Ryan Paul Gibson

I help B2B businesses run customer interviews that don't suck / Founder @ content lift 🎈

We specialize in buyer research interviews for B2B.
We start booking 1:1 conversations with your ideal buyer 72 hours after launching your project.

You get first-party data to build go-to-market programs that influence buying decisions.

- Their roles and responsibilities 
- The business process buyers are responsible for
- How problems and challenges manifest in this process 
- How do they try to solve these problems
- How and why they prioritized various solutions 
- Buying triggers and catalysts of change
- Their perceptions of vendors/solutions in the market 
- How buyers select and evaluate vendors
- Buying committee members and what they care about 

I've logged 23+ years in Marketing, Sales, and Business Development.
I mentor and teach Customer Discovery & Market Research for early-stage startups.  
I worked three years as an investigative reporter.
I've interviewed over 2300 people in my career.
I've worked with over 200 businesses of all shapes and sizes.

Founder

We help B2B marketing teams run investigative customer interviews. 

We map out a customer's entire journey in their own words.
We find the hidden reasons people are buying your product.

The data helps you make smarter choices with marketing budgets. 
It helps uncover ideas for messaging, campaigns, content and copy.  

All the stuff we do: 

* Primary Customer Research 
* Brand Perception & Identity
* Subject Matter Expert Interviews

B2B SEO & Web Design For Revenue Not Vanity | DM To Discuss | Host @ Business Growth Show (Top 10 B2B Marketing Podcast, Cognism)

Your website struggling to drive a steady flow of qualified demos/leads?
Tired of losing leads to competitors ranking higher on Google/AI?
Frustrated your SEO agency isn't delivering demos & revenue?

WE FIX THAT.

OUR GROWTH STRATEGIES:

→ SEO to get top of Google & LLMs, bringing revenue-focused demos and signups
→ Start driving pipeline from AI and Google organic as fast as 90 days

BREAKING B2B - B2B MARKETING & DEMAND GENERATION PODCAST

Grow your b2b/SaaS company without the BS. Weekly top 2.5% podcast with actionable marketing tips to grow your revenue: www.breakingb2b.com

STILL NOT CONVINCED?

→ See our work, client results & starting rates here: www.breakingb2b.com

BOOK A CALL:

💻: www.breakingb2b.com
📧: Connect & DM Me
✉️: sam@samdunning.org

CORE SERVICES:

→ B2B SEO strategy and execution
→ Content marketing
→ Digital marketing for SaaS

WHY BREAKING B2B?

→ We focus on revenue, not vanity metrics
→ Our strategies are data-driven and results-oriented
→ We have a proven track record with B2B and SaaS companies
→ Our podcast (Breaking B2B) gives you free, valuable insights into B2B marketing

About time your website became your best (24/7) salesperson?
Get in touch today, and let's start growing your business.

P.S.
Agencies: We offer white-label SEO to help you deliver results on time and within budget.

Sam Dunning

I ask the public: whats the point of linkedin?

Founder @ Breaking B2B | B2B SEO For Revenue Not Vanity | SaaS & B2B Teams Hire Us To Scale Organic Pipeline From Google & AI Search | DM To Discuss | Host @ Breaking B2B (Top 2.5% B2B Marketing Podcast)

Proud founder moment.

Breaking B2B is recommended more each week in communities like Exit Five and events across US and EU as a trusted SaaS SEO/AEO agency.

Showing up in our booked calls 'how did you hear about us'

2yrs ago when we started was just me cold calling marketing leaders to get discovery calls.

Blessed to now have an demand + inbound engine from SEO/AEO, linkedin, youtube and recommendations.

Onwards!

🙂

graphical user interface, text, application, email

I bootstrapped Breaking B2B to $200k/mo.

Alongside SEO and linkedin organic x paid...

YouTube has been a big growth driver for us, run by Samu Kovács.

Our YouTube videos are mentioned on almost every sales call we get.

Here’s how we did it:

DOMINATE SEARCH ON YOUTUBE.

We now consistently come up for the exact terms our ICP searches for "B2B SEO", "SaaS SEO", "SaaS Marketing" etc. We rank at the top for these YouTube searches and get in front of our dream clients (SaaS marketing leaders & founders) every single day.

GIVE AWAY THE SECRETS.

We share full SEO playbooks we run for SaaS founders like Adam Robinson and Adam Holmgren to drive organic sign-ups and demos, step by step so you can copy the blueprint...or just hire us to do it for your company.

FUEL OUR LINKEDIN.

