The Long Game

Hosted by David Ly Khim, Allie Decker, Alex Birkett

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244

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Aug 2026

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About the show

The Long Game shares personal and business success stories where long-term thinking triumphs. Join us for discussions about the frameworks, principles, and learnings that drive success in business.

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60 recent

September 10, 202648 min

Kitchen Side: The Price of Certainty

In this Kitchen Side episode, Alex Birkett and David Khim unpack the volatility of AI search, from citation drift and the sudden Reddit citation drop to why chasing every new AEO tactic is both exhausting and, often, a losing game. They explore how to build durable brand visibility upstream of any single citation source, the difference between expertise and tools in the age of AI, and a decision philosophy rooted in capping downside risk, preserving optionality, and making intelligent bets with asymmetric upside. Key Takeaways Creating a perception of ubiquity through repeated exposure is the same underlying play across SEO, AEO, and PR, essentially the mere exposure effect applied to search surfaces. Citation sources turn over fast, roughly 50 percent month over month in their own analysis, so optimizing only for currently cited URLs means chasing a moving target. Rather than targeting individual citation sources, brands should optimize for the probability of adding more of their own marbles to the urn, a path-dependent advantage that compounds over time. For brands with near-zero AI visibility, almost any mention on an influential surface compounds, so early-stage effort should focus on tactics and outreach. As brands mature, the leverage shifts upstream to things that make citation sources irrelevant, like great customer experience, original research, and shipping products worth talking about. Original research does not need to be a 30-page report; quick surveys and single-chart studies can spark conversation and earn citations with far less effort. The Reddit citation drop matters less than whether a brand's ICP is genuinely active there, since Reddit stays valuable as training data and a decision-influencing surface regardless of citation metrics. Chasing whatever is trending on LinkedIn is a paper-hands strategy; durable growth requires a long-term hypothesis and a genuine point of view that daily data should not override. The real value of an experienced partner over AI plus a content team is judgment, knowing what to ignore, spotting risk, and debating a client out of detrimental moves. People systematically overweight improbable, low-impact downside and miss asymmetric upside; capping the downside through experiments and expected-value thinking lets you take high-upside bets without risking everything. Show Links Connect with David Khim on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Alex Birkett on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Omniscient Digital on LinkedIn or Twitter What is Kitchen Side? One big benefit of running an agency or working at one is you get to see the "kitchen side" of many different businesses; their revenue, their operations, their automations, and their culture. You understand how things look from the inside and how that differs from the outside. You understand how the sausage is made. As an agency ourselves, we're working both on growing our clients' businesses as well as our own. This podcast is one project, but we also blog, make videos, do sales, and have quite a robust portfolio of automations and hacks to run our business. We want to take you behind the curtain, to the kitchen side of our business, to witness our brainstorms, discussions, and internal dialogues behind the public works that we ship. Past guests on The Long Game podcast include: Morgan Brown (Shopify) , Ryan Law (Animalz) , Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) , Kaleigh Moore (freelancer) , Eric Siu (Clickflow) , Peep Laja (CXL) , Chelsea Castle (Chili Piper) , Tracey Wallace (Klaviyo) , Tim Soulo (Ahrefs) , Ryan McReady (Reforge) , and many more. Some interviews you might enjoy and learn from: Actionable Tips and Secrets to SEO Strategy with Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) Building Competitive Marketing Content with Sam Chapman (Aprimo) How to Build the Right Data Workflow with Blake Burch (Shipyard) Data-Driven Thought Leadership with Alicia Johnston (Sprout Social) Purpose-Driven Leadership & Building a Content Team with Ty Magnin (UiPath) Also, check out our Kitchen Side series where we take you behind the scenes to see how the sausage is made at our agency: Blue Ocean vs Red Ocean SEO Should You Hire Writers or Subject Matter Experts? How Do Growth and Content Overlap? Connect with Omniscient Digital on social: Twitter: @beomniscient LinkedIn: Be Omniscient Listen to more episodes of The Long Game podcast here: https://beomniscient.com/podcast/

