2025-06-03 05:05:31
In 2025, optimizing for AI-driven search engines—such as ChatGPT, Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE), and other emerging platforms like Perplexity and Claude—has started to gain traction among marketers. In this article, we share our approach to AI search optimization strategy and best practices for companies seeking to improve their chances of getting their company or products recommended by generative AI tools. We base our approach on the relative importance of each factor in the recommendation algorithms of the most popular generative AI engines:
| Factor | Description | Impact/Weight | |||
| ChatGPT | Google AI Overviews & Gemini | Perplexity | Claude | ||
| Authoritative List Mentions | As AI search recommendations rely primarily on existing content, the most impactful AIO activity is securing high placement in authoritative comparison lists. | 41% | 49% | 64% | 38% |
| Awards, Accreditations, & Affiliations | AI search engines are more likely to suggest companies or products that have notable awards or accreditations | 18% | 15% | 5% | 19% |
| Online Reviews | AI search engines are increasingly including online reviews when generating recommendations | 16% | 13% | 31% | N/A |
| Customer Examples & Usage Data | Third-party data about product usage is considered to be an indicator of authority by ChatGPT and Claude. The online-connected ChatGPT’s data is generally more up-to-date than Claude (which draws information entirely from training data). | 14% | N/A | N/A | 13% |
| Traditional Databases & Directories | Claude draws primarily from traditional resources such as the Encyclopedia Britannica and news websites like the New York Time when making business recommendations. | N/A | N/A | N/A | 68% |
| Google Website Authority | Website authority is used only by Google AI overviews and Gemini recommendations, but it is a significant factor for both. | N/A | 23% | N/A | N/A |
| Social Sentiment | A minor but growing factor. Currently, only ChatGPT takes social sentiment into account. | 11% | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Certain trends are immediately visible. For example, securing placement in authoritative lists are your best investment across the board, significantly impacting recommendations by all the AI search engines we looked at.
The following article catalogs these trends and turns them into actionable AI search optimization strategies and best practices to improve the odds of them recommending your company..
Although AI search engines may not rank articles directly, they will process the top-ranking articles to answer keyword-related queries. Our testing found that this is true whether a generative AI search tool is answering a query from training (recalling training information prior to its training data’s cutoff date) or if it is using live search (actively scanning the most up-to-date search results to provide more timely information). The following table shares the impact of search engine rankings on AI search:
| Source | If Answering From Training | If Using Live Search |
| Top 3-5 Ranked Pages | 🔥 Very likely to be included in training data unless pages are recently published | 🔥🔥 Almost always read first |
| Pages Ranking #6–20 | ✅ Impacts recommendations to a smaller extent than higher-ranking pages | ✅ Read if top pages lack detail about the specific query |
| Hidden Gems (Low SEO visibility but great info) | ❓ Depends on prior exposure | ⚠️ Read only if linked/referenced or the user explicitly asks |
| Unindexed/New Pages | ❌ Not known at all | ❌ Only read up if directly linked or surfaced through search intent tools |
Notably, in both cases, pages that ranked higher were more likely to be included in ChatGPT’s recommendations. We also know from our initial examination of AI search engines that mentions in authoritative lists were one of the most important ranking factors for all the platforms we evaluated.
There are two ways to capitalize on this evaluation factor:
ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and other AI search tools heavily favor clear, concise, and organized content when making their recommendations. To make it easier for AI search tools to process your pages—and therefore recommend your products and services—use the following guidelines when creating your content:
| If you’d like more information on creating excellent content, we’ve written several deep dives into the subject: How to Write Thought Leadership ContentHow to Write the Best SEO ContentContent Repurposing: The Modular Approach to Marketing |
In addition to high-ranking articles, AI searches across the board also consider databases and directories when crafting their recommendations. In some cases, like Claude, this is a direct reference (i.e., the AI scans the database and pulls information straight from the source), while all others we evaluated use an indirect reference, in which database information is included in online search queries.
When considering submitting your own information to online databases and directories, understand that these engines do not see all databases the same way; rather, that information is tiered according to the site’s perceived trustworthiness. Although different engines include different layers in their analysis, our team identified three core tiers of databases that run parallel across all of them.
| Tier 1: High Authority |
| McKinsey, Statista, Encyclopedia Britannica, Pew Research Center |
| Tier 2: General Information Resources |
| Wikipedia, Hoovers, Bloomberg, Clutch, Glassdoor |
| Tier 3: Industry-Specific Resources |
| Contingent on industry |
The chatbot leaning the heaviest on database information is Claude (68%), which notably has no ability to actively scan live websites and instead relies entirely on training data or user-provided documents. These engines do, however, weigh each tier differently in their analysis:
Submitting your company’s information to these databases is less simple; in some cases, such as Wikipedia, users can actually create their own page, which goes live following an editorial process. Most tier 1 sources, however, do not have this ability, nor do they allow for entry submission, leaving inclusion entirely up to their editorial team. For this reason, it’s important to look at a few other factors affecting a company’s online presence, both in the eyes of these teams and in the AI search engines themselves.
