Tag: AI Search

Trends

B2B SEO Trends: How Search Changed When Buyers Started Asking AI

Post author By Akshay Purohit
Post date October 9, 2026
No Comments on B2B SEO Trends: How Search Changed When Buyers Started Asking AI

Same ranking, fewer clicks: AI answers now capture visibility that rankings alone can’t.

A marketing director pulls up the quarterly SEO report. Rankings held steady. Organic traffic fell 30%.

Then she checks the demo form. Three new prospects wrote the same thing in the “How did you hear about us?” field: ChatGPT recommended you.

That gap between the report and the pipeline is the clearest picture of where B2B SEO trends stand today. Search still matters. But a growing share of your visibility now happens inside AI answers that never send a click.

The short answer: B2B SEO now has two jobs. Rank in search, and get cited accurately in AI answers. Clicks from top rankings are falling, buyers increasingly build shortlists in AI chat, and AI tools lean heavily on third-party sources. The winning approach pairs solid technical SEO with answer-first content, real expertise, and a strong presence beyond your own website.

Trend 1: Ranking and Clicking Have Separated

For years, a top ranking meant traffic. That link is weakening fast.

Ahrefs re-ran its click-through study using December 2025 data. It found that when an AI Overview appears, the top-ranking page gets about 58% fewer clicks than expected.

Pew Research Center saw the same pattern from the user side. People clicked a traditional result on 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared, versus 15% when it didn’t.

What it means: a falling traffic line doesn’t always mean failing SEO. Your answer may be reaching buyers on Google instead of on your site. So report impressions, AI citations, and branded search alongside sessions.

Trend 2: The Shortlist Now Forms Inside AI Chat

Many B2B buyers no longer start with a search box. G2’s 2025 Buyer Behavior Report found that AI chatbots were the single biggest influence on vendor shortlists, ahead of software review sites.

6sense’s 2025 Buyer Experience Report adds why this matters so much. The winning vendor is already on the buyer’s Day One shortlist 95% of the time.

What it means: if an AI tool leaves you out of its answer, you may never get a chance to compete. We cover this shift in depth in our guide to AI in B2B buying.

Trend 3: Your Off-Site Reputation Now Shapes Your Visibility

This is the shift most B2B teams underestimate. AI tools don’t just read your website. They read what others say about you.

Muck Rack’s ongoing What Is AI Reading? study found that earned media, such as journalism, research, and editorial coverage, makes up the large majority of non-paid AI citations. Its latest edition puts the figure at around 84%.

Moz found something similar inside Google itself. In a study of nearly 40,000 queries, 88% of AI Mode citations didn’t appear in the organic top 10 for the same query.

What it means: ranking your own page is no longer the whole job. Your presence on review sites, industry publications, and partner pages now feeds what AI says about you.

Trend 4: Proof Beats Polish

Google added Experience to its quality framework in December 2022, turning E-A-T into E-E-A-T. Since then, the bar has only risen.

The reason is simple. AI can now write a passable generic article in seconds. So search engines and AI tools lean on signals that are hard to fake:

Named authors with real credentials
First-hand examples from actual work
Original data, benchmarks, or research
A consistent reputation across trusted sources

For B2B companies, this is good news. Your practitioners, customer results, and deal experience are exactly the kind of proof generic content can’t copy.

Trend 5: Decision-Stage Pages Carry More Weight

AI tools answer comparison and evaluation questions with specific facts. If you don’t publish those facts, the AI pulls them from somewhere else, often a competitor or an outdated review.

So pages that used to feel optional now matter a great deal:

Pricing ranges or clear pricing context
Integration and compatibility lists
Honest comparison pages
Security and compliance summaries
Case studies with real numbers

These pages help both search rankings and AI accuracy. They also give your sales team something to send when buyers ask.

What Hasn’t Changed at All

Not every one of today’s B2B SEO trends is new. In fact, the fundamentals matter more now, because AI systems build on the same crawled content as search engines.

