Profound has been making a lot of headlines lately, stirring up a storm in the B2B space.
Just today, the GEO (generative engine optimisation) platform announced a new partnership with AR agency Spotlight. Last month, news broke that it had raised $20 million in Series A funding.
The progression of AI search has been a whirlwind. As the realisation dawns that digital marketing has been thrust into totally new waters, Profound has arrived at the perfect time, offering something of a map.
Its beacon-like emergence has also meant a brisk start for the company, which only publicly launched last August.
“It’s been a busy couple of days, weeks, months,” says Ben Grosse, Head of Partnerships and Growth at Profound. “It’s one of those situations where it’s just really good market timing.”
After learning about the platform at Awin ThinkTank earlier this year, I was keen to talk to the team about the impact of AI search on affiliate marketing, and what they can perceive from their vantage point.
Some industry voices, like Partnerize CEO Matt Gilbert, have highlighted AI search as the biggest opportunity facing affiliate marketing right now. Others have decried a severe drop in click-through rates and lack of engagement.
How the AI platforms will integrate and compensate the affiliate ecosystem seems to be the biggest question.
I was delighted to sit down with Grosse for a fascinating and insightful discussion on all things AI search and affiliate.
He shared data on the best platforms for affiliates, top strategies for GEO, and his thoughts on how the AI platforms might navigate this, and what the affiliate industry ought to do to weather these changes.
You can read our Q&A in full below:
Sol Wilkinson: I first learned about GEO at Awin ThinkTank in May. Lily Ray gave a keynote speech in which she talked about how, for affiliate marketing, the opportunities in SEO were souring, but in GEO, they were actually blossoming.
She said that LLMs cite affiliate companies and product review pages frequently, and specifically noted your platform, Profound, as a useful tool for affiliate marketers.
To begin, could you please explain what it is that Profound does?
Ben Grosse: Yeah, of course. Profound is a platform that's trying to build the operating system for marketers in the age of super intelligence.
We help brands, agencies, and publishers understand and improve their presence and performance within AI answers.
We accomplish that by interrogating the front end of AI systems at a mass scale, sending millions of queries across platforms – like ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Perplexity – every single day, and then we're analysing answers and citations to understand how brands and products are being mentioned.
We also look at the sources of information. Is it coming from product pages? Is it coming from affiliate channels or product review pages? Is it coming from social media websites, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
We provide all of these stakeholders with an understanding of when and where they are showing up in answers and how they are influencing the narrative. That’s really the core of what we do.
