How to Win More AI Citations with Shane Tepper

B2B buyers are no longer relying solely on traditional search engines to discover software and build vendor shortlists—they are conducting deep research inside AI conversations before sales teams ever hear from them. For startup marketing leaders and PR executives, this shift creates a severe visibility crisis: if your brand isn’t structured correctly for AI crawlers, your product is completely invisible to high-intent buyers. On this episode of FiredUp!, we sit down with Shane Tepper, co-founder of Resonate Labs, to explore the cutting edge of AI visibility and Generative Engine Optimization. We discuss tracking buyer queries across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, as well as why earned media and architecture documentation drive AI recommendations. This week, episode 144 of the FiredUp! podcast is about how to win more AI citations!

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In this episode of the FiredUp! podcast, Shane Tepper shares the patterns of AI visibility across sites and actionable steps you can take right now to make your site visible and readable to AI crawlers.

Shane Tepper is a content strategist, author, and the co-founder of Resonate Labs, an advanced AI visibility platform designed to help B2B brands monitor, measure, and improve their presence across major AI search engines. Shane has spent over a year developing measurement methodologies and analyzing buyer query behavior across hundreds of enterprise software brands. He specializes in helping technology companies identify technical crawler blockers, optimize content for AI legibility, and turn earned media mentions into authoritative AI citations.

Shane and Morgan discuss:

Fix Technical Crawler Blockers First: Many modern websites render content via client-side JavaScript, which crawlers for ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity cannot execute. Ensuring your pages are statically readable by AI bots is the baseline requirement for driving citations.
Earned Media Drives AI Citations: AI visibility differs fundamentally from traditional SEO backlinks. Web-wide brand mentions predict AI presence three times better than links, with approximately 84% of AI citations originating from earned PR media.
Differentiate Being Mentioned vs. Recommended: Showing up in an AI answer is not enough; winning requires being specifically recommended. Brands that publish detailed technical architecture documentation and specific operational metrics consistently beat competitors relying on generic marketing language.
Structure Pages as “Atomic Content”: Avoid thin, programmatic single-prompt pages. Instead, publish comprehensive, long-form pages structured into self-contained “atomic” sections that AI engines can easily ingest, quote, and verify.
Publish Specificity to Defend Your Brand: When brands hide crucial details like pricing bands, SOC2 dates, or implementation timelines, AI models frequently pull estimated numbers from third-party sites. Publishing exact numbers plays both offense and defense in AI responses.

Measuring your marketing success solely through traditional organic web traffic means ignoring the primary channel where modern buyers form their vendor shortlists. By optimizing your digital footprint for AI legibility and third-party verification, you ensure your brand is recommended at every stage of the buyer journey.

Thank you for listening! Tune in to all the episodes for practical tips on crushing your startup marketing goals. Don’t forget to follow, rate, and review the podcast, and tell us your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH SHANE TEPPER:

Email: shane@resonatelabs.co

Resonate Labs