Fundamental	Why it still matters	Quick check
Crawlability	If crawlers can’t reach a page, neither search nor AI can use it	Sitemap is current, and robots.txt blocks nothing important
Content in the HTML	Many AI crawlers struggle with content loaded only by JavaScript	Key text appears when you view the page source
Page speed	Core Web Vitals still affect rankings, and INP replaced FID in March 2024	Key templates pass in Search Console
Search intent	A page that matches no clear buyer stage still struggles	Each page targets one stage and one main question
Backlinks	Links remain a strong ranking signal	Earn links from relevant industry sites, not directories
AI crawler access	You can’t be cited if you’ve blocked the crawler	Your robots.txt matches your actual policy

The Old Playbook vs the New One

	Old B2B SEO playbook	New B2B SEO playbook
Main goal	Rank and earn the click	Rank, and get cited accurately in AI answers
Content style	Long intros, keyword-led	Answer first, then depth
Authority	Backlinks to your site	Backlinks plus mentions in trusted third-party sources
Measurement	Rankings and sessions	Rankings, AI citations, branded search, and pipeline
Priority pages	Top-of-funnel blog posts	Blog posts plus pricing, comparison, and proof pages
Owner	SEO team alone	SEO, content, PR, and product marketing together

The last row is the real change. B2B SEO is no longer something one specialist can carry alone.

How to Act on These B2B SEO Trends: A 90-Day Plan

You don’t need a new team to start. You need a focused quarter.

Month	Focus	What to do
Month 1	Fix and baseline	Run a technical check on your top 20 pages. Build a fixed set of 20 to 30 buyer prompts and record how AI tools describe you today.
Month 2	Rewrite and structure	Rewrite your top 20 pages so the main answer appears in the first two or three sentences. Add clear headings, comparison tables, FAQs, and schema markup.
Month 3	Build beyond your site	Refresh review profiles, pitch data or expert commentary to industry publications, and place research on respected third-party sites. Then rerun your prompt set and compare.

Write Answer-First

AI tools and featured snippets both pull short, direct answers. Here’s the difference in practice:

Before: “In today’s fast-moving business world, finance teams are always looking for new ways to improve efficiency.”

After: “Invoice automation software reads incoming invoices, matches them to purchase orders, and routes them for approval without manual entry. It suits finance teams handling hundreds of invoices a month.”

The first version gives an AI tool nothing to quote. The second answers the question, names the audience, and states a fact worth citing.

Structure Pages for Machines and People

Use descriptive headings, short paragraphs, tables for comparisons, and direct answers in FAQs. Also add schema markup for articles, FAQs, products, and your organization.

One note: Google now shows FAQ rich results for very few sites. Still, structured data helps machines read your page correctly, so it’s worth keeping.

Build Your Third-Party Footprint

Since AI leans so heavily on earned sources, off-site work now counts as SEO:

Keep profiles on G2, Capterra, or TrustRadius active and recent.
Offer data and expert commentary to industry publications.
Place research on respected third-party sites through content syndication.
Turn happy customers into visible voices with a customer advocacy program.
Make sure partner and integration pages describe you accurately.

For help mapping content to each buyer stage, see our guide to B2B content marketing.

How to Measure AI Visibility

You can’t improve what you don’t track. So build a fixed prompt set and run it every month in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode.

Prompt type	Example	What it tells you
Category	“Best [category] for [industry]”	Whether you make the shortlist
Comparison	“[Your brand] vs [competitor]”	How AI frames your differences
Problem	“How to reduce [problem]”	Whether you appear early in research
Pricing	“How much does [category] cost?”	Whether your pricing information is accurate
Reputation	“Is [your brand] good for [use case]?”	Which sources shape your reputation

For each prompt, record three things: whether you appear, how you’re described, and which sources are cited. The cited sources become your outreach and syndication list.

Also, add an open-text “How did you hear about us?” field to your forms. It captures research your analytics can’t see, as we explain in our piece on the dark funnel. Pair it with branded search data in your B2B marketing analytics tools.

Score Yourself: A 10-Point B2B SEO Audit

Give each statement 2 points if it’s fully true, 1 if it’s partly true, and 0 if it’s not true yet.

