2025-05-10 06:41:00
With the increasing adoption of ChatGPT and features such as Google’s AI overviews, generative engine optimization (GEO) has emerged as a key marketing channel for businesses that want these AI tools to recommend their products. We’ve previously discussed GEO strategy in more detail in our strategy guide, and in this article, we’ll break down the best practices your business should follow when executing a GEO campaign. But first, marketers should understand how GEO and traditional SEO relate to each other.
GEO operates under very similar criteria to SEO and other online marketing. Many searches will produce results that are identical to those found in the top Google listings for the same keyword. For example:
In other words, SEO serves as the foundation for GEO, and reviewing our article on SEO best practices will serve you well when optimizing your website for GEO. Your GEO strategy should begin with:
GEO, however, is more about structuring content. To target your strategy specifically to catch the attention of GEOs, consider the following generative engine optimization best practices.
Appearing in lists or articles that are already ranking highly is one of the most consistent ways to get the attention of generative search engines. As mentioned in the previous section, many responses from generative engines are taken verbatim from the corresponding Google search. This means that appearing on those lists is a fast ticket to earning those mentions.
Ensuring comprehensive coverage is critical here, as well. For example, someone targeting “finance software” will want to create pages covering a variety of use cases around that keyword.
This ensures optimal coverage, increasing the chances that generative engines will pick up your article when asked about a specific topic. This is true both because a)it increases your chances of hitting a direct match with the search and b)it establishes your comprehensive knowledge of the topic, making you more likely to be recognized as an authority.
If you do not have the resources to publish independently, you can also pay for an online review with a reputable third-party publisher. Paying a fee is often all you need to get on these lists. However, some will require you to provide evidence for why they should include you (remember, they must provide trustworthy information to rank highly themselves).
| Most Important For: | |
| 1 | Perplexity |
| 2 | Google Gemini |
| 3 | ChatGPT |
| 4 | Claude |
As indicated in the previous section, having an established page in already trusted sources of information is one of the most reliable ways to earn a recommendation from a generative engine. Similarly, they also pull from existing directories and databases to make recommendations, meaning that making your company a page on these sites can be critical.
Generally, these directories fall into one of three categories:
Depending on what engine you are using, these tiers are likely to be weighted differently. The following table provides rough averages for each tier by each engine, sourced directly from the engines themselves.
| Publication Type | Influence on Recommendations | |||
| ChatGPT | Gemini | Perplexity | Claude | |
| Tier 1: High-Authority Data & Research | 55% | 45% | 40% | 65% |
| Tier 2: Business Directories & Review Platforms | 25% | 30% | 35% | 20% |
| Tier 3: Industry-Specific Databases & Aggregators | 20% | 25% | 25% | 15% |
Careful readers will note that ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity have percentages listed here despite pulling 0% of their information from traditional directories in the first chart. This is because Claude directly pulls from traditional directories, while the others pull from them indirectly through search queries. Mentions in these directories are still important, regardless of your target engine.
| Most Important For: | |
| 1 | Claude |
| 2 | Perplexity |
| Google Gemini | |
| ChatGPT | |
Generative engines operate on reputation; this means that publishing your company’s accomplishments can help them establish your position within your industry, giving them a good sense of whether or not they should recommend you to a searcher.
| Publication Type | Influence on Recommendations | |||
| ChatGPT (18%) | Gemini (15%) | Perplexity (5%) | Claude (19%) | |
| Awards | 45% | 35% | 40% | No numerical weights – recommendations are more contextual than formulaic |
| Accreditations | 30% | 45% | 35% | |
| Affiliations | 25% | 20% | 25% | |
It’s important to note that this category is difficult to parse in some use cases. SEO and marketing, for example, have few formal accreditations, making it difficult for generative engines to utilize them when recommending companies. They will likely lean more heavily on other evaluation factors in these cases.
