David Ly Khim

I'm a Cambodian-American entrepreneur and growth practitioner. Currently building Omniscient Digital, an organic growth agency helping B2B software companies turn SEO, LLMs, and content into revenue growth channels.

Previously, I was Head of Growth at People.ai where I led the implementation of a product-led growth motion for the new freemium products, PeopleGlass and ClosePlan, overseeing product strategy, go-to-market, and customer acquisition initiatives.

Before that, I spent 6 years working on HubSpot's freemium business through multiple cross-functional projects including: driving the implementation of referral loops across the free product, bottom-of-funnel content strategy, and business development.

One key project I worked on was developing and executing a strategy to acquire users through marketplaces and integrations, which required collaboration across marketing, business development, and multiple product teams. This resulted in spinning up a new Growth Acquisition Team in Dublin. We revived and grew adoption of (a previously sunset) HubSpot WordPress integration from 8k to 110k+ installs (adopted by 22% of the customer base), drove 1000s of product signups a month, and influenced $3.6M+ in ARR. 

Skills: product management, growth experimentation, growth marketing, data analysis, user research, user acquisition, project management, SEO, content strategy, partnerships

Personally, born and raised in Long Beach, CA, now based in Boston. Into weight lifting, running, Muay Thai, reading, and whiskey. Not all at the same time.

Co-Founder, Head of Strategy & Operations

There was a period in SEO where you could win without ever talking to a customer.

Pull some keywords from ahrefs.
Write and publish some optimized pages.
Rank, bring in traffic.
Profit (maybe).

That era has been over but you'd be surprised at how many teams are still trying to run that playbook.

The teams winning now have a deep understanding of their customers' psychology

They know their customers’ pain points, ambitions, and the language they use. And it shows up in the content.

One company we work with sells financial planning software.

They’re frequently cited in ChatGPT.

It's not because they publish a bunch of listicles.

Instead, they've become a resource to help financial planners how to become better at what they do and to build their book of business. They share methodology. They have a point of view. They build topical authority.

So their brand get referenced even when someone isn’t asking ChatGPT for software recommendations.

They appear early and often in the customer journey.

If you’re not deeply embedded in your customer’s world and speaking to what they actually care about, you might be publishing content into the void.

Co-founder at Omniscient Digital | Ex-Growth @ HubSpot, People.ai

LLM visibility is having its vanity metric moment.

We just swapped keywords for prompts.

When measurement is unclear, marketers default to what’s easiest to count.

That’s the streetlight effect.

If you drop your keys at night but the only light is under a streetlamp, you search under the streetlamp. Not because the keys are there, but because the area with the most visibility.

In GEO, the streetlamps are:
- Category prompts (“best CRM for startups”)
- Trackable clicks from ChatGPT referrals
- Rankings for a small set of queries

Those are fine.

But if you only optimize for what you can measure, you miss what’s actually happening:

Whether we like it or not, this is the current nature of LLMs, where much of the influence they drive is upstream of measurable behavior.

It’s the same dynamic as zero-click LinkedIn content.

You read a post.
You remember the brand.
You search later.

Attribution says “organic.” Reality is “influenced by a LinkedIn post many weeks ago”

So what do we do?

- Track the streetlamp metrics
- But build a strategy for upstream influence
- And accept that all decisions include some level of uncertainty. Properly collected and analyzed data can reduce that uncertainty, but never eliminate it.

A month ago, G2 agreed to acquire Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp.
Why does this matter for AI visibility?

One company will now control four of the most authoritative review domains in B2B software.

When a buyer asks ChatGPT "best CRM for a 200-person company," the sources cited in that answer shape the shortlist.

Review sites are heavily cited at this stage of the customer journey, the exact moment they're narrowing down their options.

Cate analyzed 25,000+ AI citations across ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overview, AI Mode, and Gemini and found something interest:

When you model the four domains together, G2's share of AI citations in bottom-of-funnel prompts jumps 76%.

