How You Can Track Brand Authority For AI Search via @sejournal, @Kevin_Indig

I recently compared my March 2025 “What works well in LLMs” analysis with Ahrefs’ May 2025 study of 75,000 brands, and we independently arrived at the same surprising conclusion about AI search visibility.

It turns out, brand matters – a lot.

Today’s Memo is a deep dive into a concept that’s often talked about (but rarely measured well): Brand authority.

In this issue, I’m unpacking:

• What brand authority really is, and how it’s different from topical authority.
• Why brand search volume is the strongest predictor of AI chatbot mentions.
• How Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines frame brand reputation and trust.
• Tactical steps you can take to build and track brand authority.
• A brand-new framework (premium only) for live brand authority dashboards.

If you care about AI visibility or becoming the go-to answer in your niche, brand authority needs to be on your radar.

Let’s define it. Track it. Build it.

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Brand authority has gained a new quality in the context of AI search.

In “What Content Works Well in LLMs?,” I analyzed over 7,000 citations to see which content performs best.

The conclusion?

Brand search volume has the strongest influence!

After matching many metrics with AI chatbot visibility, I found one factor that stands out more than anything else: Brand search volume. The number of AI chatbot mentions and brand search volume have a correlation of .334 – pretty good in this field. In other words, the popularity of a brand broadly decides how visible it is in AI chatbots.

Ahrefs came to a similar conclusion:^[1]

Our correlation of 0.392 for branded search volume closely supports Kevin’s findings – but we’ve uncovered even stronger signals.

The problem: Topical authority is often fuzzy and undefined. The implication is that people use it as an argument to justify actions that are actually not related.

So, I want to double-click on the LLM study and:

1. Clearly define brand authority and show how it’s different from topical authority.
2. Explain its role in AI search.
3. Show you how to build brand authority.
4. Share a concept for measuring brand authority.

A Crisp Definition Of Brand Authority

Brand authority started as a metric by Moz, built on Google’s Quality Rater guidelines, and then became an industry term.^[2]

What Is Brand Authority?

Brand authority is the cumulative trust, prominence, and perceived expertise a domain earns (across the open web and offline sources) that search engines and LLMs use to decide whether and how prominently to surface that brand as an answer.

Brand authority is really just another name for reputation measured across:

• Branded search demand.
• High-quality citations.
• Authoritative backlinks.
• Expert/press mentions.
• Positive user engagement.

Image Credit: Kevin Indig

How Is Brand Authority Different From Topical Authority?

Topical authority is the depth and breadth of expertise and trust in a defined topic niche, while brand authority applies to all topics a domain targets.

You could call brand authority the sum of topical authority across an entire brand, its domain, and all targeted topics.

From “How to Measure Topical Authority“:

The idea behind topical authority is that by covering all aspects of a topic (well), sites get a ranking boost because Google sees them as an authority in the topic space.

On the other end of the spectrum would be sites that only touch the surface of a topic.

This handy visual from Clearscope.io’s article “Topical Authority: The What and Why” breaks this down simply:^[3]

Screenshot by author from clearscope.io, July 2025

How To Think About Brand Authority

Part of what makes brand authority such a fuzzy term is its contextual quality: Authority is query and topic-dependent.

Some topics have clearly authoritative sites or brands. (Think NerdWallet for credit cards, The Zebra for insurance, and Nike for sneakers.)

Others don’t. For example, a very new topic where authority isn’t established (you know, like GEO/AIO optimization).

Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines (GQRGs) speak about three types of authority:

• Unique Official Authority: Government sites for official documents; company sites for their own products.
• Recognized Authority: Well-known sources that are go-to references for specific topics.
• Informal Authority: For non-YMYL (or Your Money or Your Life) topics, reputation information may be less formal. Popularity, user engagement, and user reviews can be considered evidence of reputation for non-YMYL websites.

Even the size of a site or business matters in deciding when authority is most important. (For more to consider, read my take on the question: Does Google give big sites an unfair SEO advantage?)

Again, from the GQRGs:

You should expect to find some reputation information for large websites and well-known content creators. People or businesses who create content in a professional capacity typically have some reputation information available. However, small websites may have little or no reputation information. This is not indicative of high or low quality.

Brand authority is often mentioned in the same breath as E-E-A-T (expertise, experience, authoritativeness, trustworthiness), a concept in the GQRGs to describe ideal results.

