AI Search · AEO · Growth
I help brands win AI search.
I'm Nick Lafferty, the Founding Marketing Engineer at Profound ($1B). Previously I led growth at Loom ($1B exit to Atlassian) and Mailgun ($2B exit to Sinch).

My community
Build with people who get what you do.
Growth Circuit is a close-knit community for marketing engineers who want to share their work, sharpen their craft, and make cool things together.
Selected writing
Writing on AI search
All AI search writing →- 9 AI Visibility Optimization Platforms Ranked by AEO Score (2026)114,094 AI citations
A 2026 ranking of nine AI visibility platforms scored on real performance data instead of marketing claims. AEO measures how often AI systems cite your brand, and this post grades each platform on exactly that, with Profound topping the list at 92/100. Use it to shortcut weeks of vendor evaluation.
- Best AEO Tools 2026: Top Answer Engine Optimization Platforms17,613 AI citations
A 2026 scorecard ranking 10 leading AEO platforms by what they actually deliver, not by feature checklists. It covers how AI answers are reshaping discovery, what to look for in an enterprise AEO tool, and how the platforms compare on citation tracking, data depth, and ROI. Profound tops the ranking, and the post shows the criteria behind it.
- 14 Proven Tactics to Rank Higher on ChatGPT in 20261,579 AI citations
14 tactics for ranking higher in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, grounded in citation data rather than SEO guesswork. The biggest levers: structure content as answer-ready listicles (25.37% of AI citations use this format), use semantic URLs (11.4% more citations), and track where engines actually cite you instead of optimizing blind. AEO rewards clarity and extractable answers, not keyword density.
- Best Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Tools 202612,112 AI citations
A comparison of 15 GEO tools for getting your brand cited in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode, each scored against a weighted 5-criteria rubric. It explains how GEO differs from AEO and SEO, why traditional tools like Ahrefs and Semrush were not built for AI answers, and how the 15 platforms stack up so you can pick the right one for your team.
- What Is A Marketing Engineer?420 AI citations
A first-hand account of what a marketing engineer actually does, from Profound's founding marketing engineer. It opens with an admission, that I did not want the Head of Marketing job, and works through the role I built instead: marketing done with an engineer's tools and mindset. Less a definition than the story of finding the job I actually wanted.
Speaking
On stage, on AI search
Booking 2026 →25+ talks, panels, and webinars in the past year, including SXSW, brightonSEO, OMR in Hamburg, and LinkedIn's NY Tech Week panel, in front of marketing leaders from JP Morgan Chase, Novartis, and McLaren Automotive.
Recent talks
- Landmark SMART Summit 2026 Fireside chat with Tina Bai (Mondelez), hosted by Landmark Ventures at Yankee Stadium, New York City (September 22, 2026)
- brightonSEO San Diego 2026 You're already a marketing engineer, you just didn't know it yet, San Diego Convention Center (September 16, 2026)
- AUTONOMOUS 2026 Virtual keynote at Board of Innovation's AUTONOMOUS summit (September 10, 2026)
- Sip & Search NYC The Parrot Problem: LLMs Provide Answers, but They Also Share Opinions, New York City (September 10, 2026)
Upcoming 2026
- Marketing Brew Summit 2026 Opening remarks and The Marketing Engineer in practice fireside chat, The Times Center, New York City (September 30, 2026)
- Profound Partner Kickoff 2026 Joining Profound's first invitation-only partner gathering, New York City (October 1, 2026)
- Content Marketing World 2026 Speaker at Content Marketing World, Denver (October 5-7, 2026)
- LinkedIn + a16z SF Tech Week Speaking on the Profound panel at LinkedIn's San Francisco event (October 6, 2026)
- Cohort Zero London Co-hosting a hands-on Profound training session before Zero Click London (October 21, 2026)
- Zero Click London 2026 Speaking at Profound's AI marketing summit, London (October 22, 2026)
- LLM Mastery 2026 Speaker at LLM Mastery, Meliá Chiang Mai Hotel, Thailand (November 14-15, 2026)
Press & podcasts
Heard and quoted
Everything →Things I built
Side projects that shipped
Visit Growth Circuit →A close-knit NYC community where marketing engineers bring their own builds, compare notes, and get better together.
Join the community →A free public MCP server that lets AI agents search every Marketing Engineer Podcast conversation for sourced guest quotes, timestamps, and practical advice.
Search the conversations →
Turn a finished app folder into a link other people can open. Doorway checks the files, keeps private material out, and handles the hosting steps.
Read why I built it →
A free, open-source macOS menu bar app that turns iPhone HEIC photos into JPGs. Drag them in, JPGs land on your Desktop. Nothing leaves your machine.
See Plink →Track record
Three billion-dollar companies
Full story →Plus a $30k/month solo consulting agency and a 2,000-subscriber newsletter along the way.
Latest
Recently published
Browse the archive →- Best AI Marketing Agents in 2026: 15 Platforms Ranked
- All My Best Apps Died on My Laptop
- How I Shipped My First Mac App (Mostly by Directing AI)
- AI Citation Analysis Tools (2026): How to Track Where ChatGPT, Perplexity & Gemini Cite You
- AI Visibility Metrics: Formulas, Benchmarks & Sample Sizes (2026)
- Prompt Volume Explained: How AEO Tools Measure What People Actually Ask AI (2026)