The landscape of B2B vendor selection, particularly for contract manufacturers and highly regulated industries, is undergoing a significant transformation due to AI search optimization. Data indicates that over 60% of users are now clicking on AI overviews rather than traditional search results, directly impacting traffic for businesses reliant on outdated SEO strategies. This shift necessitates a refined approach to how content is structured and presented, focusing on educational value for procurement officers, managers, and engineers. When AI is asked to recommend B2B vendors, its selection criteria are heavily influenced by the vendor's demonstrated expertise and problem-solving capabilities, leading to exceptionally high conversion rates—between 5% and 8%—for referred traffic. This efficiency is three to eight times greater than typical conversion rates, underscoring the importance of becoming a cited authority within AI search results. Achieving this requires a dual focus: technical content that addresses specific pain points and a robust technical infrastructure, including optimized coding, HTML, internal/external linking, and schema, to ensure AI engines efficiently process and recommend your expertise.
The Shifting Landscape of B2B Procurement in the AI Era
Stephen: Hey there. Today we are going to be talking about how AI search is driving leads and sales for specifically contract manufacturers. That could be anything from a regular just B2B vendor, contract manufacturer, or it could be something that is highly regulated or highly technical in nature for specifically manufacturing, and mostly in regards to these B2B contracts for large scale manufacturing. With that being said, we have a handful of questions to go over that are some really common questions that people have in this space. And I'm just gonna start at one and I think we have about 10, 12 questions to go over today, and we will be going through all of them. I'll start with the first one which is just a baseline. And that is a really common one that I get all the time. And it's how are engineers and procurement managers using AI search to find contract manufacturers right now?
Stephen: It's a great question.
Realistically, it's it's six different ways, and even some subtopics, different ways within those. But the main ones are these six different AI LLM platforms. It's not just Chat GPT, even though ChatGPT is quite a large quite a large source for them. However, realistically, it's it's perplexity, it's Gemini, it's Claude, it's copilot, and it's even Grok. We're finding that a lot of engineers specifically are utilizing Perplexity and Claude and Copilot. We're finding that a lot of procurement officers are using ChatGPT and all those others as well. ChatGPT is giving the majority of the traffic to a lot of these, but the traffic that we're getting from Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, and Grok are all really high value. A lot of the time they're asking very specific. Questions within their research. We're finding that I believe it's over 80% of all B2B research on their on people's next contract is at least touching an AI search.
Optimizing for AI Visibility: Beyond Traditional SEO
Stephen: 80% of all searches and inquiries online in regards to finding somebody to fulfill the next contract, 80% of those searches have some AI in the process. Whether it's that they're Googling and they're getting the AI overview, they're probably doing some traditional Google searching as well. They're probably asking around obviously colleagues and things like that, like they normally would. But 80% of the time a contract has had a question that was answered by an AI platform with somewhere within the search. We also know that if that is the case, if they are going to even just do a regular Google search for providers or vendors that they're if they ask a question they're 80% likely to get an AI overview at the top. And then of those 80, 80%, 60% and likely over 60% of the people, I'm getting estimates from some people around 65, 70%, are clicking on the AI overview instead of scrolling down even.
Stephen: SEO is while it's not dead, while it's not completely useless, it has become a lot less useful. Which is why a lot of these companies that have previously focused a lot on SEO efforts that have probably netted them out really well in the past are not getting the traffic that they once used to.
And if you're not getting the traffic, you're not getting the leads. If you're not getting the leads, you're not getting the sales. That's how that's how AI search is feeding leads to these contract manufacturing and B2B vending services and factories and companies. We'll get more into The specifics of exactly how that how that content is getting displayed to these procurement officers and managers and engineers, and how it's very educational rather than purely a topic being searched. But for now, that's the answer to that to that question.
Stephen: The next question is: when somebody asks Chat GPT for the best, let's say, toll dry manufacturing company or toll spray drying manufacturing company or CNC machining for Aerospace parts, how does AI decide which companies to recommend? That's a great question. And it's it's really similar for a lot of industries. But why I specifically am talking about contract manufacturers, B2B vendors, and technical and highly regulated manufacturers is because if you're in the regulated space, then you have a lot of again, regulations, you have a lot of rules to make sure that you are following and making sure that you're not losing any of your regulatory aspects. You can only advertise in certain ways.
And so this is great for that because all you're doing is providing information and putting it out onto the internet and we're just structuring it correctly in order to make it so the AI search picks it.
Stephen: But how does it do that? We tested 40 unique queries for one of our one of our clients and across five platforms that company was being cited for 26 of them within the first, I want to say two Months, but let's call it a quarter. There were three specific queries that got cited across all six platforms, and they were insanely specific. It was people who were looking for contract spray drying services, dynamic, I excuse me, dynamic atomization powder processing, and nutraceutical spray drying services. People aren't searching those things unless they're specifically looking for them. If you're listening to this, you're probably a contract. Manufacturer, you're an engineer, procurement officer, you're somebody who's interested in this, and you're even probably thinking to yourself, wow, that is very, very specific. I talked to a lot of people who, they are manufacturing, let's say it's they only manufacture silicone parts for X, Y, and Z.
Unlocking High-Conversion Traffic Through AI Recommendations
Stephen: It might be a little bit more broad. Maybe they do injection molding and they do it for across a bunch of industries. But, that is a really, really technical set of questions that some Somebody would be having to ask in order for you to get recommended. But I can assure you, people are asking the questions, and when they get the answer that they need, and it's very helpful, they're going to that site. I'll also say this: our research for our clients is showing that when somebody comes to your site from an AI search recommendation, they are usually between about a five and eight percent conversion rate to fill. Out a whole form and become a lead. They got there from asking a really specific question and getting that question really specifically and technically answered and you being the source that was linked to it.
