How We Helped a SMB Agency Scale Their SEO Services with IntelEngine
| MarkeTingTong Team
TL;DR
A 12-person digital marketing agency was struggling to differentiate their SEO offering in a market flooded with cookie-cutter audits. After integrating IntelEngine into their client workflows, they were able to show clients exactly how visible their brands were across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Grok. This led to a 40% increase in client retention and 3 new enterprise accounts within 60 days.
The Agency
This boutique digital marketing agency serves roughly 20 SMB and mid-market clients across e-commerce, real estate, and professional services.
Their team of 12 had been offering traditional SEO services: keyword research, on-page audits, backlink strategies, and monthly ranking reports. The work was solid, but clients were increasingly asking a question they couldn't confidently answer:
"When someone asks ChatGPT or Claude about our industry, does our brand even show up?"
The Challenge
The agency's clients had started noticing a shift. Their customers weren't just Googling anymore. They were asking AI assistants for recommendations. A real estate client wanted to know if ChatGPT mentioned them when asked about affordable housing in their region. An e-commerce brand wanted to see if AI models cited them for their product category.
The agency faced three core problems:
- No visibility into LLM citations: They had no way to systematically check which brands LLMs were recommending for specific queries.
- Clients were losing confidence: Monthly Google ranking reports felt stale. Clients wanted proof that their digital presence extended beyond traditional search.
- Competitive differentiation: Every agency was offering the same SEO playbook. They needed a new angle to stand out.
Discovering IntelEngine
The agency's founder came across MarkeTingTong's IntelEngine while researching AI search optimization tools. What caught their attention was the platform's ability to:
Multi-LLM Analysis
Query ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Grok simultaneously to see which brands get cited.
Prompt & Problem Intelligence
Understand what questions and pain points LLMs associate with a keyword.
Brand Visibility Score
A single metric showing how visible a brand is across AI search engines.
SERP Cross-Reference
Compare LLM citations against traditional Google rankings for a complete picture.
The team signed up, ran their first keyword analysis for a client's domain, and within minutes had a comprehensive report showing exactly where the client's brand stood in the AI search landscape.
The Implementation
Phase 1: Client Audit (Week 1–2)
The agency ran IntelEngine reports for each of their 20 clients, targeting 3–5 high-value keywords per client. For a real estate client, they queried terms like "best affordable housing" and "top real estate developers" for the client's target region.
The results were eye-opening. Out of 20 clients, only 3 had any LLM visibility, and even those were buried below competitors. The remaining 17 brands were completely invisible to AI search.
Phase 2: Client Presentations (Week 3)
The agency presented IntelEngine's Visibility Score and citation breakdowns in their monthly review calls. Instead of the usual "your keywords moved up 2 positions" narrative, they showed clients a completely new dimension of search visibility.
"When we showed one client that their biggest competitor was being recommended by ChatGPT for their exact product category, while they weren't mentioned at all, they immediately approved a 6-month AI search optimization retainer."
Phase 3: Ongoing Monitoring (Month 2+)
The agency integrated IntelEngine into their weekly workflow. Every Monday, the SEO team ran fresh analyses for priority clients and tracked changes in visibility scores. The Problem Intelligence feature proved especially valuable. It surfaced pain points that LLMs associated with each industry, giving the content team a direct pipeline of topics to create authority-building content around.
The Results
40%
Client Retention Increase
within 60 days
3
New Enterprise Accounts
won with IntelEngine demos
5×
ROI on Subscription
from new AI SEO retainers
- Client conversations shifted from "why are my Google rankings stagnant?" to "how do we get recommended by ChatGPT?"
- The agency differentiated themselves as one of the first agencies offering AI search visibility analysis.
- Content strategies became data-driven. The Problem Intelligence and Prompt Intelligence features gave their content team a prioritized list of topics that mapped directly to what AI was surfacing.
- Monthly reporting evolved. Clients now received a dual-lens report: traditional SERP rankings alongside AI citation analysis.
Key Takeaways for Agencies
- AI search is a whitespace opportunity. Most agencies haven't started tracking LLM visibility. Early movers gain a significant competitive advantage.
- Clients care about AI mentions. Decision-makers are increasingly aware that their customers use AI assistants. Showing them data closes retainers faster than traditional pitch decks.
- IntelEngine pays for itself. At a fraction of the cost of a single employee, IntelEngine provided this agency with a net-new service offering that generated significant additional annual revenue.
- Start with a pilot. Run IntelEngine on your top 5 clients' domains. The data will speak for itself in your next review call.
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