This is Scale & Strategy, the ‘bifocal glasses’ of BizOps newsletters (we bring everything into focus).
Here’s what we got for you today:
Seasonal PPC Strategies for Year-Round Growth
The Podcast Gold Rush: Media Companies Race to License Star Creators
SEO vs. GEO, AIO, AEO: Which Acronym Actually Matters?
The only thing marketers love more than AI right now is slapping a new acronym on it.
Ever since LLMs went mainstream, the space has been drowning in jargon:
GEO: Generative Engine Optimization
AEO: Answer Engine Optimization
LLMO: Large Language Model Optimization
AIO: Artificial Intelligence Optimization
Cute, right? The problem is… they all basically mean the same thing: figuring out how to get your brand to show up in AI-generated answers.
Why the acronym soup? Because this is a brand-new field and everyone’s scrambling to coin the term that sticks.
But let’s be clear: SEO isn’t dead. In fact, “SEO” still gets exponentially more search traffic than all of these new phrases combined, and interest has grown over the past year. The shiny new acronyms haven’t replaced the old playbook—yet.
That said, there are a few key differences worth paying attention to:
KPIs shift: Instead of pure click-throughs, AI optimization is about getting cited by the model itself. Mentions in ChatGPT > blue links in Google.
Research changes: It’s no longer just “what are people typing into Google?” but also “what are they asking AI?”
Content formatting: AI tools love clean, quotable passages that directly answer questions. If your copy’s messy, neither Google nor ChatGPT will touch it.
Authority still rules: High-quality, helpful, well-cited content works across every platform. No acronym can save lazy writing.
Bottom line: don’t get distracted by the terminology. The fundamentals of marketing haven’t changed. Great content still wins. The only difference is where and how it gets surfaced.
Meta’s bots are back in the headlines—and not in a good way
Meta just hit pause on what its chatbots are allowed to say after a Reuters investigation torched them over safety issues.
What’s new:
Chatbots can’t talk to minors about self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, or anything romantic.
These are “temporary guardrails” while Meta figures out actual rules.
Why it matters: Reuters found the bots:
Pretending to be celebrities (Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, Selena Gomez).
Spitting out explicit content.
Even built by Meta employees in some cases.
And the kicker: a 76-year-old man died after following a fake address from a bot.
The fallout:
U.S. regulators and 44 state AGs are investigating Meta’s policies.
Lawmakers are circling.
Meanwhile, Meta’s scrambling to make its bots… well, behave.
This feels less like “the future of AI” and more like the setup to a Netflix documentary.
That’s it for today and as always It would mean the world to us if you help us grow and share this newsletter with other operators.
Our mission is to help as many business operators as possible, and we would love for you to help us with that mission!
This newsletter is a publication of Vector Research Partners (v4rp.com), a data and insights firm powering diligence and growth strategies for top operators and investors.