August 12, 202656 min

Kitchen Side: The Internet Has a Memory

In this Kitchen Side episode, Alex Birkett and Allie Decker unpack what actually makes content valuable in the age of AI, moving past the tired debate over human versus AI-produced content to the deeper question of how companies should measure quality at all. Drawing on decision theory and the idea that almost anything can be measured, they argue that production method matters far less than whether a piece teaches something new and lands with the people it is meant for. They explore AI visibility as a kind of digital brand recall, why sentiment and context matter more than raw share of voice, and how incumbents and startups face very different battles in shaping their narrative across the web. The conversation also digs into why brands no longer own their own story, the compounding risk of building exposure in the wrong category, and why a human QA layer grounded in real customer understanding is the one part of the content system that should never be automated. Key Takeaways The debate over AI-produced versus human-produced content misses the deeper question of how to define and measure content quality in the first place. Almost anything can be measured if a decision carries uncertainty and risk, including fuzzy concepts like brand affinity or customer experience, by breaking them into concrete, quantifiable components. Measurement is only worth doing when the cost of collecting it is lower than the value of reducing uncertainty, and when you will actually act on the result. AI visibility works like a digital brand recall survey, but raw visibility is meaningless without understanding the context and sentiment in which a brand is mentioned. Segmenting prompts by ICP and buying stage reveals visibility gaps that aggregate scores hide, such as a brand appearing at 40 percent overall but only 4 percent for enterprise queries. Brands no longer own their own narrative, because if the rest of the web contradicts a company's website, LLMs treat the external consensus as the truth. Incumbents with high domain authority have an SEO advantage but face a harder AEO battle, since years of press, mentions, and third-party content are slow and expensive to re-steer. Startups can win by getting specific for narrow prompts and buying-journey stages, but building heavy exposure around one positioning creates risk if they later pivot. AI content programs fail because of weak systems, not the AI itself, so the durable model is human strategy up front, AI in the middle, and a human QA layer at the end. Customer understanding is the last defensible advantage, and the one part of the content system that should stay human is the empathy to judge whether a piece will actually land. Show Links Connect with Alex Birkett on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Allie Decker on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Omniscient Digital on LinkedIn or Twitter What is Kitchen Side? One big benefit of running an agency or working at one is you get to see the "kitchen side" of many different businesses; their revenue, their operations, their automations, and their culture. You understand how things look from the inside and how that differs from the outside. You understand how the sausage is made. As an agency ourselves, we're working both on growing our clients' businesses as well as our own. This podcast is one project, but we also blog, make videos, do sales, and have quite a robust portfolio of automations and hacks to run our business. We want to take you behind the curtain, to the kitchen side of our business, to witness our brainstorms, discussions, and internal dialogues behind the public works that we ship. Past guests on The Long Game podcast include: Morgan Brown (Shopify) , Ryan Law (Animalz) , Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) , Kaleigh Moore (freelancer) , Eric Siu (Clickflow) , Peep Laja (CXL) , Chelsea Castle (Chili Piper) , Tracey Wallace (Klaviyo) , Tim Soulo (Ahrefs) , Ryan McReady (Reforge) , and many more. Some interviews you might enjoy and learn from: Actionable Tips and Secrets to SEO Strategy with Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) Building Competitive Marketing Content with Sam Chapman (Aprimo) How to Build the Right Data Workflow with Blake Burch (Shipyard) Data-Driven Thought Leadership with Alicia Johnston (Sprout Social) Purpose-Driven Leadership & Building a Content Team with Ty Magnin (UiPath) Also, check out our Kitchen Side series where we take you behind the scenes to see how the sausage is made at our agency: Blue Ocean vs Red Ocean SEO Should You Hire Writers or Subject Matter Experts? How Do Growth and Content Overlap? Connect with Omniscient Digital on social: Twitter: @beomniscient LinkedIn: Be Omniscient Listen to more episodes of The Long Game podcast here: https://beomniscient.com/podcast/

July 15, 20261 hr 1 min

Proof Over Promises, Case Studies, and Marketing When Trust Is Low with Sofia Sulikowski

