How to sell AI search as an agency service

The rest of this guide shows how to package it, how much of the fee you keep, what to say in the pitch, and what never to promise. We make software for agencies that sell this service, so we have a stake in it. Where a number comes from someone else, the source is listed at the end of the page.

Your clients’ buyers now get answers before they get links. When Pew Research tracked the browsing of 900 US adults, people clicked a normal search result on 8% of visits when Google showed an AI summary, against 15% when it did not. Clicks on the links inside the summary were rarer still. In our view, that makes being named in the answer matter more and more.

The client cannot see this for themselves. A rank tracker can read a results page. Nobody can look up what ChatGPT told a buyer yesterday. The only way to know is to ask the same questions again and again, and count. That is a job, it takes a tool and judgement, and it is the part clients will pay an agency to do.

It is also a job your team mostly knows already. Google says its AI Overviews and AI Mode rest on the same ranking systems as normal search, and that SEO best practices are still the foundation. The skills carry over. What is new is the measuring, and the report that proves the work.

Start with clients you already have. They trust you, you know their market, and the service sits on work you already do. Among them, pick the ones where all three of these are true:

• Buyers research before they buy. Professional services, B2B services, software, and high-value local services such as clinics, law firms and builders. People ask an AI tool “who is the best…” before they call.
• A rival already gets named. If AI names nobody in the category, the pitch is weak. If it names the client’s main rival, the pitch makes itself.
• The client has asked about AI. “What about ChatGPT?” is the easiest opening an account manager will ever get.

Leave out clients who sell on price alone or who buy on impulse. AI answers matter less where nobody asks a question before buying.

Most agencies settle on the same ladder: a one-off look to open the door, a monitoring add-on for most clients, and a full programme for the few where search drives the business. Price each on what it covers, not on hours.

What makes the tiers different

Not the name of the service. The real differences are how many questions you track, how many AI tools you cover, how often you check, and how many hours of fixing work the month includes. Write those four things into every proposal, and the client can see what moves the price.

Most guides say AI search is “high margin” and stop there. Here is the sum, with every number shown so you can swap in your own.

The tool. On Embrisk’s Growth plan, $849 every four weeks covers 15 clients. That is $61 per client per month with every place used. Other tools cost more or less than this; use what yours costs.

Your team’s time. This is the cost that decides the margin, and it is the one most guides leave out. The example below assumes $60 an hour for a strategist’s time.

Two things follow. First, the tool is a small part of the cost; time is the big part. A low fee only works if the monthly work is light: read the trend, write the report, hand three fixes to the SEO team. Second, if the package includes rewriting pages and earning mentions, it needs a programme-level fee. Selling that work at an add-on price is how this service loses money.

Seen from the other side: if you charged $500 a month per client, the fees from 2 clients would cover a year of Growth. That is arithmetic, not a prediction of how many clients will buy.

Clients do not buy “generative engine optimization”. They buy the moment they see a rival named in an answer about their own business. So the pitch is a demonstration, not a deck about AI.

1. 01Write 10 to 12 questions their buyers really ask. “Best payroll accountant for small businesses in Leeds”, not “payroll services”. Mix “who is best” questions, comparisons and problems.
2. 02Ask them on the AI tools buyers use. At least ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews and Perplexity.
3. 03Count who gets named. Note the rivals named instead of the client, and the websites the answers quote.
4. 04Bring the answers, not a score. Open with one line: “When your buyers ask ChatGPT for an accountant in Leeds, it names three firms. You are not one of them.” Then show the answers.
5. 05Make a small ask. “We would like to track these questions every week, fix what stops AI from naming you, and show you the trend every month.”

The honest answer is also the one that wins. Clients have heard big promises about AI, and the agency that admits the limits sounds like the one that knows the work.

A client who renews is worth more than a client who signs. These four promises win the first meeting and lose the renewal.

• Rankings or placements in AI answers. There is no fixed “number one in ChatGPT”. Answers change by user, place and day.
• Secret access to how the AI works. Google’s guide warns that no third-party tool can access its internal ranking or AI systems. Measure by asking and counting, and say that is what you do.
• Quick tricks such as an llms.txt file. Google’s guide says its search does not use llms.txt or special “AI markup”, so it will not help in Google. Other AI tools may treat it differently. Sell the work that does: clear pages, readable sites and real mentions.
• A page for every question. Mass-producing pages to catch question variations can break Google’s spam rules on scaled content. One strong page answers many questions.

Our measurement methodology sets out the claims we will not make about AI numbers, and why. It is a useful page to send a client who wants a guarantee.

1. 01Week 1: pick three clients. Use the test above. Run a snapshot or a quick manual check on each.
2. 02Week 2: pitch. Show each client the answers where a rival was named. Offer the monitoring add-on, with the programme as the upgrade.
3. 03Week 3: set up tracking. Agree about 25 buyer questions and three to five rivals with each client who says yes. Do not change the questions for the first quarter, or the trend means nothing.
4. 04Week 4: send the first report. It is a baseline: where they stand, who is ahead, and the first three fixes. The next report is the one that shows movement.

Two of three is a good result for a first month. With those clients you know your real hours, and you can set the price for the next ten. The guide to AI visibility reports covers what the monthly report should hold.