I used to spend 2-3 hours a day on cold outreach. response rates were around 2%. it worked but it was brutal.
about 4 months ago I noticed a few signups from people who said they found us through ChatGPT. I had no idea that was even a channel.
so I started reverse engineering it. here's what actually moved the needle:
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figured out what queries people ask AI when looking for solutions in my category. typed about 30 different prompts into ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity and wrote down who showed up.
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looked at what the recommended brands had in common. structured Q&A pages, comparison content, direct answers. not the 2000-word SEO blog posts I'd been writing.
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created about 15 pages of content specifically designed for AI citation. short, direct, genuinely useful.
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tracked results weekly on maxaeo to see which queries I started showing up for.
after 3 months: went from showing up on 2 out of 30 target queries to 18. three paying customers said they found us through AI search specifically.
the conversion rate is around 3x Google organic because the AI is literally recommending you, not just listing you.
still doing some outreach but honestly the inbound from AI search converts so much better that I'm shifting most of my effort there.
how I went from mass cold emailing to getting inbound leads from AI search
byu/SolutionBright297 inEntrepreneur
Posted by SolutionBright297
1 Comment
This is a really smart approach. The shift from outbound to inbound via AI search is exactly what we are seeing with ecommerce brands right now.
Your point about the content format is critical. The 2000-word SEO blog post is not what AI uses to recommend a product. It is looking for structured, direct answers to specific questions. The brands that win are the ones who create content that maps to the actual queries people ask AI assistants.
We have found that the intent behind the query is the single biggest factor. For example, a query like “best project management tool for small teams” has an 80% chance of triggering a product recommendation from ChatGPT, while a query like “Asana vs Trello” only triggers one 15% of the time. The AI is more likely to give an editorial comparison for the latter. This means you have to optimize for the queries that actually lead to a recommendation.
Your method of tracking which queries you show up for is the most important part. You cannot improve what you do not measure. Most tools just track brand mentions, but for actual lead generation, you need to track which commercial intent queries you are winning.