Even After AI Killed Search

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The Reason You’re Here

Whether you’re a marketing team of one or a startup founder juggling everything, this page is going show you exactly how to attract strangers and make them want to buy your SaaS product in 2026.

Just like these startups did:

More on these stories later..

Your Inbound Marketing is Broken.

Your SaaS product isn’t struggling for more users. It’s struggling with outdated, one-channel inbound strategies that focus too much on “fluffy” outcomes.

Your potential users are spread across Google, ChatGPT, and social media. And if you only invest in one channel, you’re not going to get the volume you need to grow.

But you probably already know that.

Chances are, you’ve hired an “SEO expert” or a PPC agency, spent thousands or tens of thousands and got little more than empty promises and the classic; “we just need more time”.

You’re here because you need help with one (or all) of the following:

• Increase the volume and quality of the leads your product receives.
• Run paid social ad campaigns that build demand and reduce your cost per trial, demos and paid user.
• Show up in Google and AI search platforms when your customers actually want to buy (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini).

You Don’t Need More Awareness. You Need More Pipeline. Fast.

Forget everything your last content marketer told you.

You’re an early-stage SaaS startup. You’re not at your series D and you haven’t hit $10M ARR (yet).

You don’t have the luxury of outspending competitors.

And you don’t have the time or patience to educate the market with endless content.

You need qualified inbound leads — now.

People who have the right problem, understand your product’s value and are ready to commit.

That’s exactly what High-Intent Inbound™ is for.

Most startups hire a paid social specialist to build ads funnels and then hire content marketer to post educational content for the blog.

The great thing about this system is that it combines all the benefits of those into one.

ONE direct response funnel that educates, pre-sells, and filters prospects. So every lead you get is high-intent and high-quality.

Instead of just optimizing it for search or social you’ll repurpose it visible across ALL search and social to drive paying users, not clicks.

The Kicker: This Won’t Work for Everyone

It ONLY works for SaaS products that are UNIQUE.

In other words, the stronger your “macro offer” (what you’re selling) the better this is going to work.

As an early stage startup there are four things you need to know about your product:

1. What is your product: You need to understand what category your product is in (e.g. CRM, LMS, HCM, ESP…) or at least the primary use case or problem it solves for e.g. easily schedule meetings without the back-and-forth emails (Calendly).
2. Who is it for: You need to have your ICP (ideal customer profile) nailed down. If you don’t know the specific type of customer most likely to benefit from your product and become a long-term user you’ll be spread too thin.
3. What is the alternative: What is the current way(s) your target customers solve their problem before discovering your product? That means competitor’s products as well as other processes.
4. Why is it better: This is the big kicker.. You need to know how your product different and how it gets results faster/easier/cheaper than their current way.

Not 100% clear on these things?

No sweat. That’s why I’ve structured the High-Intent AI builder + bonuses to help coach you through the positioning process so that you can be sure this will work for you.

Get the High-Intent Inbound™ Asset AI Builder – Just $5 →

You’re ALSO going to need to cough up some ad budget.

This is a “blended” inbound strategy. Meaning you’ll need to put a little skin in the game with paid social to get the most out of it.

Realistically, you’re going to need to be able to comfortably spend at least $3,000 for ads if you expect to see results fast.

You’ll need this breathing room for early testing so you can learn what works and get the message right.

Here’s how it works:

How The High-Intent Inbound Engine™ Works

1. High-Intent Strategy → Hijack your in-market audience with a stronger offer than competitors.
2. Funnel Build → Create one core asset that pre-sells your product and converts curiosity into conviction.
3. Paid Ads Angles → Find your winning hook, create new demand and acquire users with a startup-friendly budget (short-term result).
4. Bottom of Funnel SEO + GEO → Capture existing demand by ranking for the terms people search for when they’re ready to buy (mid-term result).

“Short-term leads. Long-term authority. One system.”

