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Welcome to Volume 261 👋
Happy Thursday!
In this week’s newsletter, we cover:
- 📈 How to Think About the ROI of Generative Engine Optimization
- 📰 AI Search Results Are Shaped By Recency Bias
- 👀 The Latest in B2B SaaS This Week
- 🧠 This Week’s Brain Food
- ➕ The Best Content Across the Web
Let’s get into it.
📈 How to Think About the ROI of Generative Engine Optimization
If your leadership team is demanding traditional ROI metrics for your Generative Engine Optimization efforts, they’re misunderstanding the channel. A lot of people are these days.
The uncomfortable truth is that GEO operates fundamentally differently from traditional performance marketing. When prospects research your category in ChatGPT, validate your brand on Reddit, and compare solutions on YouTube, all before visiting your website, how exactly do you attribute that to revenue?
You can’t. At least not in the way your CFO wants you to.
But that doesn’t make GEO any less critical. Recent data shows over 53% of people start their searches with AI assistants at least once daily.
If you’re not present in those initial discovery moments, you’ve already lost the deal before prospects reach your site.
In our latest deep dive, we break down why the traditional “revenue minus cost divided by cost” formula fails for GEO, and more importantly, what you should measure instead. We’ve included real examples from brands seeing dramatic results like moving from 12% to 73% mention rates in priority discussions, or driving 13% of high-intent leads through AI discovery.
Think of GEO less like performance marketing and more like PR and brand awareness, with the added urgency that your competitors are building positioning advantages right now that will compound for years.
Check out the full article on the Foundation Lab to learn why the return on AI search investment is so much more than an ROI calculation.
Pressing Publish Isn’t Enough. Here’s How to 10x Your Distribution in Minutes
You spent hours creating your best content yet.
An article. A podcast. Or maybe a video interview.
You hit publish, and then… nothing.
- No shares.
- No traffic.
- No results.
The truth?
Your content isn’t the problem. Your distribution is.
The brands that win don’t just create.
They share content obsessively. They get seen.
They squeeze every ounce of value from every single post.
And now, you can too.
With Distribution.AI, your content shows up everywhere. No extra effort needed.
One upload becomes a LinkedIn thread, a blog post, show notes, X posts, and more.
Minutes later, you’re everywhere your audience hangs out.
- More reach.
- More impressions.
- More ROI.
All from the content you’ve already made.
No more publish and pray
No more watching your best work go unnoticed.
Just traction, visibility, and results, all on autopilot.
Ready to fix your broken distribution and 10x your output without rewriting a single word?
📰 AI Search Results Are Shaped By Recency Bias
Academic research and SEO expertise have combined for some valuable insights for marketers.
About a month ago, a study from Waseda University researchers found that AI search engines systematically favour newer content over older material, regardless of quality. SEO expert Metehan Yesilyurt, who previously discovered ChatGPT’s use_freshness_scoring_profile variable, recently broke down the study.
Researchers added fake publication dates to TREC 2021 and 2022 test collections without changing any other content, then measured performance across seven major AI models, including GPT-4o and LLaMA-3.
The results were dramatic: individual pieces jumped up to 95 positions, while 25% of relevance decisions flipped based solely on timestamps.
The “seesaw effect” reveals how freshness impacts different ranking positions. Ranks 1-10 saw the most dramatic shifts (+0.8 to +4.8 years fresher), while content below position 60 got systematically buried with older dates.
Content from 2022 or earlier faces steep penalties, making regular updates essential for AI visibility.
👀 What’s the Latest in B2B SaaS This Week? 👀
Everything OpenAI announced at DevDay 2025: Agent Kit, Apps SDK, ChatGPT, and more | ZDNET
Google testing AI-generated descriptions for search snippets | Search Engine Land
Supabase nabs $5B valuation, four months after hitting $2B | TechCrunch
The AI boom’s reliance on circular deals is raising fears of a bubble | Yahoo Finance
🔈 Come See Ross at Canada’s Largest SEO Conference 🔈
Ross is heading to Toronto to speak at SEO IRL this October 16-17. He’ll be discussing how brands can scale their distribution engine without sacrificing quality, and position themselves for success for years to come.
You don’t want to miss this session:
Content Distribution in the Age of AI: How to Win Long Term
Here’s what else is on the docket for this year’s SEOIRL:
✨ 250 attendees
🎤 14 speakers
📆 2 jam-packed days
⚡ 100% dynamic & fun
This is going to be one of the best opportunities this year to connect, learn, and share insights with some of the brightest minds in SEO.
Use the promo code ROSS15 for 15% off when you grab your ticket at seoirl.com
See you in Toronto!
