The month-4 AEO churn pattern: what I've seen keep clients past the cliff

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There's a thread here about agency upsells where several people landed on the same pain: AEO retainers churn around month 4 when the client can't see progress. Been thinking about why, and I think it's structural, not a service quality problem. ⠀ Citation movement lags content work by 4-8 weeks. So months 1-2 look flat on any dashboard even when the work is good. By month 3 the client is asking questions, by month 4 they're gone. The dashboard isn't lying, it's just slow, and slow reads as "not working". ⠀ What changes the math: Baseline screenshots in week 1 of every AI answer where the client is absent, your before pictures. Monthly reporting of cited sources, not just mentions. The day the client's own page shows up as a source, that screenshot does the renewal for you. And 90-day minimum contracts, sold explicitly on the lag: "the first report that matters is the third one". ⠀ The agencies I see getting burned sell dashboards. The ones retaining sell the before/after. Curious what reporting cadence others have landed on for this.   submitted by   /u/Palvorin [link]   [comments]