We don’t want to give the wrong impression here; good content and list/database mentions are critical elements that factor into a generative engine’s decision to recommend a company or not. There are, however, other factors at play that weigh more heavily depending on your choice of platform:
| Factor | Description | Most Important For… | Least Important For… |
| Company Achievements | Awards, accreditations, or milestones accomplished by the company or a prominent employee. | Claude | Perplexity |
| Online Reviews/ Social Sentiment | Both direct reviews of the company on established review sites as well as indirect discussions on popular chat forums like Reddit, Quora, etc. | Perplexity | Claude |
| Google Website Authority | A 1-100 ranking placed by Google based on how reliable a source of information they believe a website to be. Connotes trust & authority based on the quality of content, publishing schedule, and overall reputation | Gemini | N/A |
These actions have a far-reaching effect beyond AI search optimization as well. As mentioned in the previous section, editorial teams for high-level research databases decide to include (or exclude) companies based on their perceived reputation. Listing achievements, positive reviews, and a site’s trustworthiness (as represented by its Google domain) can all help improve your company’s standing in their eyes as well.
Fundamentally, earning a recommendation from a chatbot is the next step in the ongoing pursuit of quality; AI search engines are exceptionally talented at identifying that quality through a more holistic analysis. This makes it that much more important to have a team on hand that can successfully implement AI search optimization strategy and best practices while tailoring them to your brand.
It’s an exceptionally hard goal to achieve, all the more so as the technology around GEO continues to evolve. That’s why business owners often call in specialists like our agency to manage their online growth. If you would like to discuss implementing your AI search strategy with one of our teams, reach out using the contact information at the bottom of this page or via our contact page.
2025-05-31 02:09:11
Last updated: May 30, 2025
In this report, we share the most important marketing KPIs and metrics for medtech businesses to track, as well as benchmarks for each. Our data was drawn from 34 medtech clients we’ve worked with from between 2017 and 2024. Of these, 11 were B2C medtech companies, and the remaining 23 were B2B. The campaigns we executed for each were focused primarily on thought leadership & SEO, but most included use of additional channels such as email, LinkedIn, and PPC.
Our results are presented in the table below:
| Metric | Benchmark |
| ROI | 1,183% |
| Customer/Patient Acquisition Cost (CAC or PAC) | $921 |
| LTV to CAC Ratio | 4:1 |
| Total # of Qualified Leads (MQLs) | 21-34/month for midsize B2B companies |
| ROAS | 1.10 (PPC) |
| Total Monthly Website Visitors | 10% growth month-over-month, with at least 70% of total traffic coming from organic channels |
| Conversion Rate | 1.4% |
| # of First Page Keywords | 20% growth year-over-year in total first-page keywords |
We now explain each metric in greater detail.
| ROI | |
| 3-Year Average ROI | 1,183% |
ROI provides the highest level overview of a marketing campaign, and it may be calculated using the following equation:
ROI EQUATION
Our data indicates that medtech companies achieve a relatively high ROI compared with other industries, particularly when prioritizing organic channels such as SEO. This is particularly apparent in consumer medtech, where trust plays an outsized role in user acquisition, because of the authority that high Google rankings confer.
While we prefer to calculate ROI as a 3-year rolling average as it accounts for the varying startup costs of differing channels and better controls for seasonal fluctuations, doing so makes diagnosing campaign issues more difficult. For those purposes we turn to the other metrics below.
| CAC/PAC | |
| Average Customer/Patient Acquisition Cost | $921 |
Much like ROI, Customer Acquisition Cost (or Patient Acquisition Cost for some medtech companies) serves as a high-level of the health of a marketing campaign. It can be calculated using the following formula:
CAC EQUATION
While CAC does include the cost of sales—thereby somewhat accounting for lead quality—it does not factor in the long-term value of each lead. To do so, medtech companies must also examine their LTVs and their LTV to CAC ratio (see below), but CAC remains useful because it can be calculated much more easily than overall ROI and allows for direct comparison of different marketing channels.
| LTV to CAC Ratio | |
| LTV to CAC Ratio | 4:1 |
The customer lifetime value (LTV) to CAC ratio is an oft-cited metric for technology companies. Simply put, it states that on average, the value that each customer brings in should be 4 times higher than what was spent to acquire them.
This ratio doesn’t account for operating costs and a ratio that’s too low—1.5:1 or even 2:1—indicates that your company is overspending on inefficient customer acquisition and likely losing money on each customer. Conversely, a ratio that’s too high may not in and of itself be damaging to a medtech company’s bottom line, but indicates that long-term growth is being sacrificed in favor of short-term profits.
| Total # of Qualified Leads | |
| Total # of New MQLs | 21-34/month for midsize B2B companies |
The previous 3 metrics—ROI, CAC, and LTV to CAC ratio—all require input from multiple teams within a medtech company. Because of this, not every medtech company is capable of keeping their high-level metrics up to date at all times, and marketing teams should look to more zoomed in metrics when deciding how to make campaign adjustments month-to-month.
