What is an AI visibility audit?

It measures whether AI assistants name your business when a customer asks them who to hire. We ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews thirty buying questions for your category and city, three times each, then report how often you are named, how that compares with up to five competitors, and which sources the engines cite.

How much does the AI Visibility Audit cost?

$500 for a one-time audit when you book by December 31, 2026, and $1,000 after that. Quarterly re-checks take 15% off the audit ($425, then $300 every three months). Monthly re-checks take 25% off ($375, then $150 a month).

How long does it take?

The first audit is back within two business days, reviewed by the Surf Rider Media team, with a 30 minute call to go through it. Every re-check is reviewed too.

Which AI engines does it check?

ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews. Perplexity is being added to every audit. Each report states the number of answers each engine returned.

How is this different from an SEO audit?

An SEO audit looks at where your pages rank in Google's results. This audit reads the AI answers themselves: whether you are named, how often compared with your competitors, and which sites the engines rely on in your category. It also checks whether AI crawlers can read your site at all, since two lines in robots.txt can shut them out.

Why doesn't ChatGPT recommend my business?

Common causes: AI crawlers are blocked from your site, few of the sources the engines trust mention you, or your site never says plainly what you do and where. The audit shows which ones apply to you. Our guide on how to get ChatGPT to recommend your business covers the fixes.

What is the difference between the free check and the audit?

The free AI Readiness Check reads your site and scores whether AI engines can find and understand it. The audit asks the engines your customers' questions and shows who they actually name, you or a competitor.

Can you guarantee ChatGPT will recommend me?

No, and be wary of anyone who does. The engines change their answers from one run to the next. The audit gives you a measured baseline, the sources worth earning a mention from, and fixes reviewed by our team, so you can see whether your work moves the number.

What Is Bespoke Digital Strategy? What a Digital Strategy Consultant Actually Does.

Oct 22

Written by Stew Hang

A bespoke digital strategy is a marketing plan built from your own numbers and your own buyers, not picked off a package menu. Digital strategy itself is the plan behind your online marketing: which channels you use, what each one is for, how much each one gets, and how you will know it worked. This guide covers what a custom plan includes, what a digital strategy consultant actually does, and how to tell whether you need one.

The short answer

Digital strategy decides which channels you use, what each is for, what it gets, and how you measure it.
Bespoke means those choices come from a review of your accounts, your site and where your buyers look, not from a package.
A good consultant fixes tracking and blockers before spending more, then runs, tests and reports against revenue.

What digital strategy is, and what bespoke adds

Digital strategy is the plan that connects your business goals to the places people find you online: search results, ads, maps, AI answers and your own website. It answers four questions. Who are we trying to reach? Where do they look before they buy? What should each channel do? How will we know it is working?

Many businesses have marketing activity without a strategy: some Google Ads, some SEO, some social, each reporting its own scoreboard. Nobody looks across all of it and asks which dollars produced customers.

Bespoke adds one thing: the plan starts from your facts. Your conversion data, your search terms, your site, the questions your buyers ask and the competitors who appear when they ask. A bespoke plan is written after someone has looked at all of that, so the channels, the budget split and the reports fit your business instead of a template.

Bespoke vs. packaged digital strategy services

Plenty of agencies sell packages: a set number of blog posts, a fixed ad budget tier, a monthly report with the same charts for every client. The catch is that the package was designed before anyone looked at your account.

	Packaged service	Bespoke strategy
Channels	Whatever the package includes	Chosen by where your buyers actually look
Budget	Fixed by tier	Split by measured return, and moved when the numbers move
First weeks	Deliverables start on day one	An audit, then fixes to tracking and blockers
Reporting	Clicks, impressions and rankings	Leads, sales and what each channel cost to produce them
When the plan changes	At renewal	Whenever the data says it should

In our experience the biggest difference is the first few weeks. A custom digital marketing strategy often starts with work nobody sees, like fixing conversion tracking, because every later decision depends on those numbers.

What a digital strategy consultant actually does

A digital strategy consultant decides what to do, in what order, and then proves whether it worked. Titles vary, but good digital strategy consulting follows the same sequence. Ours is the four steps on our Bespoke Digital Strategy page, where Google Ads, SEO and AI answer visibility are planned together and measured against revenue.

Audit where you standSearch results, ad accounts, analytics and AI answers, so the plan starts from facts.
Fix what blocks youTracking, site issues and ad account structure first. Spend does little until these are right.
Run and testRun campaigns and content, test what works, and shift budget toward it.
Report in plain EnglishEvery month: what changed, what it cost and what it earned.

