80/20 Digital Founder, Colm MacGowan, recently presented a keynote at the Mortgage & Finance Association of Australia (MFAA) Conference, exploring how AI is changing lead generation for mortgage brokers. In this article, he shares the biggest insights from the keynote and panel discussion, and explains why trust, brand and operational excellence have become the foundations of being recommended by AI.
AI SEO is not a completely new disciplne. It is the next evolution of SEO, built on technical clarity, useful content, authority, reviews, citations and brand trust. AI platforms like Chat GPT, Claude and Gemini need clear, consistent proof of who you help, what you do best, when you operate and why you can be trusted.
A New Era of Advertising: OpenAI’s launch of the ChatGPT Ads Manager introduces a highly anticipated conversational ad channel, moving beyond traditional search, social, and professional networks. Familiar Campaign Architecture: The platform’s backend structure perfectly mirrors legacy networks with a standard hierarchy of Campaigns, Ad Groups, and Ad Creatives, making it easy for veteran media buyers to navigate.
AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude and Google Gemini are fundamentally changing how customers discover and evaluate businesses online. Search is shifting from keyword matching to trust evaluation, authority recognition and recommendation-based discovery. More than 60% of searches now result in no click, as users increasingly get answers directly inside AI-generated search experiences.
AI platforms like Claude, ChatGPT and Google Gemini are rapidly becoming the first step in the customer journey. Buyers are no longer searching using simple keywords. They are having detailed conversations with AI to qualify providers before visiting websites. More than 60% of searches now result in no click, as users increasingly get answers directly from AI-driven search experiences.
Cutting advertising during a recession can slow recovery and cost you market share. Demand doesn’t disappear, people just take longer to decide and compare more. Paid ads can bring enquiries in fast, while SEO builds lower-cost leads over time.
Most businesses do not have a lead generation problem; they have a lead follow-up problem that causes potential customers to be lost after the initial enquiry. Responding to enquiries within minutes significantly increases the likelihood of converting a lead into a customer. Phone calls generally outperform email-only follow-ups because they allow businesses to qualify leads, answer questions and build trust quickly.
80/20 Digital received a Platinum Award at the 2026 AVA Digital Awards for its work with Pickney Early Learning. The campaign combined website improvements, Google Ads and local SEO to help a new childcare centre increase visibility, enquiries and enrolments. Award recognition highlights the importance of strategic digital marketing that focuses on measurable business outcomes rather than vanity metrics.
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