They move from the 4th most-cited source to #2 (behind only Reddit).

In social proof queries specifically (customer reviews, case studies, testimonials), their combined share would give them a 93% citation lead over the next closest domain.

This is a consolidation play for the AI layer, not just the review layer.

For B2B software companies, the implication is straightforward:

The surfaces that influence AI answers are consolidating. If your review presence is weak on G2 and its new properties, you're losing influence at the point in the buyer journey that matters most.

Link to the full analysis in the comments.

Co-founder @ Omniscient Digital | Growth Advisor

I'm the co-founder of an organic growth agency - Omniscient - that drives attributable growth outcomes through content & SEO for ambitious B2B brands. 

Before that, I ran the experimentation team and program at Workato. We went from zero true controlled A/B tests to 20+ per quarter and revamped our digital analytics infrastructure while I was there. 

Before that, I worked on freemium growth at HubSpot (also having a short stint doing product management for a new social launch). We invented a new organic strategy called the "surround sound strategy." Later on, Semrush built a tool based on our new approach. My team drove thousands of net new freemium signups across our various product suites. 

Before that, I ran growth and content at CXL and helped launch CXL Institute. I did a little bit of everything there, from managing our Google Adwords and Facebook Ads to running webinars, creating content, and running A/B tests. 

Now, I write mainly at alexbirkett.com and live in Brooklyn, NY with my dog Biscuit

Alex Birkett

I'm hiring a research analyst. 

You'll work directly with me to bring original research to life. 

Lots is changing with organic growth, and we want to parse the signal from the noise and deliver data-backed insights that help our clients make better business decisions. 

See research examples here: https://lnkd.in/eUXTVcHQ

This will also support client work as we run data-driven SEO, AEO, and digital PR campaigns for well known B2B software companies. 

Ideally in NYC, but remote option. Big benefits from in person time though! 

https://lnkd.in/ezkmZ9bF

Co-founder @ Omniscient Digital | Organic Growth, AI Search/AEO, and SEO for B2B Brands

Interesting research on G2 et al's influence on AI Visibility

Cate looked at 25,755 AI citations in Peec AI across 200 BOFU prompts, so stuff like 

“Is [brand] good for [use case]?” 
“Best software for…”
“[Brand A] vs [Brand B]”

G2, the dominant review site for business software, recently announced its acquisition of Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp from Gartner.

G2 was quite strong before the acquisition, but their citation share for these prompts could jump by roughly ~76% post acquisition, accounting for all the properties. 

As Kevin Indig put it: 

"G2 is now uniquely positioned to deliver the structured social proof that Answer Engines increasingly rely on.”

Though this is a sample dataset and influence varies across industries, prompts, and companies, it's not hard to imagine the influence of review sites - particular G2 and those owned by G2 - growing. 

Gaetano Nino DiNardi put it well in a comment on the study:

“This kind of consolidation creates a winner-take-most citation dynamic across BOFU prompts.

Personally, I think this is going to be big marketing leverage for G2. They are going to 'strong arm' brands into buying their programs, etc.

The question for brands becomes: what do you do about this?”

Full study: https://lnkd.in/eUQ5amTY

I'm hiring another exciting role: Partnerships & Ecosystem Manager

We cheekily call our ecosystem the "Omniverse." This is a model of our important connections and relationships, which of course includes clients, but also agency partners, venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) partners, software vendors, industry influencers, and co-marketing collaborators. 

While partnerships have historically driven some of our highest-quality leads, we haven’t yet invested the time or coordinated effort required to fully nurture and scale this motion. This role exists to change that.

Work directly with me, drive meaningful revenue and business impact, meet and collaborate with a ton of cool industry folks. IMO a very fun role! 

