Is AI Search Making Your B2B Content Invisible?
AI search is answering your buyers' questions before they ever reach your website. Dane Frederiksen of Digital Accomplice explains why video is the way back...
AI search is answering your buyers' questions before they ever reach your website. Dane Frederiksen of Digital Accomplice explains why video is the way back into that conversation, and how a quick game of content bingo shows you exactly which videos to make first.
Key Takeaways
- Buyers go about 80% of the way through their journey before they will take a sales call. If AI search skips you, you are eliminated early.
- Google handles about 90% of searches, owns YouTube, and made roughly $40 billion on YouTube ads last year. It has every incentive to surface video in AI results.
- Dane tested this: he made a video answering a real buyer question, and all four top video results in the search were his content.
- Most companies have "content malnutrition," plenty of text but little video, right when text is getting summarized and trusted less.
- Content bingo maps your video mix across tofu, mofu, and bofu so you can see the gaps buyers fall through.
- The next video to make is the one your buyers are already searching for. The window to own those answers is open now.
This fits inside a bigger picture. If you want the full view first, here's the bigger picture.
Why are B2B buyers disappearing before you meet them?
The old playbook still works a little. Someone Googles, clicks a blue link, reads your blog, downloads a guide, and your sales team gets a lead. But a second journey now runs alongside it, and it is mostly hidden from you.
AI search summarizes results and answers buyer questions directly. If you are not cited in that answer, you are not part of the conversation. Meanwhile buyers are searching wider and starting earlier, on Reddit, on LinkedIn, and on YouTube, watching videos and building shortlists before you know they exist.
They go roughly 80% of the way through their buying journey before they are willing to take a sales call. If you are not the one teaching them along the way, you are not building visibility or trust. You do not have a seat at the table. The game is no longer just getting people to your website. You have to be present where they are searching.
"If they're on YouTube and you're not, someone else is educating them." — Dane Frederiksen
Why does Google put YouTube videos in AI search results?
Follow the money. Google handles about 90% of searches, and Google owns YouTube. YouTube ads brought in roughly $40 billion last year. That gives Google both the financial incentive and the ability to surface YouTube content inside AI search results.
People also just like video. When you compare this versus that, ask what something costs, or want proof a company has helped people like you, video answers those questions better than text. AI Overviews make video more of a need-to-have than ever.
Does answering buyer questions on video actually work?
Yes, and Dane tested it directly. He created video content answering his own buyer questions, including one that asked, does video help B2B companies show up in AI Overviews? When he ran the search, he was in the top results, and all four of the top videos shown were his content.
The logic is simple. If you answer a specific buyer question, in the buyer's language, directly and specifically, and yours is the best answer, why wouldn't AI show it? A video answer is also harder to strip-mine than text, which gets scraped and summarized without sending anyone your way.
What is content malnutrition?
Most companies Dane sees have plenty of text content: blog articles, email newsletters, guides. That is content malnutrition. In the age of AI, text gets summarized in search, and readers now wonder if it was AI-written or ghostwritten. Text alone is not as trustworthy as it used to be.
The fix is a stronger mix, with video covering more surface area, meaning more of the places where your buyers are actually searching. That is where content bingo comes in.
How do you play content bingo?
Take the three buyer stages, tofu, mofu, and bofu (top, middle, and bottom of funnel), and map your current video mix against them:
- Top of funnel names the problem: shorts, myth clips about misconceptions, trend clips for visibility.
- Middle of funnel explains the solution: podcasts that build a relationship, explainer videos, webinars.
- Bottom of funnel proves you are the right choice: comparison and cost videos, video case studies, demos.
Then look at your board. A lot of companies have a podcast, some shorts, and a few webinars, but no video case studies. Text case studies are easier to make, but nothing beats a customer on camera saying how you solved their problem. That is a big gap and a big opportunity.
Others have the bottom covered but no shorts, so buyers never become aware they exist. If you already do podcasts, repurposing them into shorts is the cheapest fix. For Dane's own content, shorts drive about 95% of all his views.
Which video should you make first?
Start from your biggest business problem. Do people not know you exist? Do deals stall in the middle? Are you struggling to close? Cover the squares where your buyers are getting lost. Then pick a plan:
- One video per stage. One awareness video, one middle, one bottom. Rocks across the stream.
- The top 10 questions you get asked all the time. This is the strategy Dane recommends for most companies. You already know the questions, and if no video answer exists yet, the opportunity is sitting there.
- The elephant in the room. One client with a LinkedIn automation tool hears the same fear on every call: will this get me banned? One direct video can put that objection to sleep forever.
"The next video to make is probably the one that they're already searching for." — Dane Frederiksen
There is a real cost to waiting. This window is open because AI search is early. Video made now is cheaper to rank, and it can become part of the training data for the next generation of AI models. Wait, and you get increasingly invisible as the space fills up. Video is the fastest way to earn visibility and trust short of being in the room.