In this episode of The Long Game Podcast, Alex Birkett sits down with Sofia Sulikowski, founder of Solera Strategies and former product marketer at dbt Labs, Tableau, and Atlan, to explore why standing out in a saturated content landscape has become a core product marketing problem. Sofia breaks down what "basic marketing" really requires, why internal narratives so often drift from how customers actually describe a product, and how pulling voice of customer language directly from calls and interviews can anchor messaging that actually resonates. They discuss the erosion of trust in marketing, from products being marketed ahead of their real capabilities to the flattening effect of AI generated content, and why human authored, technical, practitioner led voices are becoming a premium differentiator. The conversation also digs into how case studies are evolving from static logo and metrics templates into technical, narrative driven assets, and why the real measure of a successful customer story is whether the featured customer feels proud enough to share it themselves. Key Takeaways Product marketing is fundamentally "basic marketing": identifying what value a product provides, for whom, and how, then aligning every channel and message to that core. Internal assumptions about a product's value often diverge from real customer usage, which is why product marketing has to synthesize input from product, sales, and customer success teams. Pulling the exact language customers use, by sitting in on beta calls or QBRs, is an underused but effective way to anchor messaging customers already recognize. Not every customer quote deserves equal weight; separating signal from noise means understanding who gave a quote, how invested they are, and what their actual outcomes look like. Companies are increasingly marketing products ahead of their real capabilities, widening the gap between what's promised and what a customer experiences on first use. AI generated content compresses everything toward the same "average" output, flooding channels with low value content and burying pieces that offer something distinct. Technical, practitioner authored content, written by the people who did the work and lightly polished by marketing, is outperforming generic thought leadership because it carries real expertise. Case studies are shifting from a template of company background, pain points, and results tables toward a hybrid with technical blog posts that shows the actual "how," including architecture and implementation decisions. A mature case study program should be organized by goal: heavy hitter logos for credibility, gap fillers for common but underrepresented use cases, and hero stories that make the customer look good. The clearest signal that a case study succeeded isn't traffic or downloads, it's whether the featured customer is proud enough to organically share their own story with their network. Show Links Connect with Sofia Sulikowski on LinkedIn Connect with Alex Birkett on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Omniscient Digital on LinkedIn or Twitter Past guests on The Long Game podcast include: Morgan Brown (Shopify) , Ryan Law (Animalz) , Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) , Kaleigh Moore (freelancer) , Eric Siu (Clickflow) , Peep Laja (CXL) , Chelsea Castle (Chili Piper) , Tracey Wallace (Klaviyo) , Tim Soulo (Ahrefs) , Ryan McReady (Reforge) , and many more. Some interviews you might enjoy and learn from: Actionable Tips and Secrets to SEO Strategy with Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) Building Competitive Marketing Content with Sam Chapman (Aprimo) How to Build the Right Data Workflow with Blake Burch (Shipyard) Data-Driven Thought Leadership with Alicia Johnston (Sprout Social) Purpose-Driven Leadership & Building a Content Team with Ty Magnin (UiPath) Also, check out our Kitchen Side series where we take you behind the scenes to see how the sausage is made at our agency: Blue Ocean vs Red Ocean SEO Should You Hire Writers or Subject Matter Experts? How Do Growth and Content Overlap? Connect with Omniscient Digital on social: Twitter: @beomniscient LinkedIn: Be Omniscient Listen to more episodes of The Long Game podcast here: https://beomniscient.com/podcast/