Total # of qualified leads is, as its name suggests, simply a measurement of how many leads are brought in each month. This metric is most useful for B2B companies—B2C medtech should instead look to total new users—and will depend heavily on each individual company’s size. We’ve chosen here to provide a benchmark for midsize B2B companies, as those companies make up the majority of our dataset.
| Total # of Qualified Leads | |
| ROAS | 1.10 (PPC) |
Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS) refers to how much revenue is generated by each dollar you spend on advertising. It’s calculated by the following formula:
ROAS FORMULA
This metric is mostly used for digital paid channels such as PPC and paid social media. Here, we’ve provided our benchmark for PPC as it is the paid channel we have the most experience managing for medtech clients.
| Total Monthly Website Visitors | |
| Unique Monthly Website Visitors | 10% growth month-over-month, with at least 70% of total traffic coming from organic channels |
Total Website Visitors is a straightforward metric, and consistent growth is the sign of a healthy medtech marketing campaign. Website visitors come from three main sources:
Keep in mind that seasonality will cause your growth rate to vary. Comparing your year-over-year traffic trends will help your team correct for any such variance.
| Conversion Rate | |
| Visitor to Lead Conversion Rate | 1.4% |
Visitor to Lead Conversion Rate (often referred to simply as conversion rate) refers to the percentage of visitors who later become leads, and is calculated with the following equation:
CONVERSION RATE EQUATION
Low conversion rates are a sign that your website doesn’t resonate with visitors, and are the result of poor targeting or insufficient conversion optimization. Offering free demos when appropriate, or gating select content behind registration walls will also serve to increase the number of visitors who convert.
| Conversion Rate | |
| # of First Page Keywords on Google | 20% growth year-over-year in total first-page keywords |
The first page of Google accounts for nearly all clickthroughs, making the number of keywords you get to the first page of Google is an important measure of how successful your medtech company’s SEO program is. How quickly you can achieve new rankings will depend on your existing domain rating, but by publishing data pieces and other expert content, you can quickly acquire backlinks to improve your website’s rankings.
When analyzing first page keywords to gauge organic marketing, note that only unbranded keywords should be considered. Branded keywords indicate that the searcher has already found out about your company or product through another channel.
If you’d like a downloadable pdf copy of this report, reach out to us here.
2025-05-31 02:09:11
Last updated: May 30, 2025
Using content marketing in the medtech industry requires both creativity and regulatory awareness. For a medtech company to successfully execute a content marketing campaign, their marketers must produce content that informs readers while being careful to avoid unsubstantiated claims. This task is made more difficult by the rise of generative AI and the resulting flood of average-level content—in order to stand out and bring in actual leads or customers, content must be higher quality than ever. However, when content meets this high standard, it positions the company as an expert in its field and builds trust with readers, creating a consistent flow of MQLs, increased conversion rates, and a significantly higher ROI than most other forms of marketing.
This guide walks you through the steps of creating a content marketing strategy to meet the needs of 2025’s medtech marketing landscape. The steps are:
The first thing that a content marketing team needs to agree on is the campaign’s purpose. Narrowing down specific goals can be harder than it appears, as it can be tempting to set vague goals with corporate jargon (e.g. “We strive to create visionary content that bridges the gap between our customers’ needs and our solutions”). Specificity is key to avoiding this pitfall and creating a solid foundation for future campaign audits, so we propose the following:
With clearly defined and measurable campaign goals, you’ll be able to more easily decide what type of content needs to be added to your library in order to reap the results you’re looking for. Doing so also allows you to tailor your content to your target audience better and position yourself more aggressively in medtech markets that often leave large groups of potential customers underserved.
The next step in creating an effective content marketing strategy is to create personas for each of your target audiences. Doing so allows you to (a) create content that your audience will respond to, (b) understand what solutions you should present to your audience, and (c) determine the best channels on which to distribute your content. regardless of whether you sell direct-to-consumer, or to medical practitioners/institutions, the process generally involves asking the same questions.
Start by looking at your existing customer base—your prospective and current customers know more about their wants and needs than you do. Ask them:
Here is an example of a customer persona (which you may recognize from our go-to-market strategy guide):
| Mark Harris | |
| Mark Harris is a senior account manager at a mid-size accounting firm. He is approximately 38 years old, married, and has two children. He has an extremely tight schedule that leaves him very little free time, but tries to keep up with his friends through Instagram and Facebook. Mark was diagnosed with type II diabetes about a year ago, and has been looking for easy ways to monitor his blood sugar without the hassle of traditional fingersticks. |  |
Their answers to each of these will form the basis of their persona. Next, flesh out those personas with relevant demographic information, such as their job titles, industries, and company size if you’re talking about a medical practice or provider. All of this will help you determine the exact tone and content that will best capture their interest and match their search intent.
In order to ensure that your content marketing strategy targets every relevant online search to your company, the best-performing campaigns utilize a pillar content strategy, which consists of:
The most important element of the hub and spoke strategy is that the spokes fit with the hub like gears in a machine. The graphic below illustrates this further:
In the example above, the pillar, “continuous blood glucose monitor,” can be found in every surrounding spoke, demonstrating to Google that your site is obsessed with the topic. Furthermore, each “spoke” in the model above speaks to a specific search intent, as illustrated on the spectrum below:
A simple search such as “continuous blood glucose monitoring device” would be performed by someone on the research-oriented side of the spectrum. In contrast, “continuous blood glucose monitor without insurance” speaks to a specific problem that the user is trying to solve, placing them directly in the middle. The search “best continuous blood glucose monitor” is more transactional still, and would be searched actively looking for a firm to buy from.
In this sense, not only does a pillar strategy allow you to target multiple instances of a larger keyword being targeted, but it also allows you to address the entire spectrum of intent. Structuring your keywords in this manner helps your content marketing strategy account for every stage of your marketing funnel.