#	Statement	Score
1	Our top 20 pages answer the main question in the first two or three sentences.
2	We check how AI tools describe us at least once a month.
3	We appear on review sites, publications, and partner pages that AI tools cite.
4	Every article has a named author with real credentials.
5	Our key pages pass Core Web Vitals, including INP.
6	Important content loads in the HTML, not only through JavaScript.
7	Schema markup covers our articles, FAQs, products, and organization.
8	We have content for the awareness, consideration, and decision stages.
9	Our top pages get fresh data at least twice a year.
10	Our reports include AI citations and branded search, not just traffic.

16 to 20: You’re well placed for both search and AI. Scale what works.
10 to 15: The basics are solid, but there are real gaps. Fix your lowest scores first.
Under 10: Start with technical fixes and answer-first rewrites of your top 20 pages.

Rerun this audit every quarter. B2B SEO trends will keep shifting, and the score shows you whether you’re keeping up.

The Bottom Line

The biggest B2B SEO trends point in one direction. Search is no longer only about where you rank. It’s about whether buyers, and the AI tools they trust, can find a clear, accurate, and well-supported answer about you.

Keep the fundamentals tight. Write answers, not introductions. And build a reputation beyond your website, because that’s increasingly where your visibility is decided.

Want your research cited where buyers and AI tools both look? ColedaB2B’s content syndication team places B2B content on respected third-party publications that buyers read and AI systems draw from. Talk to us about your content.

FAQs:

What are the most important B2B SEO trends right now?

The biggest shift is visibility inside AI answers. Buyers increasingly use AI tools to research vendors and build shortlists, so being cited accurately in those answers now matters alongside traditional rankings.

Does traditional SEO still matter for B2B?

Yes. AI tools build on the same crawled content as search engines, so technical SEO, clear structure, and strong content remain the foundation. Rankings also still drive valuable traffic, especially for decision-stage searches.

Why is my B2B organic traffic falling when rankings are stable?

AI Overviews often answer the question directly on the results page. Ahrefs found that an AI Overview reduces clicks to the top-ranking page by about 58%, so traffic can fall even when rankings hold.

How do you get cited in AI search results?

Write answer-first content with clear structure and specific facts. Then build your presence on review sites, industry publications, and partner pages, because AI tools draw heavily on earned, third-party sources.

What is E-E-A-T and why does it matter for B2B?

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Search engines and AI tools favor content from credible, experienced sources, which gives B2B companies with real practitioner knowledge an advantage.

How often should B2B companies review their SEO strategy?

Review your strategy every quarter and your technical setup twice a year. AI search features change every few months, but the fundamentals move much more slowly.

Tags AI Search, AIO, SEO, Trends

Intent-Based Marketing

The Dark Funnel Problem: Why Intent Data Misses Research Done in AI Tools

Post author By Akshay Purohit
Post date September 28, 2026
No Comments on The Dark Funnel Problem: Why Intent Data Misses Research Done in AI Tools

The dark funnel is where your shortlist forms. Intent data can't see AI tools, private communities or peer calls, so track the side effects and ask buyers directly.

In April, your intent platform marked the account as cold. No topic surge, no website visits, nothing worth an SDR’s time.

In July, the same company requested a demo. They had a shortlist of three vendors, a clear set of requirements, and a favorite. You weren’t it.

The research happened. Your tools just couldn’t see it. That’s the dark funnel, and it’s growing faster than most intent strategies are adapting.

What the Dark Funnel Is

The dark funnel is the part of the buying journey that happens outside anything you can track. Buyers ask AI tools for comparisons, trade notes in private communities, call a peer, or listen to a podcast. None of it lands in your CRM.

This isn’t new. What’s new is how much of the journey now happens there, and how early the decision forms.

How Big the Blind Spot Is

6sense’s 2025 Buyer Experience Report, based on nearly 4,000 B2B buyers, shows how much gets decided before a vendor is involved:

Buyers make first contact with sellers about 61% of the way through their journey.
The winning vendor is on the Day One shortlist 95% of the time.
About four in five deals go to the buyer’s pre-contact favorite.