Finally, in addition to being a category unto itself, publicizing this information can also help when submitting your company/product for directories and databases, as it will make it easier for the proprietor of those lists to recognize that you deserve to be on the list.
| Most Important For: | |
| 1 | Claude |
| 2 | ChatGPT |
| 3 | Google Gemini |
| 4 | Perplexity |
Online reviews refer to official customer reviews of a company or product on a professionally hosted review site. Examples of these sites include:
Our research noted a few distinct trends across different generative engines:
As a general rule, companies want a score higher than 3.5 out of 5 (or 7/10 on a ten-point scale). Anything less will require additional attention to improve your chances of being recommended.
| Most Important For: | |
| 1 | Perplexity |
| 2 | ChatGPT |
| 3 | Google Gemini |
| 4 | Claude |
In addition to reviews, generative engines examine the overall online discussion of your company wherever it appears. This factor is known as social sentiment.
When a generative engine evaluates your social sentiment, it locates and evaluates as many instances of your company or product being mentioned as possible, closely examining the language associated with them. As of Q1 2025, social sentiment is still a smaller factor in generative AI recommendations. However, it will likely increase in influence as new generations of chatbots are made available as traditional search engines have increasingly turned to these chat forums to inform their own results.
| Most Important For: | |
| 1 | Perplexity |
| 2 | Google Gemini |
| 3 | ChatGPT |
| 4 | Claude |
Domain authority is a 1-100 score issued by Google to represent the level of trustworthiness it believes a website to have. Here are a few sites for reference:
| Domain Rating | Examples |
| 90+ | Google, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia |
| ~75 | First Page Sage, Reddit, IMDB, Healthline |
| ~50 | Medium, TripAdvisor, NPR, Tech Crunch |
| ~25 | Local Business Sites, Personal Blogs, |
We’ve written extensively about raising your website authority, but the two most important factors are backlinks and a consistent publication schedule. Banklinks refer to instances where trustworthy websites with high domain ratings themselves link to one of your pages, such as a news site referring to an article. As such, they are earned by producing content worth being linked to.
Content creation is ultimately at the core of raising your domain rating. As a general rule, we recommend publishing at least 2x per week, focusing on high-value content such as:
Pursuing this goal is a great deal of work requiring the input of several highly trained specialists. It is, however, one of the most consistent ways to ensure continued improvement in your GEO performance.
Managing your marketing campaign is an exhaustive effort, and it is especially difficult when it comes to new technology like generative engines. In order to stay on top until these algorithms settle, you will need marketing experts with a great degree of experience and expertise to navigate the shifting landscape of generative engine optimization best practices.
As one of the first marketing firms to speak on GEO services, we are available to help. Our teams produce high-quality thought leadership content that establishes clients as authorities within their industry, resulting in recommendations by generative engines as well as tand search engines like Google. Contact us here to discuss a future partnership.
2025-05-10 05:43:47
Last updated: May 9, 2025
Our team compiled data from 14 unique sources to estimate ChatGPT’s usage as of May 2025. Because each source had a different methodology for calculating usage, our model used a weighted average of all sources, with the weights based on the source’s longevity, credibility, and reputed accuracy. Further, we applied our model to the trailing 12 months to create a picture of the last year’s ChatGPT usage trend.
The following table shares the number of unique users of ChatGPT as of May 2025. We break out standalone ChatGPT (website + app), Microsoft Copilot (which is powered by ChatGPT) and the combination of both. Afterwards, we share the 12 month trend.
|
ChatGPT* *excluding Copilot |
Microsoft Copilot | ChatGPTTotal | |
| Users | 462 million | 63 million | 501 million |
| Visits | 4.3 billion | 997 million | 5.3 billion |
| AI Search Market Share | 59.9% | 14.3% | 74.2% |
| Estimated Quarterly User Growth | 8% ▲ | 6% ▲ | 8% ▲ |
| 12 Month Trend |
|
 |
 |
| Apr 2024 | May 2024 | Jun 2024 | Jul 2024 | Aug 2024 | Sep 2024 | Oct 2024 | Nov 2024 | Dec 2024 | Jan 2025 | Feb 2025 | Mar 2025 | Apr 2025 |
| 355 million | 369 million | 369 million | 387 million | 409 million | 437 million | 444 million | 461 million | 476 million | 499 million | 483 million | 496 million | 501 million |
Below you can see the trend of ChatGPT’s market share over the past 12 months. Overall it remains fairly stagnant; while usage is growing well, competition from other generative AI chatbots continues increasing.