July 8, 202651 min

Kitchen Side: The Hidden Drivers of AI Search

In this Kitchen Side episode, Alex Birkett, Allie Decker, and David Ly Khim unpack how brands should actually measure success in AI search, and why traditional attribution models are breaking down as buyer behavior shifts from search links to AI assistants and workflows. They discuss why self-reported attribution is becoming the most reliable signal available, the different tiers of AI visibility from simple citations to category-level consensus, and why AI visibility functions more like a brand recall survey than a channel you can optimize in isolation. The conversation also covers the idea of a “post-channel marketer” who coordinates across product, customer education, and PR, and why chasing visibility tactics with no underlying business purpose rarely pays off. Key Takeaways Self-reported attribution is more reliable than clickstream data for AI search because most AI-driven visits never result in a tracked click. AI visibility behaves more like a brand recall survey than a channel, reflecting how a brand compares to competitors rather than something to optimize in isolation. Picking up a citation on a narrow, low-competition prompt is easy, but shifting broader category-level consensus, like being named among the best CRMs, is far harder and requires changing an entire conversation. Correcting outdated third-party pricing information moved AI search outputs within about a month in one client engagement, though this was a sentiment fix rather than a visibility gain. Some AI answers now include negative or qualifying recommendations, meaning a mention doesn't always translate into a positive outcome for a brand. Different AI tools serve different roles, with ChatGPT and AI Overviews functioning as quick answer engines while agentic tools like Claude Code perform deeper multi-step research, and visibility strategies should account for that difference. Whether a company should publish a markdown version of its site for easier AI retrieval depends on its audience, mattering more for technical, developer-facing products than for typical B2B SaaS buyers. Sustainable AI search performance comes from investing in product experience, customer education, and reviews, since genuine third-party validation is difficult to fake once a brand has earned it. Marketing teams need a “post-channel” role that coordinates across product, customer success, and PR to influence sentiment and visibility, rather than treating this as an SEO-only or PR-only problem. Tactics pursued only to move an AI visibility score, with no underlying business purpose, are usually not worth the effort unless they're addressing existing negative sentiment. Show Links Connect with David Khim on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Alex Birkett on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Allie Decker on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Omniscient Digital on LinkedIn or Twitter What is Kitchen Side? One big benefit of running an agency or working at one is you get to see the "kitchen side" of many different businesses; their revenue, their operations, their automations, and their culture. You understand how things look from the inside and how that differs from the outside. You understand how the sausage is made. As an agency ourselves, we're working both on growing our clients' businesses as well as our own. This podcast is one project, but we also blog, make videos, do sales, and have quite a robust portfolio of automations and hacks to run our business. We want to take you behind the curtain, to the kitchen side of our business, to witness our brainstorms, discussions, and internal dialogues behind the public works that we ship. Past guests on The Long Game podcast include: Morgan Brown (Shopify) , Ryan Law (Animalz) , Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) , Kaleigh Moore (freelancer) , Eric Siu (Clickflow) , Peep Laja (CXL) , Chelsea Castle (Chili Piper) , Tracey Wallace (Klaviyo) , Tim Soulo (Ahrefs) , Ryan McReady (Reforge) , and many more. Some interviews you might enjoy and learn from: Actionable Tips and Secrets to SEO Strategy with Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) Building Competitive Marketing Content with Sam Chapman (Aprimo) How to Build the Right Data Workflow with Blake Burch (Shipyard) Data-Driven Thought Leadership with Alicia Johnston (Sprout Social) Purpose-Driven Leadership & Building a Content Team with Ty Magnin (UiPath) Also, check out our Kitchen Side series where we take you behind the scenes to see how the sausage is made at our agency: Blue Ocean vs Red Ocean SEO Should You Hire Writers or Subject Matter Experts? How Do Growth and Content Overlap? Connect with Omniscient Digital on social: Twitter: @beomniscient LinkedIn: Be Omniscient Listen to more episodes of The Long Game podcast here: https://beomniscient.com/podcast/

May 21, 202659 min

AI as the New Front Door to Brands, Solution Marketing, and Why Your Promise Beats Your Product with Johann Wrede (UserTesting)

In this episode of The Long Game Podcast, David Khim sits down with Johann Wrede, Global CMO at UserTesting, to explore how AI is reshaping brand perception, the role of the modern CMO, and why truly customer-centric marketing still comes down to diet and exercise. They discuss why AI has become the new front door to brands — compressing and abstracting how companies are perceived before a human ever visits their site — and how marketers can influence (but never fully control) that narrative. Johann also shares his philosophy on solution marketing over product marketing, the big bets he's making on in-person events, and how he's building agentic marketing workflows to give his team better first drafts without replacing their judgment. Key Takeaways: AI has become the new front door to brands, compressing and abstracting brand identity before a prospect ever reaches your website — and marketers can influence this but not control it. Semantic pre-compression — stripping fluff and using single, precise descriptors — is the most practical way to influence how LLMs represent your brand. Brand consistency across every customer touchpoint (marketing, sales, support, product) is the only durable lever marketers have in an AI-driven world. The CMO's role is not just pipeline — it's stewarding how the market understands the company across the entire customer journey, including post-sale. Solution marketing outperforms product marketing because people spend money to solve problems, not to add tools to their stack. Listening to sales calls is still the most underutilized source of messaging, positioning, and prompt-tracking insight available to marketing teams. Agentic marketing workflows — chaining copywriter, persona, humanizer, and CRO agents — can dramatically improve first-draft quality before a human ever reviews the output. The workplace is shifting from knowledge work to thought work: the value is no longer what you know but how creatively and critically you can think through problems. Show Links Visit UserTesting on Twitter Connect with Johann Wrede on LinkedIn Connect with David Khim on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Omniscient Digital on LinkedIn or Twitter Some interviews you might enjoy and learn from: Actionable Tips and Secrets to SEO Strategy with Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) Building Competitive Marketing Content with Sam Chapman (Aprimo) How to Build the Right Data Workflow with Blake Burch (Shipyard) Data-Driven Thought Leadership with Alicia Johnston (Sprout Social) Purpose-Driven Leadership & Building a Content Team with Ty Magnin (UiPath) Also, check out our Kitchen Side series where we take you behind the scenes to see how the sausage is made at our agency: Blue Ocean vs Red Ocean SEO Should You Hire Writers or Subject Matter Experts? How Do Growth and Content Overlap? Connect with Omniscient Digital on social: Twitter: @beomniscient LinkedIn: Be Omniscient Listen to more episodes of The Long Game podcast here: https://beomniscient.com/podcast/

