What Happened When We Showed Up to BrightonSEO (And Our Competitors Didn't)

We were incredibly proud to be the opening talk of BrightonSEO 202 in San Diego.

Our CEO, Tom delivered a fascinating talk in front of over 500 marketers and agency owners. 

And not a single one of our competitors showed up!

Our biggest competitor, Profound, attended last year. They didn't come back. The rest of the GEO platforms? Nowhere to be found.

You might be wondering why?

Brighton SEO draws 3,000 attendees, but the majority are marketing agencies. Almost zero enterprise companies make the trip. Our competitors focus exclusively on enterprise clients and internal SEO teams at large organizations.

For Visto? This event was exactly where we needed to be.

We're built for agencies. We work with agencies. BrightonSEO is where agencies come to learn and find solutions for their clients.

And we had great fun meeting so many and also meeting our current customers. 

Opening the Conference with Education, Not Pitches

Our CEO Tom opened the entire conference as the first speaker across all three tracks.

500 people in the audience. Marketing professionals who've heard every pitch and seen every tactic promised to them over the years.

The week leading up to Brighton, our team spent hours developing a presentation that would add genuine value instead of recycling product screenshots and surface-level tactics.

We knew every speaker would talk about AI. By the end of day one, attendees were already saying it: "Everyone's covering the same ground."

So we took a different approach.

Tom's opening line set the tone: "There are going to be a lot of people on LinkedIn talking about all these hacks you can do to trick LLMs. My goal today is to arm you with the information so you can decide for yourself whether something is promising and could potentially work, or whether it's nonsense."

The presentation focused on how large language models work. The fundamentals. The science. Not quick wins or tricks.

Why? 

Because when marketing professionals understand how AI systems process information, they can evaluate any recommendation themselves. They don't need to trust random claims about cracking the code.

We addressed the messy debates happening right now. Is SEO dead? Is GEO just SEO with a new name? Does traditional SEO automatically cover AI search optimization?

Most speakers avoid these questions. Too controversial.

We tackled them directly. Showed the overlap and the differences. Gave people frameworks to think through these challenges.

The response? 250 people downloaded our free agency guide on how to start selling GEO. Half the audience.

That guide became our most valuable asset at BrightonSEO. Agencies want to pursue AI search opportunities. Their clients are asking questions about ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. But most don't know where to start.

We gave them a roadmap. No strings attached.

The Best Moments Happened Away from the Booth

We had booth 62. Solid location. Strong foot traffic. Plenty of new agency signups.

But the most valuable moments happened outside the booth.

One evening at a bar, our team was talking with one of our agency customers. Two other agencies approached after seeing the Visto shirts.

"Tell us what you do."

Before our team could respond, our client jumped in. "You need to be using this. They're the Goldilocks solution. Perfect combination of reporting and actionability."

He explained Visto better than any pitch deck could. Within an hour, those agencies went back to their hotel and booked meetings with us.

This happened repeatedly throughout the event. 

Our customers hung around our booth. When prospects stopped by, they'd start conversations naturally. Share their experiences. Explain why Visto works for their agency operations.

We didn't need to pitch. Our customers handled it.

When your users are advocating for your product at an industry conference, you've built something that solves real problems.

Why Our Competitors Didn't Show Up

BrightonSEO attracts agencies. Our competitors target enterprise companies.

That's the fundamental difference in strategy.

Enterprise-focused platforms build for internal SEO teams at Fortune 500 companies. They optimize for complexity and feature sets that appeal to large organizations with dedicated teams.

Visto builds for agencies serving multiple clients. We optimize for efficiency, white-label capabilities, and multi-client management. Different problems require different solutions.

Our competitors claim on their websites that they want agencies on their platforms. 

They mention it in sales conversations. But they don't invest where agencies gather. They don't build resources specifically for agency workflows. They don't show up at BrightonSEO.

We do.

Because agencies are our focus. Not a secondary market. Not an afterthought. The core of everything we build.

Brighton SEO proved this focus matters. While competitors stayed home, we connected with 70+ agencies who are now using Visto to serve over 200 companies.

Real Use Cases from Real Agencies

Our agency partners use Visto across every vertical imaginable.

One agency manages GEO for 200 community colleges. Another works with an $80 billion market cap company that approached us directly, asking if their agency could use our platform.

The applications span saltwater fish businesses, telecommunications infrastructure, education, and everything between.

Agencies need GEO solutions because their clients are experiencing real pain. 

Organic traffic declining 15-30% due to AI search. Questions about visibility in ChatGPT and Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. No tools to measure or improve AI search performance.

Most agencies run nine different SEO tools and still can't answer basic questions about AI search.

That's the gap Visto fills.

BrightonSEO confirmed we're positioned correctly. Agencies need what we've built. And they're willing to invest in solutions that help them serve clients better.

What's Next for Visto

The UK event happens in November. Bigger venue. More attendees. Main stage presentation.

We’ve been invited to speak at that. 

We'll bring the same approach. Education over selling. Fundamentals over tactics. Value before asking.

We'll keep showing up where our customers are. Because that's how you build a category-defining company in an emerging space.

GEO isn't rebranded SEO. It's not hype. And it's not disappearing.

But it requires real work. Genuine optimization. Understanding how AI systems process, evaluate, and cite information.

Want to see the agency guide that 250 people downloaded at Brighton SEO? 

Book a call with our team. We'll show you how agencies are selling GEO to their clients and adding 5-figure monthly retainers to their service offerings.

Because when you show up, add value, and solve real problems, growth follows naturally.

That's what BrightonSEO taught us.

‍