Every time a new video goes live, we turn it the hook into LinkedIn posts. That drives early views and engagement, and my audience here on LinkedIn can go deeper and consume more of my content. Some we run as thought leader ads. All channels feed each other. Nobody wakes up ready to invest $5-20k+/mo on SEO. It takes time to build trust that we are the right team to deliver. 

EMBED TO BOOST SEO.

Most relevant blog posts and landing pages on our site have YouTube video embedded. More real estate on google and these can pull up in AI search. Our blog posts rank higher and the people who land on them get to consume the content in a format they actually enjoy.

SEND VIDEOS TO LEADS BEFORE SALES CALLS.

This is one of the biggest unlocks. Before every sales call, leads automatically get YouTube video break-downs sent to them. By the time they get on a call with us, they've already know our 90 days to pipeline/revenue process. They show up educated ready to talk next steps. That's why our videos get mentioned on almost every single call.

THE BEST PART?

Samu and his team handle everything. Ideation, scripting, editing, thumbnails, SEO, scheduling. All I do is share ideas and show up on camera for a couple hours a month. And in return, we get a machine that fuels our YouTube, our LinkedIn, helps SEO, and our sales process all at once.

We are on month 25 of growing Breaking B2B and have been truly blessed so far with clients, our team and growth. Onwards!

PS. did you check the Breaking B2B youtube yet? 👇

Just asked Nina Quist [CMO of Eletive] why she chose Breaking B2B to run SEO & AEO for her SaaS. Here’s what she said:

___

🎁 we've got 3 spots for new SaaS clients this month. Apply for 90 days to revenue SEO/AEO review here: https://lnkd.in/e_uAy6WR

Marketing: please don't rely on AI for SEO

CEO:


Watch full B2Backstreet Boys vid: https://lnkd.in/e9warMqW

I’m seeing SaaS execs burn time and cash on the AI prompt tracking goldrush…and it’s KILLING me. Do this instead if you wanna drive pipeline:

Rather than tracking every prompt under the sun that has a tiny bit of relevance to your brand that someone may or may not type into ChatGPT needing your solution…

…Just because it looks cool and gives a great looking chart on a LLM visibility tool.

It reminds me of SEO agencies that would push top funnel articles and content to get max traffic at all costs that drove little to no pipeline and revenue.

The better way?

Focus on what your ICP search on Google and AI search when:

- needing your solution now
- comparing different vendors
- looking to move from the incumbent 
- having the crisp problem you solve

and starting with those 5% in market.

get your brand recommended in LLMs and rank on Google for these money terms first. 

often these have less search volume but high buying intent, can rank and get you cited on AI faster and often drive pipeline fast as 90 days with the right strategy.

PS. grab my 90 days to revenue SEO/AEO video guide: https://lnkd.in/et7yce7s

I started Breaking B2B because I’m selfish as fudge.

Rewind a few years.

At my last agency.

Monthly cash flow was up and down

We’d sell a few projects and be on an up.

And the next month have low sales and be struggling.

A stressful life.

Then it clicked.

We had a steady flow of daily leads from our organic #1 money keywords on Google.

Why not offer the same for our clients 

Do something we can deliver well on.

Get organic search working to drive solid leads for them.

And secure us some monthly recurring revenue.

After some time…

I learnt B2B SaaS companies were the ones we got best results for 

They had the problems we solve around:

- lacking SEO resource in house
- competitors outranking them on Google & AI search
- relying too much on paid ads or outbound
- last agency delivering traffic but not pipeline 

So in Feb 2024 Breaking B2B began with one focus. 

B2B SaaS SEO & AI search for revenue NOT vanity.

Fire your $15k/mo SEO agency.

This prompt replaces everything.

JK.

Those posts kill me a little inside.

I've got something better for you.

Just finished a $1.5M SaaS SEO breakdown for Fibbler. 

Watch the breakdown here: https://lnkd.in/e5cjCeHY

30-minute video masterclass sharing:

- Setting a solid foundation 
- Quick SEO wins many ignore
- Why most tech SEO is bullsh*7
- How to craft pipeline driving content
- unusual strats to drive demos and revenue
- How to get pipeline within 90 days
- LLM visibility cheat codes
- Proving impact
- Tonnes more

Copy the blueprint and drive pipeline fast w/ SEO & AEO.

Backed by data working with 41+ active SaaS companies.

(yours for $0 before Adam Holmgren finds out I’m leaking this) 

Watch the breakdown: https://lnkd.in/e5cjCeHY

No alternative text description for this image

This strategy is cooking demos for us weekly and I'm yet to find a more powerful SaaS marketing engine...but it's not one channel. It's a DEADLY TRIO:

- Linkedin (exec brand + paid)
- SEO & AI search
- Youtube

In 22 minutes you're gonna learn:

- The results they drive
- How they work together
- Exactly how to leverage each one
- Why these deadly 3 channels crush it

This playbook helped Breaking B2B go from 0-$2M ARR in 2yrs.