Let’s break this down:

1. Hijack your in-market audience with a better, stronger “micro” offer.

💡 The Role of the Micro Offer

In the previous section, we covered your macro offer — the product you’re ultimately selling.

Your micro offer is the intermediary step that gets prospects moving toward it.

I know what you’re thinking; “But Justin, a lot of companies are doing these “lead magnets”. They don’t convert to paying users”.

But here’s the thing – they’re doing them wrong.

A good micro offer solves a small, surface-level problem while revealing a deeper one — the kind your core product is designed to fix.

It’s meant to create motion, but only from people with a high-intent to purchase your product.

Examples in the next section..

🎯 High-Intent Strategy

The first step is to get a clear picture of the ads and funnels your prospects already see when they’re ready to take action.

You’ll need to find your top competitors or category leaders.

The ones who you know for a fact are:

A. Selling to the same ICP (ideal customer profile)
B. Selling the same category of product or addressing the same use case
C. Currently control a bigger market share than your business does

If you don’t already know pop your product category + primary use cases into Google + ChatGPT and see which competitor products come up.

Take inventory of their:

• Paid Social and Search Ads
• Landing Pages
• High-Intent Organic Search Results (the ones that rank for “commercial or “transactional” keywords)

You can go deep into these with competitive research tools like Ahrefs and SEMRush plus scraping all the public ad libraries (Meta, Google, LinkedIn).

And you’re doing this to answer two questions:

1. What “micro offer” are they using to get people into trails and demos?
2. How can I make a better one? One that your customers (in the words of Alex Hormozi) “will feel stupid saying no to”.

Want this done for you?

lucky you — It’s all part of the process we’ve included in the AI builder.

Get the High-Intent Inbound™ Asset AI Builder – Just $5 →

2. Build Your Core Funnel Asset → “Pre-Sell” Your Product

Your asset needs to do one job: convert curiosity into conviction.

It’s NOT “Content”

The problem with content marketing for the past 10+ years is that businesses have been using their blog to answer a bunch of questions purely to educate potential customers.

Conversion was an afterthought. Maybe they’d throw in a call to action, but it was never the focus of these “top of funnel” pages.

The posts would never convert like they’re supposed to, but at least they got traffic.

Well, AI has killed all of that. Now you’re going to start that “ToFu” traffic dropping off your website.

Which is why we need to move toward “direct response” vs pure education.

The idea here isn’t to come up with 100 topics.

It’s to go “deep” not “wide”.

It’s NOT “SEO” (in the traditional sense)

The idea isn’t to stuff your content with keywords and scrape together answers your customers can get anywhere just to get more traffic.

That’s an outdated strategy in 2026 and frankly a waste of your time and money.

I’m not saying your asset won’t rank for highly valuable search terms. If you do it right, it will.

Just like the one your reading right now did (yes, this page is a perfect example of the high intent inbound™ strategy in action).

Just check out the rankings on this bad boy.

It ranked FIRST on Google in under FOUR DAYS of posting it against all the big shots with 2-3X my domain authority. And I built ZERO links.

But that’s NOT because I did a ton of keyword research and stuffed a bunch of silly keywords in here.

Instead, my goal is –

A: Solve the readers pain about ONE topic, better than anyone else who’s written about it.

B: Tie EVERYTHING in the article back to my micro offer.

It’s NOT a “Landing Page”

This also isn’t like a home page, product feature page or your standard paid ads landing page..

It’s something different. A combination off all of those.. only better.

You’ll start with one inbound funnel that go’s very deep on a single pain and a single offer that solves that pain so well the readers will feel dumb not taking it.

You’re going to be creating an un-gated asset that educates your ICP on how to solve their problem.

The outcome of this asset will be to get conversions; more engaged leads, trials, demos or paying accounts.

This asset combines the educational benefits of a traditional blog post with the qualification and demand capture benefits of a sales letter.

You have some options here for the mechanism:

• Direct Response Hook
• Video Sales Letter Offer
• Quiz Funnel
• Case Study
• Etc

The right offer will depend on your product, industry, ideal customer profile, the content resources you already have in place.

