This is the hardest column to defend with your CEO, and the most important one to get right.
LLM share of voice
Branded traffic
Aided and unaided awareness
Aided: “Have you heard of HubSpot?”
Unaided: “Name a CRM.”
The gap between these two lines tells you how top-of-mind you are.
Total impressions by country
2. Grow Demand
Paid advertising leads – Google, Meta, LinkedIn. Still works, still measurable, still getting more expensive. CPC has increased 50–100% since ChatGPT launched.
SEO leads – Informational traffic is declining as AI answers those queries directly. Transactional traffic (people ready to buy) is holding or growing. The SEO playbook of “rank for everything, nurture over time” is compressing into “rank for the moments that matter.”
Meetings booked – This is where AI changes the game for marketing. AI prospecting, historically a sales function, is now something marketing can own and scale with AI.
Website chat – Volume and revenue on the same chart. Chat used to be a support function. Now it’s a conversion channel.
3. Grow Revenue
Deal velocity – AI-powered discovery calls gather context faster. AI-generated follow-ups keep momentum between meetings. AI research surfaces objections before they stall deals.
Sales efficiency – As average touches to close go down, MRR per human touch goes up. AI handles the low-value interactions. What is left for humans is the high-leverage work: negotiation, relationship building, complex problem-solving.