To use content marketing effectively for lead generation, you must create a variety of content types, including blogs, product pages, white papers, and case studies. This content—optimized for Google’s evolving search algorithm—targets users at different stages in their buying journey. For example, blogs are used to target people doing research on Google who probably haven’t heard of your company, and there are many page types that fall under the “blog” category (comparison blogs, best practices blogs, how-to articles, etc.). In contrast to blogs, longer content such as white papers and case studies are used to engage visitors more deeply.
| Types | Content Example | Notes |
| Best Practices Blog | A medtech firm that creates continuous blood glucose monitors writes a blog about best practices when wearing one, including properly securing and calibrating it. | Best practices articles both build trust with readers and provide an opportunity to nudge them toward your product. As with most content marketing, aim to deliver useful information first rather than promoting your own company. Doing otherwise will cause the reader to lose trust in your content. |
| Case Study | A medtech firm that creates surgical robotics publishes a case study showing reduced adverse incident rates at hospitals and surgery centers that have used their robotics systems. | Case studies are the best way to demonstrate the real world value of your products. When possible, providing the name of your clients (i.e., not anonymizing the case study) lends more credence to the content of your studies. |
| Comparison Blog – Multi-Item | A medtech firm that develops health and wellness wearables writes a comparison blog to show the features of their different wearable options and the benefits of placing their wearables on different parts of the body. | Multi-item comparison articles are excellent investments for companies that offer a variety of different products with similar uses. They can also be used to compare your company with your competitors but take care that you highlight your own competitive advantages or select competitors that tend to target markets you have less stake in. Note that this type of comparison blog should always include tables that highlight the most important differences between each option. |
| Comparison Blog – Versus | A medtech firm that develops health and wellness wearables writes a comparison blog to show the features of their wearable side-by-side with the competition, emphasizing the importance of the areas in which they excel. | More than any other type of blog, versus articles, should be created with SEO in mind, as they perform best when targeting highly searched phrases. As with multi-item comparison articles, they will often contain a table to provide a side-by-side comparison. |
| Compliance Guide | A medtech firm that produces inventory systems for medications at medical practices publishes a guide on regulatory compliance | Compliance guides are highly transactional and often geotargeted, allowing firms to narrowly target prospects in a specific region. Because compliance is such a complex topic, a guide that explains the basic steps to |
| How-To Blog Articles | A medtech firm that produces IV quick-release technology publishes a blog on how to properly use their product, demonstrating its ease of use. | How-to articles are similar to problem/solution articles but offer a higher-level perspective on broader topics. As with other article types, these articles create excellent opportunities for content repurposing, as popular articles can form the basis for webinars or white papers. |
| Interview Series | A medtech firm produces an interview series of doctors, nurses, or other healthcare professionals on what makes their job easy, emphasizing the aspects of their job made easier by the product in question. | Interview series help lend a human face to your company, as well as demonstrate that real-world clients trust and appreciate your products. These should be used sparingly, however, as an overabundance of interviews leads to few standing out. |
| Problem/Solution Blog | A medtech firm that creates a wide variety of wound dressing products makes a collection of pages covering how to care for wounds of a variety of different sizes, locations, and sources. | Problem/Solution articles are excellent for building trust with your target audience and laying the groundwork for a future conversion. They also create excellent sharing opportunities for social media, making for efficient content reuse. |
| Research Report | A medtech firm that produces medical imaging devices publishes a research report on the accuracy of the readings coming from their diagnostic tech. | Research reports share anonymized internal data that is useful for prospects, usually consisting of benchmarks or statistics. They can also garner attention from journalists, thereby helping disseminate your content. |
| White Paper | A medtech firm that offers virtual reality medical training software creates a whitepaper discussing their library of training, methodology, and statistics on their tangible impact. | White papers are flexible and can be adapted for nearly any B2B industry. If strong content exists elsewhere on the website, placing white papers behind an email registration improves conversion rates and builds out a valuable list for future email marketing. |
Next, let’s discuss a more practical element of content marketing strategy. An editorial calendar is a living document that maps out all the marketing activities across a marketing campaign. Its purpose is to keep stakeholders organized and accountable for their marketing responsibilities in the future while documenting the details and timing of what has been accomplished in the past. Essentially, an editorial calendar is your content strategy in action. Here’s how to create one:
Below is an example of an editorial calendar we developed for our own SEO campaign:
Effective content marketing requires high-quality thought leadership content. The benefit of this approach is that quality is highly transferable between different marketing channels, allowing marketing teams to repurpose existing content and transform it into meaningful content geared toward other channels.
For example, the graphic below looks at what can be done with just one high-quality article written as part of an ongoing SEO campaign:
When repurposing content, your team should use the following framework:
By using quality content as the basis for a content marketing campaign, medtech marketing teams can cover a wide range of additional marketing channels that generate and nurture leads while driving sales in markets that might otherwise not have been available had it just stuck to a single marketing channel. You can find more information on how to produce high quality content marketing material in our related article here.