| Apr 2024 | May 2024 | Jun 2024 | Jul 2024 | Aug 2024 | Sep 2024 | Oct 2024 | Nov 2024 | Dec 2024 | Jan 2025 | Feb 2025 | Mar 2025 | Aprl 2025 |
| 75.3% | 75.0% | 74.9% | 74.4% | 74.1% | 73.8% | 73.6% | 73.8% | 73.8% | 74.2% | 74.1% | 74.1% | 74.3% |
Below you will find the market share trend of ChatGPT’s competitors. ChatGPT remains the market leader by a wide margin even as relative upstarts like Claude rapidly gain in market share.
| ChatGPT Comptitor | Apr 2024 | May 2024 | Jun 2024 | Jul 2024 | Aug 2024 | Sep 2024 | Oct 2024 | Nov 2024 | Dec 2024 | Jan 2025 | Feb 2025 | Mar 2025 | Apr 2025 |
| Google Gemini | 14.9% | 14.5% | 13.8% | 13.3% | 13.8% | 13.6% | 13.5% | 13.5% | 13.4% | 13.5% | 13.5% | 13.7% | 13.4% |
| Perplexity | 2.9% | 3.0% | 3.0% | 3.8% | 5.3% | 5.5% | 5.6% | 5.8% | 6.0% | 6.0% | 6.2% | 6.1% | 6.3% |
| ClaudeAI | 2.5% | 2.6% | 2.5% | 2.5% | 2.6% | 2.8% | 2.8% | 2.9% | 3.1% | 3.1% | 3.2% | 3.3% | 3.3% |
Below we have published the breakdown of how people are using ChatGPT. The largest use case is general research, followed by academic research. There are 26 other cases in the “Other” category.
| Use Case | Apr 2024 | May 2024 | Jun 2024 | Jul 2024 | Aug 2024 | Sep 2024 | Oct 2024 | Nov 2024 | Dec 2024 | Jan 2025 | Feb 2025 | Mar 2025 | Apr 2025 |
| General Research | 36.8% | 36.8% | 36.5% | 36.9% | 36.8% | 36.7% | 36.3% | 36.8% | 36.7% | 37.5% | 35.9% | 36.4% | 36.2% |
| Academic Research | 18.2% | 18.1% | 18.9% | 18.5% | 18.8% | 19.0% | 18.2% | 17.5% | 18.2% | 18.5% | 18.2% | 18.6% | 18.7% |
| Coding Assistance | 14.5% | 14.5% | 13.9% | 14.3% | 14.5% | 13.6% | 14.6% | 14.5% | 14.7% | 13.7% | 13.7% | 14.1% | 14.2% |
| Email Composition | 14.1% | 14.0% | 14.1% | 13.3% | 13.8% | 14.4% | 14.9% | 13.4% | 14.0% | 14.1% | 13.9% | 14.0% | 14.0% |
| Commercial Research | 4.7% | 4.9% | 5.1% | 5.0% | 5.2% | 5.7% | 5.7% | 5.8% | 6.3% | 6.1% | 6.1% | 6.1% | 6.4% |
| Marketing Copywriting | 3.9% | 4.3% | 3.4% | 3.9% | 4.2% | 3.1% | 3.0% | 3.4% | 5.0% | 3.7% | 4.8% | 3.7% | 3.6% |
| Other Use Cases | 7.8% | 7.4% | 8.1% | 8.1% | 6.7% | 7.5% | 7.3% | 8.7% | 5.1% | 6.4% | 7.5% | 7.1% | 6.9% |
The table below lists the top countries in the world by share of ChatGPT visits. The US and India represent the largest visitor bases in the world, followed by Brazil at a distant third.
