How we 5×'ed leads for a bootstrapped PropTech from SEO & AI Search

Planeco Building is a bootstrapped PropTech from Hamburg. Together with Radyant they saw 5× lead growth and reached the #1 spot in their AI Search visibility competitor set in just about 10 months. An expert-led content process produced high-quality, legally-sound content at scale, while drastically reducing internal time. Conversion optimization, lead magnets and mini-tools turned visitors into highly qualified customers.

5×leads from SEO & AI Search
6-figurenew revenue unlocked
>110%citation rate in AI Search
#1AI Search visibility in competitor set

Executive summary

5× lead growth from the baseline month
2×'ed AI Search citation rate from 55% to >110%
Launched multiple lead magnets and interactive mini-tools
Optimized content design specifically for conversion
Built deep market understanding through structured expert interviews

61

Jan2025

53

Feb2025

45

Mar2025

81

Apr2025

93

May2025

60

Jun2025

80

Jul2025

99

Aug2025

108

Sep2025

115

Oct2025

114

Nov2025

94

Dec2025

156

Jan2026

218

Feb2026

225

Mar2026

Source: Planeco CRM, last-click attributed organic leads

// about the case

Planeco Building is a bootstrapped PropTech from Hamburg

Planeco Building helps homeowners and commercial property managers navigate regulatory challenges around building permits and change-of-use approvals. If you want to rent out your house or apartment via Airbnb, turn a commercial storage hall into a padel court, or expand a coffee-shop franchise nationwide — Planeco is the right partner.

The category is unforgiving. Every piece of content has to be legally accurate, regionally specific, and current with the latest regulation. Get any of that wrong and the brand loses credibility immediately — which is exactly why generic AI content was never going to work here.

// how we did it

See the whole process and the results

When we started, traffic tanked due to AI Overviews

The category got hit early and hard by Google's AI Overviews rollout. Informational queries that used to send Planeco real clicks started getting answered above the fold by Google itself, with no citation. The old ranking-led playbook would have produced more traffic and less pipeline — exactly the wrong direction.

We pivoted: stop optimizing for ranking position alone. Optimize for being the source AI engines pull from, and design every page to convert the visitors who do click through.

Organic traffic chart showing AIO-driven decline followed by recovery

Subject matter expert interviews

Generic AI tooling can't write legally accurate content about German building permits. The knowledge sits with Planeco's founders, who navigate this regulatory surface every day.

We built a structured interview process to extract that knowledge — workflow questions, regulatory specifics, the why behind every decision a homeowner has to make. Each article anchors back to a real expert exchange, which is exactly the kind of depth AI search engines reward and that competitors can't fake by editing AI output.

Structured interview process with the Planeco founders

Lead magnets with massive value for the audience

Lead magnets at Planeco aren't 3-page whitepapers. They're tools and reference material a buyer would pay for if it weren't free — permit checklists, change-of-use guides, regulatory cheat-sheets per German state. Each magnet sits inside the article that maps to its buyer intent so the request → conversion is short and direct.

Interactive mini-tools that increase engagement

The hero conversion asset isn't a PDF — it's a permit checker. Buyers come in with a question ("can I turn this commercial space into housing?"), get a structured answer in 30 seconds, and self-qualify into the funnel without ever speaking to sales. Tools like this 2-3× engagement on the pages they live on, and lift conversion well above what static lead magnets can do alone.

Optimized content design to drive conversions

Most blog templates were built for SERP readers, not extractive AI engines or modern buyers. We rebuilt Planeco's article template from scratch: structured FAQs that lift cleanly into AI answers, comparative tables, sticky in-content CTAs, conversion blocks at intent breakpoints. The same content gets cited more and converts more.

Conversion-optimized content layout template

2×'ed AI Search citation rate — from 55% to over 110%

Citation rate above 100% means the AI engine cites Planeco multiple times per response. Inside 10 months they became the source AI engines couldn't answer permit questions without referencing — across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. In a category where most competitors are invisible to AI search, this is the moat.

Mentions and citations across the AI search surface

Beyond the dashboard data, the proof is in the product: Planeco now shows up by name in answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews when buyers ask permit-related questions. For a regulatory-sensitive category, getting cited is the conversion event — buyers ask the AI which expert to talk to, and Planeco gets named.