You've been investing in SEO and content for two quarters. Last month you got 31 demos.
Now you need to decide: should you keep investing in organic?
Your analytics probably can't give you a clear answer yet. That doesn't mean you have to guess. Set a few checkpoints, decide what success looks like before you reach them, and review the results on the date.
Here's a simple way to do it.
Why Your Dashboard Isn't Enough
When your numbers are small, attribution gets messy. Three things are worth knowing.
GA4 May Not Be Using Data-Driven Attribution
GA4 needs at least 400 conversions for the key event and 20,000 conversions across the property within the lookback window to run data-driven attribution. Below those numbers it falls back to last-click without telling you.
To check, open the Model Comparison report and compare data-driven attribution with paid-and-organic last click. Identical numbers mean data-driven attribution isn't running.
Last-Click Misses the Earlier Work
Imagine someone reads three of your blog posts over six weeks, then searches your company name and books a demo when they're finally ready.
Last-click gives the conversion to branded search, and the content that got them there gets no credit.
Some Organic Traffic Looks Like Direct Traffic
People who find you through ChatGPT, Perplexity or other AI search tools often arrive without a referrer, so analytics records the visit as direct.
Even if your content is being recommended in AI search, your dashboard may show you almost none of it. If you've done the work to get cited by AI search, this is why the return is hard to see.
The Three Checkpoints
Set these before the next funding period starts, then check them on the date. The important part is deciding what counts as a pass or fail before you see the results.
Day 30: Did the Work Get Published and Indexed?
Pass: everything you planned was published, and the pages are indexed.
Check your pages in Google Search Console, then compare what you published with what you planned. If a page isn't indexed, fix that first. There's no point rewriting content Google hasn't found.
Fail here is an execution problem. Maybe the publishing schedule was unrealistic, or the site doesn't have enough internal links pointing at the new pages. Either way, you haven't learned anything yet about whether SEO works for your business.
Day 90: Are Your Target Terms Moving?
Pass: your target terms have moved into the first five pages of results, and some of your pages are getting impressions in Search Console.
If you're selling into another country, filter Search Console by that country. A company in Lagos targeting US buyers shouldn't judge the channel on its Nigerian positions, because the two numbers are often very different.
Fail here is a targeting problem. The keywords may be too competitive for a domain your age, or the page doesn't match what the searcher wanted. The usual fix is moving toward easier terms with clearer buying intent, which is why comparison and alternative pages are the common correction at this point.
Two Quarters: Is Organic Creating Conversations?
Pass: non-brand organic traffic has roughly doubled, branded searches are rising, and some of the people booking demos can remember finding you through search or content.
Fail here is the expensive one. If traffic is growing and nobody is booking, more traffic won't help. The problem sits in your positioning, your offer, or the type of person your content attracts, which is the subject of where traffic stops turning into signups.
The Three Things to Track
You don't need an expensive attribution setup at 30 demos a month. You need three simple things.
1. Ask People How They Found You
Add a required free-text question to your demo form:
"How did you hear about us?"
Make it required, because leaving it optional means around 30% skip it and you're reading a self-selected sample. Free text matters because people mention things you'd never have put in a dropdown:
- "Google search"
- "A blog post about comparison pages"
- "ChatGPT"
- "Someone at work sent me the article"
- "Recommended by a friend"
You will need to clean the answers up. "Google", "Google search" and "SEO" all mean roughly the same thing. Review them once a month and group them yourself.
2. Track Branded Searches
Open Google Search Console, go to Performance, add a Query filter set to "contains" your company name, and compare quarter over quarter.
More people searching your brand is a useful sign that awareness is growing, and it's a signal that doesn't depend on your attribution model.
3. Count Demos from Organic
Track how many demos came from non-brand organic traffic. At 30 a month you can count them on one screen, so you don't need a model for this at all.
Ask again on the sales call:
"What made you book this call?"
You'll get a better answer than the form gives you, because the person can explain what actually convinced them.
Write One Page Every Quarter
One page is enough. Four sections.