Important to note: The GQRGs guidelines say that trust is the most important factor.

If the results aren’t trustworthy, none of the other four factors matter.

As a result, you need to be known for a topic and also come across as trustworthy, which is strongly reflected in my recent AIO usability study:

Emotion is tied to risk. Searchers are internally asking What’s at stake? when making a decision to trust a result

And as a result, high-stakes niches – or even expensive products – receive more skepticism and scrutiny from users.

This skepticism plays out in the form of clicks – a.k.a. your opportunities to convince people that you’re trustworthy.

Takeaways:

1. Measure brand authority in the context of your competitors.
2. Recognize that your ability to compete with high-authority brands depends on industry and targeted topics. (Example: A regional medical private practice will have difficulty competing against WebMD for visibility on generic medical topics, but would likely excel in location-specific content.)
3. Ensure your site is the unique official authority for your products and services. If not, find out why and urgently resolve it.

Ready to make tracking brand authority across metrics easier? I came up with a concept for a brand authority live dashboard, and premium subscribers will get it at the end of this memo. Should save you tons of time!

How Can You Influence Brand Authority?

The main underlying challenge with brand authority? That so many factors influence it.

And for growth marketers and SEO pros, there are often limitations on the inputs you can control.

What you can influence:

• What your brand’s website or content says about itself → via brand positioning, reflection of E-E-A-T.
• What others say about the brand, website, or your content creators → via data stories and first-party data.
• What is visible on the page, including the main content and supporting sections, like reviews and comments → via content production effort, design & layout, trust signals.
• User reviews → via providing a great product, service, and experience to submit those reviews.

What is hard to influence:

• Customer service/support.
• Sales experience.
• Product quality/product market fit.
• Brand campaigns.
• Company positioning & messaging.

Tactical Steps You Can Take

1. Research your reputation to find sites that have an outsized impact:

• Search queries raters use: [ibm -site:ibm.com], [“ibm.com” -site:ibm.com], [ibm reviews -site:ibm.com] (these search operators surface up branded mentions across the web).
• Look for articles, references, recommendations by experts, and other credible information written by people about the website.
• Sources must be independent (not created by the website itself).
• Note that sources of mentions/links like news articles, Wikipedia articles, magazines, and ratings from independent organizations signal stronger authority.
• Different types of evidence matter for different industries:
  • News sites: Journalistic awards, Pulitzer prizes.
  • Medical sites: Recognition from professional medical organizations.
  • Ecommerce: Customer service reputation, BBB ratings.
  • Academic: Citations, peer recognition.

2. Use a tool like Semrush Brand Mentions/Ahrefs Mention Tracker/other third-party tools.

• Track mentions.
• Grow the number of mentions while using positive sentiment as a guardrail.
• Differentiate between products that get negative reviews by default.
• Monitor differences in backlink authority for your brand vs. peers (via Ahrefs DR, Moz DA).

3. Analyze and optimize your third-party reviews.

• React to bad reviews (notice if, in some spaces, you only get bad reviews → which ones?).
• How to analyze? → Can you build a small tool that scrapes reviews from G2, Trustpilot, etc., and summarizes their sentiment?
  • Look at the average rating.
  • Review what the 5- and 1-star reviews highlight (both positive + negative sentiment).

4. Analyze whether the right pages show up for branded queries (or even exist in the first place) to ensure you offer all important information to users, Google, and LLMs:

• Review Google Search Console for “brand + topic” impression tracking.

For example, in the screenshot below, you see a site that gets impressions for the term “{brand} document management” but doesn’t have a dedicated landing page for it.

Google ranks the homepage and other product pages at the top, but the user experience would be much better with a dedicated landing page.

Image Credit: Kevin Indig

5. Opt into LLM-citation tracking through a tool.

I’ve included a few of my favorite options below:

• Profound.
• Scrunch.
• Xofu.
• Semrush.
• Ahrefs.

6. Brand lift & awareness surveys.

• What to measure: Unaided/Aided brand recall in your category – Perceived expertise (e.g., “Which brand would you consult for X?”).
• Why it matters: Directly tests real-world authority in user minds – separate from search behavior.
• How to track: Run sub-100-respondent surveys via Google Surveys or Pollfish quarterly.

