Decision Engine Optimisation Case Study: How Uniplay Won a £23k Playground Project

James Dooley: GEO official case study and how Decision Engine Optimisation secured Uniplay Limited in the UK a £23,000 project for a school that it would not have secured if they hadn't have done AEO, GEO or AI SEO. Today I'm joined with Kasra, and Kasra is going to go through the project and the case study showing why AEO is very, very important. Yeah. So one thing to just start this video off with is a lot of people talk about discovery, like discovering brands in generative search or AI search. Um, but one thing that we also try to do on the contrary is what we try to also take control of is the decision-making process.

Kasra: So, like what James mentioned, we quoted the job, um, a few months back for £23,400 and we were by far the most expensive out the five. Um, however, the person that was in charge of actually allocating the budget and picking the, the final decision, what they ended up actually doing is using AI to actually make that decision. Um, and as you can see, like, we were by far the most expensive. Now, a couple things that we, or a couple reasons as to why we were actually picked. It had actually nothing to do with the price. Um, however, one of the things that it did take into consideration was our specification, um, which is obviously on the quote and stuff like that. Um, and then second of which, the testimonials, um, which made us by far the safest option for that business to pick us.

James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. Oh, I mean, on there with regards to the specification, I think the, the hard part is the amount of times over the years that we've lost a project for someone that's given a cheaper price, but you wasn't comparing apples with apples. So, it's like someone buying a Ferrari and then a Ferrari is up against a Fiesta on price, and a Fiesta is obviously going to be cheaper than a Ferrari. And they go, "Oh, I'm going to go with that." And you're going, "Well, hey, there's different specifications here." So the school had asked in this case for this playground design for specific markings, like sports marking, like tennis court marking, netball court marking. They wanted a background colour being installed and they wanted certain markings for the kids, like hopscotches and stuff like that. Now the specification that the designer had put together at Uniplay exactly met the specifications that the school had asked for, where one or two just ignored what they was asking for and, and just did a redesign himself. And yes, it was cheaper, but it wasn't the specification that met what they needed for Ofsted, for the kids to do outdoor play and to increase activity through play. And ours ticked the boxes in a better way and ChatGPT picked all of this up and then started to use case studies, testimonials and everything else alongside us meeting the specification, um, in the best way. So, it was a great project for us to win. Um, Uniplay, um, they've actually installed it this summer. And again, it was one of them where we asked the client, and there's a few that don't like saying this, but we asked the client, how... What made you choose us over the others? And we didn't know we was the most expensive until the client said. And they said it just so happened to be that you was the most expensive, but ChatGPT said that they would go with you because you're the best value. And again, it was one of them stories. Check out the link in the description because we've got a couple of different case studies that we've posted. And it was one of them moments where I said, "If, if they didn't choose us, would you have gone elsewhere?" And they, they literally turned around and said, "Yes, we wanted to choose the best value and the best fit for the projects of what we wanted for this summer installation." And therefore, because ChatGPT had come back saying you was the best fit and that we thought it was the best value, it met within our budgets because they had a £30,000 budget for the job. So even though it was the most expensive, it fit within the budget. It ticked all the boxes and therefore we got the £23,400 order. Yet if we hadn't done AEO, we wouldn't have secured those works.

Kasra: Yeah. And then a couple other things to, to add to what James just said. Um, testimonials play a very big part. Um, even if they are old testimonials because it actually does show that you have been trading for some time. Um, that's, that's one thing that, like, both AI, um, takes a look at, and also reviews as well. So, like, if you've got separate reviews on, like, a platform, like for example Yellow Pages or Yelp, for example, that can also help and go in, in your favour. Um, and then let me just see. This is what the video's about. Yeah. So this is basically what our video is about. So it's not all to do with discovery. It can also be the decision-making part as well, which I feel like not many people are talking about online.

James Dooley: Yeah, that's the most important part in my opinion now, that the, at the 11th hour, that zero moment of truth, who are they going to choose? What I found pretty interesting, right, is for anyone who's watching this and you like these type of case studies, it's a different case study to majority of other people that do AEO official case studies that obsess over clicks and impressions and new citations and new keywords. They obsess over that part, where this has got monetary value. This, we would not have won that work if it wasn't for what ChatGPT said. But check the links out in the description and look at all three case studies that we've done with regards to Decision Engine Optimisation because the, the strange part of it is even though a lot of people use the AI Overview and use Claude and Perplexity, all three of these that we got the feedback on all seem to use ChatGPT, which I found very interesting. It seems to be a lot of people seem to be using that to form these decisions. Maybe it's just because it's easy to upload the, the PDF kind of quotes, where it might be difficult to do it on obviously, like, AI Overviews and stuff like that. But it seems to be that in these scenarios, in these case studies, ChatGPT was making the decision of who they was going to go with. And that 11th hour, we went and secured a £23,400 project for Uniplay this summer that we installed that we would not have had if we hadn't have done GEO, AEO or whatever you want to call the acronym, to do with specifically getting the testimonials, the reviews, the case studies, the awards, amplifying that on third-party sites. I think it's very important for people to understand it's not just discovery, but it's that bottom-of-funnel Decision Engine Optimisation. Kasra, it's been an absolute pleasure.