Sparkul

Insights

Research, data, and thinking on how buyers search now.

Original research from Sparkul on what works, what doesn’t, and what’s coming next in the way businesses get found, capture demand, and turn it into revenue they can count.

Featured·Analysis

How AI picks products.

An assistant asked to recommend a product doesn’t run a search and read the results. It assembles an answer from feeds, forums, roundups and its own priors — and most brands have no idea what it’s reading about them.

Grant McClellandFounder, Sparkul AI Agency11 min read
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Explainer

AEO, GEO, SEO: what the terms actually mean

Three acronyms, one confused market. Here’s where each term came from, what each one actually describes, where they genuinely overlap, and the places the distinction stops being semantic and starts costing money.

Grant McClelland · August 4, 2026 · 10 min read

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Method

How to measure AI visibility (and why most dashboards lie).

A single “AI visibility score” is not a measurement. It’s a number produced by an undisclosed prompt set, run an undisclosed number of times, against engines that answer differently every time you ask. Here’s what a defensible methodology actually looks like.

Grant McClelland · August 4, 2026 · 10 min read

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Explainer

How answer engines decide who to name.

When ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity names three companies and not yours, something specific happened inside the machine. Here is what that process actually looks like — and what it means for the businesses trying to get named.

Grant McClelland · July 28, 2026 · 11 min read

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Analysis

The referral moved to the assistant.

High-trust buyers used to start by asking someone they knew. Increasingly they start by asking a machine — and the machine has already built a shortlist before your phone rings.

Grant McClelland · July 21, 2026 · 11 min read

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Thesis

The local marketing playbook is broken.

Local marketing has three jobs: be findable, capture demand, close customers. In 2026, every one of them works differently than it did in 2020 — and most agencies haven't noticed.

Grant McClelland · May 12, 2026 · 9 min read

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