7. Sentiment & themes via social listening.

• What to measure: Net sentiment score (positive vs. negative mentions) on Twitter, Reddit, forums, and Slack communities; share of voice vs. key rivals in topical conversations (e.g., “skincare AI recommendations”).
• Why it matters: Authority isn’t just volume – it’s perceived expertise and trust. Social buzz reveals genuine endorsement or criticism.
• How to track: Tools like Semrush Brand Monitoring, Ahrefs, Brandwatch, Talkwalker, or Meltwater; set up topic-specific streams for “brand + topic” keywords.

Image Credit: Kevin Indig

One of the best ways to make sure the tactical steps you’re taking to build brand authority are actually moving the needle is to measure and monitor your efforts.

Below, I’ve just dropped a brand authority live dashboard for premium subscribers.

If you don’t have something like this set up already, this should save you hours (maybe even a couple of days) setting up something on your own. Check it out and try it. 👇👇👇

For premium subscribers only: A brand authority live dashboard concept.

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal

Human-Centered Marketing: Thought Leadership

This edited excerpt is from Human-Centered Marketing by Ashley Faus ©2025 and is reproduced and adapted with permission from Kogan Page Ltd.

Decision-makers are more likely to buy from organizations that produce strong thought leadership content, and they’re more likely to stay with a current provider that produces strong thought leader­ship content, which confirms the company continues to offer insights and solutions compared to competitors.^[1]

Unfortunately, the term “thought leadership” has a lot of baggage because too many people share a lot of fluff.

They talk about a grand future where everything is amazing, but they don’t share any plans for actually creating that future.

They talk about how far they’ve come, triumphing over a big failure in the past, but they neglect to share any insights from their journey.

They repeat quippy soundbites and hot takes, but they lack any nuance to help their audience improve.

Thought Leadership Is Not Executive Content

How often have you heard of teams calling any content that includes an executive or founder byline “thought leadership”? It happens all the time.

But executives and founders frequently have bylines, appear in videos, and share content on stages – that isn’t thought leadership.

Consider the quarterly earnings report. This is frequently delivered to investors and analysts by a chief executive officer (CEO), chief fi­nancial officer (CFO), or a founder. Yet, would you consider that content to be thought leadership? Probably not.

Teams can easily understand that, just because an executive shares the information in an earnings report, it doesn’t mean it’s thought leadership, but they struggle to make this differentiation in other narratives and assets.

Thought Leadership Is Not Why Or How We Made Our Product Or Service

Often, people think that talking about why you created something au­tomatically makes it thought leadership content. The “why” is part of conceptual-depth content.

But, simply explaining why something is helpful or neces­sary does not make it thought leadership.

Again, this is easy to under­stand with simple examples, like “why you should eat a high-protein diet (it’s an essential ingredient for building big muscles)” but becomes much more difficult when translated to complex topics for brands.

Thought Leadership Is Not Non-Product Content

Some teams think that sharing learn-intent content or assets related to stories and practices automatically means it’s thought leadership content. This is incorrect.

Learn-intent content often teaches the au­dience about existing information, including well-known topics, referencing older research.

For example, Atlassian shared articles related to Agile methodology on increasing reach, engagement, and conversion.

While this learn-intent content is helpful, it’s based on well-known practices that originated with other creators.

Atlassian didn’t create the concepts, despite articulating them in practical terms for teams looking to learn about incorporat­ing Agile practices into their team rituals and workflows.

Thought Leadership Is Not Being Contrarian

People often assume that being contrarian automatically makes you a thought leader, or that you must be contrarian if you want to be a thought leader.

In theory, being at the forefront of your industry means that you’re going against the best practices, status quo, and commonly held beliefs.

You’re introducing new ways of accomplish­ing something. You’re iterating on previous work, which probably means you’re dismantling some strategy and tactics, and that’s going to ruffle some feathers!

Sharing in this way is different from being contrarian. Being con­trarian for the sake of being contrarian doesn’t make you a thought leader – it just makes you contrarian.

Simply saying the opposite of whatever is trendy is not thought leadership. You must add to the conversation, not just change it.

Attributes Of Thought Leadership

In the simplest terms, we can define thought leadership by looking at each word in the phrase. So, have thoughts, be a leader.

If you look at the anatomy of the phrase, you see that “thought” is really about having something of value to say; being a “leader” and showing “leadership” implies that you are worth following, and that people do, in fact, follow you.