| Country | Share Of ChatGPT Visitors |
| United States | 16.0% |
| India | 16.0% |
| Brazil | 5.8% |
| Canada | 5.4% |
| France | 4.3% |
| Mexico | 4.1% |
| United Kingdom | 3.7% |
| Spain | 3.7% |
| Germany | 2.4% |
| Italy | 2.5% |
| Phillipines | 2.5% |
| Australia | 1.8% |
| Colombia | 1.6% |
| Argentina | 1.3% |
| Netherlands | 1.1% |
| South Korea | 1.1% |
In the table below, we have published the top industries in which customers are using ChatGPT to assist with making purchases. While at most 16% of the members of an industry use ChatGPT in their purchasing journey, that number is increasing.
| # | Industry | % of Customers Using ChatGPT in Purchasing Journey | ChatGPT’s Estimated Financial Impact by Industry |
| 1 | Travel & Hospitality | 18% | $1.48 trillion |
| 2 | Retail & CPG | 16% | $1.11 trillion |
| 3 | IT Services | 14% | $936 billion |
| 4 | Lifestyle, Health & Wellness | 13% | $891 billion |
| 5 | Food & Beverage | 13% | $546 billion |
| 6 | Home Services | 12% | $385 billion |
| 7 | Healthcare | 11% | $378 billion |
| 8 | Automotive | 9% | $243 billion |
| 9 | B2B SaaS | 8% | $229 billion |
| 10 | Advertising & Marketing | 7% | $156 billion |
| 11 | Fintech | 7% | $135 billion |
| 12 | Insurance | 7% | $104 billion |
| 13 | Real Estate | 6% | $66 billion |
| 14 | Financial Services | 5% | $21.7 billion |
| 15 | Education | 5% | $12.6 billion |
If you’d like a pdf copy of this report, you can reach out here.
2025-05-10 05:27:39
Last Updated: May 9, 2025
Our team collected data on the market share of each of the major generative AI chatbots in the U.S. as of May 9, 2025. The results are displayed in the tables below, organized by both market share and quarterly user growth. We also provide market share trend over time for the top 4 generative AI chatbots: ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, and ClaudeAI.
For the purposes of this study, the term “generative AI chatbot” refers to LLM-based web & mobile applications used by the public to seek answers or create content.
| Generative AI Chatbot | Description | LLMs Used | AI Search Market Share | Estimated Quarterly User Growth | |
| 1 | ChatGPT (excluding Copilot) |
General-purpose AI chatbot | GPT-3.5, GPT-4 | 59.90% | 8% ▲ |
| 2 | Microsoft Copilot | General-purpose AI assistant | GPT-4 | 14.30% | 6% ▲ |
| 3 | Google Gemini | General-purpose AI assistant | Gemini | 13.40% | 5% ▲ |
| 4 | Perplexity | Accuracy-focused AI search engine | Mistral 7B, Llama 2 | 6.30% | 10% ▲ |
| 5 | Claude AI | Business-focused AI assistant | Claude 3 | 3.30% | 14% ▲ |
| 6 | Grok | General-purpose AI search engine | Grok 2, Grok 3 | 0.70% | 6% ▲ |
| 7 | Deepseek | General-purpose AI search engine | DeepSeek V3 | 0.70% | 10% ▲ |
| 8 | Komo | Link-surfacing AI search engine | Not publicly disclosed | 0.60% | 7% ▲ |
| 9 | Brave Leo AI | Privacy-focused AI assistant | Mixtral 8x7B | 0.30% | 6% ▲ |
| 10 | Andi | Simplicity-focused AI search engine | Not publicly disclosed | 0.20% | 4% ▲ |
The following table displays the fastest-growing Generative AI chatbots in the US as of April 17, 2025, judged by their change in estimated users quarter-over-quarter. ChatGPT remains the market leader, but its growth has eased as both Google and Microsoft release improvements to their AI assistants. Among the startups, general purpose AI chatbots have seen slow but steady user acquisition, while specialty AI tools such as developer-focused Phind and business-focused Claud AI top our growth report.