April 8, 202648 min

Kitchen Side: The GEO Gold Rush Problem

In this Kitchen Side episode, Alex Birkett, Allie Decker, and David Khim unpack the increasingly noisy world of AI search (GEO/AEO), including spam tactics, flawed attribution models, and widespread confusion around what actually drives results. They explore why visibility without revenue is a trap, how brand sentiment and off-page signals shape AI outputs, and why trust, positioning, and human validation are becoming more important than ever in B2B buying decisions. Key Takeaways The SEO vs AEO debate is largely unproductive and distracts from creating real business value. Spammy, short-term tactics are resurging in AI search due to a “gold rush” mindset. Many teams optimize for visibility and citations without tying efforts back to revenue or pipeline. Attribution in AI search is messy, and many current tracking methods are fundamentally flawed. Large datasets in AEO research can be used to justify almost any strategy or narrative. Talking directly to customers is still more valuable than inferred data or prompt tracking. There is a growing tension between experience-based judgment and rapid experimentation with AI. AI search compresses information, making brand narrative and sentiment more influential than ever. Visibility is only the first step; positioning and how a brand is described matter more. AI search is increasingly overlapping with online reputation management (ORM). Larger brands face greater risk from sentiment manipulation and lack of narrative control. Off-page signals like reviews, PR, and community discussions heavily influence AI outputs. Review sites and categorization accuracy can significantly impact visibility and positioning. Reddit is becoming influential but requires authentic engagement rather than manipulation. AI-driven discovery is often validated through peer recommendations before purchase decisions. Show Links Connect with David Khim on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Alex Birkett on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Allie Decker on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Omniscient Digital on LinkedIn or Twitter What is Kitchen Side? One big benefit of running an agency or working at one is you get to see the “kitchen side” of many different businesses; their revenue, their operations, their automations, and their culture. You understand how things look from the inside and how that differs from the outside. You understand how the sausage is made. As an agency ourselves, we’re working both on growing our clients’ businesses as well as our own. This podcast is one project, but we also blog, make videos, do sales, and have quite a robust portfolio of automations and hacks to run our business. We want to take you behind the curtain, to the kitchen side of our business, to witness our brainstorms, discussions, and internal dialogues behind the public works that we ship. Past guests on The Long Game podcast include: Morgan Brown (Shopify) , Ryan Law (Animalz) , Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) , Kaleigh Moore (freelancer) , Eric Siu (Clickflow) , Peep Laja (CXL) , Chelsea Castle (Chili Piper) , Tracey Wallace (Klaviyo) , Tim Soulo (Ahrefs) , Ryan McReady (Reforge) , and many more. Some interviews you might enjoy and learn from: Actionable Tips and Secrets to SEO Strategy with Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) Building Competitive Marketing Content with Sam Chapman (Aprimo) How to Build the Right Data Workflow with Blake Burch (Shipyard) Data-Driven Thought Leadership with Alicia Johnston (Sprout Social) Purpose-Driven Leadership & Building a Content Team with Ty Magnin (UiPath) Also, check out our Kitchen Side series where we take you behind the scenes to see how the sausage is made at our agency: Blue Ocean vs Red Ocean SEO Should You Hire Writers or Subject Matter Experts? How Do Growth and Content Overlap? Connect with Omniscient Digital on social: Twitter: @beomniscient Linkedin: Be Omniscient Listen to more episodes of The Long Game podcast here: https://beomniscient.com/podcast/

February 11, 20261 hr 1 min

What is Content Engineering?