True thought leadership content changes minds and enables action in a new direction. It balances lofty ideas with actionable insights.

Quality content is smart, helpful, and curated. It’s not thought leadership, however, unless it’s innovative, disruptive, and original.

If we continue the three-word descriptions, we can say that a thought leader is someone who is smart, shaping, and sharing. Let’s look at these attributes:

• Smart: You’re an expert and you have actionable insights.
• Sharing: You codify your insights and make them available for others to learn, use, and improve.
• Shaping: You have influence in your industry; your strategies and tactics become best practices.

Thought leadership is unique because it’s about a differentiated point of view informed by expertise and experience, original ideas, strategy, and/or execution, and helping the audience think, act, and achieve in new ways.

Thought leadership builds trust because it’s coming from someone with deep expertise and experience, and it enables someone to take action.

Pitfalls Of Thought Leadership Programs

In addition to the misunderstanding of the meaning of thought lead­ership, many companies make mistakes when trying to build thought leaders and thought leadership programs.

Marketers and public relations professionals often shortlist executives to build as the organization’s thought leaders.

This is particularly true in founder-led companies, with the assumption that the founder is the best person to be a thought leader.

Unfortunately, executives often struggle to be thought leaders for several reasons. First, they’re busy! These people often manage large organizations with tens or hundreds of people relying on them.

They’re responsible for a large budget, often owning the Profit & Loss statements, revenue goals and quotas, and customer growth numbers if they sit in the go-to-market organization, and efficiency, productivity, or cost savings if they sit on the engineering or IT side of the organization.

This means that they don’t have much time to experiment, iterate, and optimize, and then codify their findings in a way that others can follow. They don’t have time to create quality assets.

And they don’t have time to distribute content in multiple channels, answer follow-up questions, or otherwise engage with the audience consistently to build a large following.

It turns out that practitioners throughout the organization are often better suited to growing into thought leaders because they’re the ones grappling with the challenges and solving the complex prob­lems.

The audience trusts them because they bring real-world experi­ence to the stories and solutions they share, and they’re more likely to spend time on social media and build community with a larger peer network.

To read the full book, SEJ readers have an exclusive 25% discount code and free shipping to the US and UK. Use promo code SEJ25 at koganpage.com here.

More Resources:

^[1] Kingsbury, Joe, Barik, Tusar, et al. (2023).

Featured Image: Zamrznuti tonovi/Shutterstock

Human-Centered Marketing: The Right Message To The Right People

This edited excerpt is from Human-Centered Marketing by Ashley Faus ©2025 and is reproduced and adapted with permission from Kogan Page Ltd.

Mapping content to the traditional funnel adds no value, since the journey behaves more like a playground than a linear progression.

Pitfalls of the traditional funnel include assuming that every person in the audience intends to and will become a customer, underestimating the sophistication of the buyer, and offering limited options for post-purchase retention strategies.

Building a seamless, delightful journey on a foundation of trust means that we must fundamentally rethink our framework for the audience journey.

Most marketers are familiar with the traditional funnel to outline the buyer’s journey, focusing on three key phases: awareness, consideration, and decision.

The funnel assumes that the audience journey begins with awareness, when, in fact, the audience journey begins long before marketers rec­ognize that this person is on a journey.

Introducing The Playground

We need to think about the journey as a playground: people can go up, down, sideways, and around. They can go to the equip­ment (content) in any order. They can enter and exit as they please. And they can use the content in the “wrong” way.

How many times do you force your audience to go through un­necessary steps because you’re trying to make them buy when they’re not ready; or, worse, you add friction to the buying process because you need to check the boxes on providing a white paper and a demo and a case study?

Why does this happen? It stems from the idea that we need to push prospects down the funnel to become leads and keep moving them through until they become customers.

Pitfalls Of The Customer Journey Map

Ultimately, every customer journey map ends with the prospect be­coming a lead and deciding to purchase the company’s offering. This linear journey map ignores retention, cross-sell, up-sell, and expansion opportunities.

While the looping journey does, at least, acknowledge the additional post-purchase phase, it fails to capture the complexity.

For example, many software-as-a-service companies have user limits for different tiers of their product offerings.

With the rise of product-led growth (PLG) as a key go-to-market motion, many SaaS products include a free tier, with user gates, feature gates, or both, to prompt free users to become paying customers.

