AEO case study · August 2026
What 11 weeks of answer-engine optimisation looks like in the numbers
You can chase rankings, or you can own the questions your buyers actually ask AI search. ROI Client Name chose to own them, here's what happened to visibility, traffic and sales over the eleven weeks that followed.
Eleven weeks, three questions owned, a sales channel that didn't exist before
Traffic growth: AI visibility
Average daily impressions inside Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode climbed every month after the content rebuild, a fast initial jump, then steady, compounding growth through to the most recent month on record.
Sales growth: AI and where to buy
Two things happened in the same eleven weeks.
- A referral channel that had never existed before started converting better than organic search.
- A brand new cluster of pages became the fastest growing thing on the entire site.
1A new channel, and the best conversion rate on the site
A brand new "AI Assistant" referral channel appeared in GA4 this period, people arriving via a chatbot or an AI answer that linked straight back to the site. It didn't exist the period before.
2The where to buy hub didn't exist 11 weeks ago
Thirteen pages answering one question, "where can I buy this in Australia", launched from a standing start this project. Comparing the three months before the rollout, when these pages simply didn't exist, to the three months after, this cluster has outpaced every other new content added to the site in the same window. Nothing else on the site has grown this fast.
Every one of those 582 visits arrived already asking where to buy. That's the highest intent traffic the whole site produces, and the clearest line yet from AI visibility to a sale.
Sources
- Google Search Console, Generative AI features report
- GA4, ROI Client Name, 18 May to 9 Aug 2026