In this episode of The Long Game Podcast , Alex Birkett sits down with Josh Spilker, Head of Search Marketing at AirOps, to explore how content teams are evolving in response to AI, automation, and changing search behavior. Josh draws on his background in SEO, writing, and systems thinking to outline why traditional content marketing models are breaking down and what’s replacing them. They discuss the concept of content engineering, including how workflows, brand context, and AI-assisted processes change the way teams create, refresh, and scale content. The conversation also covers identity shifts for marketers, the growing complexity of search surfaces, and where real differentiation and business value are created as content production becomes easier. Key Takeaways Content engineering represents a shift from one-off content creation to building systems that manage, update, and scale content across channels. AI lowers the marginal cost of content, but differentiation still comes from strategy, brand context, and human editorial judgment. Modern content teams increasingly separate roles between content strategy and content engineering, even if one person covers both in smaller orgs. The expansion of search surfaces and longer, more contextual queries increases demand for more specific and tailored content. As traffic becomes less reliable as a KPI, teams need to focus more on conversion quality, brand presence, and downstream business impact. Show Links Visit AirOps on LinkedIn Connect with Josh Spilker on LinkedIn Connect with Alex Birkett on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Omniscient Digital on LinkedIn or Twitter Past guests on The Long Game podcast include: Morgan Brown (Shopify) , Ryan Law (Animalz) , Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) , Kaleigh Moore (freelancer) , Eric Siu (Clickflow) , Peep Laja (CXL) , Chelsea Castle (Chili Piper) , Tracey Wallace (Klaviyo) , Tim Soulo (Ahrefs) , Ryan McReady (Reforge) , and many more. Some interviews you might enjoy and learn from: Actionable Tips and Secrets to SEO Strategy with Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) Building Competitive Marketing Content with Sam Chapman (Aprimo) How to Build the Right Data Workflow with Blake Burch (Shipyard) Data-Driven Thought Leadership with Alicia Johnston (Sprout Social) Purpose-Driven Leadership & Building a Content Team with Ty Magnin (UiPath) Also, check out our Kitchen Side series where we take you behind the scenes to see how the sausage is made at our agency: Blue Ocean vs Red Ocean SEO Should You Hire Writers or Subject Matter Experts? How Do Growth and Content Overlap? Connect with Omniscient Digital on social: Twitter: @beomniscient Linkedin: Be Omniscient Listen to more episodes of The Long Game podcast here: https://beomniscient.com/podcast/

February 4, 20261 hr 13 min

Kitchen Side: AI Search Tactics, Telemetry and Team Structure

In this Kitchen Side episode of The Long Game Podcast , Alex and David are joined by Nick Lafferty from Profound to unpack how teams are navigating AI search visibility amid shifting metrics, attribution challenges, and unclear best practices. They discuss how companies choose which prompts to track, why case studies in AI search are hard to define and share, where brand and citations fit into AI-generated answers, and what organizational bottlenecks are preventing teams from acting on AI search insights. Key Takeaways Prompt selection matters, but most teams underestimate how much customer language and internal feedback should shape what they track in AI search. AI search case studies are difficult to standardize because visibility depends heavily on prompt framing, attribution models, and competitive sensitivity. Revenue and self-reported attribution remain the most reliable signals as clicks, impressions, and rankings become less dependable. Problem-based prompts frequently surface brand recommendations, even when users don’t explicitly ask for tools or products. Citation share acts as an influence layer, shaping future AI responses even when a brand isn’t directly recommended in the output. Brand-building activities upstream of content can meaningfully impact AI visibility by associating a company with specific problem spaces. AI search ownership is increasingly cross-functional, spanning growth, SEO, PR, comms, and product marketing rather than a single team. Internal resourcing and approval processes are major bottlenecks, especially for off-site efforts like Reddit and YouTube. Show Links Visit Profound on LinkedIn Connect with Nick Lafferty on LinkedIn Connect with David Khim on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Alex Birkett on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Omniscient Digital on LinkedIn or Twitter What is Kitchen Side? One big benefit of running an agency or working at one is you get to see the “kitchen side” of many different businesses; their revenue, their operations, their automations, and their culture. You understand how things look from the inside and how that differs from the outside. You understand how the sausage is made. As an agency ourselves, we’re working both on growing our clients’ businesses as well as our own. This podcast is one project, but we also blog, make videos, do sales, and have quite a robust portfolio of automations and hacks to run our business. We want to take you behind the curtain, to the kitchen side of our business, to witness our brainstorms, discussions, and internal dialogues behind the public works that we ship. Past guests on The Long Game podcast include: Morgan Brown (Shopify) , Ryan Law (Animalz) , Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) , Kaleigh Moore (freelancer) , Eric Siu (Clickflow) , Peep Laja (CXL) , Chelsea Castle (Chili Piper) , Tracey Wallace (Klaviyo) , Tim Soulo (Ahrefs) , Ryan McReady (Reforge) , and many more. Some interviews you might enjoy and learn from: Actionable Tips and Secrets to SEO Strategy with Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) Building Competitive Marketing Content with Sam Chapman (Aprimo) How to Build the Right Data Workflow with Blake Burch (Shipyard) Data-Driven Thought Leadership with Alicia Johnston (Sprout Social) Purpose-Driven Leadership & Building a Content Team with Ty Magnin (UiPath) Also, check out our Kitchen Side series where we take you behind the scenes to see how the sausage is made at our agency: Blue Ocean vs Red Ocean SEO Should You Hire Writers or Subject Matter Experts? How Do Growth and Content Overlap? Connect with Omniscient Digital on social: Twitter: @beomniscient Linkedin: Be Omniscient Listen to more episodes of The Long Game podcast here: https://beomniscient.com/podcast/

