readability is king

No matter how good the copy, if someone can’t read your headline they won’t. This boils down to optimising the following things:

• Font type - Some font types are inherently easier to read than others.

• Font weight - Most headlines researched use bold or black font weight to draw attention. Optimise the other variables given this.

• Font size - Make sure your font size is not too small nor too big to be read easily.

• Line, word, and letter spacing - Check that your headline words don’t feel too cramped within themselves and in relation to others.

• Colour contrast - Ensure there is enough contrast between your headline text colour and your background. Follow Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). There are plenty of calculators online to double check you have sufficient contrast for readability.

• Casing - Play around with the capitalisation you use in your headline. Sentence case (“The quick brown fox …“) and title case (“The Quick Brown Fox …“) are the most common.

Don’t forget to optimise this for a range of viewports (e.g. desktop, tablet, and mobile).

In summary…

Here are some guidelines for a great headline:

• Make it descriptive, a promise, an outcome, a claim, or curiosity invoking

• Keep it as long as it needs to be (but remove any unnecessary words)

• Use simple language

• Draw attention

• Ensure readability

Learn the rules first before you break them. Oh, and make sure you split test your headlines… A subject for another time.