The audit covers every place one customer might find you. One Google search can show an ad, an AI Overview and the regular results, and the same buyer may ask ChatGPT instead. So the review takes in the ad account, Search Console, analytics and AI answers in your category. Our Google Ads audit checklist shows what the ad account part checks, in order.

The fixes come before new spend. In Google Ads you choose what counts as a conversion, and Smart Bidding optimizes toward those conversions. If the account counts the wrong things, more budget buys more of the wrong thing. The same goes for a site search engines cannot read: Google says a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet before it can appear as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode. If your site is missing from search entirely, start with why your website is not showing up on Google.

Running and testing is where the bespoke part keeps paying off. The first plan is a starting bet. Each month the numbers show which searches, pages and campaigns produce customers, and budget moves toward them. A plan that never changes after month one is a package with a custom cover.

The questions a custom plan answers

You do not need a named digital strategy framework to judge a plan. You need answers to these, for your business specifically.

Who buys, and what do they search or ask first? Real phrases from your search terms and sales calls.
Which channel reaches them at that moment? Search ads for people ready to buy now, SEO and AI visibility for people still researching, your Google Business Profile for people nearby.
What counts as a result? A form, a call, a booking or a sale, defined before any money is spent.
What gets fixed first? Usually tracking, then the site, then the account structure.
What would change the plan? Write the trigger down in advance, so a bad month leads to a decision instead of a debate.

Signs you need one, and signs you do not

You probably need a bespoke plan if:

You spend on more than one channel and cannot say which one produces customers.
Your reports show clicks and rankings but not leads or revenue.
Competitors show up in Google and in AI answers for searches you should own.

You may not need one yet if

One channel works and you can see it in the numbers. A single-service business that gets its leads from Google Ads may only need a well-run Ads account.
There is no budget to act on a plan. A strategy nobody can fund is just a document.
You want someone to own all of marketing and direct your other vendors. That is a bigger role, closer to a fractional CMO.

How engagements are structured

We do not sell digital strategy services off a price list, because the scope depends on what the review finds. Here is how an engagement starts with us:

You send a request. A short note about your business, your site and what you want fixed.
We take a look. We review what you sent and reply by email.
We book a call if it looks like a fit.
We scope the work after a review of your accounts and your site. The scope sets the channels, the first fixes and what the monthly report measures.

We can run the work ourselves or coach your team to run more of it. Whoever you talk to, ask three questions before you sign: who does the work day to day, what the first month produces, and what the report will measure. A good answer to the last one names leads or revenue, not impressions.

Where to start this week

Today: write down where last month's customers came from. If you cannot, tracking is your first fix.
This week: check what your Google Ads account counts as a conversion. The audit checklist shows where to look.
This week: search for your main service on Google, then ask ChatGPT the same question. Note who appears in the ads, the AI answer and the results. Our guide to visibility in AI search engines explains what you are seeing.
This month: pick the channel where your numbers are clearest and decide what result would earn it more budget.

Bespoke digital strategy

Want a plan built from your own numbers?

Tell us what you are working on. We review every request, and the ones that are a fit get a link to book a call.

Tell us what you are working on

Prefer answers without a conversation? The AI Visibility Audit is $500 when booked by December 31 (regularly $1,000; checked October 16, 2026) and shows who ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews name for your buyers' questions.

Common questions

What is bespoke digital strategy?

Bespoke digital strategy is a marketing plan built for one business after someone has looked at its numbers: the ad account, the analytics, the website, and what buyers see when they search or ask an AI tool. The channels, the budget split and the reports come from that review rather than from a package designed in advance.

What does a digital strategy consultant do?

A digital strategy consultant audits where you stand, fixes what blocks results (usually tracking, site issues and ad account structure), then runs and tests campaigns and content and moves budget toward what works. Every month they report what changed, what it cost and what it earned. Some consultants only advise; others, like us, also do the work or coach your team to do it.

What does a digital strategist do?

A digital strategist decides which online channels a business should use, what each one is for and how success will be measured, then reads the results and adjusts. The title is common on in-house teams. A digital strategy consultant does the same job from outside the business, usually across several clients.

Do I need both Google Ads and SEO?

Not always. Ads bring paid traffic quickly. SEO and AI visibility build over time. A business with a short sales cycle and one service may do well on Ads alone, while a business that buyers research for weeks usually needs both. The right mix depends on your budget and your sales cycle.

How long does a digital strategy take to show results?

Tracking fixes show up in your own data as soon as they are live. Search takes longer: Google says some changes take effect in a few hours and others take several months, and suggests waiting a few weeks before judging whether a change helped. Be wary of anyone who promises a ranking.

Sources

Google Ads Help, About conversion tracking
Google Search Central, AI features and your website
Google Search Central, SEO Starter Guide

Stew Hang