December 24, 20251 hr 18 min

Who Owns AI Visibility?

In this Kitchen Side episode of The Long Game Podcast, Alex Birkett and the team unpack a question that’s coming up more and more: who actually “owns” being found in AI search—and what AI visibility means for modern marketing teams. They explore why the “AI is killing SEO” debate misses the point, and how AI search is collapsing traditional channel boundaries while changing how buyers discover brands. They also dig into what’s actually being cannibalized (undifferentiated, consensus content), how teams should rethink success metrics as clicks get harder to track, and what the velocity vs. quality debate looks like now—especially as some teams bet on subject-matter depth while others bet on scaled output with AI-assisted production. Key Takeaways AI isn’t “killing SEO” so much as reducing the value of undifferentiated, consensus content that used to earn easy traffic. Losing traffic doesn’t automatically mean losing business value—teams should validate impact through conversions, leads, and pipeline, not sessions alone. AI visibility is increasingly a composite outcome of everything a company publishes and does (content, comms, brand, product, reviews, community, and customer experience). Measurement is getting harder as discovery shifts to “dark” channels (e.g., AI tools) and attribution breaks—teams may need new proxies and self-reported attribution. “Listicles dominate AI citations” may be partly a prompt and sampling bias problem—inputs strongly shape outputs and visibility reporting can be manipulated. The hardest visibility problem is higher up the funnel: influencing problem-aware searches before buyers even know what category or solution to ask for. Content teams are splitting into different bets: deep, SME-led quality (often from people who’ve done the job) vs. high-velocity production supported by AI. A modern in-house writer role trends toward “jack of all trades” output (research, PR-like writing, CEO comms, etc.), using AI to lower marginal cost without collapsing quality control. Show Links Connect with David Khim on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Alex Birkett on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Allie Decker on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Omniscient Digital on LinkedIn or Twitter What is Kitchen Side? One big benefit of running an agency or working at one is you get to see the “kitchen side” of many different businesses; their revenue, their operations, their automations, and their culture. You understand how things look from the inside and how that differs from the outside. You understand how the sausage is made. As an agency ourselves, we’re working both on growing our clients’ businesses as well as our own. This podcast is one project, but we also blog, make videos, do sales, and have quite a robust portfolio of automations and hacks to run our business. We want to take you behind the curtain, to the kitchen side of our business, to witness our brainstorms, discussions, and internal dialogues behind the public works that we ship. Past guests on The Long Game podcast include: Morgan Brown (Shopify) , Ryan Law (Animalz) , Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) , Kaleigh Moore (freelancer) , Eric Siu (Clickflow) , Peep Laja (CXL) , Chelsea Castle (Chili Piper) , Tracey Wallace (Klaviyo) , Tim Soulo (Ahrefs) , Ryan McReady (Reforge) , and many more. Some interviews you might enjoy and learn from: Actionable Tips and Secrets to SEO Strategy with Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) Building Competitive Marketing Content with Sam Chapman (Aprimo) How to Build the Right Data Workflow with Blake Burch (Shipyard) Data-Driven Thought Leadership with Alicia Johnston (Sprout Social) Purpose-Driven Leadership & Building a Content Team with Ty Magnin (UiPath) Also, check out our Kitchen Side series where we take you behind the scenes to see how the sausage is made at our agency: Blue Ocean vs Red Ocean SEO Should You Hire Writers or Subject Matter Experts? How Do Growth and Content Overlap? Connect with Omniscient Digital on social: Twitter: @beomniscient Linkedin: Be Omniscient Listen to more episodes of The Long Game podcast here: https://beomniscient.com/podcast/