Once your campaign is underway, the final step is to measure your results. Start by tracking the right metrics, and establishing benchmarks for success. Here are the 8 KPIs we recommend for B2B campaigns:
| KPI | Benchmark for Success |
| Engagement rate | 63% or higher |
| Conversion rate | 2–5%, depending on industry and page type |
| Time On Page | 37 seconds on average. Below 20 seconds is problematic. 2-3 minutes is outstanding. |
| # of First Page Keywords | 10% growth year-over-year in total first-page keywords |
| # of Top 100 Keywords | 3-5% increase month-over-month in keywords that rank in the top 100 |
| Backlinks | 2-3 backlinks each month from unaffiliated, high domain authority sites. |
| Total Monthly Page Views | 5% growth month-over-month |
| Total Monthly Website Visitors | 10% growth month-over-month, with at least 70% of total traffic coming from organic channels |
By tracking these KPIs, you can learn which topic clusters and types perform best for your audience. You can then focus your efforts on the content that generates the most traffic, MQLs, and ROI for your business.
A successful Medtech content marketing strategy involves a lot of moving parts and requires a myriad of resources. For this reason, many companies choose to partner with a dedicated medtech content marketing agency.
At First Page Sage, we specialize in working with medtech companies to build and execute comprehensive content marketing strategies. Over the past 12 years, we’ve created and managed successful content marketing campaigns for medtech companies such as Biovia and Altoida. If you’re interested in learning more about our services, let’s connect.
2025-05-30 10:29:56
Last updated: May 29, 2025
This article contains our rankings for the top industrial marketing agencies in 2025. Our research team compiled this list using a variety of third party resources, which we then analyzed using a proprietary algorithm consisting of:
The results of our analysis are presented in the table below, in addition to information about the agency’s corporate headquarters and unique specialty to industrial marketing. The following sections detail each agency included in the table, providing further insight into company operations and best clients for each one.
| Rank | Company | Established | Founder Led | Leadership Experience | Average Reviews | Median Employee Tenure | Media References | Notable Clients | Approach to Marketing |
| 1 | First Page Sage | 2009 | Yes | 4.9 | 4.9 | 4.3 years | ~600 | Swagelok, Tempo Automation, Zetec | Industrial thought leadership content & SEO for branding and lead generation |
| 2 | Epsilon | 2008 | No | 4.7 | 4.3 | 4.6 years | ~2,100 | Valvoline, Anheuser- Busch, Dell | Full-service marketing for industrial companies |
| 3 | Publicis Sapient | 1993 | No | 3.7 | 4.7 | 2.8 years | ~900 | Nissan, British Gas, Chevron | CRM Optimizations for industrial companies |
| 4 | Proper Expression | 2018 | Yes | 4.2 | 5.0 | 1.4 years | ~100 | Desk Director, Robocorp | Webinar Marketing/coaching services for B2B brands |
| 5 | Altitude Marketing | 2004 | Yes | 4.1 | 4.0 | 4.8 years | ~150 | HID, Wuxi, AppTech | Trade Show marketing campaigns |
| 6 | RH Blake | 1986 | Yes | 4.0 | 4.7 | No data | ~25 | Parker, Mega Techway, Finish Thompson Inc, | Industrial channel marketing and webdev services |
| 7 | SeeResponse | 2018 | Yes | 3.5 | 4.6 | 5.7 years | ~75 | RateGain, Joovv, Knack | Marketing automation and email marketing campaigns |
First Page Sage is the top industrial SEO agency in the United States, and focuses on providing SEO-optimized content for manufacturers and other industrial companies seeking to position themselves as industry leaders. They provide full teams of highly-trained specialists for each account they serve, and their leadership consults on every account the company handles, ensuring that clients receive the highest possible level of strategy and execution.
First Page Sage emphasis on maximizing the ROI of SEO makes them an ideal match for companies that want to build sustainable, long-term lead generation systems. They’ve worked with many notable clients, including Swagelok, Zetec, and Tempo Automation.
| Summary of Online Reviews |
| First Page Sage’s clients report that they“significantly increased online leads” and offer “exceptionally competent teams.” Their campaigns utilize ”incredibly high quality content” to create “measurable impact on search results and leads within the first year”. |
Epsilon Marketing is one of the larger companies on this list, specializing in an omnichannel approach. Their ability to work through a wide variety of marketing channels has allowed them to work with a wide variety of highly recognizable clients, although their client history notably does not feature a wide number of strictly industrial companies.
Epsilon’s omnichannel marketing strategy might make them the ideal candidate for companies attempting to expand their reach or seek out new audiences using previously untested channels. Companies who already possess strong branding and industry reputation would likely benefit from exploring new avenues to increase their visibility.
| Summary of Online Reviews |
| Epsilon provides “detailed reports and documentation” as well as teams that are “exceptionally responsive to feedback,” which helps “create strong, lasting customer connections,” but their services “can cost more than people… expect.” |
Thomas Advertising is the oldest marketing agency on this list, with more than a century of experience in the field. As such, they provide a wide range of marketing opportunities for industrial companies. Their most unique offering which might apply to industrial companies is video marketing, which allows companies to put a trustworthy expert in front of an audience to make a more meaningful connection.
Thomas Advertising has a storied career in marketing and it suits at a comfortable size. Although clients are not likely to find many in the company’s c-suite that have experience in industrial companies, their breadth of experience for marketing in general should meet the needs of most any client.
| Summary of Online Reviews |
| “sales increased by 60%” “drove a record number of qualified leads” “We tried other agencies for websites and SEO and found that their focus isn’t in manufacturing like Thomas is.” |
Publicis Sapient specializes in CRM optimizations for industrial companies, improving the B2B customer experience to increase conversion rates after clients have already generated leads, effectively turning cold leads into warm ones. This specialization has earned them a number of highly recognizable contracts, although we noted several are merely manufacturing-adjacent. This indicates a general ability to handle CRM optimizations, but their teams may require client specialists to coach them on content.