Dane's current offer: a free YouTube page audit where he plays content bingo on your channel, finds the holes, and points out a couple of low-hanging-fruit videos that could bring in business. Easy, free, no follow-up pestering.
Doing the thing is the easy part. The hard part is knowing where you're already winning and where you're invisible. That's exactly what our free AI Visibility Snapshot shows you, before you spend a dollar.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does video help B2B companies show up in AI Overviews?
Yes. Dane Frederiksen tested this by making a video that answered that exact buyer question. In the search results, all four of the top videos shown were his content. Specific video answers to specific buyer questions are what AI search surfaces.
Why does Google favor YouTube videos in AI search results?
Google handles about 90% of searches and owns YouTube, which made roughly $40 billion in ad revenue last year. Google has both the financial incentive and the ability to surface YouTube videos inside AI search results.
What is content bingo?
Content bingo maps your video content mix across the three buyer stages: top of funnel (shorts, myth clips), middle of funnel (podcasts, explainers, webinars), and bottom of funnel (case studies, comparisons, demos). The empty squares show where buyers fall through your funnel.
What video content works at the bottom of the funnel?
Comparison and cost videos, video case studies, and demos. These prove you are the right choice and do the heavy lifting to close deals. Many companies only have text case studies, and a customer telling their story on camera is far more convincing.
What happens if you wait on B2B video content?
The window closes. AI search is early, so video answers made now are cheaper to rank and can become part of the training data for future AI models. Companies that wait become increasingly invisible as the space fills up.
Full Transcript
Let's play content bingo. But first, why should you care? Let's get into it, shall we?
Search has changed, and it's caused a big problem. The way that things used to work was people would Google, and you get a bunch of blue links, and they come across your website, they click on it, they educate themselves, they read some blog articles, and eventually maybe they download a form or a guide or something, and then you get their email address and your sales team can follow up with a lead, or you go into nurture mode.
So that's still happening, but there's another thing that's happening now, AI search. And so this works a little bit different. Now, as you probably know, AI will summarize a lot of results, answering the buyer questions that they're searching, they're asking. And when you see the results, you may not be cited there or showing up in the results. So they're sort of eating your lunch, and you're not a part of the conversation, you're not part of that buyer journey.
So what that means is they're going to go around and they're searching all over the place on Reddit, on LinkedIn, on YouTube, and they're watching videos, and they're getting educated about these issues and evaluating whether your solution is going to be a good fit for them. And they're forming these opinions in short lists before you even know that these people exist. So it's definitely a problem if you're not going to be part of that buyer journey, you're getting eliminated right at the beginning.
So this hidden buyer journey, they're also, they're searching wider, but they're also starting earlier. So you want to be part of the conversation and like, hey, if I could just show them what we do or our product, well, good luck, because they're going 80% of the way through their buyer journey before they're willing to take a sales call or something like 80%. So if that is, if you're not the person that's teaching them about this issue, you're not getting the visibility, you're not getting the trust, building a relationship, staying top of mind, you're just, you don't have a seat at the table.
So the game now can't just be to get them to your website. It's sort of like flipped inside out instead of like trying to get everybody to you, which is still a good idea if you can pull it off. But you also have to be present where they're searching. So if they're on YouTube and you're not, someone else is educating them. If you are answering the questions that they're asking and you're helping them get from an awareness stage to the next stage, answering questions and questions along their journey, then you're building that trust and before they're willing to talk to you. So that's the big idea here.
Why video? So let's talk a little bit about the ecosystem. So people search for things and like 90% of searches Google, right? So they also own YouTube and they make a lot of money from revenue of ads when people watch YouTube videos. So they have a financial incentive and the ability to surface YouTube content in AI search results. And so they, you know, because they're making what, $40 billion last year, I think, on this, that's a pretty strong incentive to put those into search results.
And people like video too. So, you know, I look at videos, I think you probably do too, to get educated about this versus that, how much does this cost? Is it going to fit for me? Have you helped people like me before, like video case studies? All these things are very helpful, but it's the AI overview search thing, which I think makes video now more a need-to-have than a nice-to-have than ever.
And so this is a test that I ran recently, where I created video content answering my buyer questions. So you can see there, it's probably a little small for you, but it says in the search, does video help B2B companies show up in AI overviews? And I answer that very directly. And so there I am right in the top results. Actually, all four of those videos you see there are my content, because I've been talking about this for a little while now.
So answering specific buyer questions in their language directly and specifically gives, if you're the best answer, then why wouldn't AI show that to you? Like, this is the best answer for your question, and there's a video about it, which is inherently more valuable than just text, which can be scraped and summarized as we talked about.
So what do we need to do to help a buyer buy from us? They need to know who we are, they need to know what we do, and they gotta believe that we can help them with their problem. And so how are we going to show up in these places?