Traditional journey maps obscure the messy middle of the customer journey, with weird hacks to stay under the user limit, lengthy negotiations on larger contracts for seat expansion, and fighting competitors when it comes time for the cus­tomer to renew.

This highlights another pitfall of the funnel and associated journey maps to move people through the funnel. It’s a retrospective measure­ment tool, not a forward-looking strategy tool.

If you map the journeys of people who did, in fact, become custom­ers, then you are correct in starting with a prospect having a problem, searching for a solution, and ultimately, choosing your offering.

If, however, you are trying to build a net-new audience, hone your nar­ratives to resonate with that audience, and map your content and distribution strategy, you can’t simply look at what happened in the past, on owned platforms, in the condensed time period where the buying process “officially” started.

In addition, consider a post-pur­chase scenario where the marketer makes the journey more difficult for a customer precisely because they want to track the interaction in more detail.

Collecting more information gives us a false sense of security. If we know just a bit more about this person, surely we can convince them to spend more money.

Traditional funnel models also fail to recognize the differences be­tween a user and an economic buyer. Many marketers recognize that buying involves multiple different people, but they assume that each stakeholder joins the process in a linear way.

For example, in larger companies, an economic buyer might need to go through a procure­ment process that includes a security assessment, compliance check­list, and legal or contract review before bringing in a new tool.

The linear funnel assumes that these stakeholders need to be addressed in the “decision” phase of the buying process.

And yet, ask anyone who’s been through procurement in a large enterprise, and they’ll tell you that it’s difficult, and, often, a deterrent to even starting a buying process.

In order to convince me to buy, you need to convince me that I’ll be able to buy. If you make it easy for me to make it through the procurement process, I’m much more likely to choose you as a ven­dor because I know that I’ll be successful in completing the process.

Consider another scenario, where individual teams are empowered to purchase tools and services on their own. These teams are all in the “post-purchase” phase.

At some point, the invoices might be large enough to warrant consolidation, which might trigger a wider vendor review. In that case, you’ve won over many users, but the economic buyer is now in the “awareness” phase, as they’ve just discovered you as a vendor.

Or, they might need to be convinced that solving this prob­lem should continue to be a priority at all. Alternatively, the buyers might immediately move to the “consideration” phase by opening a request for proposal (RFP) or researching competitors.

Maybe they’ve bought in on the problem, but they want to explore different solutions. They might need to learn about different possible solutions, even though there’s already a vendor solving this problem.

Once you decide to consolidate a contract, the spend might be big enough to require a more thorough vetting by the procurement, secu­rity, compliance, and legal teams.

At this point, who knows which phase of the funnel you’re in? Is it “retention” with the users who no longer actually have buying power?

Is it awareness or consideration with the economic buyer? Is it awareness or decision with teams who have the ability to block the deal, but aren’t the economic buyer?

As you can see, attempting to map content to a linear funnel by also mapping linear personas becomes quite a challenge!

These scenarios also minimize or ignore the sophistication of the buyer. In a B2B (business-to-business) context, most buyers are quite sophisticated. They’re well-versed in the problem space, and might have purchased solutions in the past.

They’re equipped to do their own research, and often prefer working through the initial vetting phases before reaching out to a company to initiate a buying process.

In fact, TrustRadius found that, in 2021, 43% of buyers re­ported consulting with vendor representatives, and that number dropped to an average of one out of four buyers in all but the largest deal sizes.

Instead, buyers preferred to conduct their own research, with a bias to­wards non-vendor-provided material.

Buyers favored free trials or ac­counts (56%), user reviews (55%), and community forums (37%) over vendor-provided materials such as customer references (15%), blogs (14%), and marketing collateral (14%).¹

This trend continued in a 2024 report from 6sense, a company that arms revenue teams with data to accelerate deal conversions. It found that, when B2B buyers directly engage sellers, they are already 70% through their buying process.²

We see over and over that, by the time a marketer becomes aware that someone is in the buying process, they’re significantly behind the buyer’s knowledge of the problem space, research into the solution space, and affinity for a select list of solution providers.

They’re not coming to the company website cold, or blindly reaching out to a salesperson.

Instead, they’ve consulted a curated list of trusted sources, including conversations with their personal network, crowd­sourcing information, and recommendations from peers on social media and forums, and they’ve read about the pros and cons of dif­ferent providers from people like themselves.

