Skip Navigation or Skip to Content

The Citation Engine

Your buyer hears three vendor names. Yours has to be one of them.

A monthly retainer that gets your company named in AI answers. We build the content that earns the mention, publish it into your CMS and measure the result every month.

  • ChatGPT
  • Gemini
  • Claude
  • Perplexity
  • Google AI Overviews
  • No setup fee
  • At least 16 assets a month
  • New content, existing content, or both
  • Published into HubSpot or WordPress

Where does your category stand?

B2B Search Study 2026
  • Buyer queries that show a Google AI Overview

    97.5%

    1,560 buyer-intent queries, US, 1 October 2026

  • Companies ChatGPT named for their own category question

    22.2%

    2,808 flagged companies measured

  • Organic traffic of the median flagged company against the field

    0.59

    4,403 flagged companies, September 2026. 1.00 means it moved with the field

Not named by ChatGPT for their own category
77.8%
Behind the field in organic traffic
41%

Flagged = B2B domains our monitoring flagged for a traffic collapse

Real data from the peppereffect B2B Search Traffic Study 2026. The free measurement shows your own numbers, with your competitors by name.

In short

The Citation Engine is a monthly retainer from peppereffect for B2B companies. It produces at least 16 publish-ready assets a month, new or reworked, publishes them into the client's HubSpot or WordPress site, and reports Share of Model across five AI engines every month. What it sells is the mention in the AI answer.

What changed

The AI answer now writes the shortlist.

Your buyer asks an AI engine which vendors to look at and gets three or four names back. Whoever is missing from that answer is missing from the shortlist. You can hold position one on Google and still lose the visit, because the answer sits above your result.

68%

of Google searches in US browsers ended without a click, January to April 2026 (SparkToro and Similarweb)

58%

lower click-through rate for the top-ranking page when an AI Overview appears (Ahrefs, 300,000 informational keywords, desktop)

1.91%

conversion rate of visitors from AI sources, compared with 0.50% from organic search (Orbit Media, 97 B2B websites, 28.9 million sessions)

Median organic traffic in September 2026, indexed to each domain's own Q1 2024 average

0.76

4,449 other domains ranking for the same buyer queries

0.45

4,403 B2B companies flagged for a traffic collapse

Line chart of median estimated organic traffic for 4,403 flagged B2B companies versus 4,449 field domains, indexed to Q1 2024, January 2023 to September 2026
From our study of 8,852 B2B domains. The data does not prove that AI Overviews caused the gap. It does show who fell behind, and that a top-20 ranking got a domain cited in the AI Overview in fewer than one case in four. Read the study.

Before you pay anything

The free measurement: 20 AI answers, every vendor counted.

We put your buyers' questions to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, 20 answers in total, and count every vendor each one names. The report lands in your inbox within 48 hours. It costs nothing and it does not need a call.

  • Who gets named in your category. Every vendor, with the number of answers that mention it, next to yours.
  • Who named you, engine by engine. In our measurements most companies are strong in one engine and close to absent in another.
  • The competitors you did not know you had. Vendors the engines recommend that are not on your own competitor list.
  • Why they get named, in the engines' own words. The phrase each engine uses to describe you and each rival.
  • The sources the answers were built from. The pages the engines cited. That list is the work order.

Get your free measurement

What's included

One retainer. Everything below is in it.

No setup fee, no onboarding charge, and nothing is sold on top. Next to each line is what you would otherwise buy or staff separately.

  1. 01

    At least 16 assets a month, 20 on average

    Answer pages, comparison pages, articles, data pieces. New pieces, reworked existing ones, or a mix of both. The 16 is a floor. We never write "up to".

    ReplacesThe writer you would hire and the briefs you would write for them.

  2. 02

    Published straight into your CMS

    HubSpot or WordPress. You approve a piece and we publish it, formatted and linked, with structured data. Your team does not copy and paste.

    ReplacesThe upload and formatting hours on your side.

  3. 03

    Monthly Share-of-Model report

    How often you are named against your strongest competitor across five engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews), which vendors the engines name, and the reasons they give.

    ReplacesA visibility tracking subscription that measures and then leaves the work to you.

  4. 04

    A dashboard you can check

    Your Share-of-Model curve over time with the competitive set beside it. The buyer questions are agreed at the start and then frozen, and the raw answers sit in the dashboard. Where you connect them, it also carries Google Search Console, HubSpot Analytics and GA4.

    ReplacesTaking an agency's word for it.

  5. 05

    Brand voice, buyer personas, content strategy and editorial calendar

    Built with your input before the first piece is written, so the content sounds like you and answers the questions your buyers ask.

    ReplacesA paid strategy phase before any work starts.

  6. 06

    New content, your existing content, or both

    We write new pieces and we rework what you already published. Much of an archive was written to rank, so we restructure the pages worth keeping until an engine can quote them. The mix is fixed in the contract.

    ReplacesWriting off years of published articles.