An emphasis on CRM optimizations make Publicis Sapient a good choice for companies seeking to improve their late stage funnel conversion or overall customer experience.
| Summary of Online Reviews |
| Publicis Sapient is “very strong in establishing project requirements” using their “efficient project managers,” but some clients reported “incomplete delivery of projects.” |
Proper Expression is a marketing agency specializing in webinar services, making them a highly valuable addition to this list. The company is relatively new and still relatively small, however they have worked with several considerably sized companies in their short tenure with remarkably solid customer reviews. Their services appear to prioritize webinar coaching, suggesting an ability to keep marketing teams in-house and a relatively short contract duration.
Proper Expression is a great option for companies seeking to increase the number of warm leads drawn from their marketing campaigns. Similarly, the format of webinar marketing requires a memorable presenter; companies will need to have someone on-hand who fits the description.
| Summary of Online Reviews |
| Proper Expression excels at “providing a custom solution” for their clients, using teams that routinely “go above and beyond” to deliver. “ Clients can expect “in-depth marketing experience” which comes from agency POCs “listening and understanding the problem.” |
Altitude Marketing specializes in an industrial marketing must-have; trade show optimizations. Their teams provide initial consulting on booth design and in-person sales strategy, an in-house booth optimization team, and sales coaching to make your teams more effective on the convention floor. Their client history suggests a fair amount of experience within the industry, which is all the more impressive considering the relative size of the company.
Altitude is an ideal choice for companies seeking to increase the amount of warm leads coming in through their sales pipeline. Similarly, their emphasis on coaching your existing team makes them an ideal choice for companies seeking to keep marketing in-house.
| Summary of Online Reviews |
| Altitude Marketing utilizes “capable teams” to provide “excellent services” which make clients “show-ready in a short period of time.” |
RH Blake provides industrial companies with much needed web development and website design services. Unlike many of the other companies on this list who cater to industrial companies as one of many industry demographics, RH Blake caters directly to them as their primary target market. Their leadership has considerable experience in industrial companies, however their offerings beyond web design are vaguely described on the website, making it hard to recommend them for any specific marketing channel or service.
| Summary of Online Reviews |
| RH Blake is an “outstanding partner” that “delivers creatively, on time, and always professionally.” Their teams help clients “become stronger and better marketers” themselves. |
See Response in an industrial marketing agency specializing in lead nurturing strategies that employ automation and email marketing to boost conversions in the later stages of the sales cycle. These services ensure that leads do not grow cold due to inactivity and helps to shorten the cycle itself, which can be especially long in B2B industrial environments.
See Response is among the smaller firms on this list, and the relatively limited experience of their c-suite may limit their use for many companies who are seeking more robust options. For companies seeking these options, however, they have a solid reputation.
| Summary of Online Reviews |
| See Response operates with “small teams” but excel at “amazing tasks without any traffic or confusion,” earning “highly effective” results. |
Sales Artillery is a small, independent consulting company run by Douglas Burdett, a former army vet and business consultant who draws from a wealth of personal and secondhand experience to improve sales performance in his clientele. In addition to his private consulting services, Burdett also hosts the “Marketing Book Podcast,” in which he provides educational material for audiences directly from various marketing professionals every week.
Sales Artillery is a great option for companies seeking general sales knowledge on a limited budget or who are otherwise seeking to keep marketing teams in-house. Similarly, companies who find themselves having to compete on price or who are not attracting ideal customers will greatly benefit from their services.
| Summary of Online Reviews |
| Sales Artillery is “full of useful information” and is “right to the point on marketing questions commonly asked”. Their direct consultations are “comprehensive” and “exhibit a wealth of applied industry knowledge”. |
2025-05-30 10:29:22
Last updated: May 29, 2025
To determine the top manufacturing SEO agencies in 2025, our team researched and ranked 50+ firms using an algorithm based on the following criteria:
In total, we analyzed 54 manufacturing SEO agencies using these filters, which our research team ultimately narrowed to the 8 below:
| Rank | Company | Year Established | Founder Led | Leadership Experience Score | Average Review Score | Median Employee Tenure | Media References | Notable Clients | Focus |
| 1 | First Page Sage | 2009 | Yes | 5.0 | 4.8 | 4.3 years | ~770 | Swagelok, Tempo, Zetec | Combining manufacturing thought leadership with SEO for high-ROI lead generation |
| 2 | Kula Partners | 2004 | Yes | 4.5 | 4.3 | 3.1 years | ~40 | Emmerson Packaging, Essex Active, Reliable Automatic Sprinkler | SEO-focused web design and ABM |
| 3 | Industrial Strength Marketing | 2003 | Yes | 4.2 | 4.1 | 4.2 years | ~40 | ExxonMobil, Sentry, UPS | Manufacturer brand strategy and sales enablement |
| 4 | Windmill Strategy | 2006 | Yes | 4.0 | 4.4 | 1.3 years | ~60 | Fast Test, Summit Engineered Automation, North Star Imaging | Technical SEO and web design for manufacturers |
| 5 | Factory Web Source | 2018 | No | 4.0 | 3.9 | No data | N/A | Porsche, Ferrari, Penske | Social media marketing and video SEO |
| 6 | Aviate Creative | 2005 | Yes | 3.8 | 4.3 | 1.4 years | ~10 | Sakar, Norwalt, Cimquest, Belay Technologies | Branding for manufacturing companies |
| 7 | Ecreative | 1999 | Yes | 4.0 | 4.0 | 3.5 years | ~50 | Industrial Metal Supply, Rosedale Products, Inc, Stack Plastics | Paid search and web development for manufacturers |
| 8 | Brandpoint | 1996 | Yes | 4.5 | 4.3 | 5.3 years | ~150 | Birchwood, Everest Ice & Water Systems, Goodin Company | Combining MAT releases with SEO for manufacturers |
First Page Sage is the leading manufacturing SEO company in the U.S., and specializies in thought leadership content and SEO strategy. Their approach uses technical blog articles, white papers, case studies, and industry reports to position their clients as leading authorities in the manufacturing industry. First Page Sage is best suited for manufacturers who value long-term ROI and organic growth.