And lucky for you the High Intent Inbound AI builder is going to help you build the perfect offer for your business.

Get the High-Intent Inbound™ Asset AI Builder – Just $5 →

Sample High-Intent Funnel strategies for an EdTech business:

High-Intent Inbound™ Funnel Copy Flow — Explained Simply

Regardless of the mechanism, we’ll use the same copy framework for your funnel.

This asset is going to use classic, proven direct-response copy principles that have stood the test of time.

This isn’t new stuff.

The copywriting frameworks we use for these assets have been used for decades to sell products and services since the Mad Men days (Schwartz, Halbert, Kennedy, Ogilvy, etc.).

1. HOOK

This is where you grab attention instantly.
Call out your ideal customer and the specific result they want.
It should make them think, “That’s me — and that’s what I need.”
👉 Example: “Turn your expert interviews into content that converts — without hiring a marketing team.”

2. PROOF

Right after you grab attention, you earn trust.
Show quick credibility — a recognizable client, big metric, or impressive outcome.
This proves you’re not another “idea,” but someone who gets real results.
👉 Example: “Used by SaaS teams that grew 5× paid users and earned 29× ROI from content.”

3. PAIN

Now you meet the reader where they’re stuck.
Describe their current frustration clearly — the bottlenecks, waste, or missed goals they face daily.
When done right, they feel seen.
👉 Example: “You know you should be creating content, but there’s no time — and agencies don’t get your product.”

4. AGITATE

Twist the knife slightly — make the pain feel urgent.
Explain what happens if they don’t fix it.
This builds emotional momentum and gets them ready for change.
👉 Example: “So your blog sits stale, your competitors own the conversation, and your best ideas never reach your buyers.”

5. BELIEF SHIFT (INSIGHT)

This is the turning point — show them why the old way no longer works.
Introduce a key market insight or shift in thinking that reframes the problem.
👉 Example: “Content isn’t about volume anymore — it’s about velocity of insight.”

6. MECHANISM

Now reveal your unique system or approach that solves the problem differently.
Give it a name — that makes it feel tangible and ownable.
👉 Example: “The Journeyengine Thought Leadership Engine™ turns founder interviews into channel-ready content.”

7. RESULTS / PROOF

Show the transformation.
Use real metrics, stories, and before/after examples that demonstrate your mechanism works.
👉 Example: “+155% organic traffic, 4× trials, and +23% conversion for an EdTech SaaS.”

8. SCARCITY / CLOSE

Finally, make taking action feel urgent and specific.
Add time, quantity, or exclusivity — and restate the benefit of acting now.
👉 Example: “Only 20 beta seats available. Join free before pricing opens at $900/mo.”

✅ In short:

HOOK their attention → PROVE you’re credible → make them FEEL the pain → SHIFT their belief → introduce your unique MECHANISM → back it up with RESULTS → close with clear, limited action.

It’s narrative-driven, not layout-driven.

→ Design supports the story, not the brand aesthetic.

It’s built around belief transformation.
→ The reader must move from:
“I don’t think this will work for me,” → “This is exactly what I’ve been looking for.”

Every section exists to eliminate resistance.
→ Each part — hook, story, mechanism, proof, CTA — maps to a psychological barrier (skepticism, confusion, inertia, etc.).

The writing tone prioritizes clarity and conviction over creativity.
→ It uses concrete outcomes, visual specificity, and rhythm to keep attention (short paragraphs, conversational cadence).

Once you create this asset you need to promote it. Everywhere.

3. Rapidly Test Paid Traffic Angles → Find Your Winning Hook

In 2025, creative IS the new targeting. You need to test a LOT of ad “angles”.

Ten years ago, ad specialists spent hours toiling away in ad servers to find the right audience.

Today, if your ad angles resonates, the platform will find the right audience. And they’ll convert.

An ad angle is simply a different belief lens — a way of showing your product through a new emotional or psychological hook.