  7. 07

    An SEO audit of your site at the start

    We audit the site before the first piece goes live, at no extra charge, so new content does not land on a technical problem.

    ReplacesA separately bought audit.

  8. 08

    A 30-minute strategy call every month

    The numbers, what changed, and the plan for the next month, with your decision maker.

    ReplacesStatus meetings without a number in them.

The terms. One fixed monthly retainer. Six-month minimum term, then month to month.

We share the price in the first call, once we have measured where you stand.

The start. We can start within 2 days once all access is in place and you have approved the brand voice, the buyer personas, the content strategy and the editorial calendar.

What you see every month

One dashboard. The mention, and what it does for your traffic.

Share of Model is the share of AI answers that name your company. It needs no access to anything. Connect your own tools and the same dashboard shows what the mentions do further down.

AI engines

Share of Model

20 frozen buyer questions across five engines. Your curve over time, your strongest competitor next to it, and every raw answer the number was counted from.

Google Search Console

Clicks, impressions, position

For the pages we publish and the pages we rework, so you see which ones Google has picked up.

HubSpot Analytics

Visits referred by AI assistants

How many visitors arrive from AI assistants such as ChatGPT or Perplexity, and which of them become contacts.

GA4

What those visitors do next

Sessions and conversions by source, if GA4 is where you measure.

Your part

Approvals and 30 minutes a month.

What we take off your desk

  • Research and writing of every piece, fact-checked before you see it
  • Publishing into HubSpot or WordPress, with formatting, internal links and structured data
  • The monthly measurement across five AI engines
  • The editorial calendar, so you never have to ask what comes next

What we need from you

  • CMS access within 10 working days of the start
  • Approvals within 5 working days
  • One named decision maker
  • The monthly 30-minute call

The first month takes more of you: CMS access, a kickoff, and your input on the brand voice and the personas. After that it is approvals and the monthly call.

Is this AI content? Yes, with a human gate.

The engine researches, writes and verifies each asset through a 9-phase gated pipeline with 23 verification checks. Then a person reads it. Then you approve it. Nothing goes live without that approval, and the free sample below shows you the standard before you commit to anything.

How it runs

From first number to month six.

  1. 01

    Free measurement

    We put your buyers' questions to the engines and send you the report: who gets named, who names you, and which pages the answers were built from.

  2. 02

    Free sample, if you want one

    Send one URL. We rework the page the way we would in month one and return it within three working days, with a side-by-side of what changed and why.

  3. 03

    Setup

    We audit the site, write the brand voice document and the personas with you, agree the content strategy and the calendar, and freeze the buyer questions. You approve the four documents. Your first measurement becomes the baseline.

  4. 04

    Every month

    Production starts within 2 days of that approval, as long as the access is in place. At least 16 assets go through verification, a human read and your approval, then into your CMS. We measure Share of Model again and walk you through it in 30 minutes.

  5. 05

    Month six

    We compare your Share of Model with the baseline. If your AI citation is not improving, the no-fee extension starts.

Proof

Two examples from sites we run.

We picked two properties we run ourselves or with partners, because there we can show every number and where it comes from. Both started close to zero. Other factors can contribute to results like these.

helium42.com

A brand peppereffect runs with partners

Before3After245

visits referred by AI assistants per 90 days (HubSpot Analytics)

Google clicks per 90 days

Before28
After4,209

Google Search Console

Google impressions per 90 days

Before11,382
After764,408

Google Search Console

Before is the 90 days to 13 March 2026, after is the 90 days to 25 September 2026. Average Google position moved from 17.4 to 10.3. About half of the clicks come from one page.

Read the Helium42 case study, limits included

growperma.com

peppereffect's own project, a consumer gardening site on a brand-new domain

Before14After6,323

Google clicks a month, April against September 2026 (Google Search Console)

Google clicks per month, 2026

  1. 14Apr
  2. 163May
  3. 694Jun
  4. 2,254Jul
  5. 4,127Aug
  6. 6,323Sep

Before is April 2026, the month of the first Google impression (2 April). After is September 2026. Google impressions in the same two months: 4,889 and 964,517.

It works on a young site too.

Neither site had a search history to build on. Helium42 took 28 Google clicks in the 90 days before the switch, and GrowPerma started with a domain nobody had heard of. An established domain helps, but the engine does not depend on one.

Another example: the Whitehat SEO case study

The guarantee

Not improving in six months? We keep working at no fee.

If your AI citation is not improving within six months, we keep working at no fee for up to three more months.

Improving means your company is named in more AI answers than at your first measurement, counted on the same frozen set of buyer questions. For a site we build mostly from new content the window is nine months. The promise covers your own presence in the answers. We never promise that a competitor disappears, because nobody controls what an engine says about a third party.

The conditions, in full

  • CMS access within 10 working days, approvals within 5 working days, one named decision maker, and the monthly call.
  • The extension runs inside the continuing contract. If the contract is cancelled, the guarantee ends.
  • There are no refunds. The remedy is more work at our cost.