A lot of companies I see out there are suffering from content malnutrition. They have plenty of text content, blog articles, email newsletters, things like that. And in the age of AI, like it's getting summarized in the search, but it's also like, is this AI written content? Is this ghost written content? There's like a trust thing that's happened. It's not quite as trustworthy as it used to be. So a stronger mix would be, obviously a mix of video and some other formats. So just call attention to that situation.
I like to talk about the idea of surface area, because you're trying to cover as many of these areas where people are searching as possible, and that's why we're getting into the bingo idea here.
So the buyer stages, the buying journey is typically called like tofu, mofu, bofu, which is top of funnel, middle funnel, and bottom of funnel. And so in the beginning, you're naming the problem and the kind of content you might see here would be like shorts or myth clips about like what's changed or biggest misconceptions, trend clips, if you hopped on something and you got a little viral, that would be good for visibility.
But that doesn't really help in the middle of funnel, right? You need to help them to that next stage of really explaining the solution. And podcasts are great because build a relationship with you and you can kind of, they can see how you think and why they like you. And you know, explainer videos are great too. They're a little harder to do, but give you a little bit more of a deeper dive than the top of funnel stuff and webinars are great. Like if you're really interested in the topic, you'll sit and watch our webinar, no problem.
What about bottom of funnel? This is where you're really just proving that you're the right choice for them. So comparison costs videos, how much do things cost? Case studies, have you helped people like them before? Demos of how you actually do something? All these do a lot of work at the end to help close those deals. And with people, you know, there's not so many people in these stage to buy all the time. So it's sort of like even more valuable.
So let's play content bingo. Basically those three stages, Tofu Mofu Bofu, what does your content mix look like? A lot of companies, I work with kind of start out somewhere like this, you know, they've got a podcast, maybe they've done some shorts, probably done some webinars, but they might be lacking in the bottom of funnel video case studies. I see a lot of companies that have text case studies, those are a lot easier to do, but there's really nothing quite like a customer story saying how great a job you did, helping them with their problem. So that's a big gap for a lot of companies and a big opportunity, I'd say.
But let's say you do have some video case studies, but maybe you're lacking in some shorts. So you're not even showing up, you know, in the consideration set because they're not even aware that you exist. It's not obviously not a good situation. But if you're doing podcasts, you know, you could be repurposing that as shorts, which, you know, for my video content, the shorts are like 95% of all my views. So I get a lot of awareness that way.
Maybe a software company might have something like this where they've done some webinars and they got some product demos, but you know, that's just about it. And so they might have a better opportunity to get some top of funnel awareness because a lot of software is new. And so people might not even know it exists.
So what squares would you want to cover first? You know, what's your priority? I would look at like, what is the big business problem that you're having? Like, do people not know you exist? Or are you having trouble closing? Is like your middle of funnel the place where people get stuck? So just prioritizing those, covering those areas where buyers are kind of getting lost in the process and the buying journey. And that would probably be a great place to start. And I like to say like the next video to make is probably the one that they're already searching for. They're asking questions right now. And you could, because we're early, you could probably own some of those, right? You could be the video answer that shows up like mine did.
So what are some possible plans? Maybe you could do one video for each of those stages of the buyer journey. Maybe like you hear a lot of the same questions. And so there's kind of like maybe a couple that come up all the time. You could just start there and help create those rocks across the stream. Like the awareness, middle and bottom of funnel one each.
You could also maybe have a little more surface area and a little more data. You could do like the top 10 questions you get asked all the time. This is the strategy I'm advocating for for most companies, because you probably know what the questions are. And if you haven't made a video answer, the opportunity is right there for the taking right now, because we're early.
Another one might be there's an elephant in the room. Working with a client that has a LinkedIn automation tool. And she says, there's like one big thing that always comes up is people don't know if they can trust it because they don't want to get banned by LinkedIn because you're not supposed to use automation tools. So that is like the ideal video for her to basically address that issue and put that thing to sleep forever.
So there's also a cost of inaction. Because we're early and this is new, the window will close I think at some point and it's gonna be harder to kind of get a seat at that table later with video content answering via questions. So it's cheaper now and you can also have the advantage of being part of the training data for the next LLMs. So if you don't do that, then you're probably gonna be increasingly invisible as that starts to fill up. And it's just gonna be harder to earn visibility and trust because video really is the fastest way to do that other than being in person. Because people can get to know you, build the relationship, seeing as believing like all those things that video can do for you.
So the offer I have for you now is I'm doing a YouTube page audit and we'll do content bingo on your page if you have one. And if not, we could still look at it. The idea is that by identifying the holes, I can help you prioritize what might be like a couple low-hanging fruit options to help get you a little more business. So it's easy free and I'm not gonna bug you. So just reach out if you wanna take advantage of this offer.
Okay, good luck out there.
Most teams don't get this right on the first try. Here's how we approached it for a real team. Curious what it'd look like for you? Let's talk it through.