To read the full book, SEJ readers have an exclusive 25% discount code and free shipping to the US and UK. Use promo code SEJ25 at koganpage.com here.

More Resources:

[1] TrustRadius (2022), 2022 Buying Disconnect: The Age of the Self-Serve Buyer, go.trustradius.com/rs/827-FOI-687/images/TrustRadius_2022_ B2B_Buying_Disconnect_6.27.22.pdf (archived at https://perma.cc/ TG6X-UU8T)

[2] 6sense Research (2023), Out of Sight, Almost Out of Time: The 2023 6sense B2B Buyer Experience Report, 6sense, 6sense.com/report/ buyer-experience (archived at https://perma.cc/XJ3Z-ULJ4)

Featured Image: Natalya Kosarevich/Shutterstock

5 High-Impact Ways To Integrate Traditional & Digital Marketing For A Personalized Buyer Experience via @sejournal, @alexanderkesler

As emerging technologies, particularly AI, reshape B2B marketing strategies, many organizations are shifting resources toward digital transformation to remain competitive.

However, sidelining traditional marketing tactics to prioritize innovation can be a costly misstep.

Traditional channels such as print, direct mail, billboards, and events have considerable value, particularly when they are thoughtfully integrated with digital strategies and real-time demand intelligence.

Combining traditional and digital approaches offers a unique advantage, namely the ability for a brand to stand out in the sea of sameness.

Experiences that blend the old with the new are more likely to capture attention, foster trust, and drive meaningful engagement.

By aligning traditional media with digital insights and delivery systems, marketers can create a cohesive brand-to-demand experience – one that resonates with today’s self-directed, risk-averse buyers.

Here are five high-impact ways to integrate traditional and digital marketing for a more personalized and effective buyer experience.

1. Intent Data Intelligence + One-To-One Conversations

When fueled by intent data intelligence, the cold calls of yesterday become the insight-driven conversations of tomorrow.

Intent data empowers organizations to identify where prospects are within the buyer’s journey and to gauge their level of interest in specific solutions.

This approach transcends cold outreach, enabling marketers and sales teams to engage with prospects who are actively exhibiting buying intent signals.

Before initiating outreach, Go-To-Market (GTM) teams can use intent data to identify:

• Prospects actively researching or seeking a solution.
• Competing vendors under consideration.
• Behavioral signals that reveal sales readiness or indicate the need for a longer nurture path.
• Current challenges, questions, and priority search topics shaping buyer decisions.

Organizations can begin capturing meaningful intent signals directly from their own client relationship manager (CRM) and digital ecosystem.

Key first-party intent signals include:

• Visits to solution-specific or pillar pages on your website.
• Keyword searches aligned with your offerings.
• Email engagement metrics, particularly open and click-through rates.

Once foundational tracking is established, GTM teams should consider enhancing their database with firmographic and technographic data.

When integrated thoughtfully into your GTM strategy, intent intelligence allows you to engage buyers with relevant messaging, transforming passive prospects into sales-ready opportunities.

2. Print Media + Deep Media Nurturing

The most effective B2B marketers are meeting the demands of cautious, self-directed buying groups by orchestrating deep media presence that aligns with how prospects prefer to research and engage.

Yet, according to our own Q4 2024 market research, only 22% of marketing teams prioritize the creation of buyer enablement materials, highlighting a significant gap between awareness-building efforts and buyer-centric strategies that support purchase decisions.

The most progressive strategies integrate AI-powered targeting, first-party intent data, and omnichannel delivery systems to ensure buyers receive value at every stage of their journey.

We know that on average, 33-50% of buyers go through seven or more pieces of content during the purchase process. Print media offers a distinct opportunity to break through this noise and command attention.

When informed by behavioral insights and demand intelligence, print media can be strategically activated in niche publications consumed by your target buying groups, delivering a high return on investment.

Here is how B2B buyer intelligence enhances print media experiences:

• Predictive analytics and intent signals identify which accounts are most likely to purchase, enabling marketers to prioritize them for print media activation.
• Generative AI enables personalization at scale by adapting core messaging across different print formats and channels.
• QR codes integrated into compelling print advertisements bridge the physical and digital experience, allowing for trackable engagement and follow-up opportunities.
• Print-on-demand and programmatic print technologies make it possible to deliver hyper-personalized physical content with the same agility and precision as digital campaigns.