Free sample

Judge the work on a page you know.

Send us one blog URL from your site, or just write "you pick". We rework that page the way we would in month one.

  • Back in your inbox within three working days
  • With a side-by-side of what changed and why
  • No charge and no call
  • If it is not clearly better, keep the page and we close the file

For B2B companies on HubSpot or WordPress. One page per company. We use your details to send the sample and to follow up on it. Privacy policy. Prefer email? Write to peter@peppereffect.com.

Who it is for

Built for one kind of company.

It fits if

  • You sell to businesses and your site runs on HubSpot or WordPress
  • Your organic clicks have fallen while your impressions held
  • Or your site is young and the engines do not know you yet
  • Someone on your side can approve content within five working days

It does not fit if

  • You want a guaranteed ranking or a guaranteed number of leads
  • You want a competitor removed from the answers
  • Your site runs on a CMS we cannot publish into
  • You need a dashboard only. We give the measurement away

The alternatives

What you are probably comparing this to.

Your SEO agency

It reports that rankings are stable. They can be, and the click can still be gone. Ask for the number of AI answers that name you. If it cannot give you one, you are missing the number that decides the shortlist.

An AI visibility tracking tool

It gives you a dashboard and a to-do list. Measurement is the free part, which is why we give it away. The work is producing the assets that move the number, every working day.

Your own team with ChatGPT

It works for the first few pieces. Then the briefs and the uploads land on someone who already has a job, and the calendar slips.

We compared 32 GEO and AEO agencies in September 2026. Only 10 of them offer to measure your AI visibility before you sign. Their published entry prices run from about $1,500 to $10,000 a month.

See the full agency comparison

Frequently asked questions

Straight answers before you commit.

What is the Citation Engine?

A monthly retainer from peppereffect that gets your company named in AI answers to your buyers' questions. We produce at least 16 assets a month, 20 on average, publish them into your CMS and report your Share of Model across five AI engines every month.

What exactly is included in the retainer?

At least 16 assets a month, 20 on average, published into your CMS; a monthly Share-of-Model report with the competitive set and the reasons the engines give; a dashboard with your Share-of-Model curve and the raw answers to a frozen set of buyer questions, plus Google Search Console, HubSpot Analytics and GA4 where you connect them; a brand voice document, buyer personas, content strategy and editorial calendar; the refresh of your existing content where it applies; an SEO audit of your site at the start; and a 30-minute strategy call every month. There is no setup fee and nothing is sold on top.

What does it cost?

One fixed monthly retainer with no setup fee and no onboarding charge. Six-month minimum term, then month to month. We share the price in the first call, after the free AI visibility measurement shows where you stand.

Do you write new content or optimise what we already have?

Both, and usually in combination. We write new pieces and we rework existing ones so an AI engine can quote them. Which mix makes sense depends on your content base, and it is fixed in the contract.

Does it work for a new website?

Yes. GrowPerma, our own consumer site on a brand-new domain, got its first Google impression on 2 April 2026 and took 6,323 Google clicks in September. Helium42 took 28 Google clicks in the 90 days before the switch and 4,209 in the 90 days to 25 September 2026.

How fast can you start?

Within 2 days, once all access is in place and you have approved the brand voice, the buyer personas, the content strategy and the editorial calendar.

Is the content written by AI?

Yes, with a human gate. The engine researches, writes and verifies each asset through a 9-phase gated pipeline with 23 verification checks. A person reads it, you approve it, and nothing goes live without that approval.

How much of my team's time does it take?

Approvals and one 30-minute call a month. We publish into HubSpot or WordPress ourselves, so nobody on your side uploads or formats anything. We need CMS access, one named decision maker and approvals within five working days.

How is Share of Model measured?

We ask a fixed set of buyer questions in five engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews) and record which vendors each answer names. Share of Model is the share of answers that name your company, shown next to the share of your strongest competitor.

What exactly is guaranteed?

If your AI citation is not improving within six months, we keep working at no fee for up to three more months. Improving means you are named in more AI answers than at your first measurement, on the same frozen set of buyer questions. For a site built mostly from new content the window is nine months. The extension runs inside the continuing contract, and there are no refunds. The guarantee requires CMS access within 10 working days, approvals within 5 working days, one named decision maker and attendance at the monthly call. The guarantee covers your own presence, never the removal of a competitor.

Can I see your work before I sign?

Yes. Send one blog URL from your site, or write "you pick". We rework the page the way we would in month one and send it back within three working days with a side-by-side of what changed and why. It costs nothing.

How do we start?

With the free AI visibility measurement: we put your buyers' questions to the AI engines and show you who gets named instead of you. If the number matters to you, we walk through it together in a 20-minute call and agree the next step.

The next step

Find out who gets named instead of you.

Two ways in, both free. Take the measurement and see the number. Or send one URL and judge the work.

  • No setup fee
  • Six-month minimum, then month to month
  • Nothing goes live without your approval
  • No-fee extension if your AI citation is not improving