From GEO to Reddit: My Top 5 Takeaways from Content Marketing World 2025
Written By: Rosalind Toews, Founder
I just got back from Content Marketing World in San Diego, and let me tell you... my brain is full, full.
Rather than share a play-by-play of every session, I want to focus on the five takeaways that really stuck with me… the ones I think will actually influence how we do B2B marketing over the next few years (and some great foundational stuff, too).
Here’s what stood out:
GEO is changing how we think about SEO
Awareness doesn’t close deals—buyer enablement does
The metrics that matter aren’t the ones you think
CLV is the real growth engine
And yes… Reddit belongs in your strategy
Let’s get into it. (Oh, and if you’d prefer more bite-sized updates to reading the full scoop, make sure to follow Outspoke on LinkedIn and Instagram).
1) Zero-click SEO and the rise of GEO
One of the best sessions I attended was Dale Bertrand’s talk: “Zero-Click SEO: Conversion Strategies for Both AI and Traditional Search.”
Dale’s talk was all about what we all know and feel: search is shifting.
By 2028, organic traffic is projected to drop by 50%. Not because people are searching less, but because they’re getting answers directly from AI tools without ever clicking through to a website. The question becomes: when AI is summarizing answers for your buyers, is your content included in the mix? Has everything we’ve invested in SEO-optimized content suddenly gone down the drain? Well, not exactly.
This is where Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) comes in. GEO isn’t here to replace SEO but rather to complement it. Traditional SEO still matters for Google and other traditional search engines, but GEO is about showing up in the answers delivered by tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.
So how do you optimize for GEO? A few things I took away:
Think semantics, not just keywords. If someone asks, “Are Dyson air purifiers good for allergies?” AI won’t just look for the exact keywords like traditional search engines do. It’ll look for content that covers related concepts like allergies, asthma, and HEPA filters, for example. In other words… comprehensive content > keyword-stuffed.
Own niche spaces. The more specific your content, the more likely AI is to cite you. One example Dale gave: building hyper-specific blog posts pulled from Reddit micro-questions. If you’re the only one answering a very specific query, AI will often lean on your content.
Refresh your content regularly. AI models like fresh sources. Outdated posts get pushed down.
AI-qualified traffic behaves differently. You might see organic traffic drop but conversion rates rise. Why? Because AI has already qualified buyers before they ever hit your site, acting like an SDR that educates on your behalf. That “lost” traffic wasn’t valuable anyway—many of those folks were never in the market to buy in the first place. With AI, the visitors you get are higher intent and closer to purchase-ready.
Analytics won’t tell you the full story. Here’s the tricky part: someone may see your brand mentioned in ChatGPT, then Google you directly. In analytics, it looks like a branded organic visit. The AI “assist” is invisible. So be careful not to get too hung up on the numbers.
Focus on quality, not technical tweaks. Old-school SEO is technical: page speeds, tags, canonicals. With GEO, if crawlers can reach your site, what matters most is the depth, context, and quality of your content.
Right now, GEO is best for three things:
✔ Brand visibility
✔ Reputation management
✔ Direct conversion
My takeaway: GEO is less about fighting for clicks and more about becoming the go-to resource AI tools trust. For marketers, that means moving beyond surface-level SEO hacks and creating deeper, more useful content that actually answers the questions buyers are asking (even the oddly specific ones).
2) Awareness doesn’t close deals; buyer enablement does
Another standout session for me was Cathy McKnight’s “Stop Playing Games: What’s Really Stalling Your Tech Marketing.” While we covered many topics in this session, here’s what hit home.
Awareness is only step one in the buyer’s journey. It gets you noticed, but it doesn’t get you chosen. And with 77% of B2B buyers saying their last purchase was very difficult (Gartner), we clearly aren’t making the process any easier. Too much of our content is built for awareness… and then we leave buyers hanging right when the stakes are highest.
Think about it: a buyer reads your blog, maybe even attends your webinar… but when it’s time to convince Finance, Legal, or IT? Crickets. No tools, no support, just a lonely “champion” trying to fight the internal battle alone.
That’s where buyer enablement content comes in. The goal isn’t to pump out more marketing, but to arm your champion (the primary buyer) with the resources they need to win consensus inside their organization.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
ROI calculators: Help justify the cost to procurement and finance.
Risk mitigation guides: Calm the nerves of compliance and security teams.
Role-specific benefit sheets: Show value tailored to each stakeholder (the IT manager cares about something different than the CFO).
Internal pitch decks: Give your champion a ready-made way to “sell” your solution to their peers and decision-makers.
And here’s why it matters: B2B purchases typically involve 6–10 decision-makers. If you’re only speaking to the initial buyer and ignoring everyone else in that room, you’ll wind up losing deals you could have won.
