How to choose a GEO agency: which deliverables, which measurement methods, and what proof should you ask for?

Since your customers started asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini questions instead of using Google, a new category of service provider has exploded: GEO agencies. The problem is that GEO is still in its infancy, methods vary wildly from one agency to another, and it is very easy to sell "AI visibility" without ever proving anything.

‍

At Growth Room, we handle GEO as part of a broader acquisition stack (Ads, GEO, and Sales Ops), and we apply our method to our own site before selling it. In this guide, we share what we advise our prospects to check before choosing an agency: the concrete deliverables to demand, the right measurement method, and the proof that truly makes a difference.

Key takeaways

• A good GEO agency delivers an audit, a tracked panel of prompts, a technical plan, and content.
• The central KPI is your brand's share of presence across prompts in your category.
• AI visibility must be linked to your leads and your CRM, not just screenshots.
• Demand a documented method, monthly reporting, and access to all tracking tools.
• Beware of "first position on ChatGPT" guarantees: no agency controls AI models.

What is a GEO agency and why do you need one?

A GEO agency (Generative Engine Optimization) helps your brand be understood, referenced, and cited by answer engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, or Google's AI Overviews. While SEO aims to position you in a list of links, GEO aims to make your brand appear within the answer itself.

‍

In practical terms, the work involves making your brand readable, verifiable, and citable:

‍

• a consistent brand identity across the web;
• structured data that clearly explains to AIs who you are and what you do;
• content crafted to be extracted and repurposed;
• a measured presence on the prompts that matter to your business.

‍

GEO does not replace SEO: it complements it. Any agency suggesting you abandon traditional search engine optimization to "bet everything on AI" is already sending you a red flag.

What deliverables should a GEO agency provide?

This is the first question to ask. A reputable agency must be able to describe exactly what you will receive, when, and what it will be used for. Here are the deliverables we consider essential.

An initial GEO audit

TheGEO audit is a snapshot of your current situation. It must answer three questions: do AIs cite you today? What do they say about you? And who are they citing instead of you? A good audit covers visibility across a panel of queries, your brand consistency across the web, the technical state of your site, and an analysis of the competitors being cited.

A panel of prompts tracked over time

This is the deliverable that distinguishes a real methodology from a simple one-off audit. The agency must build a list with you of prompts representative of what your customers are actually asking AIs ("which agency for...", "which software for...", "comparison of..."), and then track them monthly across several engines. Without this panel, it is impossible to measure progress.

A technical action plan

The technical plan focuses on everything that helps an AI understand you: structured data markup (organization, authors, articles, FAQs), consistency of your entity branding (name, description, external listings, profiles), internal linking, and the accessibility of your pages to AI crawlers. We detail tagging priorities in our article on structured data to tag for AI inclusion.

Content designed to be cited

AIs more easily pick up content that is clear, structured, and factual: direct answers at the beginning of sections, headings phrased as questions, comparison tables, FAQs, numerical data, and sources. The agency should produce or rewrite content with this logic in mind, rather than simply providing you with recommendations.

Clear monthly reporting

Every month, you should receive a report showing the evolution of your visibility across a panel of prompts, the actions taken, the results achieved, and the priorities for the following month. A shared dashboard that you can access at any time is better than a PDF sent every now and then.

How do you measure the results of a GEO agency?

This is the most ambiguous area of the market, and therefore the one where you should be the most demanding. GEO is measured on two levels: your visibility within AIs, and its subsequent impact on your business.

Which KPIs should you track to measure AI visibility?

The core KPI is the share of presence for your brand across your category's prompts: out of 100 questions your customers ask, in how many answers do you appear? Other indicators complement this figure to complete the picture.

Watch out for a common trap: AI responses vary from one session to the next. An isolated result proves nothing. Measurement must be based on a panel of prompts tested multiple times across several engines and compared over time.

How do you link AI visibility to your leads and revenue?

Being cited by ChatGPT is good. Knowing how many customers it brings you is better. A good GEO agency should help you track:

‍

• traffic originating from AIs in GA4 (for example, ChatGPT adds an utm_source=chatgpt.com parameter to its links);
• conversions generated by this traffic;
• the declared source of leads, with a "How did you hear about us?" field that includes AI;
• the integration of this information into your CRM, all the way to the signed opportunity.

‍

This is exactly the logic we apply to all our channels. For Airties, we generated 150 leads in 3 months through paid media, including 30 MQLs, with a cost per MQL 9 times lower than the target in the final month. This result was only visible because we overhauled the HubSpot reporting to link every marketing action to its commercial impact, and optimized for MQLs rather than raw traffic. The same logic applies at Headn, where we built a HubSpot CRM that manages over 31,000 contacts, 2,500 leads per month, and 15 tracking dashboards.

‍

GEO must be measured with the same rigor. An agency that stops at citations without ever mentioning leads or CRM will never give you the means to judge its ROI.

What proof should you ask a GEO agency for before signing?

Since the market is new, few agencies have a long track record. All the more reason to ask for concrete evidence. We have listed the proof to request from an AI marketing agency in general; here are those specific to GEO:

‍

• Their own visibility: test it. Ask ChatGPT or Perplexity to recommend a GEO agency or an AI marketing agency. An agency that isn't cited in its own market will struggle to get you featured there. At Growth Room, we apply our method to our own site and invite our prospects to run the test.
• An example of actual reporting (anonymized if necessary): a panel of prompts, evolution of share of presence, and actions taken.
• A written methodology: the steps, timelines, tools, and what falls under the agency's responsibility versus your team's.
• A list of the tools used to track prompts, with access provided to you.
• Dated results: a before/after comparison over several months, not just a one-off screenshot.
• Their ability to link GEO to business: tracking, attribution, and CRM integration.

What red flags should make you run?

Certain promises should immediately set off alarm bells:

‍

• Guarantees of being "first on ChatGPT": AI responses change based on the user, context, and timing. No one can guarantee a specific position.
• A "proprietary" method that cannot be explained: the "AI black box" effect often masks a lack of actual methodology.
• No defined prompt panel: without a measured starting point, no progress can be demonstrated.
• Reporting limited to a few cherry-picked screenshots of AI responses.
• No questions about your business: an agency that doesn't ask about your target audience, margins, or sales cycle is optimizing for vanity, not growth.
• Content produced in bulk by AI, without expertise or proprietary data: this is exactly what answer engines are least likely to cite.

How long does it take to see results from a GEO strategy?

GEO is a medium-term endeavor. Technical fixes (structured data, entity consistency, bot accessibility) can produce initial signals fairly quickly, but solid growth in share of voice generally takes several months, allowing time for content to be published, picked up, and integrated by the engines.

‍

This is why the initial measurement is so important: without an initial audit or a prompt panel, you will have no way to track this progress. It is also why we often recommend pairing GEO with a faster lever, such as Ads (including ChatGPT Ads), to generate results while your organic visibility within AIs is being built.

What if GEO became a real acquisition lever, rather than just a monitoring topic?

Choosing a GEO agency is, above all, choosing a method: concrete deliverables, honest measurement, and a genuine ability to link your visibility in AIs to your leads and revenue. At Growth Room, we have chosen never to treat GEO in a silo: it is part of an acquisition stack that also integrates AI Ads and Sales Ops connected to your CRM. If you want to know how AIs talk about your brand today and what it would take for them to recommend it tomorrow, discover our AI marketing support and let's discuss your goals.

‍