The same research found that 94% of buyers used AI tools during their buying process. Meanwhile, Gartner’s research shows buyers spend only about 17% of their buying time with suppliers at all.

In other words, the shortlist forms in the dark. By the time a buyer steps into the light, you’re either on it or you’re not.

What Intent Data Sees, and What It Doesn’t

Intent data is still valuable. However, it’s important to know exactly where it’s blind.

Where research happens	Visible to intent data?	Why
Your own website	Yes	First-party tracking captures visits and behavior
Publisher and content networks	Mostly	Third-party providers track topic consumption across partner sites
Review sites	Partly	Some review platforms share buyer intent, but not all activity
Search engines	Partly	You see some search behavior, rarely who is behind it
AI chat tools	No	Conversations are private and leave no trackable footprint
Private communities and group chats	No	Closed spaces with no tracking
Peer calls, texts, and events	No	Offline and one-to-one
Podcasts and video	Very little	Listening rarely connects back to an account

The bottom half of that table is where more buyer research now takes place.

Why AI Research Makes the Problem Worse

AI tools don’t just add a new dark channel. They can also shrink the signal from channels you could see.

Before, a buyer comparing vendors might read ten articles across several publisher sites. Each visit could feed a third-party intent signal. Today, the same buyer may read one AI-generated summary instead.

That means an account can grow more interested while producing fewer trackable signals. So a quiet intent score doesn’t always mean a quiet account. It may simply mean the research moved somewhere you can’t see, as we explored in our piece on AI in B2B buying.

Signals That Still Leak Out of the Dark Funnel

Dark funnel research isn’t fully invisible. It leaves side effects, if you know where to look.

Branded search spikes. People start searching for your company name by name.
Direct traffic from new companies. Visitors arrive by typing your URL, often after a recommendation.
Several new people from one account. A cluster of first-time visitors usually means a group is evaluating.
Pricing and comparison page visits. These tend to come late in dark funnel research.
Review profile views. Buyers check peer opinions after an AI tool or colleague names you.
Job postings mentioning your category. A company hiring for the problem you solve may be close to buying.

No single signal proves much. Together, they’re often the first sign that an account is further along than your intent score suggests.

Ask Buyers Where They Heard About You

The simplest dark funnel tool is also the most underused. Add one open-text question to your demo and contact forms: “How did you hear about us?”

Keep it optional and free-form, not a dropdown. The answers are often revealing:

What buyers write	What it tells you
“ChatGPT recommended you”	AI tools are shortlisting you, so protect that visibility
“A friend at another company”	Customer advocacy is driving pipeline
“Saw your founder on a podcast”	Audio content is reaching buyers
“Someone in a Slack group mentioned you”	Community presence matters in your market
“Read a review on G2”	Review sites are part of the shortlist process

This self-reported data won’t match your analytics. That’s the point. It shows you the channels your analytics can’t.

Influence What You Can’t Track

If you can’t see the dark funnel, you can still shape what happens inside it. Focus on the sources buyers and AI tools already trust.

Build a strong third-party footprint. AI tools and buyers both lean on independent sources. Content syndication, analyst coverage, and editorial mentions all help.
Turn customers into visible advocates. Peer recommendations drive much of dark funnel research. A structured customer advocacy program puts those voices where buyers look.
Show up in expert conversations. Podcasts, industry communities, and webinars reach buyers in places tracking never will.
Make first contact worth it. Buyers who arrive with a shortlist want answers fast. So route them to a knowledgeable person, not a generic form sequence.

Rethink How You Read Intent Scores

Intent data works best as one input, not the whole picture. So combine it with the signals above.

An account engagement score that blends third-party intent, first-party behavior, and dark funnel proxies gives a far more accurate view. Also, review closed-won deals regularly. Check how many showed strong intent before first contact. If the answer is “few,” your scoring is leaning too heavily on what’s easy to measure.

Mistakes to Avoid

Treating a cold intent score as a cold account
Trying to track everything, instead of influencing what you can’t track
Ignoring self-reported attribution because it doesn’t fit a dashboard
Measuring content only by clicks, when much of its value happens off-site

You Can’t Light Every Corner

The dark funnel isn’t a tracking problem you can solve with better software. Some buyer research will always stay private.