Stephen: They already know that you're knowledgeable in the space, that you are able to solve one of their pain points, that you're actively putting out information that helps them, that you are a knowledgeable source in the actual industry.
They know all of those things beforehand. Once they get to your site, The conversion rate is insane., if you if you have done marketing for other industries, a lot of the time conversion rate can be even one to two percent, even lower than that on visitors to your site to fill out a form. But when we send these customers to your site that are so, so highly targeted and they've already been helped and educated by you, the conversion rate on them is between, I'd say on average, depending on what your conversion rate is already, between three and eight times more efficient.
Strategic Content and Technical Foundations for AI Search
Stephen: Specifically to go back to that question, how do you get cited? How does it pick you? It picks you when you are answering that specific question that you're talking about, that really specific topic that your customers are asking. The top result in AI search is going to the company that is being the most helpful. Helpful to their customer, and then structuring that information in the easiest way for AI to read, understand, and then pick it out and give it to that customer. It has to hit both of those things, which is really great because a lot of companies that are really technical and are doing this B2B manufacturing, contract manufacturing, highly technical and regulated manufacturing and B2B vendings. A lot of them already have really technical writing on their website. It just needs to be structured. It needs to be more so in the tone and in the platform of helping people and helping answer specific questions so they don't need to pick through that information to find things.
Stephen: And then it needs to be structured in a technical manner., the coding, the HTML, the internal and external link mapping, the schema, the different parts of your website that are going to be pointing back to that information.
It needs to be technically done. There and then be referenced on other places of the internet so that it can verify the legitimacy of that as well. A lot of companies already have, I'd say, a third or a half of the work already done. It just needs to be structured right. It's queries, it's helping, it's making it more specific, it's being more advanced in the answering of your customers' questions, and then it's feeding it to the AIs that are feeding it to them in the most efficient way possible for them. With that, we're we're at a almost a 30% citation race rate across all platforms.
Stephen: But on certain ones like on perplexity for that specific client, we're we're at a 40%, we're at over 40% technically a citation rate when anyone asks a question about those top 40 questions. It's a lot of questions. Anytime somebody asks a question to perplexity about any of those, we show up almost half the time, which is a really, really high rate. For citation for AI search. And then if they go to any of the other platforms, they're also very likely to get us in the actual or our clients in the actual answers as well.
Next question is most contract manufacturers have a basic website and maybe five pages. Is that enough to show up on AI search? Yes and no. Remember what we just went over in the last question, where a lot of these companies that are very technical, they already have technical.
Stephen: Information, they might even have spec sheets, they have PDFs of a bunch of really amazing high expert information. They have some of them even have blog posts or news articles about new releases of their technology or their products or what they're able to do now, new abilities. However, it's not structured correctly. They're they're halfway there. They have the expertise and they have the information out there. We probably just need to go in there, research. Structure it all and then ask a few questions to make sure that it's coming across right. And then that's how those companies are going to get cited. It's really, really not that not that crazy. There are there are a lot of there are a lot of companies that are starting to get cited if they have zero competition in the space just from the technical information alone.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do buyers use ChatGPT before choosing B2B vendors?
Buyers are increasingly leveraging generative AI platforms like ChatGPT to identify and vet B2B vendors, especially in technical and regulated manufacturing sectors. Instead of traditional keyword searches, they ask specific questions, such as for the 'best toll dry manufacturing company' or 'CNC machining for aerospace parts.' The AI then recommends companies based on its understanding of their expertise and relevance, often leading to direct clicks on AI overviews rather than scrolling through search results.
What is AI search optimization for B2B contract manufacturers?
AI search optimization for B2B contract manufacturers involves strategically structuring and presenting content so that AI engines recognize and recommend your company as an authoritative source. This goes beyond traditional SEO by focusing on answering complex, technical questions that procurement officers, managers, and engineers might ask. It requires demonstrating deep knowledge in your niche, solving specific pain points, and ensuring your website's technical architecture supports efficient AI processing and citation.
What conversion rates can businesses expect from AI search recommendations?
Businesses can expect significantly higher conversion rates from traffic originating from AI search recommendations. Research shows conversion rates ranging from 5% to 8% for visitors who arrive at a site via an AI recommendation. This is often three to eight times more efficient than typical conversion rates from other marketing channels, as these visitors are already educated, highly targeted, and have a pre-established understanding of the vendor's expertise.
How does AI decide which companies to recommend for technical B2B services?
AI decides which companies to recommend for technical B2B services by evaluating their demonstrated knowledge, ability to solve specific pain points, and active contribution of helpful information within their industry. It prioritizes sources that are seen as knowledgeable authorities. This assessment is supported by the technical structure of a website, including optimized coding, HTML, internal and external link mapping, and schema, which helps AI efficiently understand and cite the company's expertise.
What is the impact of generative engine optimization (GEO) on B2B traffic?
Generative engine optimization (GEO) has a profound impact on B2B traffic by shifting user engagement from traditional search results to AI-generated overviews. With over 60% of users clicking on AI overviews, companies that previously relied on conventional SEO are seeing reduced traffic. GEO focuses on making content discoverable and citable by AI, ensuring that when AI is asked specific, technical questions about B2B services, your company is among those recommended, leading to highly qualified and conversion-ready leads.