| Summary of Online Reviews |
| First Page Sage “significantly increases online leads” through “exceptionally competent teams.” They utilize an ”incredibly diligent form of content marketing” to create “measurable results within year one.” |
Kula Partners is a manufacturing marketing firm that joins ABM with SEO-focused web design, helping their clients secure specific, highly valuable clients. They also offer sales enablement services, providing support for smaller manufacturers with more limited teams. Because of their ABM focus, they are best at working with manufacturers in niche markets whose potential customers consist of a few very large companies.
| Summary of Online Reviews |
| Kula Partners are “engaged and excited”, and provide a “positive experience” and “great website builds” for their clients. |
Industrial Strength Marketing works almost exclusively with OEMS, fabricators, and contract manufacturers, bolstering their lead generation through the creation of sales enablement content. By aligning their clients’ sales and marketing efforts, they also help clients develop metrics and evaluation data, making it easier to adjust campaigns as they evolve. They are a good fit for manufacturers who need additional sales support in addition to SEO services.
| Summary of Online Reviews |
| The Industrial Strength Marketing team is described as “friendly, professional” and “providing great insights and recommendations” for improving client online presence. |
Windmill Strategy specializes in technical SEO and web design services for manufacturing companies. They work with clients to create content strategies, then implement both UX and backend optimizations to help clients secure higher search rankings. Because they do not provide content, they are best suited for manufacturers who already have in-house writing teams.
| Summary of Online Reviews |
| Windmill Strategy web designs are “outstanding” and marketing strategies are “highly-effective” at helping clients “achieve” their goals. |
Factory Web Source is a younger agency that focuses on social media and video SEO to help generate leads through a diverse array of digital marketing channels. Their clients have included high profile automotive manufacturers such as Ferrari and Porsche, and they work best with vertically integrated manufacturers who sell directly to consumers.
| Summary of Online Reviews |
| N/A |
Aviate Creative’s focus is branding and creating a unique identity for manufacturing clients based on their in the competitive landscape. This brand can then be promoted across multiple marketing channels, creating a consistent company image. Because of their creative focus, they are best suited for either new manufacturers who need to establish a visual identity, or older manufacturers in need of a brand refresh.
| Summary of Online Reviews |
| Aviate Creative is known for “truly listening and reflecting” the client “brand in their work.” |
Ecreative specializes in combining paid search and web development for manufacturer websites with specialized technical needs such as ERP and RFQ integration. They also offer paid search management, making their services a good fit for manufacturers who need short term lead generation and can afford the higher cost of inorganic marketing.
| Summary of Online Reviews |
| Ecreative shows “excellent project management”, maintains an “efficient workflow” and helps clients increase “site traffic.” |
Brandpoint operates in a highly specialized niche, combining MAT releases of syndicated, sponsored content with content development services for a unique approach to manufacturing SEO. Their service straddles the line between PR and organic search, and their best work has been for companies launching new products or services.
| Summary of Online Reviews |
| Brandpoint works “really quickly” and helps clients “tell a cohesive story“. Their reporting is “comprehensive“. |
Our team included several additional considerations when determining whether or not a manufacturing SEO agency is the right fit for your company. The following table provides a more general overview of what to expect from agencies at different levels of service.
| Factor | Minimum | Average | Excellent |
| Scope of Work | Limited to a single specialty within SEO (e.g. technical SEO, web design, conversion optimization). | Necessary technical optimizations combined with basic SEO content. | Delivers a fully custom SEO strategy and provides industry leading content. Updates published content to improve and maintain search rankings according to the Corpus of Content model. |
| Content Strategy | N/A — Agencies at this level of service rarely provide content or any notable content strategy. | Uses a standardized template based on the the client’s general industry or company type. | Works with client to create a fully personalized strategy using manufacturing industry-specific SEO knowledge. |
| Team Composition | Not provided. Agency supplies learning resources for the client’s team to use. | General SEO team provided; writers and strategists may or may not have relevant experience | Dedicated strategists and technical writers work with manufacturing experts to craft industry-leading SEO content. |
| Campaign Updates | Updates mostly over email; may or may not provide regular in-person meetings | Meets with client once a week; sends additional updates via email. | Regular weekly meetings and at least one team member available to handle emergencies. |
| Measuring Results | A single report at the beginning of the campaign and little, if any, ongoing reporting. | Measured according to agency’s standard metrics, using the same metrics for every client. | Prioritizes client ROI by default, but works with manufacturing clients to determine which metrics are most important. |
Finally, the list below includes several key questions to consider asking when speaking with an SEO agency. During the sales process, it’s important to have your priorities straight
Although many firms out there will claim to be able to do anything you need, the reality is that each SEO agency has a specific field they excel in. For example, First Page Sage is a full-service SEO company, but within SEO, specializes in creating authoritative thought leadership content and custom tailored strategic SEO plans. Agencies you consider should be able to provide similarly specific answers.