The ad with the most powerful framing wins the lowest CPMs, the highest CTRs, and the best customers.

That’s why testing new creative angles is everything. And You need to be testing a new combination of your ad variables at least weekly:

• Image / video
• Headline
• Body copy

4. Bottom of Funnel SEO + GEO → Rank for “In Market” Keywords and Capture Existing Demand

When today’s buyers are “in-market” they don’t just go to search engines. They also check ChatGPT, UGC and relevant forums for recommendations on the best solution for their specific use case.

Most SEOs will tell you it’s impossible for an early-stage startup to rank for queries like; “best speech therapy software,” “best enterprise learning platform,” or to appear in an LLM-generated recommendation for “what are my best options for an affordable online MBA”.

At least not within a year. And definitely not without a huge budget.

Well, they’re wrong.

We’ve ranked all of those queries for brand new startups, on bootstrap budgets, by using a simple “cheat-code”. It’s a blend of:

• Forum threads → authentic discussions on Reddit and Quora that rank, build trust and are used in LLM source data.

• Third-party roundups → getting listed by directories and listicles on niche-relevant, authority publishers that rank quickly.

‘Mentions’-focused link building → earning contextual backlinks that signal authority to both Google and AI engines.

Why This All Works

• You’re not giving a theory, your showing actual PROOF your product will achieve what you say you will in helping your users kill their pain
• The decision maker doesn’t need to waste time opting-in and raising their hand to become a lead. Nobody’s got time for that! Everything’s out there in the open and un-gated. After they’ve read it they want it or they don’t. And if this is done properly it’s very likely they will.
• You’re dominating visibility for people who are ready to buy. By being clever about your placements

Now you’re probably wondering…

“This all sounds good, but are people actually getting results with this model?”

Here’s What Happens When You “Flip Your Funnel”

Marisha was on the content hamster wheel..

On the advice of her last content agency Marisha was posting endless educational content every week in the hopes of generating more “top of funnel awareness” from speech language pathologists for her EdTech product.

We helped her “flip her funnel” and build a core asset focused on SLPs and district administrators who were already in-market for speech therapy software.

The result?

Quick Rankings for in-market searches in Traditional and AI search results:

You can see in this Ahrefs screenshot the “Intents” labeled with “T” for “Transactional” and “C ” for “commercial” which are the keywords people actually use when they’re ready to buy.

It’s actually highly accurate.. and shows you how quickly we were able to rank one page for 47 of these keywords.

Rankings for transactional “solution” searches in AI search results:

Multi-Digit Growth in Quality SaaS Trials

Hitting $16.50 Cost per Demo for a $5,000+ B2B SaaS product

By running traffic to a core asset that educates and pre-sells we’re able to drive demo requests for as little as $16.50 per demo, like we recently did for an HRTech product.

By testing 5 new angles every week we were able to help Meta’s algorithm find what resonated and deliver ads to with the ideal customer profile. This is the best (only) way to win with Meta’s new “Andromeda” update.

Then we used “frog tongue” retargeting to send people who entered the funnel but didn’t convert back to case studies and direct response demo offers.

The results were daily demos on the books for outstanding CpA’s within the first month running the campaign:

Ranking for Impossible Terms in ChatGPT and Gemini

Online MBA programs are an incredibly crowded and competitive category.

By all SEO / GEO logic a new tech startup like Quanitc shouldn’t be able to outrank 100+ year old .edu goliaths like Harvard and Wharton MBA.

But that’s exactly what we did!

By controlling the narrative using UGC, forums and third party publisher roundups we were able to dominate AI and traditional search results for smart long-tail in-market queries where the brand could actually compete with category leaders.

For example:

• What are the most affordable online emba programs
• What are the best online EMBA programs for the tech industry
• What are the best online EMBA programs that qualify for tuition reimbursement

And more (see blow for the receipts)!

These LLM results directly drove 1,000+ applications for the $9,000 program:

Hear From the SaaS Founders and Marketers who Already Flipped their Funnels: