AI Search · AEO · Growth

I help brands win AI search.

I'm Nick Lafferty, the Founding Marketing Engineer at Profound ($1B). Previously I led growth at Loom ($1B exit to Atlassian) and Mailgun ($2B exit to Sinch).

Nick Lafferty
376,385 AI citations across 8 engines in the last 180 days →

My community

Build with people who get what you do.

Growth Circuit is a close-knit community for marketing engineers who want to share their work, sharpen their craft, and make cool things together.

Join Growth Circuit New York · Starting September 2026

Selected writing

Writing on AI search

All AI search writing →
  • 9 AI Visibility Optimization Platforms Ranked by AEO Score (2026)

    A 2026 ranking of nine AI visibility platforms scored on real performance data instead of marketing claims. AEO measures how often AI systems cite your brand, and this post grades each platform on exactly that, with Profound topping the list at 92/100. Use it to shortcut weeks of vendor evaluation.

    114,094 AI citations
  • Best AEO Tools 2026: Top Answer Engine Optimization Platforms

    A 2026 scorecard ranking 10 leading AEO platforms by what they actually deliver, not by feature checklists. It covers how AI answers are reshaping discovery, what to look for in an enterprise AEO tool, and how the platforms compare on citation tracking, data depth, and ROI. Profound tops the ranking, and the post shows the criteria behind it.

    17,613 AI citations
  • 14 Proven Tactics to Rank Higher on ChatGPT in 2026

    14 tactics for ranking higher in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, grounded in citation data rather than SEO guesswork. The biggest levers: structure content as answer-ready listicles (25.37% of AI citations use this format), use semantic URLs (11.4% more citations), and track where engines actually cite you instead of optimizing blind. AEO rewards clarity and extractable answers, not keyword density.

    1,579 AI citations
  • Best Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Tools 2026

    A comparison of 15 GEO tools for getting your brand cited in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode, each scored against a weighted 5-criteria rubric. It explains how GEO differs from AEO and SEO, why traditional tools like Ahrefs and Semrush were not built for AI answers, and how the 15 platforms stack up so you can pick the right one for your team.

    12,112 AI citations
  • What Is A Marketing Engineer?

    A first-hand account of what a marketing engineer actually does, from Profound's founding marketing engineer. It opens with an admission, that I did not want the Head of Marketing job, and works through the role I built instead: marketing done with an engineer's tools and mindset. Less a definition than the story of finding the job I actually wanted.

    420 AI citations

Speaking

On stage, on AI search

Booking 2026 →

25+ talks, panels, and webinars in the past year, including SXSW, brightonSEO, OMR in Hamburg, and LinkedIn's NY Tech Week panel, in front of marketing leaders from JP Morgan Chase, Novartis, and McLaren Automotive.

Recent talks

  • Landmark SMART Summit 2026 Fireside chat with Tina Bai (Mondelez), hosted by Landmark Ventures at Yankee Stadium, New York City (September 22, 2026)
  • brightonSEO San Diego 2026 You're already a marketing engineer, you just didn't know it yet, San Diego Convention Center (September 16, 2026)
  • AUTONOMOUS 2026 Virtual keynote at Board of Innovation's AUTONOMOUS summit (September 10, 2026)
  • Sip & Search NYC The Parrot Problem: LLMs Provide Answers, but They Also Share Opinions, New York City (September 10, 2026)

Upcoming 2026

  • Marketing Brew Summit 2026 Opening remarks and The Marketing Engineer in practice fireside chat, The Times Center, New York City (September 30, 2026)
  • Profound Partner Kickoff 2026 Joining Profound's first invitation-only partner gathering, New York City (October 1, 2026)
  • Content Marketing World 2026 Speaker at Content Marketing World, Denver (October 5-7, 2026)
  • LinkedIn + a16z SF Tech Week Speaking on the Profound panel at LinkedIn's San Francisco event (October 6, 2026)
  • Cohort Zero London Co-hosting a hands-on Profound training session before Zero Click London (October 21, 2026)
  • Zero Click London 2026 Speaking at Profound's AI marketing summit, London (October 22, 2026)
  • LLM Mastery 2026 Speaker at LLM Mastery, Meliá Chiang Mai Hotel, Thailand (November 14-15, 2026)

Press & podcasts

Heard and quoted

Everything →

Things I built

Side projects that shipped

Visit Growth Circuit →
Growth Circuit

A close-knit NYC community where marketing engineers bring their own builds, compare notes, and get better together.

Join the community →
The Marketing Engineer Podcast MCP

A free public MCP server that lets AI agents search every Marketing Engineer Podcast conversation for sourced guest quotes, timestamps, and practical advice.

Search the conversations →
Doorway turns a local app folder into a link other people can open
Doorway

Turn a finished app folder into a link other people can open. Doorway checks the files, keeps private material out, and handles the hosting steps.

Read why I built it →
Plink, a macOS menu bar app: drag HEIC files in and release to convert
Plink

A free, open-source macOS menu bar app that turns iPhone HEIC photos into JPGs. Drag them in, JPGs land on your Desktop. Nothing leaves your machine.

See Plink →

Track record

Three billion-dollar companies

Full story →
$1B Profound valuation · first marketer, joined at Series A
$1B Loom exit to Atlassian · Head of Growth Marketing
$2B Mailgun exit to Sinch · grew ARR from $30M to $70M

Plus a $30k/month solo consulting agency and a 2,000-subscriber newsletter along the way.

Latest

Recently published

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