| Generative AI Chatbot | Description | LLMs Used | AI Search Market Share | Estimated Quarterly User Growth | |
| 1 | Claude AI | Business-focused AI assistant | Claude 3 | 3.30% | 14% ▲ |
| 2 | Perplexity | Accuracy-focused AI search engine | Mistral 7B, Llama 2 | 6.20% | 10% ▲ |
| 3 | Deepseek | General-purpose AI search engine | DeepSeek V3 | 0.70% | 10% ▲ |
| 4 | ChatGPT (excluding Copilot) |
General-purpose AI chatbot | GPT-3.5, GPT-4 | 59.70% | 8% ▲ |
| 5 | Komo | Link-surfacing AI search engine | Not publicly disclosed | 0.30% | 7% ▲ |
| 6 | Microsoft Copilot | General-purpose AI assistant | GPT-4 | 14.40% | 6% ▲ |
| 7 | Brave Leo AI | Privacy-focused AI assistant | Mixtral 8x7B | 0.60% | 6% ▲ |
| 8 | Grok | General-purpose AI search engine | Grok 2, Grok 3 | 0.70% | 6% ▲ |
| 9 | Google Gemini | General-purpose AI assistant | Gemini | 13.50% | 5% ▲ |
| 10 | Andi | Simplicity-focused AI search engine | Not publicly disclosed | 0.20% | 5% ▲ |
Below you will find the YTD 2025 trend of ChatGPT’s market share in the generative AI chatbot space. As the pioneer and marketplace leader, it has the most to lose, and it has seen a decline in market share this year at the hands of its many smaller competitors.
NOTE: ChatGPT’s market share includes that of Bing’s Copilot product, as they both use the same underlying system; the difference is only that Microsoft Copilot personalizes ChatGPT based on user data in the Microsoft ecosystem.
| Month | ChatGPT Market Share |
| January 2024 | 76.4% |
| February 2024 | 76.1% |
| March 2024 | 75.8% |
| April 2024 | 75.3% |
| May 2024 | 75.0% |
| June 2024 | 74.9% |
| July 2024 | 74.4% |
| August 2024 | 74.1% |
| September 2024 | 73.8% |
| October 2024 | 73.6% |
| November 2024 | 73.8% |
| December 2024 | 73.8% |
| January 2025 | 74.2% |
| February 2025 | 74.1% |
| March 2025 | 74.1% |
| April 2025 | 74.2% |
Below you will find the YTD 2025 trend of Google Gemini’s market share in the generative AI chatbot space. It has experienced some decline in market share this year, even moreso than ChatGPT, as the fanfare around its release in December 2022 subsided.
| Month | Gemini Market Share |
| January 2024 | 16.2% |
| February 2024 | 15.5% |
| March 2024 | 14.8% |
| April 2024 | 14.9% |
| May 2024 | 14.5% |
| June 2024 | 13.8% |
| July 2024 | 13.3% |
| August 2024 | 13.8% |
| September 2024 | 13.6% |
| October 2024 | 13.5% |
| November 2024 | 13.5% |
| December 2024 | 13.4% |
| January 2025 | 13.5% |
| February 2025 | 13.5% |
| March 2025 | 13.7% |
| April 2025 | 13.4% |
Below you will find the YTD 2025 trend of Perplexity’s market share in the generative AI chatbot space. While its growth may not look significant, it has taken some market share from ChatGPT and Gemini this year.
