# Case Study: How "FlowSync" Turned a 40% Traffic Drop into a 300% Conversion Spike

## From Zero-Click Oblivion to Generative Engine Dominance

### Executive Summary

**The Client:** FlowSync (Fictional B2B SaaS in Project Management)

**The Crisis:** A 42% drop in organic traffic following the full rollout of Google’s AI Overviews (SGE) and ChatGPT’s rising adoption.

**The Solution:** A pivot from SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to **GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)**.

**The Result:** While total traffic remained lower than peak levels (-20%), **demo requests increased by 300%**, and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) dropped by 15%.

***

### 1. The Crisis: The "Invisible" Wall

**October 2023:** FlowSync was a content powerhouse. They ranked #1 for high-volume keywords like "best project management software" and "agile vs waterfall." Their blog drove 200k visitors/month.

**January 2024:** Disaster struck.

* **Traffic Cliff:** Organic sessions plummeted by **42%** in 90 days.
* **Rankings Intact, Clicks Gone:** They still ranked #1 or #2, but the **CTR (Click-Through Rate) dropped from 28% to 3%**.
* **The Culprit:** Google’s AI Overview was answering "What is the best PM tool?" directly on the SERP. Users got the answer and left without clicking.

> The Diagnosis: FlowSync was optimized for search engines, but invisible to answer engines. The AI summarized their content but didn't cite them as the "go-to" solution.

***

### 2. The GEO Intervention (The 90-Day Sprint)

We deployed the **DECA Framework** (Data-Extraction-Content-Automation) to rebuild their digital presence for the AI era.

### Month 1: The DECA Audit & Strategy

We stopped measuring "Keywords" and started measuring **"Share of Model (SoM)"**.

* **Audit:** We asked ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini: *"Compare enterprise PM tools for remote teams."*
* **Finding:** FlowSync wasn't mentioned. The AIs recommended competitors like Jira and Asana because those brands appeared in the *sources* the AI trusted (G2, Capterra, authoritative tech news), while FlowSync only existed on its own blog.
* **Strategy:** Shift focus from "Blog Volume" to **"Entity Density"** and **"Citation Defense."**

### Month 2: Content Refactoring (On-Page)

We didn't write *more* content; we rewrote *existing* content to be machine-readable.

* **Answer-First Architecture:** We stripped the "fluff" from their top 50 pages.
  * *Before:* A 2,000-word intro on "The history of project management."
  * *After:* A direct definition: *"FlowSync is an AI-driven project management tool designed for remote agile teams, reducing sprint planning time by 40%."*
* **Fact Sheets:** We added structured data tables (JSON-LD) explicitly defining pricing, features, and integrations so LLMs could extract accurate data without hallucination.

### Month 3: Citation Defense (Off-Page)

We targeted the "Training Data" sources.

* Instead of buying random backlinks, we focused on **Co-Occurrence**.
* We secured mentions in articles that *already ranked* in AI Overviews for competitor comparisons.
* We optimized their profile on review sites (G2, Capterra) because Perplexity heavily weights user sentiment from these platforms.

***

### 3. The Results: Volume vs. Value

Six months post-intervention, the numbers told a new story.

| Metric                  | Pre-GEO (SEO Era) | Post-GEO (AI Era) | Change    |
| ----------------------- | ----------------- | ----------------- | --------- |
| **Monthly Traffic**     | 200,000           | 160,000           | **-20%**  |
| **Zero-Click Searches** | 15%               | 65%               | +333%     |
| **Demo Requests**       | 400               | 1,200             | **+300%** |
| **Lead Quality (SQL)**  | 12%               | 45%               | **+275%** |
| **AI Mentions (SoM)**   | 0%                | 80%               | **New**   |

### Why This Happened

1. **Traffic Quality:** We lost the "tire kickers" (students looking for definitions). We kept the "buyers" (CTOs asking specifically for solution comparisons).
2. **Trust Signal:** Being the "Recommended Answer" in an AI Overview acts as a powerful third-party endorsement, driving higher conversion rates than a standard ad.

***

### 4. Key Takeaway

**"Traffic is Vanity, Citations are Sanity."**

In the GEO era, you will likely see less traffic. **Do not panic.** The traffic you lose is the traffic that never intended to buy. By optimizing for the Generative Engine, FlowSync captured the *intent*, not just the *impression*.

**Ready to audit your Share of Model?** Start with our [GEO Readiness Assessment](https://www.notion.so/uneedcomms/docs-decageo-ai-gitbook-1-000-2b5cbc5acb098039b74ce6c10e08c0d7?p=2c0cbc5acb09802d8102da9004138572\&pm=s).
