20x demo requests in 17 months for an enterprise ProcureTech platform
How a procurement software company became the most visible brand in its category's AI answers, and turned that visibility into pipeline.
Winning Google and AI search for enterprise procurement software
Demo requests
Demo requests grew from 1.7 a month in Q1 2025 to 33 a month in March to May 2026.
From search and AI
171 of 257 attributed demo requests named Google, web search or an AI assistant.
Most-cited domain
The client's website is the most-cited domain in its category's AI answers.
Project highlights
- Demo requests grew from 1.7 a month in Q1 2025 to 33 a month in March to May 2026.
- 171 of 257 attributed demo requests between January 2025 and May 2026 named Google, web search or an AI assistant as the place the buyer first found the company.
- By May 2026 the company scored 42.1 on AI visibility across 93 tracked buyer prompts, three times the score of its two closest specialist competitors.
The starting point
The client sells AI-powered procurement software to enterprise procurement and finance teams. The product was proven. Buyers rarely found it on their own.
In Q1 2025 the company received fewer than two demo requests a month. Its website drew around 200 organic visits a month and held two keywords in Google's top three. In the AI index we track, AI assistants had not cited its website once.
It competed for the same shortlists as large procurement suites and well-funded specialists. Those competitors had a much longer public record behind them. When a buyer asked ChatGPT or Google's AI which tools to evaluate, the answer was assembled from that record, and the client was missing from it.
| Q1 2025 baseline | |
|---|---|
| Demo requests a month | 1.7 |
| Organic visits a month | ~200 |
| Keywords in Google's top 3 | 2 |
| AI citations of the company website | 0 |
The bet
Enterprise procurement buyers build their shortlist before they talk to sales. Whoever shapes that research shapes the shortlist.
We set one goal: make the client the most useful and most quotable source on its category, for readers on Google and for the AI models that summarise the category. Every month we reported against demo requests, because rankings and citations only mattered if they produced pipeline.
What we did
Five tracks, run by one fractional team working directly with the CEO.
1. Own the evaluation queries. Hub-and-spoke content clusters, with priority on buyer guides, roundups, alternatives pages and head-to-head comparisons. These are the pages a buyer reads in the week before a demo request.
2. Write for the answer. Neutral answer blocks a model can quote, labelled evaluation criteria, comparison tables and FAQs worded the way buyers phrase their prompts.
3. Rebuild the commercial pages. Solution and industry pages rewritten around buyer problems, with customer proof and reusable visuals.
4. Build authority off the site. Editorial links, analyst recognition, press, marketplace listings and CEO thought leadership. Referring domains grew from 178 to 764.
5. Measure what AI says. 93 buyer prompts tracked across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Copilot, alongside Search Console, rank tracking and monthly demo attribution.
An AI-assisted content engine handled research and first drafts. Senior editorial judgment decided what went live.
The results
Pipeline: from one or two demo requests a month to more than 30
Demo requests rose from 1.7 a month in Q1 2025 to 33 a month in March to May 2026. Of the 257 requests with a usable "how did you hear about us" answer, 130 named Google or web search, 41 named an AI assistant and 86 came from referrals, LinkedIn, analysts and former users.
AI assistants' share of demo requests grew from 4% in the first half of 2025 to 17% in January to May 2026. Buyers named ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, Perplexity and Grok.
The quality held up. Around half of the requesters who have since reached sales-opportunity or customer stage found the company through search or AI. In early 2026, 17 of 35 demo requests came from companies with more than $1B in revenue, three of them global consulting firms.
Search: commercial queries, climbing into the top three
| Metric | Jan 2025 | May 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Estimated organic visits a month | 206 | 1,532 | 7.4x |
| Traffic value a month (paid-search equivalent) | $524 | $8,230 | 15.7x |
| Keywords in Google's top 3 | 2 | 82 | 41x |
| Keywords in Google's top 10 | 10 | 194 | 19x |
| Referring domains | 178 | 764 | 4.3x |
| Search Console impressions (from May 2025) | 140,283 | 812,736 | 5.8x |
AI answers: the most visible brand in the category
Across 93 tracked buyer prompts in May 2026, the client scored 42.1 on AI visibility. The two largest procurement suites in the tracked set scored 31.1 and 27.8, and the two closest specialist competitors scored 14.5 and 13.8.
From December 2025 to May 2026 the client's website was the most-cited domain in those AI answers, with 9.8% of all citations. The category's leading trade publication had 6.5%, and Gartner had 1.8%. In the Ahrefs AI index, citations of the company website grew from zero to 65 across 36 pages.
What made the difference
Start at the bottom of the funnel. AI assistants build their vendor shortlists from comparison and evaluation pages. Winning those pages lifted rankings and demo requests at the same time.
Being cited and being recommended are different things. The client's website topped the citation tables months before AI assistants named it consistently in their recommendations. Short, self-contained statements about who the product is for, and why, closed that gap.
Judgment over volume. We published in small waves, gave each wave time to settle, and froze pages while they recovered. With AI doing the drafting, the constraint was deciding what deserved to go live.
Method
Demo requests: the client's HubSpot demo form and its self-reported attribution field, January 2025 to May 2026. Search: Ahrefs Site Explorer and Google Search Console. AI visibility: Promptwatch, 93 buyer prompts on ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Copilot, tracked from December 2025, plus the Ahrefs AI responses index.
More ProcureTech results
About the client
An enterprise ProcureTech company selling AI-powered procurement software to procurement and finance teams at large organisations. The client is not named in this case study.
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