| Month | Perplexity Market Share |
| January 2024 | 2.7% |
| February 2024 | 2.7% |
| March 2024 | 3.0% |
| April 2024 | 2.9% |
| May 2024 | 3.0% |
| June 2024 | 3.0% |
| July 2024 | 3.8% |
| August 2024 | 5.3% |
| September 2024 | 5.5% |
| October 2024 | 5.6% |
| November 2024 | 5.8% |
| December 2024 | 6.0% |
| January 2025 | 6.0% |
| February 2025 | 6.2% |
| March 2025 | 6.1% |
| April 2025 | 6.3% |
Below you will find the YTD 2025 trend of ClaudeAI’s market share in the generative AI chatbot space. Like Perplexity, it has contributed to the splintering of the generative AI market and loss of market share from ChatGPT and Gemini.
| Month | ClaudeAI Market Share |
| January 2024 | 2.1% |
| February 2024 | 2.2% |
| March 2024 | 2.4% |
| April 2024 | 2.5% |
| May 2024 | 2.6% |
| June 2024 | 2.5% |
| July 2024 | 2.5% |
| August 2024 | 2.6% |
| September 2024 | 2.8% |
| October 2024 | 2.8% |
| November 2024 | 2.9% |
| December 2024 | 3.1% |
| January 2025 | 3.1% |
| February 2025 | 3.2% |
| March 2025 | 3.3% |
| April 2025 | 3.3% |
If you’d like a pdf copy of this report, you can reach out here.
2025-05-10 04:54:40
Last updated: March 9, 2025
Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO, is a field that was pioneered by First Page Sage in early 2024, approximately 14 months after ChatGPT’s debut. By definition, GEO is the process of getting your company suggested by generative AI chatbots when prospective customers ask for product or service recommendations, and this process can be tailored for specific generative AI search engines such as in ChatGPT Optimization and Perplexity Optimization.
While a number of companies offer GEO services, the packages differ as GEO is still a nascent marketing channel. To aid in comparison, we’ve organized GEO services into 3 tiers based on their cost and services offered. The lowest tier is the least comprehensive and therefore the least expensive, and the highest tier is the most thorough – and likely the most effective. These tiers reflect pricing we’ve seen among the small number of companies formally offering GEO services today.
| Service Level | Monthly Cost | Services Included | |||
| Paid List Placement | Superlative List SEO | Reputation Management | PR | ||
| Tier 1 | $2,000–$3,000 | Purchases low-cost placements on ranking websites | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Tier 2 | $4,000–$7,000 | Monitors ranking website placement costs to determine most impactful placement spend | Creates & publishes 1-2 superlative list articles at the beginning of a campaign | N/A | N/A |
| Tier 3 | $10,000–$13,000 | Monitors ranking website placement costs to determine most impactful placement spend | Creates & publishes 2-3 superlative list articles per month, supported by full SEO campaign | Facilitates positive reviews from customers/clients and minimize the impact of negative reviews. Ensures descriptions in major industry directories reflect industry leadership. |
Works with either internal staff or a dedicated PR agency to secure media coverage |
Broadly speaking, GEO services are a combination of SEO, PR, and reputation management. The ideal GEO service package would involve the following activities as a core part of GEO strategy:
While only Tier 3 GEO service packages will include all 3 of these elements, your company may already have a strong brand or strong SEO, so your needs may fall into a different tier. If you have further questions about the costs of GEO, feel free to contact us here. If you are interested in investing in GEO for your business, you can learn more about our services.
2025-05-09 07:38:35
Last updated: May 8, 2025
Our 2025 report on Cost Per Lead by Industry was prepared by our marketing research team, based on data collected between January 2022 through December 2024.
Cost Per Lead (CPL) is defined as the gross marketing cost expended to acquire a lead for your business. It can be calculated by dividing your total marketing spend by your total number of new leads acquired from a specific channel or group of channels, as shown in the equation below:
A lead is defined as a direct connection via e-mail, phone or in-person introduction to a prospective customer interested in purchasing a product or service. The cost of the lead is incurred regardless of the eventual outcome of the discussion, which is distinct from customer acquisition cost, which measures the price of acquiring closed customers and includes the cost of sales.
