Notes for challengers
Positioning, AI search and the marketing machine, written for B2B companies taking market share from the category leader.
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Category Authority Is the Right Diagnosis and the Wrong Prescription
AI mentions Coca-Cola constantly but rarely cites it. Why category authority metrics like Share of Model only count when you tie them to pipeline.
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The Claudit Is Coming: Why You Should Run an AI Audit on Your Agency
Clients now run AI audits on their agencies. Here is how to use a Claudit to evaluate your marketing agency and walk away with three clear decisions.
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The AI Referral Source You’re Not Tracking Is Already Sending You Buyers
ChatGPT’s share of B2B AI referrals fell 26 points in 8 months. If your attribution still reads AI as one platform, you’re misreading your best leads.
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Your Marketing Budget Isn’t a Category Average
Category averages tell you what everyone else decided. Here’s the four-input framework challenger brands should use to set a marketing budget instead.
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The CURATE Framework: How Challenger Brands Win AI Search When EEAT Isn’t Enough
EEAT isn’t dead, but two of its four pillars were always proxies for helpfulness that AI search no longer needs. CURATE replaces those proxies with signals a model can judge directly.
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Are You a Challenger Brand? The Four Stages Most B2B Companies Skip
Most B2B companies don’t have a marketing problem; they have a who-are-we problem. Four brand growth stages, and how to tell if you’re a challenger brand.
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AI Is Making Your Challenger Brand Sound Exactly Like the Company You Are Trying to Beat
Most AI writing tools average toward the loudest voice in your category. For a challenger brand, that voice belongs to the competitor you need to beat.
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Reddit Is Now a B2B Buying Channel
Reddit now shapes B2B buying across Google and AI search. Here’s how challenger brands show up in the conversation without getting burned.
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How to Get Found in AI Search in 2026 (When You’re the Challenger, Not the Category Leader)
B2B buyers now shortlist vendors inside AI search. Here’s how challenger brands get found and cited in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.
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The CFO’s Guide to Investing in Brand
Your attribution model measures 17% of what drives B2B revenue. Here is the CFO’s case for brand investment, the budget split, and how to measure it.
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From Human in the Loop to Human at the Center
Here’s a content creation process that puts humans back in the driver’s seat while still leveraging the power of AI to enhance and save time.
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The Death of Resonance: Why AI Content Isn’t Working (And How to Fix It)
In this article, we discuss how marketers can win back their audience in the age of artificial intelligence.
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