The teams that win accept that. They track what they can, ask buyers about the rest, and invest in being the name that comes up when nobody from their company is in the room.

Want to reach buyers before they reach out?

ColedaB2B helps B2B teams combine intent data, content syndication, and dark funnel signals to get on the shortlist earlier. Talk to us about your intent strategy.

FAQs:

What is the dark funnel in B2B marketing?

The dark funnel is the part of the buying journey that happens outside trackable channels, such as AI chat tools, private communities, peer conversations, and podcasts.

Why can’t intent data see dark funnel activity?

Intent data relies on trackable behavior, such as website visits and content consumption on partner sites. Private AI conversations, closed communities, and offline peer calls leave no trackable footprint.

How much of the B2B buying journey happens before contacting sales?

6sense’s 2025 research found that buyers make first contact about 61% of the way through their journey, and the winning vendor is on the Day One shortlist 95% of the time.

How can you measure the dark funnel?

You can’t measure it directly, but you can track its side effects: branded search, direct traffic from new companies, review profile views, and self-reported attribution from an open-text “How did you hear about us?” field.

How do you influence buyers in the dark funnel?

Build third-party coverage, turn customers into visible advocates, take part in expert conversations and communities, and make first contact fast and useful when buyers do reach out.

Tags AI Search, Attribution, Dark Funnel, Intent Data, Intent-Based Marketing

ABM (Account-Based Marketing)

Do Account-Targeted Ads Still Work When Buyers Research in AI Tools?

Post author By Akshay Purohit
Post date September 28, 2026
No Comments on Do Account-Targeted Ads Still Work When Buyers Research in AI Tools?

Only about 5% of B2B accounts are in market at any time. ABM ads build memory with the other 95% before AI-assisted shortlists form.

The question came up in a budget review. “Our account-based ads get a tiny click-through rate. Buyers now research in ChatGPT. Why are we still paying for this?”

It’s a fair question. And for many teams, the honest answer is that ABM advertising still works, but not in the way they’ve been measuring it.

This piece explains what’s changed, what account-targeted ads still do well, and how to judge them properly.

What Changed in B2B Research

Three shifts have reshaped the buying journey:

Buyers research with AI. 6sense’s 2025 research found that 94% of buyers used AI tools during their buying process.
Shortlists form early. The same research found buyers rank their preferred vendors before first contact, and the winning vendor is usually already on that list.
Vendors get little direct time. Gartner estimates buyers spend only about 17% of their buying time with suppliers.

So much of the decision now forms in places ads can’t reach directly, such as AI chats and private conversations. We covered this in our piece on the dark funnel.

Why Clicks Were Always the Wrong Test

Here’s the part many teams miss. B2B ads were never good at driving clicks from decision-makers. A CFO rarely clicks a banner, even one that’s perfectly relevant.

The real value was always something else: making sure the right people at the right accounts recognize you when it’s time to choose. Judging that by click-through rate is like judging a billboard by how many people pulled over.

That’s why the question isn’t “do ABM ads still get clicks?” It’s “do ABM ads still shape who makes the shortlist?”

Three Jobs ABM Advertising Still Does Well

1. Building Memory Before Buyers Are in Market

Most of your target accounts aren’t buying right now. Research by Professor John Dawes of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute found that companies change providers of many business services only about every five years. That means roughly 5% are in market in any given quarter.

The other 95% will buy eventually. When they do, they’ll start with brands they already know. Consistent ads across your target account list build that familiarity long before the buying window opens.

2. Reaching the Roles That Never Talk to Sales

Finance leaders, security reviewers, and senior executives often shape decisions without ever meeting a vendor. Account-based ads are one of the few ways to put a relevant message in front of them.

That works best when you know which roles you’re missing. Our guide to buying committee mapping shows how to find them.

3. Staying Visible While Buyers Verify

Buyers don’t trust AI answers blindly. After an AI tool suggests a shortlist, many check reviews, analyst content, and vendor sites, as we explained in our piece on AI in B2B buying.

