AI Citation vs. AI Recommendation – Cited Is Not Chosen and Why AI Mentions Don’t Win You Customers (James Dooley Interviews Kasra Dash)

James Dooley: AI citations versus AI recommendations. Cited is not chosen. And why all AI mentions don't win you customers. Today I'm joined with Kasra Dash and we're going to be talking about being cited in AI versus being recommended in AI and trying to get our viewers to understand there's a big core fundamental difference. So, what is the main difference between AI citations and AI recommendations?

Kasra Dash: Yeah, so AI citations, um, I mean we found it before where brands are being cited loads. However, the AI citation or the context around the AI is actually saying that this company's a scam or this company... Or tons of people have had a negative experience with this company. So, I think that's probably the, the, the biggest difference. And not only that as well as it might not be as, um, as drastic as, as, as a scam company, right? Because that's like maybe, I don't know, one in 10 companies might have that issue. But what you need to also think of it is, let's say you run maybe Facebook ads, some, some other form of marketing, and somebody gets a quote back for, let's say, an SEO agency, your SEO agency and a competitor's SEO agency. What a lot of brands and business owners are now doing is instead of looking at the actual, um, two quotes, they'll run it through ChatGPT and ChatGPT or Claude will come up with the actual answer of, yeah, you should go with James's agency or Kasra's SEO agency. Um, now if you are only being cited loads of times and it's very much a negative experience, maybe you've got a couple negative reviews, etc., AI will always pick your competitors, especially if they do have positive sentiment online as well.

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. I mean, for, for me, honestly, I think the whole industry that are chasing AI citations are retards. And I know it's hard saying that, but like, how? Why? That's literally like, if you're chasing AI citations, it's like just saying I'm chasing reviews. I'm not bothered if they're one-star or five-star. I'm just chasing volume of reviews. No. No, you don't do that. You want to... You want to try and get as many five-star reviews as possible. You don't want to try and get as many one-star reviews as possible and I just chase volume of reviews. You want to try and make certain that they are a positive sentiment and positive reviews. You don't want one-star reviews. You want lots and lots of five-star reviews. But these people that are chasing citations, and then you start looking at it and you're clicking onto the results that people... They're using these AI visibility tools, whether it's Profound or Peec AI or RadarKit, um, could be Semrush one, it could be Ahrefs Brand Radar. Doesn't really matter what AI visibility tool they're doing. They're chasing the volume of citations. And then when they're going searching it, it's going, "Yeah, you mentioned saying you could use them, but it's better to use these." Like, what? What? Why are you happy about having that citation? Why not try and change the sentiment value instead of it just being, "Yeah, you can use James Dooley, but you might want to use Kasra Dash because he's better." I just went, "No, I'm going to try and change that round." Then it says, "You can use Kasra Dash, but you might want to use James Dooley because he's better." And that's where you've got to then start building the sentiment analysis, what AI is saying about you, and trying to make certain it's being said in a positive manner and you're getting the recommendations. You're getting the one where it's not just being cited, you're basically being the one. You're being the choice. Like, you are literally being the one. You could use these, these, these or these. However, if I was you, I'd use these. You want that direction. If I was you, I'd use this company, not one of these over here that you could use, but these are better. You want the ones... You want to be the one that says this is the one that's the best option. And having that recommendation is key versus chasing citations. Why do you think it is people in the AEO or the GEO or the LLM community? Do you think it's just because it's new and people are not realising that just volume of citations isn't a great business decision to do?

Kasra Dash: I've... I think, I think, like, we've obviously got years of experience in, in digital marketing as a, as an industry, right? But even if you were to look at certain Facebook ad agencies, they'll only take a look at, like, clicks and cost per... Cost per lead, not cost per acquisition. If you look at certain SEO agencies, they'll also take a look at, like, impressions and maybe clicks, right? Um, whereas, like, if you're doing marketing to the, to, like, a really good standard, you do also care about, like, okay, yes, I'm getting recommended or yes, I'm getting clicks, but where are those clicks coming from? And is it a positive click or is it a negative click? Like, is it because I've got 52 negative one-star reviews on my Trustpilot and people are seeing that and then they're going through to my website? You need to also understand the how and the why as well. Um, I also think that so many people underestimate AI marketing as a whole because if you go and run... And I highly recommend anyone that runs Facebook ads for their business, go and do this. Switch off Facebook ads for two weeks and you'll see how many less people you get searching for your brand term, which brand terms now get AI Overviews citing it, and also for your brand plus reviews. So FatRank reviews. Um, like it's... It... AI is basically compacting everything that's been said online about you into a little bit of a paragraph. And if it's a negative sentiment, that's going to mess up your PPC, your Facebook ads, any form of digital marketing. I don't even care about SEO right now. Any form of marketing. You're literally potentially looking at, let's say, £25 cost per acquisition on Facebook ads in comparison to £65 because AI is dictating what's being said about you.

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. I mean, the amount of people that's running PPC and then they start to realise that if they improve their, not the AI visibility, but the sentiment analysis about what AI says about them, it makes the PPC cheaper. It makes the Meta ads cheaper because if they are going to open up a new tab and saying, "Is this a good company to work for?" or, "Is this a good product?" They're going quickly seeing the AI Overview going, "Yeah, okay, I'm going to buy it." "Oh, no, no, it's not good. Okay, I'm not going to buy it." And it's literally... Everything of what's been done is holistic marketing should be stemmed from building that online reputation management and having that AI résumé in a positive sentiment. Stop chasing AI citations. Start building up that AI sentiment to make certain that it always says stuff in a positive manner. If people want to know how to improve their sentiment analysis, make sure you check out the link in the description where we go through the DEO Proof Stack, which talks about shouting and screaming about any awards you might have, testimonials, reviews, any case studies of what you've done, what accreditations that you have, and building that confidence and clarity with a single source of truth that's needed on your website. Again, don't chase AI citations. Start making certain that AI is recommending you as being the choice, not a choice. Kasra, it's been an absolute pleasure.