Growth Strategy in the AI Search Era with Nick Lafferty, Profound

What does it take to build demand through ideas at the world's most prolific thought leadership organisation?In this episode of The Growth Leaders Series, Charlie Marchant sits down with Daphne Luchtenberg, Marketing Director for McKinsey’s Operations Practice. Daphne shares how McKinsey's codification culture turns client work into compounding commercial advantage, how peer review makes their content credible at scale, and why their biggest content challenge isn't producing enough; it's deciding what's distinctive enough to publish.They also get into how McKinsey built its own LLM three years ago, how AI is now embedded into the marketing team's day-to-day, and how Daphne is thinking about LLM visibility versus protecting proprietary knowledge.Plus: what B2B marketing leaders can take from the McKinsey model without McKinsey's resources, why building a strong bench beats protecting star performers, and the career advice Daphne would send back to her younger self.Read the full show notes: https://exposureninja.com/podcast/growth-leader-series-daphne-luchtenberg/Follow Daphne Luchtenberg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daphneluchtenberg/New episode launches every Wednesday throughout June 2026, so stay tuned to hear from growth leaders from leading brands like Profound, Wise, and AirOps! Book a consultation to get a live review of your website and marketing 👉⁠https://exposureninja.com/review/⁠⁠

Sponsored by Semrush. Try Semrush One 👉 https://exposureninja.com/semrushoneYour competitors are showing up in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity. You're not, and right now, you have no idea why.This video changes that. I'll show you exactly how to reverse-engineer what your competitors are doing, intentionally or not, to get recommended in AI answers. So you can copy their strategy, close the gap, and start dominating the conversations that matter.Here's what I cover:Why some brands are consistently recommended across every major AI platform and the three metrics that reveal exactly how they're doing itHow to use Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit to benchmark your brand against competitors across mentions, citations, and cited pagesThe difference between missing, weak, shared, strong, and unique topics and how to use the gap to build your action planWhy not all prompts and topics are worth chasing and how to filter by the ones that will actually drive customers to your businessHow to identify the third-party sources feeding AI answers in your category and how to get your brand mentioned on themThe exact prioritisation framework we used to take a client from 50 conversions per month to nearly 400 and grow their AI Search visibility by more than 10xYou don't need to be a huge brand to win in AI Search. Everything your competitors are doing is visible, if you know where to look.Book a consultation call for a live review of your website and marketing 👉 https://exposureninja.com/review/Read the show notes: https://exposureninja.com/podcast/beat-competitors-in-ai-search/

What does it actually take to build a go-to-market strategy for a category that barely existed 18 months ago?In this episode of The Growth Leaders Series, Charlie Marchant sits down with Nick Lafferty, Founding Marketing Engineer at Profound, the AI Search tracking platform helping major brands understand how they show up in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and other LLMs.Nick brings serious growth experience to this role. Before Profound, he drove millions in B2B SaaS pipeline at Loom and Mailgun, then spent two years running a solo consulting agency before joining Profound. In this episode, Nick Lafferty covers:Why velocity is a moat in AI SearchWhat a modern, lean marketing team actually looks like, why Nick hires for a generative marketer mindset, and his advice for showcasing this online The growth strategy behind Profound, centred on sharing data and insightsThe go-to-market motion behind Profound's Zero Click events, scaling from 400 to 800+ attendees across New York and LondonThe layered mentality around AI Search for different business sizesWhy FAQ content and FAQ schema is the lowest-hanging fruit most big brands are leaving on the tableHow to make the internal case for AI Search investment when leadership is still thinking in Google termsThe career advice he'd send back to his first dayRead the full show notes: https://exposureninja.com/podcast/growth-leader-series-nick-lafferty/Follow Nick Lafferty on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicklafferty/New episode launches every Wednesday throughout June 2026, so stay tuned to hear from growth leaders from leading brands like McKinsey and Company, Wise, and AirOps! Book a consultation to get a live review of your website and marketing 👉⁠https://exposureninja.com/review/⁠

Most businesses are chasing more AI mentions. More citations. More visibility.But if those mentions aren't happening when someone is about to buy, they're not driving pipeline.In this video, I break down exactly how to turn AI visibility into high-value leads, and why most businesses are completely missing the step that actually matters.Here's what I cover:Why being mentioned in "What is a mortgage?" is completely different from "Should I choose Halifax or Nationwide?" and why only one of those drives revenueThe three criteria you need to score every AI prompt against before deciding whether it's worth chasingHow AI platforms build entity associations and the specific signals you can use to make sure your brand gets recommended during high-intent buying momentsThe biggest conversion mistake companies make when they earn AI visibility for informational content (and exactly how to fix it)How we helped a DAX 30 client change how AI platforms perceived their brand and what that meant for their stakeholder positioningThe goal isn't maximum AI visibility. It's maximum AI visibility during the moments that generate pipeline.Book a consultation call for a live review of your website and marketing 👉 https://exposureninja.com/review/Read the show notes: https://exposureninja.com/podcast/turn-ai-mentions-into-leads/Listen to these episodes next:The BEST SEO Strategies for 2026⁠⁠⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/368/⁠⁠⁠⁠How To Dominate AI Search Results in 2026⁠⁠⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/372/⁠⁠⁠⁠Copy The 3 Pillars of £50m+ SEO Campaigns⁠⁠⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/371/

