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Everyone’s talking about Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) these days, but most explanations are either too abstract or buried in technical jargon.
But bootstrapped form builder Tally gives us a glimpse at how companies of any size can influence ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other generative AIs with search capabilities to experience major gains. They’re quietly driving real user acquisition through GEO, not just vanity metrics or one-time page views.
According to Co-Founder Marie Martens, ChatGPT facilitated 25% of Tally’s new signups in late April-early May.
That’s a small startup turning AI mentions into paying customers at scale.
Their approach isn’t rocket science or super secret black hat tactics.
It’s a combination of strategic brand mentions, high-intent comparison pages, and smart Reddit investments that any company can replicate.
In this breakdown, we’ll show you exactly how Tally built this GEO engine and what you can swipe from their playbook, including:
- How they’re getting mentioned in AI responses
- The UGC strategy driving authentic recommendations
- Why they’re doubling down on Reddit (and how it’s paying off)
But first…
What is Generative Engine Optimization?
Generative engine optimization is the process of maximizing the reach of your digital content by increasing the likelihood that GenAI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini include it in an answer to user queries.
It’s the evolution of SEO that marketers have used to increase visibility in the SERP across Google and Bing by ranking higher on the page. For GEO, the goal is to have your brand/solution/content mentioned in AI-generated responses, as well as the accompanying link listed in the AI’s sources.
The term was popularized in a study from a group of researchers from Princeton, the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, and independent contributors. Using the following tactics, the team increased the visibility of content in AI responses by up to 40%:
- Incorporating well-sourced, direct quotes that are relevant to the topic
- Adding relevant statistics and quantitative facts to the content
- Linking to relevant third-party sources within the text
- Ensuring the copy is clear, logical, and flows
- Reducing the amount of jargon and complexity
Marketers have since focused on identifying content gaps by analyzing which queries and prompts AI tools respond to. They’ve also leaned into platforms like Reddit to boost visibility.
This should sound familiar to you.
There are undoubtedly some similarities and overlaps between SEO and GEO, but it’s clear that the latter is becoming a more popular search option among tech-savvy users and younger generations.
Let’s look at how GEO works in the real world, using Tally as an example.
Instead of going to Google and typing in “best free form builder” or a similar mid-to-long tail search query, a user might ask the same question in ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Claude.
For instance, “What is the best free form builder?”
Perplexity answers with a short disclaimer about the subjectivity of “best,” then displays a table of top form tools with links to company websites, comparison pages, and platforms like Reddit.
As you can see, Tally is at the top of the list.
What’s even more interesting is the number of times Perplexity cites a Tally webpage. Source number 5, a Tally listicle titled “Best free online form builders in 2025,” appears 14 times throughout the short search thread.
ChatGPT-4o generates a similar answer in a more streamlined format. Once again, Tally comes out on top as the best option.
The question for most brands is this: how do I get my brand mentioned by these AI tools?
Here’s what Tally is doing to drive traffic and signups through GEO.
How Tally’s Marketing Strategy Tapped into the Power of GEO
According to SimilarWeb, the Tally site received nearly 9.8 million visits last month, an increase of 12.64% from April.
The majority of this traffic comes in via direct search (54.47%), but social media (19%), web referrals (13.33%), and organic search (12.76%) also represent significant sources of traffic.
ChatGPT is currently the leading referral source for Tally according to SimilarWeb, accounting for 9.6% of all web referrals in May (which is a 52% increase from the number of referrals received from the AI in April). That equates to 125,000 visits from ChatGPT.
Again, these ChatGPT referrals aren’t just one-and-done visits. They are high-value visits that turn into new users and, eventually, drive ARR.
Just look at Marten’s post from last week explaining how AI search contributed to Tally reaching their $3M ARR milestone 5 months early.
In the initial LinkedIn post she made announcing the surprising success, Martens gave away some of the valuable learnings and hypotheses from their GEO success, including:
- The increasing importance of brand mentions, sentiment, and engagement
- User generated content outperforms mass-produced content
- Community platforms like Reddit are crucial because of authentic, human responses
So, now let’s take a closer look at what the Tally marketing team has been doing to turn generative AI into their strategic advantage:
Superior Branding, Product, and Content
To get brand mentions, sentiment, and engagement, you first need to have a brand and product worth mentioning.