Follow up questions:
Whether you are looking for thought leadership or ad copy, the agency’s methodology for content creation will tell you a lot about how they view their work, your industry, and ultimately your agency. These questions are especially important in distinguishing a mid-range agency from an industry leader since most low-cost agencies may not even have content creation as an option.
Follow up questions:
How an SEO agency determines whether or not the campaign is a success is a critical discussion you should have first within your own company and then with the agency themselves. Require full transparency here: an agency that is hesitant to speak about or adjust their preferred metrics is a major red flag during the selection process.
Follow up questions:
Finally, if you’d like to learn more about how to choose or evaluate a manufacturing SEO agency, you can reach out to us on our contact page.
2025-05-29 06:00:21
Last updated: May 28, 2025
From Q2 2021–Q1 2025, we aggregated data from our agency’s SaaS clients to determine benchmarks for popular marketing metrics. This report contains free trial and freemium conversion rate benchmarks.
In the first table below, we give average conversion rates for visitors originating from both organic and paid traffic sources to 3 different SaaS models: Free Trial Opt-In, Free Trial Opt-Out, and Freemium. We also give average conversion rates to paid users from each of those 3 models.
In the second table, we break down our conversion rate data by SaaS industry, covering all the markets where we’ve had at least 5 clients.
NOTE: Our total dataset is drawn from 86 SaaS companies, split 71% B2B and 29% B2C.
| Conversion | Traffic Source | Conversion Rate Benchmark | Notes |
| Visitor to Free Trial (Opt-In) | Organic | 8.5% | Opt-in free trials have significantly higher organic conversion rates than opt-out free trials because they don’t require the user to input payment information. Newer SaaS businesses are better served by the low barrier-to-entry of opt-in free trials as they need to prove the value of their software. |
| Paid | 7.1% | ||
| Free Trial (Opt-In) to Paid | Organic | 18.2% | Because opt-in free trials do not automatically convert to paid subscriptions at the end of the trial period, fewer trial users will convert to full users. |
| Paid | 17.4% | ||
| Visitor to Free Trial (Opt-Out) | Organic | 2.5% | Opt-out free trials convert at a lower rate than opt-in free trials because they require the user to proactively enter payment information. |
| Paid | 2.2% | ||
| Free Trial (Opt-Out) to Paid | Organic | 48.8% | Opt-out free trials require the user to submit payment information, and thus their decision to pay the subscription fee is often passive. Thus, they yield a far higher conversion rate than opt-in free trials. A conversion is defined as even a single paid month, so you will want to consider this statistic alongside retention / churn rate as well as Customer LTV to determine the true value of an average conversion. |
| Paid | 51% | ||
| Visitor to Freemium | Organic | 13.3% | Freemium models have higher visitor conversion rates than free trials because most users value indefinite access to some software features over any other value proposition (free trial or paid). Of course, a higher conversion rate to free use of the software does not mean more long term revenue. |
| Paid | 15.9% | ||
| Freemium to Paid | Organic | 2.6% | Freemium trials convert to paid at the lowest rates because a significant percentage of users will find that the free features are sufficient for their purposes. This effect is partially offset by conversions among long-time users whose needs grow beyond the free featureset. |
| Paid | 2.8% |
| Industry | Visitor to Trial Conversion Rate | Trial to Paid Conversion Rate |
| Advertising / AdTech | 9.1% | 24.3% |
| Agriculture / Agtech | 8.8% | 21.5% |
| Communications | 8.3% | 23.4% |
| CRM | 9.7% | 29.0% |
| Cybersecurity | 7.4% | 21.9% |
| Education / Edtech | 10.3% | 24.8% |
| Enterprise | 5.5% | 18.6% |
| ERP | 9.4% | 23.7% |
| Environmental / CleanTech | 11.1% | 22.9% |
| Financial / Fintech | 9.0% | 19.4% |
| Healthcare / Medtech | 12.3% | 21.5% |
| HR | 8.1% | 22.7% |
| IoT | 12.6% | 25.2% |
| Legal / Legaltech | 9.7% | 23.1% |
| Real Estate / Proptech | 7.1% | 22.7% |
| Regtech | 11.7% | 23.6% |
We hope you’ve found this report useful. If you have any questions about our dataset or would like to request a pdf copy of this report, you can contact us here. To learn more about SaaS conversion rates, see our other reports below:
We also help some of the top SaaS companies in the world — from SalesForce to Verisign to US Bank — generate and convert leads. If you’d like help creating your strategy, filling the top of your lead generation funnel, or conversion optimizing your website, feel free to reach out to us.