Watch the full breakdown: https://lnkd.in/ejQkzPVR

RB2B just hit $7.8M ARR w/ 3 FTEs. We've ran their SEO/AEO engine since $5M ARR (7mos ago). Peek our exact strategy for Adam Robinson' SaaS this month:

BACKGROUND & RESULTS SO FAR.

Our focus driving sign-ups as quick as humanly possible from AI and google organic search. So far we have great coverage with top spots on google and consistent brand recommendations on LLMs for all major competitor alternative searches, visitor identification software searches, comparison searches and a bunch more use case and integration ones. Through a mix of customer research focused content, light technical works, link building and external listicle placements. Per below screenshot and Adams words...its paying off. Let's dive into the strategy this month.


NET NEW CONTENT

listicle articles:
- best lead intelligence software (400 searches/mo)
- opensend alternatives (90 searches/mo)
- lead qualification checklist (600 searches/mo)

comparison landing page:
- leadfeeder vs lead forensics (150 searches/mo)

3x bottom funnel pieces and 1x mid funnel piece. All manually crafted.

The first piece targets “lead intelligence software”, a keyword with solid search demand. A product listicle will allow RB2B to capture decision-stage traffic from buyers actively evaluating lead intelligence and visitor identification tools. Positioning us as the #1 backed by why customers choose us, pros and cons, pricing, showing our product in action + CTA...then a fair evaluation of other tools. Solid to control the narrative and these pages often get cited in AI search.

We'll also publish a competitor comparison page, sharing where RB2B is a stronger alternative across different use cases for users evaluating website visitor identification or intent data platforms. 

Another BOFU page will target OpenSend alternatives and competitors, helping intercept comparison-driven traffic.

Lastly, a listicle article around lead qualification checklists, aimed at attracting sales and RevOps teams looking to improve their lead qualification processes and naturally introducing RB2B as part of the workflow.


BACKLINKS.

We'll earn da50+ niche relevant links for:
- data enrichment tools
- 6sense alternatives
- 6sense competitors
- intent data types	


EXTERNAL LISTICLE PLACEMENTS

Huge for LLMs to cite. Top 3 placements. Great for classic SEO too with a solid backlink.

___

Wanna see if we can scale demos quick as 90 days for your B2B/SaaS?

Visit the Breaking B2B site to check our results, pricing and grab a call: https://lnkd.in/e7XuM6au

Watch my 34-minute SEO/AEO breakdown video for RB2B: https://lnkd.in/eiZfaXXq

I ask the public: does cold calling still work?

A $1.5M SaaS SEO/AEO strategy.
(copy the full blueprint for $0)

See the exact SEO and AI search battle-plan we're running for Fibbler to scale from $500K to $1.5M ARR. 

29 minutes of tactical advice to get recommended in LLMs and show top of Google organic for dream clients needing your software.

Get into the consideration set with ICPs and finally drive a steady stream of pipeline with organic search quick as 90 days.

Strategies backed by 41+ active SaaS clients at Breaking B2B.

(share with your CMO before Adam Holmgren makes me take it down)

Watch the masterclass: https://lnkd.in/e5cjCeHY

Old way of SEO: Traffic at all costs.

New way of SEO: Less traffic, more qualified pipeline.

Organic traffic is vanity for your B2B/SaaS unless its turning into opportunities for your sales team. 

Especially now LLMs send a tiny amount of traffic to websites as they wanna keep you on platform.

Money keywords/prompts are the foundation of a successful SEO & AI search strategy.

The high-intent bottom of the sales funnel search terms that indicate your prospect is actively in market for solutions like yours and likely keen to book a demo, sign-up or grab a call. 

Earn mindshare and get into the consideration set of your ICP.

Instead of wasting time on top funnel, information gathering keywords that bring traffic (many eaten by AI overviews & ChatGPT) but no conversions, focus on those that signal buying intent.

Identify what your customers search for when they’re ready to evaluate options or compare: 

Think:

“Best [software] for [niche you serve]”  “[competitor] alternative”
“[competitor] pricing”
 “[competitor 1] vs [competitor 2]” 
 "Best [niche] platform/tools/software"
 and many more

These long-tail keywords may not have the highest monthly traffic volume, but they drive conversions.

Many are also low difficulty and can drive demos fast as 90 days.

And a good chunk of these pages tend to get picked up well in LLMs right now to get citations and brand mentions.