Cost Per Lead is a valuable but slippery metric because quality varies widely by acquisition cost. For example, some lead referral channels provide warm leads – engaged prospects who are well-primed to buy from the right company – while certain SDRs we’ve come across are selling cold leads that convert a low percentage of the time. It is necessary to carefully track and measure each paid and organic lead generation channel in which you invest, narrowing your investments to the ones that produce the customers with the highest lifetime value, rate of referral, and overall satisfaction relative to their acquisition cost.
Below, we’ve parsed our dataset to display the average CPL for 30 industries, broken out by paid vs organic.
| Industry | Average Paid CPL | Average Organic CPL | Average CPL (Blended) |
| Addiction Treatment | $380 | $213 | $297 |
| Aerospace & Aviation | $469 | $277 | $373 |
| Automotive | $295 | $271 | $283 |
| B2B SaaS | $310 | $164 | $237 |
| Biotech | $274 | $236 | $255 |
| Business Insurance | $460 | $388 | $424 |
| Construction | $280 | $174 | $227 |
| Cybersecurity | $411 | $404 | $406 |
| eCommerce | $98 | $83 | $91 |
| Engineering | $371 | $201 | $287 |
| Entertainment | $116 | $111 | $114 |
| Environmental Services | $346 | $207 | $278 |
| Financial Services | $761 | $555 | $653 |
| Fintech | $490 | $413 | $452 |
| Healthcare | $401 | $320 | $361 |
| Higher Education | $1,261 | $705 | $982 |
| Hotels & Resorts | $308 | $224 | $266 |
| HVAC | $115 | $69 | $92 |
| Industrial IOT | $590 | $404 | $497 |
| IT & Managed Services | $617 | $385 | $503 |
| Legal Services | $784 | $516 | $649 |
| Manufacturing | $691 | $415 | $553 |
| Oil & Gas | $772 | $502 | $637 |
| PCB Design & Manufacturing | $480 | $271 | $376 |
| Pharmaceutical | $124 | $135 | $131 |
| Real Estate | $480 | $416 | $448 |
| Software Development | $680 | $510 | $591 |
| Solar | $217 | $196 | $206 |
| Staffing & Recruiting | $476 | $518 | $497 |
| Transportation & Logistics | $670 | $505 | $588 |
There are many lead generation channels available to businesses, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. As a general rule, organic channels will result in higher long-term ROI than paid channels, but require a longer lead time before they produce results. This higher ROI is due to both their scalability and because the leads generated through organic channels are lower-funnel than those from paid ones. As a result, the most effective lead generation strategy is to use organic channels such as SEO and industry speaking engagements as the primary driver of new leads, while leveraging paid channels such as PPC and trade shows when in need of short-term growth.
Setting up in-house lead generation can be a difficult process, and many companies choose to outsource this task to a dedicated agency while building their internal team. If you’d like to do so, you can learn more about our services by reaching out here.
2025-05-09 06:38:26
Last updated: May 8, 2025
What kind of ROI should you expect from an SEO campaign in 2025? Using proprietary data from SEO campaigns that took place between Q1 2021 and Q4 2024, we’ve broken down the answer to this question by industry, further segmenting it by return on advertising spend (ROAS), ROI, and time to break-even.
The following ROI statistics represent the ROAS and ROI of SEO averaged over a three-year period. The SEO campaigns that generated this data were thought leadership-based, meaning they involved ongoing publishing of keyword-targeted, high-quality website pages, split ~65/35 between blogs and landing pages.
While ROAS isn’t a commonly calculated statistic for SEO campaigns, we wanted to provide a direct comparison against a commonly used PPC statistic. We calculate SEO ROAS using the following formula: Gross Return on SEO Campaign ÷ SEO Campaign Costs.
Typically, the costs of an SEO campaign are what a company pays our agency (~$120,000 / year) plus a share of the salary of all the people interacting with our firm on the client side. The final ROAS number is a ratio of how much gross revenue should be generated from every dollar spent on SEO.