What Shipped
- 8 blog posts
- 3 guest articles
- 2 podcast appearances
The work that happened, counted.
What Changed
- Branded searches
- Non-brand organic sessions
- Demos from organic
Compare quarter over quarter. At 30 demos a month, one extra demo is a small change, so monthly movement tells you very little.
What Buyers Said
- 9 said a colleague recommended us
- 6 mentioned a blog post
- 4 said Google
- 3 said ChatGPT
This gives you context analytics can't.
The Decision
Continue. Change. Stop.
Then write down what would make you change that decision next quarter.
If you're the founder and there's nobody else to report to, write it anyway. You'll have something concrete to look back on in three months.
When Should You Stop?
Three situations where moving the budget elsewhere makes sense.
1. Rankings Haven't Moved for Two Quarters
This matters most when you've already moved to easier, more realistic keywords and nothing changed. At that point the problem is bigger than a content budget can solve.
2. Traffic Is Growing but Demos Aren't
If non-brand organic has grown for two quarters and demo volume is flat, look at what kind of traffic you're attracting. You may be reaching people who aren't your buyers, or your content may give them no clear reason to take a next step.
3. You Have Less Than Nine Months of Runway
Rankings can start moving within 60 to 90 days, and turning that traffic into revenue takes longer. With less than three quarters of cash, you need to ask whether you have time to see the return.
Stopping on one of those is a decision. Stopping because one month looked bad is noise, and it's how most early-stage teams kill a channel a few weeks before it starts working.
Not sure which problem you have?
Execution, targeting and conversion failures look similar from a dashboard and need completely different fixes. We'll tell you which one you're looking at on a free 30-minute call.
Book a 30-min call →The Decision Isn't in One Number
Your dashboard won't give you a perfect answer at this size, and you don't need one. Check whether the work got done and indexed, whether your visibility is improving, and whether that visibility is creating conversations. Track those over two quarters, talk to the people who booked, and decide from there.
Working out which of the three problems you're looking at, execution, targeting or conversion, is a large part of demand generation work at this stage.
Common Questions
How Long Before I Know Whether SEO Is Working?
Day 30 tells you whether the work shipped and got indexed. Day 90 tells you whether your terms are moving. Two quarters tells you whether that visibility creates conversations. Nothing before day 30 tells you much at all.
Why Does GA4 Show Fewer Organic Conversions Than I Expected?
Probably attribution. Without enough conversions for data-driven attribution, GA4 uses last-click, so the final interaction gets the credit even when several earlier ones created the demand.
Is Self-Reported Attribution Accurate?
No. People forget, give short answers, and some write "Google" to get through the form. At 30 demos a month it's still useful, because you can read every answer. When several people mention the same article, podcast or person, that's information no model would have given you.
Should I Use a Free-Text Field or a Dropdown?
Free text. A dropdown only offers the options you already thought of. Ruler Analytics found 47% of leads who selected the first option in one client's dropdown were attributed incorrectly, because people pick the top item to get through the form.
What About Traffic from ChatGPT and Perplexity?
It usually shows up as direct traffic, because those visits often pass no referrer. That's another reason to ask people directly. If someone says ChatGPT recommended you, your analytics almost certainly missed it.
Should I Buy an Attribution Tool?
Probably not at 30 demos a month. Those tools find patterns across large numbers of journeys, and with a small sample the output looks more precise than it really is.
What If My Numbers Are Bigger?
Once your key event reaches 400 conversions in the lookback window and the property reaches 20,000, data-driven attribution can run and your reports become more useful. The checkpoints still apply; you just have more data behind them.
Kehinde Akindele
I run Derive DE, a B2B SaaS marketing studio in Lagos working with early-stage SaaS teams across the US, UK, and Africa. I plan the work and I do the work.
Connect on LinkedIn ↗A second opinion on what your numbers are telling you
Free 30-minute consultation. We look at what you have, say which of the three problems you're actually dealing with, and you leave with a decision either way.