PS. grab my 90 days to revenue SEO & AI search mini-guide and video: https://lnkd.in/et7yce7s

If I was a SaaS CMO needing demos in 90 days from SEO/AEO…I’d forget vanity traffic and prompt tracking and triple down on these 7 plays:

1. Nail your blueprint.

Map out every way that a prospect could search for your offering, compare vendors/alternatives, look for use cases/integrations etc. when they are in buying mode for your solution. 

2. Update and build an epic moat (website).

Use a tool like ahrefs to see which bottom funnel commercial pages you have already ranking but not #1 on Google or being picked up in AI search. Prio these gems for updates, linkbuilding and brand mentions for quick inbound. ChatGPT pulls from google.

Craft net new pages for bottom funnel pages you lack. Look what type of page (article, listicle, landing page) ranks on google or gets cited on AI search and blow it out the water. Fuel your page copy with customer research, unique stats product visuals, proof points, or reporting and address tough questions from sales calls. Ensure each page goes into detail and has a quick summary on the topic upfront with why you (LLMs can pull from this).

3. Leverage these pages cooking demos.

Build your own listicle articles for each competitor alternative term, best X software term, etc. craft yours to blow current pages out the water. Positions your software too backed by customer research, where you are a good and poor fit and a fair comparison of other vendors. Hugely important pages to control the narrative in your niche.

Find external “Top X software” and similar articles ranking well. Reach out to the authors and offer them a sweetener to include your brand.

You could offer to have them on your own listicle, offer a podcast slot, service exchange, social shoutout, etc. Some are pay to play. Many are up for value trade.

4. Win from past media.

Find an exec from your team that’s done a lot of press, podcasts etc. Put their Linkedin profile url into an SEO tool. Reach out to all relevant sites citing them that did not give you a brand mention or backlink to amend article. This is a huge quick win.

5. Control the narrative.

Google & LLMs love to cite Reddit. Start being helpful on relevant threads. Only mention your brand where it’s relevant. Start guesting on the top podcasts in your industry. Focus on a useful show for your ICP. Ask hosts to mention your brand and a backlink in the published article. If you can do all this and have resources for your own YouTube channel and podcast great, if not, prioritize the above tasks.

6. Speed beats huge players.

Do the above with speed and you’ll chip away at giant slow-moving competitors. They have slow approval processes with layers of management, legal etc. Speed will be your unfair advantage.

7. At Breaking B2B we work with 41+ active SaaS orgs making SEO/AEO a top pipeline driver. From our learnings AI search is solid pipeline focused SEO + b2b ecosystem marketing. 

___

grab my 90 days to revenue SEO/AEO mini-guide & video: https://lnkd.in/et7yce7s

Breaking B2B went from $50k/mo to $185k/mo last yr. George Coudounaris runs our LinkedIn Ads and most enquiries mention LinkedIn on calls. Here’s exactly what he did (and our plan to hit $400k/mo this year):

BACKGROUND.

With organic reach tanking like crazy I knew LinkedIn ads would be key to keep top of mind for our SEO/AEO services for B2B SaaS marketing leaders and to amplify my organic content. 

Plus, fixing our funnel of SEO/AEO and YouTube traffic who hit our site but didn't convert.

Getting the deadly trio: SEO, YouTube and LinkedIn cookin'


THE STRATEGY.

(1) George made me get brutally clear on ICP 

With a very limited budget to start (1.2k/mo), we weren’t going to rely on LinekdIn’s native filters. We wanted a TIGHT company list that matched his ICP of B2B SaaS companies he serves best. 

So he asked me:
Who are your best clients? 
Who gets the most value?
Which companies do you want more of? 

Turned that into firmographic filters, pulled a list, looked through it manually - so we knew we were getting in front of the right companies from Day 1. 


(2) Thought Leadership Ads became the growth engine

Thought Leadership Ads are winning right now for many b2b orgs with execs already organically posting with a following. Its high engagement rates mean you get better bang for your buck, and is a great place to start.

(my engagement rates are 8-15%) 

But we don’t just boost any content. 

Before we started,
We mapped best performing posts to the 5 Stages of Awareness

• Stages 1-3 → cold audiences
• Stages 3-5 → warm audiences

Then filled any content gaps.

Next step: every post needed a CTA.

Early-stage posts link to helpful resources.
Later-stage posts push toward booking a call.

Result?

Thought Leadership Ads consistently hit engagement rates as high as 15%, which meant Sam was everywhere his buyers looked.

Since then, we’ve layered in:

• Company page ads so Breaking B2B grows beyond my face
• Amplifying clients/partners getting results posting about Breaking B2B

So the brand scales, not just me.