Likewise, we calculate SEO ROI using the following formula: Net Profit from SEO Campaign ÷ SEO Campaign Costs. We then multiply by 100 to get the percentage return you can expect to see from SEO.
We’ve also included a time to break-even statistic, which is the number of months it takes for your net revenue from an SEO campaign to exceed your spend on that campaign.
| Industry | Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS) | ROI |
Time to Break-Even |
| Addiction Treatment | 8.90 | 736% | 8 months |
| B2B SaaS | 8.75 | 702% | 7 months |
| Biotech | 9.20 | 788% | 8 months |
| Construction | 7.40 | 681% | 5 months |
| eCommerce | 3.65 | 317% | 16 months |
| Financial Services | 11.10 | 1,031% | 9 months |
| Higher Education & College | 10.40 | 994% | 13 months |
| HVAC Services | 8.15 | 678% | 6 months |
| Industrial IoT | 9.85 | 866% | 7 months |
| Commercial Insurance | 9.05 | 758% | 9 months |
| IT Staffing | 7.00 | 612% | 10 months |
| Legal Services | 6.15 | 526% | 14 months |
| Manufacturing | 9.50 | 813% | 9 months |
| Medical Device | 12.85 | 1,183% | 13 months |
| Oil & Gas | 10.55 | 906% | 10 months |
| PCB Design & Manufacturing | 12.40 | 1,101% | 11 months |
| Pharmaceutical | 9.85 | 826% | 9 months |
| Real Estate | 15.10 | 1,389% | 10 months |
| Solar Energy | 9.20 | 770% | 9 months |
When a marketing leader is setting expectations for the ROI their company will receive on an SEO campaign, they must consider the comprehensiveness and quality of the SEO campaign itself. Below are the three most common SEO services along with their ROAS, ROI, and time to break-even.
A technical SEO campaign is one in which an SEO consultancy enacts technical fixes to your website, typically relating to speed, security, and mobile optimization; performs keyword research; and rewrites the title tags on your website using the results of their keyword research.
A basic content marketing SEO campaign is one in which an SEO agency performs cursory keyword research using an online tool such as SEMrush; and produces ~4 blog articles per month of average quality relative to your competition.
A thought leadership SEO campaign is one in which an SEO agency creates a strategic SEO plan, rank ordering keywords by value and organizing them into hubs and spokes; researches your target audience’s needs and pain points, transactional behavior, and search intent; and produces 6-8 high-quality content pages per month with an aim toward producing new MQLs.
| SEO Service | Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS) | ROI |
Time to Break-Even |
|
Technical SEO (Technical fixes, keyword research, title tag rewrites) |
1.35 | 117% | 6 months |
|
Basic Content Marketing (Average quality keyword research & blog articles ~4x/mo) |
1.05 | 16% | 15 months |
|
Thought Leadership & SEO (Strategic planning, high end content ~8x/mo, focus on marketing KPIs) |
9.10 | 748% | 9 months |
Positive ROI in an SEO campaign is achieved over a 6-12 month period, with peak results in the second or third year of the campaign. Here is what a typical B2B SEO campaign looks like in terms of gross revenue generated on an annual basis:
Seeing this kind of ROI is a result of content quality remaining high throughout an SEO campaign, a strong adherence to search intent, and the lifetime value of a customer being relatively high ($10,000+). The best candidates for thought leadership-style SEO are companies with high-value clients, such as those in financial services, industrial manufacturing, real estate, or B2B SaaS.
We hope the above statistics are useful to you in establishing benchmarks for your own SEO campaigns. If you’re concerned about your ROI meeting your standards for an SEO campaign, you may wish to contract with an agency such as ours to conduct a thought leadership SEO campaign. You can reach out to us here.
If you’d like a pdf copy of this report, reach out to us here.
To help you achieve the above ROIs, we recommend reading our reports and guides on SEO benchmarks and conversion rates: