What Marketing Leaders Ask Google About AI Search: 229 Questions, 90 Days, Zero Clicks

What did we measure, and how?

We pulled every query Google reported for our site over 90 days (6,558 queries) and kept the ones that mention a leadership role or a leadership decision. That left 229 queries with 888 impressions. Then we sorted them by theme, by role and by Google position. No keyword tool was involved. Every number on this page comes from our own Search Console export (Indexable AI, 2026).

Three honest caveats, because the data is small and the method is simple:

• A role word in the query does not prove a CMO typed it. It proves the question is about a CMO's decision.
• 83 of the 229 are written in the first person ("as a CMO at a large company…"). In our earlier study of 2,567 question queries, most long first-person questions came from AI tools asking Google on a person's behalf, not from a person at a keyboard (Indexable AI, 2026). Read this list as the questions marketing leaders, and the AI tools they use, put to Google.
• 888 impressions is a small sample. We publish counts and shares. We do not publish growth rates from it.

The full method, the regex that picked the roles, and the per-query file are in our pull record, so you can check the work.

Who is asking?

111 questions are about a CMO or VP of Marketing. 95 are about the CFO, CEO or board (the words "budget", "business case", "defensible" and "board" put a question in this group). 23 are about a director or a senior analyst. The CFO group ranks worst for us (average position 27 against 15 for the CMO group), which tells us where our own content is thinnest.

The analyst questions are the sharpest. One of them: "I'm an insights analyst. Which AI visibility platform has the most defensible measurement methodology to put in front of a skeptical CMO?" That is the whole buying problem in one sentence. The person who has to defend the number is choosing the tool.

The 12 questions worth copying into your plan

These are real queries from the export, with impressions and our average position. Use them as a planning list: if your team cannot answer each one in two sentences, that is the content, or the report, you are missing.

1. "which enterprise seo platform has the best roi?" (53 impressions, position 1.6)
2. "what's the roi on investing in an ai visibility platform?" (49, position 3.7)
3. "how do i update my seo reporting for the cmo to include ai search?" (26, position 7.8)
4. "what kpis should a cmo use for ai search visibility?" (12, position 2.5)
5. "what's a defensible way to calculate the roi of an enterprise seo program for a board presentation including brand mentions in ai answers?" (12, position 3.0)
6. "what's the minimum budget needed for enterprise seo software?" (12, position 3.2)
7. "who can help a cmo understand the risks and opportunities of ai search?" (13, position 4.7)
8. "how should cmos interpret ai visibility metrics alongside traditional performance kpis" (5, position 2.8)
9. "can ai search analytics platforms integrate with ga4 to demonstrate roi to cfos?" (5, position 7.0)
10. "the board still grades marketing on traffic and form fills, but with so many journeys ending inside an ai chat…" (4, position 3.2)
11. "do any platforms produce a board-ready ai search visibility summary?" (2, position 3.5)
12. "how to report on ai search visibility to the board" (2, position 1.0)

Read them in order and a story appears. First the budget question, then the KPI question, then the board question. The leader is building a case, not browsing.

How to run this read on your own Search Console

You should be able to repeat this read in an afternoon with a spreadsheet and no paid tool. The point is to find the leadership questions your site already answers from page 1 and never gets a visit for, then fix those pages first. Here is how to do it, step by step:

1. Export 90 days of queries from Search Console (Performance, Search results, Queries, export). Then, keep the columns query, clicks, impressions, position.
2. Filter for role words: cmo, vp, head of marketing, cfo, ceo, board, executive, budget, business case, defensible.
3. Remove job-title noise ("job description", vendor names with "ceo" in them).
4. Tag each row with one theme: shortlist, ROI, board report, KPIs, strategy, other.
5. Count queries and impressions per theme, and per position band (1 to 3, 4 to 10, 11 to 20, 21 to 50, 51 and beyond).
6. Apply the test from the list above: can you answer each top question in two sentences? Implement the missing answers on the pages that already rank for them before you create anything new.

If you want us to run it for you on a call, schedule a strategy call and we will share the screen.

Sources and notes

• Indexable AI, Google Search Console, property sc-domain:indexableai.com, web search, July 27 to October 24, 2026. Export of 6,558 queries; 229 kept. Pull record: gsc-senior-manager-queries-2026-10-28 (internal).
• Indexable AI, question-query study of 2,567 Search Console questions, March 29 to October 4, 2026 (the human-like vs machine-like split).
• SparkToro, In 2026, less than one-third of Google searches still send a click (2026): 68% of U.S. Google searches ended without a click.

In summary: marketing leaders are asking Google what to buy, what to tell finance, and what to put on the board slide. Our pages answer those questions from page 1 and earn no visit. The next step for us, and for you, is to be named in the answer, not only used for it. Updated October 28, 2026.