(3) Constant Optimisation of Thought Leadership Ads

Judge the top performing Thought Leadership Ads by looking at:
Engagement rate
Cost per landing page click (a custom metric not available in platform)
New subscribers
High intent pages
Calls booked

And have a tight feedback loop on what’s landing to closed-won. 


(4) Acknowledge the reality of the buying journey 

Most prospects aren’t in-market today. Many have an SEO vendor they’re probably not seeing value from. 

Others are getting their business to the point where they can finally invest in SEO/AEO. 

The ads keep us top of mind. So when they’re ready, they come straight to Breaking B2B.

—

What’s next as we push toward our stretch goal?

• Upload a new company list to double audience size
• Increase spend to scale reach
• Scale top-performing ads into the expanded audience
• Grow company page ads so demand scales beyond me


Follow along as George and I share results!

VP Marketing: "how do we justify more investment in content, SEO, or AEO when traffic is less reliable, attribution is messy, and every tool promises charts that go up and to the right?"

Me: stop treating AI search like a vanity traffic game.

Treat it like a consideration set game.

Wynter asked 101 SaaS CMOs which channels they use to discover and research vendors.

84% said they use AI tools.

Instead of scaling content for the sake of volume, focus first on high-intent, bottom-of-funnel pages that earn mindshare and drive pipeline.

strong comparison and alternative pages.

industry pages, verticals pages, product listicles.

clear positioning on your own site.

external mentions on the sites LLMs are pulling from for pipeline driving prompts and keywords.

Control the narrative on your own site.

Build credibility on third-party sources.

Measure pipeline impact, not just visibility metrics.

and the best part?

done right, this playbook gets you ranked well on google organic

and mentions on AI search for high intent buyers.

a double win.

PS. grab my 90 days to revenue SEO/AEO mini-guide and video: https://lnkd.in/et7yce7s

Here's the 7 top pipeline channels for SaaS marketers & founders....based on 24 months of data and 755 discovery calls:

(755 sales call transcripts analysed across 2 years).


1. Paid Ads (Google + LinkedIn): 28%

Most explicitly stated dominant channel.

Quotes:
“70% of our inbound comes from Google ads, LinkedIn…” 
“We’d kind of spent money on Google ads for a few years… last year we got two inbound inquiries qualified.” 

Often described as:
- Majority of inbound
- Primary measurable driver
- First lever to scale or cut


2. Outbound Sales: 24%

Extremely common among:
- Early-stage SaaS
- Bootstrapped companies
- Technical founders

Examples:
“Outbound, sort of outbound work.” 
Hiring AEs / BDRs to fill pipeline 

Many companies say:
- Inbound is low
- Sales team drives growth


3. Referrals / Word of Mouth: 18%

Example:
“Word of mouth, referrals, they trust way more…” 

Often described as:
- Best quality leads
- Hard to scale
- Relationship-driven


4. SEO/AEO: 14%

Rarely dominant, but often present.

Quotes:
“30% coming from direct or organic.” 
“It’s not doing that at the moment.” 
“I want it to be a big jumping off point for inbound… and it’s not doing that at the moment.” 

Common answers:
- A desired channel
- Underperforming
- “Trickle of leads" 

Organic search often described as:
- Secondary
- Under-optimized
- Desired but not yet performing


5. Partner / Ecosystem (marketplaces, integrations): 7%

Usually:
- Supplemental
- Not fully controlled


6. Social Content (LinkedIn, Podcast, YouTube): 6%

More common among:
- Founder-led brands

Organic linkedin posting and social selling is big here.

YouTube massively neglected still in B2B SaaS.


7. Events / PR / Community: 3%

Mentioned occasionally but rarely primary pipeline driver.

Often:
- Trade shows
- Speaking
- Industry PR
- Slack/Discord groups

____

PS. join 1,951+ b2b legends enjoying the Breaking B2B newsletter (instantly unlock 90 days to revenue SEO/AEO playbook): https://lnkd.in/et7yce7s

RB2B (24mnth startup) are catching the 14 year old incumbent…7 months after starting SEO & AEO w/ Breaking B2B: 

Owning positioning for the niche.

Controlling the narrative.

Recommended in AI search.

Top of Google organic.

No vanity traffic.

Focused on high intent buyers.

Hunting for their software now.

Comparing options available.

Needing a specific integration.

Frustrated with current provider.

Having a crisp painful problem to solve.

Driving sign-ups and revenue.

___

Peek the full video breakdown we run for Adam Robinson’ SaaS: https://lnkd.in/eiZfaXXq

Grab my 90 days to revenue SEO & AEO playbook: https://lnkd.in/et7yce7s

I ask the public: how to get #1 on google?

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Ryan Paul Gibson

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