Remember that according to SimilarWeb, nearly 55% of Tally’s traffic comes from direct search, a clear signifier of brand recognition.
And branding has been a key differentiator for Tally for a while. Even a few years ago, when Redditors were wondering what was behind the success of this up-and-coming form builder, there were two things that stuck out:
- Free access to features that leading competitors gate
- Impeccable branding — from the name and website to the UI
Tally’s clean, Notion-inspired design and simple UX have always stood out. But design alone isn’t enough to earn AI mentions. That’s why some of their smartest investments have been in content marketing.
Specifically, investing in what we call the SaaS money pages — best of, comparison, and alternative pages. These pages are high in commercial intent and contain detailed information on everything from product features to pricing.
According to research from Josh Blyskal and the Profound team, LLMs consistently surface these types of pages in their responses.
The Tally site has 4 of these comparison pages.
One each targeting their leading competitors of Typeform, Jotform, and Google Forms, and a more in-depth page comparing all the free form builder tools available. This is the same one that was cited over a dozen times in the Perplexity search we looked at earlier.
These pages work wonders for SEO and it looks like that translates for GEO as well.
Investing in Community Engagement
Community based marketing is clearly a major part of Tally’s strategy, as nearly 20% of their website traffic comes via social referrals.
LinkedIn is the dominant social platform for referrals (61% of socials) followed by YouTube, X, Facebook, and Instagram. That LinkedIn drives the most referrals isn’t surprising considering how active Tally’s cofounder is on the platform.
This is key considering the same research from the Profound team shows that AI tools like Perplexity are more likely to cite user-generated content from social platforms like Reddit, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
Interestingly enough, Reddit doesn’t crack the top 5 for Tally in terms of referrals, though it’s mentioned repeatedly by Martens and also comes up in the “sources” section of LLM searches like Perplexity more often than the other platforms mentioned. It’s just another example of the growing connection between AI and Reddit.
Tally amplifies the effect by maintaining a small but growing subreddit (r/TallyForms) where the team answers technical questions, ships changelogs, and invites template feedback. Unsurprisingly, Martens is also heavily involved in the management of the company’s growing subreddit, acting as a moderator, brand ambassador, and customer success agent.
This two-way dialogue keeps sentiment positive, supplies evergreen content for LLM training cycles, and gives the founders a direct pulse on emerging feature requests.
Measuring LLM Performance and Progress
Tally’s next growth sprint is about measuring the one that’s already exploding. Marie Martens says the team will keep nurturing community engagement and social-listening loops, but their biggest internal project is creating a purpose-built “LLM analytics stack.”
It’s still the early days of GEO, and there are plenty of moving parts. But that doesn’t stop Tally from trying to understand why ChatGPT and Perplexity recommend Tally, which prompts drive conversion, and where content gaps still exist.
According to Marie, the Tally team is testing a number of different tools to assist with this process including the likes of Rankshift, GPTrends, and Profound.
Their tracking has helped them identify a number of queries/topics/prompts that bring in the most leads through ChatGPT:
- “Good alternatives to [other form builders]”
- “No code form builders”
- “Free alternatives to [other form builders]”
- “Forms to embed in my website”
- Queries related to automations, Make, Zapier, etc.
Marketing attribution was hard enough to figure out before AIs came on to the scene. Now that process is exponentially harder with the rise of LLMs that have web-search capabilities.
The Tally team helps capture more of this valuable information by building in AI attribution and prompt capture to their onboarding process with simple form questions that ask which AI tool referred the new user and which prompt they entered that ultimately led to a Tally mention/link click.
Position Yourself for GEO Success Today
Tally’s GEO success isn’t about gaming the system—it’s about understanding how AI tools surface information and building around those patterns. Their combination of high-quality comparison content, authentic community engagement, and systematic measurement shows that early movers in GEO can capture significant market share before competitors catch on.
The key takeaway?
Start building your AI visibility infrastructure now. Invest in the content types that LLMs prefer, engage authentically in communities where your audience asks questions, and create systems to track which prompts drive your best users.
The companies that master GEO today will have a massive advantage tomorrow.
Connect with our leading generative engine optimization agency today and set your brand up for growth in the era of AI search.