November 19, 202553 min

Kitchen Side: Correlations, Chaos, and ChatGPT

In this Kitchen Side episode of The Long Game Podcast, the Omniscient team dives into a wide-ranging discussion on trust, research quality, and marketing visibility in an AI-driven world. They start with epistemology—what makes research “good” or “bad”—and reflect on how flawed correlations can mislead marketers. The team then unpacks their recent Winter study on how B2B buyers use LLMs like ChatGPT in the purchase journey, revealing that while LLMs are common early in research, peer feedback and brand transparency are essential in final decisions. They also explore the evolution of SEO into GEO/AEO, discuss organizational roles and feedback loops, and propose new cross-functional models for digital visibility in a world of probabilistic, AI-generated content. Key Takeaways Not All Research Is Trustworthy: Internal/external validity and sample bias can distort marketing data—marketers need stronger research literacy. Correlation ≠ Causation: Data trends, especially in AI visibility, often include spurious relationships—interpret with caution. LLMs Are Entry Points, Not Final Decision Tools: While many B2B buyers start with AI search, they turn to peers and review sites before converting. Transparency Beats Perfection: Buyers trust brands that clearly state who they serve, what they do, and where they fall short. GEO Relies on Accuracy: Incorrect or outdated online information can mislead LLMs—fixing this improves visibility and conversions. Sentiment and Product Reality Matter: Negative perception from bad UX or old reviews isn’t a marketing problem—it’s a product and comms one. AEO Needs Cross-Functional Ownership: Teams like PR, content, SEO, and product marketing must collaborate to influence LLM visibility. A New Role May Be Needed: “Digital visibility lead” or a cross-team committee could help unify efforts across brand, SEO, and off-page strategy. Show Links Connect with David Khim on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Alex Birkett on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Allie Decker on LinkedIn and Twitter Connect with Omniscient Digital on LinkedIn or Twitter What is Kitchen Side? One big benefit of running an agency or working at one is you get to see the “kitchen side” of many different businesses; their revenue, their operations, their automations, and their culture. You understand how things look from the inside and how that differs from the outside. You understand how the sausage is made. As an agency ourselves, we’re working both on growing our clients’ businesses as well as our own. This podcast is one project, but we also blog, make videos, do sales, and have quite a robust portfolio of automations and hacks to run our business. We want to take you behind the curtain, to the kitchen side of our business, to witness our brainstorms, discussions, and internal dialogues behind the public works that we ship. Past guests on The Long Game podcast include: Morgan Brown (Shopify) , Ryan Law (Animalz) , Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) , Kaleigh Moore (freelancer) , Eric Siu (Clickflow) , Peep Laja (CXL) , Chelsea Castle (Chili Piper) , Tracey Wallace (Klaviyo) , Tim Soulo (Ahrefs) , Ryan McReady (Reforge) , and many more. Some interviews you might enjoy and learn from: Actionable Tips and Secrets to SEO Strategy with Dan Shure (Evolving SEO) Building Competitive Marketing Content with Sam Chapman (Aprimo) How to Build the Right Data Workflow with Blake Burch (Shipyard) Data-Driven Thought Leadership with Alicia Johnston (Sprout Social) Purpose-Driven Leadership & Building a Content Team with Ty Magnin (UiPath) Also, check out our Kitchen Side series where we take you behind the scenes to see how the sausage is made at our agency: Blue Ocean vs Red Ocean SEO Should You Hire Writers or Subject Matter Experts? How Do Growth and Content Overlap? Connect with Omniscient Digital on social: Twitter: @beomniscient Linkedin: Be Omniscient Listen to more episodes of The Long Game podcast here: https://beomniscient.com/podcast/