Question 1

What does a typical engagement look like?

Accepted Answer

All work runs on a month-to-month retainer. We start with a diagnostic, then scope the retainer around your growth constraints. Work begins in Foundation (positioning, measurement, conversion architecture) and continues through Activation, Acceleration, and Retention as priorities shift.

Question 2

What’s the first step?

Accepted Answer

A conversation. We’ll ask about your business, goals, and what has been tried before. If there is a fit, we scope a retainer that begins with Foundation.

Question 3

How quickly can you start?

Accepted Answer

Typically within 2 to 3 weeks of a signed agreement. Foundation begins immediately: an audit of your current state, competitive landscape, and measurement infrastructure.

Question 4

Do you require long-term contracts?

Accepted Answer

No. Retainers are month-to-month.

Question 5

What is Foundation?

Accepted Answer

Foundation is the first phase of FAAR (Foundation, Activation, Acceleration, Retention). It covers positioning, ICP, messaging architecture, conversion design, and measurement setup. It usually takes 8 to 16 weeks depending on scope. Web, search, and GTM all depend on this layer.

Question 6

Can we start with just web, search, or GTM?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Web, search, and GTM are entry points into the same system, not separate products. Start where the constraint is: web if conversion is leaking, search if demand exists but you are invisible, GTM if positioning and offers are fuzzy. Most retainers eventually cover more than one.

Question 7

How does pricing work?

Accepted Answer

Everything runs on a monthly retainer, typically $8,000 to $48,000 depending on scope and complexity. We give you a clear number before any commitment.

Question 8

What industries does Magnet serve?

Accepted Answer

B2B and B2C across manufacturing, SaaS, professional services, consumer brands, and non-profits.

Question 9

Do you work with companies outside the US?

Accepted Answer

Yes. We serve clients globally, with a concentration in North America and Europe. Our team is 100% US-based — headquartered in Cincinnati, with satellite offices on the West Coast and in the Rockies.

Question 10

Are you a Cincinnati agency?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Our office is at 1311 Vine St in Over-the-Rhine. We work with companies across Greater Cincinnati — including Hyde Park, Oakley, Blue Ash, Mason, and West Chester — and with clients across the Midwest, US, UK, and EU.

Question 11

Who do you work with?

Accepted Answer

Companies that need structural work on web, search, and GTM, and are excited to build that foundation before layering on campaigns. If that sounds like you, we would love to talk.

Question 12

Do you replace our in-house marketing team?

Accepted Answer

No. We work alongside your team or fill gaps where capacity does not exist. Strategy, creative direction, and technical execution sit with us. Domain expertise, approvals, and customer knowledge sit with you.

Question 13

Do we need brand work before building a website?

Accepted Answer

Almost always. A site built without clear positioning, messaging, and visual identity usually gets reworked within a year. Brand work lives in Foundation; the build is Activation.

Question 14

Should we invest in SEO, GEO, or AEO?

Accepted Answer

All three, as one system. SEO builds the technical and content foundation that search engines and AI retrieval both depend on. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) makes your pages the source models cite in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) structures passages so answer engines and AI Overviews can lift them cleanly. We bridge SEO, GEO, and AEO so rankings, citations, and answer presence compound together instead of competing for budget.

Question 15

What is GEO and AEO?

Accepted Answer

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) are how you become the source AI engines build answers from — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google’s AI Overviews. The retrieval machinery is the same one that powers Google ranking, so SEO best practices still apply. What changes is the unit of optimization: the page is the document, but the passage is the unit of evidence. Pages that get cited tend to be the canonical source for a specific entity, written deeply enough that any single section answers a sub-question completely. There is no separate "AI markup" and no `llms.txt` file that helps. What helps is depth, internal coherence, a clean technical foundation, and a measurement layer that tracks citations — not just rankings.

Question 16

What is the lift test?

Accepted Answer

The lift test is a check we run on every paragraph of a canonical page. Take any section in the middle of the article and ask: could a stranger read just that paragraph, with no other context from the rest of the page, and walk away with a complete and accurate answer to a specific question? If yes, the passage is liftable — a generative engine can cite it directly. If no, the passage requires the rest of the article as scaffolding, and the system either has to cite the whole page (rare) or skip it entirely (common). Most blog content fails the lift test. Reference content passes it. Rewriting to pass the lift test is one of the highest-return interventions in the citation economy.

Question 17

How do you measure GEO and AEO performance?

Accepted Answer

Rankings and sessions are still useful but increasingly partial — a page can rank at position three and lose half its traffic to an AI Overview, or rank at position eight and gain traffic by becoming the cited source on a dozen fan-out queries. We track citation frequency across AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini for your priority queries; segment AI referral traffic into its own channel grouping; monitor SERP-feature presence alongside ranking; and audit which passage a model is citing so the citation represents the brand correctly. AI-referred traffic also tends to convert at a higher rate than generic organic, so we break it out of the average rather than averaging two very different behaviours into one number.

Question 18

What makes Magnet different from other agencies?

Accepted Answer

Most agencies sell channels. We run web, search, and GTM as one growth marketing system under FAAR, so work compounds instead of resetting each quarter. Senior operators and well-crafted agents ship on a month-to-month retainer — not annual lock-in.

Question 19

How does Magnet’s GTM strategy / playbook work?

Accepted Answer

Four phases: Foundation, Activation, Acceleration, Retention (FAAR). Structural work — positioning, ICP, measurement — before campaign spend. That is the go-to-market strategy: web, search, and GTM as one loop. You do not have to run all four phases; every engagement maps to elements within FAAR.

Question 20

How long until I see results?

Accepted Answer

Foundation typically takes 8 to 16 weeks. Meaningful traffic and conversion signals usually show up once Activation is underway. Compounding effects become clearer after Foundation is complete and the system has room to iterate.

AI-native digital marketing,anchored to GTM principles that actually work.

Proof that the system works, not a portfolio of pretty launches.

Twenty-two years of excellence in three major areas.

Senior expertise, on demand.

Straight answers before the first call.