Ideally in NYC or at least east coast based. Check out the full description in the link:

Open article: Partnerships & Ecosystem Manager by jobs.ashbyhq.com

Great piece by Eli Schwartz on Reddit, its role in AI search, and the swarm of spam in trying to game the system. 

https://lnkd.in/eAvXhAN2

Reddit is a phenomenal mirror, and it's a community often warranting a dedicated strategy. But the short term hacks have risks and downsides, and open loopholes will likely be closed as models and filters improve. 

"The models are not static, and what works today will not continue to work. The companies building the models are actively working on improving their ability to distinguish high-quality, genuine signals from noise and manipulation."

Absolutely.

Open article: AEO: Stop spamming Reddit for citations by productledseo.com

We are a generation raised on clicks. 

But as happened with social media and dark social, AI engines and their influence & value cannot quite be captured through the same set of metrics or paradigms as clicks, rankings, and traffic. 

This essay explores paradigm shifts, metrics, and how to think about the value of AI engines in the customer journey.

Open article: How Much Traffic Does ChatGPT Send? by Omniscient Digital • 10 min read

Workflows that once required large teams, deep expertise, and weeks of effort can now be executed by almost anyone with the right tools and prompts. 

Content engineering, programmatic systems, and AI-assisted pipelines are rapidly lowering the cost of production across the industry. 

But when everyone adopts the same workflows, the advantage they once created disappears (and honestly, the execution of many of these programs causes quite a bit of risk and downside in the present state). 

This piece explores how those efficiency gains spread, why they tend to equalize competition, and where real differentiation still comes from.

In other words, maybe the real problem to solve is not simply "publish more content."

Open article: The Red Queen Effect by Omniscient Digital • 10 min read

AI search is changing how buyers form opinions long before they ever click a link. 

Most of its influence happens upstream: shaping narratives, framing categories, and quietly determining who makes the shortlist. 

Traffic and conversion rates tell only a fraction of the story. 

If we focus solely on what we can measure using traditional click-based tools, we risk missing the far larger force guiding decisions in the background.

Open article: Influence is Upstream by Omniscient Digital • 10 min read

It’s never been easier to learn the mechanics of SEO. Tutorials, playbooks, and AI tools can teach you what to do in a matter of hours. 

But knowing the moves isn’t the same as knowing when they work. 

Under real pressure (competition, saturation, shifting algorithms, platform shifts) the gaps between theory and mastery become obvious. 

And that’s exactly where the industry finds itself now.

Open article: Everyone’s a Blackbelt on YouTube by Omniscient Digital • 10 min read

Every year I talk to a few dozen marketing leaders and VCs about what's happening in the market. 

Every year, with increasing salience, these marketers and VCs mention "noise." It's noisy. There's more content, more product, it's hard to stand out. Similarly, it's hard for operators to know what is right, wrong, up, or down. 

Especially true with AI search. Studies come out every day. Hot takes contradict each other. What is true? Hard question. But important to learn how to parse signal from noise if you want to act faithfully on any information on this platform or otherwise. 

Wrote this essay a while back and am republishing as I think it remains important (and will probably become more important) to have heuristics for filtering information quality and credibility as it relates to SEO, AEO, and really anything you read online.

Open article: SEO Epistemology by Omniscient Digital • 11 min read

AI discovery is growing quickly, but most brands still don’t know what practical steps to take to influence what AI tools say about them. 

In this piece, I break down a set of practical LLM optimization plays: how to plan content using buyer research instead of keyword volume, how to create pages that become source material for AI systems, how to earn brand mentions across the broader web, and how to shape the narrative in your category with original research, distribution, and brand marketing. 

We introduce a simple (and hopefully evergreen) framework: be the source, be included in the source, and shape the narrative. 

The goal is to build a structured approach to winning AI visibility and sentiment over the long term, not gaming outputs or risking your brand through cheap tricks or hacks.

Open article: LLM Optimization Tactics by Omniscient Digital • 11 min read

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David Ly Khim

Alex Birkett

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The Battle

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Alex Birkett

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Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}David Ly Khim's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAlex Birkett's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreDavid Ly Khim's LinkedIn Performance