What does a decade of organic growth at one of fintech's most successful companies actually look like?In this episode of The Growth Leaders Series, Charlie Marchant sits down with Fabrizio Ballarini, Head of Organic Growth at Wise, the multi-billion dollar global money transfer platform operating across 160+ markets.Fabrizio shares the thinking behind Wise's famous growth philosophy: going as broad as possible, as fast as possible, and then refining what works. He breaks down the story of the currency converter that became one of the most powerful organic acquisition tools in fintech, how a single page generated 1 million clicks in one month, and why Wise continues to build acquisition for products that don't yet exist.The conversation gets into the AI Search question head-on: what it really means for an established brand like Wise, why traffic is still at an all-time high despite the hype, and where the genuine risk lies. Fabrizio also talks about the LTV forecasting models that changed how the team evaluates content, why he rarely kills pages that aren't converting, and what he'd tell his younger self about growth.Follow Fabrizio on LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/fabrizioballarini/Read the show notes:https://exposureninja.com/podcast/growth-leader-series-fabrizio-ballarini/New episode launches every Wednesday throughout June 2026, so stay tuned to hear from growth leaders from leading brands like McKinsey and Company, Profound, and AirOps! Book a consultation to get a live review of your website and marketing 👉 https://exposureninja.com/review/

Vanguard manages over $10 trillion in assets, but their dominance in search and AI visibility isn't just because of their size. Most big brands their size are leaving millions of visits on the table. Vanguard isn't.This video breaks down the Vanguard digital marketing strategy behind 6.2 million monthly organic visitors, an AI visibility score of 85/100, and 74,500 AI mentions, and the lessons any marketer can steal from it.Here's what I cover:Why Vanguard built their entire website around customer goals, not products, and why that single shift is the foundation of everything else they're doingThe topic cluster content strategy generating 6.2 million US organic visits a month, and how they've structured it to cover every stage of the buyer journeyHow their educational articles are structured to get cited in AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Gemini, including the exact formatting choices that make AI tools want to pull from their contentWhy their retirement income calculator has attracted 462 linking domains and 74,000 monthly visits to a single page and how to replicate this for your industryThe internal linking and CTA strategy that turns content readers into customers (and why most brands get this badly wrong)The 7 lessons any marketer at any size business can apply immediately to build this kind of search and AI visibilityVanguard isn't winning because they're Vanguard. They're winning because they're doing the work. Here's exactly what that looks like.Book a consultation call for a live review of your website and marketing 👉 https://exposureninja.com/review/Read the show notes: https://exposureninja.com/podcast/vanguard-marketing-strategy/Listen to these episodes next:Rippling's $16B Marketing Strategy https://exposureninja.com/podcast/rippling-marketing-strategy/How To Dominate AI Search Results in 2026⁠⁠⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/372/⁠⁠⁠⁠Copy The 3 Pillars of £50m+ SEO Campaigns⁠⁠⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/371/

Google just called this a new era for AI Search, and after seeing these five updates from Google I/O 2026, it's hard to disagree.In this executive briefing, Charlie Marchant (CEO of Exposure Ninja), covers:The new AI Search box that lets users write full briefs, attach files, and search like they would in ChatGPTInformation agents that search on behalf of users 24/7 in the backgroundAI Mode going fully conversational, with persistent context across an entire search sessionAgentic coding in search, building custom dashboards and mini apps on the flyPersonal intelligence and agentic calling, where Google literally phones businesses to check availability and book on your behalfGoogle is no longer just a search engine. It's becoming an interactive, agentic interface, and businesses that aren't thinking beyond ten blue links are already falling behind. Here's exactly what these updates mean for your marketing strategy.Future-proof your brand with our AI Search Audit 👉 https://exposureninja.com/services/ai-search-optimisation/ai-search-strategy/ Read the show notes: https://exposureninja.com/podcast/google-i-o-2026/Subscribe to Charlie Explains AI Search on LinkedIn for the latest updates in AI Search Optimisation:https://www.linkedin.com/in/charliemarchant/recent-activity/newsletter/ 