My takeaway: Buyer enablement is the bridge between interest and revenue. Build resources that reduce friction, answer objections, and make your champion’s job easier, because an enabled buyer is a confident buyer, and confident buyers close deals.
3) Measure metrics that move revenue
Marketers are addicted to vanity metrics. Impressions, clicks, downloads. Sure, they make the dashboards look busy, but they don’t tell us if anything’s actually moving the business forward. In essence, you can celebrate 1,000 eBook downloads… and still have an empty pipeline.
I’ll be honest, this is something I’ve always struggled with in my own work: the incessant need to prove ROI on every single piece of content, which leaves us reaching for vanity metrics. If a blog post didn’t directly turn into an SQL, did it even matter? That pressure has never sat right with me. Cathy’s session only confirmed my gut feeling: the way we measure impact needs to be rethought.
So what should we measure instead? Metrics that connect to revenue:
SQL conversion rates → Are leads actually turning into qualified opportunities?
Deal velocity → How fast are deals moving once they enter the pipeline?
Sales cycle length → Is our content helping speed up decisions?
Pipeline influence → How often does marketing content show up in deals that close?
And here’s one I’d add: Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). Because the real impact of marketing isn’t just in acquiring customers, but in growing them (more on that in the next takeaway).
The shift here is less about dashboards and more about conversations. When marketing measures the right things, we’re able to sit at the same table as sales and finance and talk about outcomes rather than outputs.
My takeaway: We don’t need to tie ROI to every single blog or email to justify marketing. What we need is a framework for measuring whether we’re making the sales process easier, faster, and more profitable. Those are the metrics that matter.
4) CLV as an underrated metric
This one came from Zontee Hou’s session, “Measurement that Matters: Building a Customer Journey-Based Metrics Framework.” This was a deep-dive workshop, but my favourite bits came from our convo around Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).
So much of the industry obsession is around net new leads. How many can we generate? How fast can we fill the funnel? But growth isn’t just about winning new customers. It’s about growing the customers you already have.
CLV is made up of three levers:
Purchase value — how much they spend each time
Purchase frequency — how often they buy
Customer lifespan — how long they stick around
And the marketing plays that support each one are straightforward, yet often overlooked:
Increase purchase value: upsell, cross-sell, and package smartly (tiered pricing, add-ons, bundles).
Increase purchase frequency: lifecycle campaigns, ABM, timely promotions, subscriptions, and reminders that bring people back more often.
Increase customer lifespan: strong onboarding, training and education, loyalty programs, and customer experiences that build attachment.
From my perspective, CLV is where marketing earns its keep in tight-budget years. You don’t always need more logos… you need to service your existing customers better. It’s easier (and cheaper) to deepen a relationship than to build a new one from scratch.
My takeaway: If you want sustainable growth, shift your focus from “get more” to “grow within.”
5) Don’t sleep on Reddit
If you’re still thinking of Reddit as just memes and hot takes, you’re missing where a lot of buying decisions are actually happening, according to Justin Turner from Reddit in his session, “Community is the New Currency.”
A few stats that jumped out:
Reddit owns 51% of all online mentions of purchasing decisions.
Posts have serious longevity—74% of views happen after the first 3 days, and many posts still drive views months (even years) later.
On the paid side, Reddit ads deliver $20 ROAS for every $1 spent, and in tech campaigns specifically, they outperform other social platforms by 35%.
Why does this matter? Because people come to Reddit with intent. They’re not casually scrolling. They’re actively researching, comparing, and looking for real human answers. That trust and nuance is something no AI summary or brand post can replicate.
So how should marketers show up?
Run high-intent ads. Paid campaigns on Reddit convert because they meet people mid-research.
Layer in organic posts. Even one thoughtful post or comment a week can boost positive brand conversations.
Engage authentically. This isn’t the place for corporate jargon—show up like a human.
Mine insights. Beyond marketing, Reddit is a goldmine for customer language and content ideas.
My takeaway: Reddit isn’t a standalone channel, but it is something to consider working into your marketing mix. If you want to meet buyers where they’re already doing their homework, it’s time to take Reddit seriously.
Wrapping it up
From GEO reshaping search, to buyer enablement bridging the awareness gap, to rethinking the metrics we measure, to CLV as the true growth engine, and finally to Reddit’s underrated power as a conversion driver… all these threads weave into the same story:
Marketing that helps buyers make decisions.
Marketing that earns trust instead of chasing clicks.
Marketing that drives revenue, not likes.
That’s the kind of work I want to be doing, for my own business and for my clients.
p.s. I’m going to be diving deeper into MORE of my learnings from Content Marketing World on LinkedIn, Instagram, and especially in my monthly newsletter: From the Desk of Outspoke. Make sure you don’t miss it by dropping your email in the box below!