During that checking phase, well-placed ads keep your name present and reinforce the same proof points buyers find elsewhere. Consistency builds confidence.

Job	Who it reaches	The right measure
Build memory	Accounts not yet in market	Branded search and direct traffic from target accounts
Reach silent roles	Finance, security, executives	Engagement from those roles in target accounts
Support verification	Accounts actively comparing vendors	Shortlist inclusion and pipeline from engaged accounts

What Ads Can’t Do

It’s just as important to be clear about the limits.

Ads don’t change AI answers. AI tools draw on reviews, editorial coverage, and other independent sources, not your ad impressions.
Ads can’t replace proof. If your third-party presence is thin, ads alone won’t convince a careful buyer.
Ads rarely convert cold accounts quickly. Expecting fast pipeline from out-of-market accounts sets the program up to fail.

Build the Ad Plan Around Roles and Moments

Instead of one campaign for every account, match the message to the account’s stage and the role you’re trying to reach:

Account stage	Role to reach	Message focus	Format
Not in market	Broad buying group	What you’re known for, in one clear line	Short video, display, social
Researching	Champion, business lead	The problem you solve and proof it works	Case study ads, comparison content
Evaluating	Finance and IT	Return, integration, and effort	ROI summaries, technical overviews
Verifying	Security, executives	Trust, compliance, and customer proof	Security overviews, customer quotes

Intent data helps you know when an account moves between stages. Our piece on intent data for ABM explains how to use topics to identify which roles are researching.

Measure ABM Advertising by What It Changes

The most reliable way to prove ABM advertising works is a simple holdout test:

Split a group of similar tier-two accounts into two halves.
Run ads to one half. Keep the other half ad-free.
After one to two quarters, compare the two groups.

Compare them on these measures:

Branded search and direct traffic from each group
Number of roles engaging per account
Opportunities created
Win rate on those opportunities

If the advertised group performs better, you have real evidence. If it doesn’t, you’ve learned where to cut, which is valuable too.

A Note on Budget

Two habits tend to waste ABM ad budget. The first is switching ads on only when intent spikes, which misses the memory-building work that makes intent convert. The second is spreading the same spend across every account on the list.

A better approach is a steady baseline across your target list, plus extra spend when intent rises at priority accounts. Many ABM platforms support this kind of setup. For the mechanics of automated buying, see our guide to programmatic advertising, and for tier-by-tier tactics, see ABM tactics.

The Short Answer

Account-targeted ads still work. What changed is the job they do and how you should judge them.

They won’t win the AI answer or drive many clicks. They will keep you familiar to accounts that aren’t buying yet, reach the people sales never meets, and stay visible while buyers check their shortlist. Measure those outcomes, and ABM advertising becomes much easier to defend.

Want ABM advertising you can actually prove?

ColedaB2B plans and runs account-based ad programs built around buying roles, intent, and holdout testing. Talk to us about your ABM program.

FAQs:

Does ABM advertising still work?

Yes, but its main value isn’t clicks. ABM advertising builds familiarity before accounts are in market, reaches roles that rarely talk to sales, and keeps you visible while buyers verify their shortlist.

How does AI research affect ABM advertising?

Buyers now form shortlists earlier, often using AI tools that ads can’t influence directly. That makes brand familiarity and consistent proof across channels more important than direct response.

What is the 95-5 rule in B2B?

Research by Professor John Dawes of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute found that only about 5% of B2B buyers are in market in a given quarter. The other 95% will buy later, usually from brands they already know.

How should you measure ABM advertising?

Run a holdout test. Advertise to half of a group of similar accounts, leave the other half out, and compare branded search, roles engaged, opportunities, and win rates over one to two quarters.

Is click-through rate a good ABM metric?

Not on its own. Senior B2B buyers rarely click ads, so low click-through rates don’t mean the ads failed. Track engagement, branded search, and pipeline from target accounts instead.

Tags ABM, ABM Advertising, Account-Based Ads, AI Search, B2B Advertising

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