AI traffic is growing fast, but most businesses have no idea how much of it they're getting, where it's coming from, or how well it converts.This video shows you exactly how to track traffic from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Copilot inside Google Analytics 4, including the quick method you can use today, and the proper setup that makes AI referral traffic a permanent channel in your reports.Here's what's covered:Why AI-referred traffic converts 4–5x better than Google organic and why that makes it worth tracking separately even when the volume is still smallThe quick filter method for isolating AI referral traffic in your existing GA4 reports in under two minutesHow to create a dedicated AI referral traffic channel group so you never have to click through filters againThe one ordering mistake that causes GA4 to misclassify your AI traffic as generic referral traffic and how to fix itWhy a large slice of AI-driven visits will never show up as AI traffic at all and what to track instead to get the full pictureThe tools we use to measure AI search visibility alongside GA4, including Semrush, Peak, and ProfoundAI traffic is still a small percentage of overall visits for most sites, but the conversion rates tell a different story. Ahrefs reported 12.1% of signups from AI search despite it driving just 0.5% of traffic. That gap is worth paying attention to.Read the show notes: https://exposureninja.com/blog/how-to-track-ai-traffic-in-ga4/Listen to these episodes next:The BEST SEO Strategies for 2026⁠⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/368/⁠⁠⁠How To Dominate AI Search Results in 2026⁠⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/372/⁠⁠⁠Copy The 3 Pillars of £50m+ SEO Campaigns⁠⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/371/

Sponsored by Semrush. Try Semrush One for 14-days (exclusive Exposure Ninja deal) 👉 https://exposureninja.com/semrushoneMost marketers aren't short on data. They're short on clarity.In 2026, marketing teams are tracking more metrics than ever and still can't answer the most important question: what's actually driving leads, revenue, and growth?This episode shows you exactly which digital marketing metrics are worth your attention, which ones you can safely ignore, and the tools you need to track them properly.Here's what I cover:Why conversion events, not traffic, should anchor your entire measurement strategy and how to set them up correctly in GA4How to analyse traffic channels, landing pages, and devices, and cross-reference them to find your biggest growth opportunitiesThe lead gen metrics that live outside GA4, including lead-to-opportunity rate, revenue per lead, and conversion-to-customer rateHow to read the purchase journey report in GA4 for e-commerce, and why a dropping conversion rate isn't always bad newsThe SEO metrics that actually matter in Semrush, and why tracking keyword volume without watching page-one positions is quietly misleading youHow to measure AI Search visibility and brand sentiment across LLMs, and why branded organic traffic is becoming one of your most important signalsWhy 58% of marketers say AI Search traffic converts at a higher rate than regular organic, and how to build a dashboard that tracks it properlyThe businesses winning right now aren't tracking more. They're tracking smarter.Request a review of your website and marketing 👉 https://exposureninja.com/review/Read the show notes: https://exposureninja.com/blog/website-metrics/Listen to these episodes next:The BEST SEO Strategies for 2026⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/368/⁠⁠How To Dominate AI Search Results in 2026⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/372/⁠⁠Copy The 3 Pillars of £50m+ SEO Campaigns⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/371/

Rippling has grown from over $16 billion, and their website traffic went from 20,000 monthly visitors in 2021 to over 1.5 million today.This didn't happen by accident. It happened because of a three-part digital marketing playbook that any business — software, services, or anything else — can copy.Here's what I cover in this breakdown of Rippling's marketing strategy:How Rippling ditched generic messaging and rebuilt their entire website around laser-targeted customer segments — and why this drove higher-quality leads from real decision-makersThe content strategy that grew their blog from 5,000 to nearly 200,000 monthly visits — and the exact topic clusters they used to do itWhy Rippling built out state-by-state labor law content across every US state, and what this teaches you about hyper-specific audience targeting- What "Rippling Plus" is, why it's a smart play to insulate against AI search disruption, and whether it's worth attempting for your businessHow Rippling uses original research and digital PR to get coverage in the exact publications their target audience reads — and why this is now critical for AI search visibilityWhere Rippling's AI search visibility currently stands, and the one area they need to improve before competitors chip away at their leadThe three-pillar playbook behind Rippling's rise is something any business can learn from — whether you're starting from scratch or trying to scale what's already working.The key lessons from Rippling's approach:Tell a specific story for each customer segment — not a generic one for everyoneBuild content around the topics your different audiences actually search forUse original data and digital PR to earn coverage in the publications AI tools citeRead the show notes: https://exposureninja.com/podcast/rippling-marketing-strategy/Listen to these episodes next:The BEST SEO Strategies for 2026⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/368/⁠How To Dominate AI Search Results in 2026⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/372/⁠Copy The 3 Pillars of £50m+ SEO Campaigns⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/371/