#SEOIRL
🚨 New Podcast Alert: 🚨
In the latest episode of The Ross Simmonds Show, Ross sits down with Dusty Holcomb, seasoned executive and founder of Arcqus Group, to tackle the uncomfortable truth about modern leadership: you can’t scale a company you haven’t learned to lead yourself.
Most leaders obsess over execution frameworks and growth metrics. The best ones understand that sustainable success starts with self-leadership, vulnerability, and ruthless focus on what actually matters.
Dusty brings over two decades of hard-won lessons from leading high-growth companies in logistics and eCommerce. Here’s what he unpacks:
- Vulnerability as a competitive advantage: How embracing authentic transparency unlocks team performance and builds transformational cultures.
- The art of strategic “no”: A Red Stag story about turning down a dream client to protect brand promise, and why saying no is the ultimate growth accelerator.
- Distill it to one: Dusty’s framework for cutting through decision paralysis in the age of infinite options and AI-powered distractions.
- Self-care isn’t selfish: Why quarterly reviews, morning routines, and thinking time aren’t luxuries, they’re leadership fundamentals.
- Breaking imposter syndrome: Practical exercises to validate gut instincts and build conviction in your role.
- Finding mentors who matter: Forget chasing billionaires. Start with thought leadership and your inner circle to build relationships that actually move the needle.
Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcast or Spotify to learn why leading with purpose beats leading with pressure every single time.
🧠 This Week’s Brain Food 🧠
Is art valuable because of the human process behind it, or because of the idea itself?
That’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, and I’m not sure I like the answers I’m circling around. Because here’s the thing — I’m a content marketer, right? My job is to think of ideas, but it’s also… not. Not really. A lot of my time is taken up by the process of making those ideas work. Research. SEO. Tweaking headlines. Reworking intros.
None of those are the idea itself, are they? They’re the mechanics of communicating an idea, and if (these days) the mechanics can be done by, oh I don’t know, AI, then what’s left for me? What’s left for any creative?
The reason this has been on my mind isn’t just because I enjoy giving myself an existential crisis on top of deadlines. It’s because of one name: Tilly Norwood. Even typing her (it? them? that?) name feels like a marker in time to me; one of those “yep, that’s when everything shifted” moments.
For those of you who don’t know, Tilly is an “AI-generated actor”. And when Particle 6 Productions (the UK-based film company behind her) introduced Tilly, this is what they said: “People are realizing that their creativity doesn’t need to be boxed in by a budget.”
Honestly? They have a point. I know more than a couple of people who’ve given up on their creative dreams because the cost of making art is too goddamn high. And I’m not even just talking about money — the time is expensive. The time it takes to write the novel or paint the canvas or shoot the film, yes, but also the time it takes to beg and borrow the resources to even start.
Want to sponsor our next issue? Reply to this email, and we’ll share how you can reach more SaaS founders and marketers today.
🏅 Reddit Post of the Week
Unpopular Opinion: Social Media is Not a Great Marketing Channel In r/marketing
🎖️ LinkedIn Post of the Week
How can you get LLMs to recommend your brand? Two words: GPT articles. by Araminta Robertson
🤳🏽 Nice Finds You Should Binge
- The end of SEO-PPC silos: Building a unified search strategy for the AI era | Search Engine Land
- 18 Lawyers Caught Using AI Explain Why They Did It | 404Media
- ChatGPT is now 20% of Walmart’s referral traffic — while Amazon wards off AI shopping agents | DigiDay
- This groundbreaking research proves we’ve been using creators wrong all this time | The Drum
💻 Job Postings Worth Checking Out
Looking for a new opportunity? Here’s a round-up of some exciting job openings in the B2B SaaS space.
- Foundation Marketing | Account Executive (Growth)
- Foundation Marketing | Senior Account Manager
- Foundation Marketing | Director of Strategy
- Foundation Marketing | Senior Account Coordinator
- Foundation Marketing | Data & Insights Analyst
- Foundation Marketing | Fractional Recruiter
- Foundation Marketing | Executive Assistant
- Foundation Marketing | Reddit Specialist
- Foundation Marketing | Content Creator
Want us to include your job postings in our next issue? Reply to this email, and we’ll share how you can reach more SaaS professionals today.
🎧 What We’re Wired Into This Week
This SaaS news smattering is brought to you by Ethan Crump!
If you have any feedback, suggestions, or ideas you want to see in this newsletter, feel free to email me at ethan@foundationinc.co. We’re always looking for ways to improve and provide the best B2B SaaS marketing resources.
Have a great weekend!