For marketers focused on brand-to-demand integration, combining technology-enabled media strategies with high-trust formats, such as print, provides a unique and differentiated way to capture buyer attention.

3. Events + ABX

Ensuring that key accounts receive a personalized follow-up experience through an Account-Based Experience (ABX) strategy is an effective way to bridge traditional event marketing with modern, buyer-centric engagement.

ABX enables marketers to connect with prospects before, during, and after an event, creating a cohesive journey that adds value at every stage.

Before the event, contacts can be engaged with targeted nurture streams that build interest and provide relevant insights, effectively “priming” them with content that addresses common pain points, frequently asked questions, or industry trends.

This not only enhances their readiness to engage at the event, but also empowers them with the context to have more meaningful conversations on-site.

For example, if a prospect receives content around B2B buyer advocacy in pre-event nurture, they may arrive at the booth with a deeper understanding of the topic and specific questions in mind.

This creates an opportunity for sales to engage in more relevant, high-value discussions, transforming a standard booth interaction into strategically qualified engagement.

By extending the event experience beyond the show floor, ABX ensures that traditional marketing efforts are amplified through intent-driven, personalized interactions.

This leads to stronger relationships, clearer value exchange, and accelerated pipeline progression.

4. Billboards/Posters + Geotargeting + Nurture

To maximize the effectiveness of traditional advertising platforms such as billboards and posters, marketers can integrate geotargeting to bridge physical impressions with digital engagement.

Geotargeting enables the delivery of tailored follow-up content based on a viewer’s location, allowing billboard placements to align strategically with key account locations, such as near a corporate headquarters or an industry event venue.

When paired with compelling creatives and a clear call to action, such as a short, memorable URL or QR code, billboards can guide viewers to personalized landing pages that extend the message and encourage deeper interaction.

These landing pages can be tailored by industry, buyer stage, or intent signals, further enhancing relevance and conversion potential.

At a more advanced level, mobile location data can be used to identify devices that have passed by a billboard.

This type of geotargeting enables marketers to retarget those individuals with personalized digital nurture campaigns, reinforcing the original message across multiple touchpoints.

By combining location-specific placement with digital activation, billboards evolve from static awareness tools into measurable components of a modern ABX strategy that drives engagement and accelerates pipeline.

5. Direct Mail + Buyer Intelligence

When executed with precision and relevance, direct mail can be a powerful tool for re-engaging prospects who have become unresponsive to digital touchpoints.

A well-timed physical asset can prompt renewed interest, particularly when guided by demand and buyer intelligence.

Technology can play a critical role in elevating direct mail from a generic outreach method in the following ways:

• Intent data and predictive analytics, together forming deep data intelligence about the prospect or account, identify when a buying group is entering an active research or purchasing stage, ensuring that direct mail is sent at the most strategic moment.
• AI-driven personalization enables messaging tailored to a recipient’s industry, role, behavior patterns, or known tech stack.
• Programmatic print technology allows for scalable, real-time production of customized assets such as postcards, letters, or dimensional mailers, triggered by specific prospect actions or buying signals.
• Integrated measurement platforms unify physical and digital engagement data, allowing marketers to continuously optimize campaigns.
• QR codes and custom landing pages extend the journey, creating a seamless transition from physical to digital.

If five follow-up emails have failed to elicit a response, a sixth is unlikely to succeed. However, a timely and thoughtful piece of direct mail, such as a handwritten note, a tailored infographic, or a personalized token of value, can break through resistance and reinitiate dialogue.

Beyond performance metrics, direct mail also builds trust. When buyers feel recognized and understood, they are more inclined to engage, respond, and move forward in their buying journey.

As part of a broader demand strategy, direct mail plays a key role in creating high-impact, memorable moments that differentiate your brand from the competition.

Key Takeaways

• Intent data intelligence turns cold outreach into warm conversations by leveraging behavioral signals to prioritize high-value prospects and boost efficiency.
• ABX transforms events into full-funnel experiences through pre-nurture, contextual engagement, and tailored follow-up.
• Direct mail, enhanced by demand intelligence and personalization, cuts through digital noise and re-engages prospects with targeted, tangible touchpoints.
• With geotargeting, personalization, and integrated measurement, even traditional media becomes seamlessly trackable and conversion-ready.

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