AEO/GEO Marketing Manager Job Description: Template for Cybersecurity & B2B SaaS Companies
Introduction
Your buyers have started asking AI for recommendations. A CISO opens ChatGPT, types a question about the best platform in your category, and reads a three sentence answer that names two or three vendors. If you are not one of them, you never even enter the deal. That shift is why a new role is appearing on cybersecurity marketing teams: the AEO/GEO marketing manager, the person who makes sure AI engines cite and recommend you.
This article gives you a copy and paste job description you can hand to HR today, written specifically for a cybersecurity & B2B SaaS company. It also explains the responsibilities, the metrics, and the skills behind each line, so you are not just filling a req, you are hiring the right person. Major teams are already moving here. Stripe's AEO and GEO Marketing Manager role and Mastercard's combined AEO, SEO, and SEM role are both hiring for exactly this skill set.
TL;DR
An AEO/GEO marketing manager owns your visibility inside AI answers, the way an SEO manager owns Google rankings.
The core JD has five parts: role summary, responsibilities, KPIs, required skills, and the tools they will use.
Headline KPIs are citation frequency, share of voice, sentiment, and AI-referred pipeline, tracked per engine.
In cybersecurity the role also covers CVE-driven and compliance queries, which generic marketers miss.
Give the role a tool built for it. A platform like GrackerAI makes an AEO/GEO manager far more productive, handling the cross-engine monitoring and content work automatically, as the dashboard below shows.
What the role monitors: brand visibility broken out by AI engine inside GrackerAI. Example dashboard view.
What is an AEO/GEO marketing manager?
An AEO/GEO marketing manager makes your company the answer that AI engines give. AEO stands for answer engine optimization and GEO stands for generative engine optimization. In plain terms, this person tracks how often ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Google AI Overviews mention and recommend your brand, finds the gaps where competitors win, and publishes content built to be cited rather than just to rank. It is the search marketing job, pointed at AI answers instead of the list of blue links.
AEO/GEO manager vs SEO manager: how the roles compare
Same foundation, different finish line. If you already know the SEO manager role, this is the quickest way to see what changes when you hire for AEO and GEO.
Dimension | SEO Manager | AEO/GEO Marketing Manager |
Optimizes for | Ranking in Google's results | Being cited in AI answers |
Target | The ten blue links | The recommended shortlist |
Unit of work | Keywords and backlinks | Prompts and citations |
Works across | One engine: Google | Six engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, AI Overviews |
Core metrics | Position and organic clicks | Citation frequency, share of voice, sentiment |
Wins look like | Ranking number one | Being named as the answer |
Hiring takeaway: a strong SEO manager already owns the foundation, so most teams grow this role from within rather than hiring someone new to search.
Copy and paste job description template
Swap the bracketed placeholders for your company details. Keep or cut sections to fit your team.
Role summary
[Company] is a [category, for example cloud security] company helping [audience] [outcome]. As our AEO/GEO Marketing Manager, you will own how [Company] shows up inside AI search. You will make sure that when security buyers ask AI assistants for recommendations in our category, [Company] is cited, accurately described, and on the shortlist. This is a high ownership role for someone who understands modern search and wants to build a channel from the ground up.
What you will do
Monitor [Company]'s visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, and Google AI Overviews, and report it as a single tracked score over time.
Research the real prompts our buyers ask AI, including category, comparison, compliance, and vulnerability questions.
Find the prompts where competitors get recommended and we do not, and prioritize the gaps that matter most to pipeline.
Produce and optimize content structured to be quoted and cited by AI engines, not just to rank on Google.
Run technical AEO checks so our site is readable by AI crawlers and agents.
Track citations and sentiment by engine, and connect AI visibility to inbound pipeline.
Brief leadership and sales on how [Company] is being represented in AI answers.
What you will own (KPIs)
AI visibility score and share of voice versus named competitors.
Citation frequency and average citation position, per engine.
Sentiment of how AI describes [Company].
AI-referred traffic and pipeline contribution.
Requirements
3 or more years in SEO, content, or growth marketing, ideally in B2B or cybersecurity.
Strong grasp of search intent and how buyers research.
Comfort with analytics and turning data into a prioritized action list.
Clear writing and the judgment to brief subject matter experts.
Curiosity about how LLMs select and cite sources.
Nice to have
Experience marketing to security buyers such as CISOs, IT leaders, and SOC teams.
Familiarity with AEO or GEO tooling and AI visibility platforms.
Understanding of CVE, compliance, and technical content in security.
The responsibilities, explained
If you are new to the role, here is what each responsibility actually involves day to day, and the metric it ties back to.
Responsibility | What it means in practice | Tied to |
AI visibility monitoring | Track mentions and recommendations across every engine your buyers use | Visibility score |
Prompt research | Map the real questions buyers ask AI, not just keywords | Coverage of buyer intent |
Competitor analysis | See who wins the prompts you lose, and why | Share of voice |
Content optimization | Structure pages to be extracted and quoted by AI | Citation frequency |
Technical AEO | Make the site readable by AI crawlers and agents | Crawlability and citations |
Reporting | Connect visibility to leads and pipeline | AI-referred pipeline |
What makes this role different in cybersecurity
A generic marketer can monitor brand mentions. A cybersecurity AEO/GEO manager has to handle a vocabulary and a tempo that general tools ignore. Your buyers ask about specific threat categories, compliance frameworks, and live vulnerabilities, and those queries move fast.
Category depth. Prompts span endpoint security, SIEM, SOAR, cloud security, IAM, GRC, and more, each with its own competitive set.
Compliance queries. Buyers ask about SOC 2, NIST, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and GDPR, and they expect precise answers.
Vulnerability tempo. When a critical CVE drops, buyers immediately ask AI which tools detect and mitigate it. Visibility on those prompts is perishable.
This is why purpose built tooling matters. GrackerAI ships more than 30,000 manually researched cybersecurity prompts across 10 categories on day one, plus automatic tracking for every critical CVE, so a new AEO/GEO manager is not starting from an empty box. That is the difference between a hire who is productive in week one and one who spends a month building a prompt list by hand.
Skills checklist: must have versus nice to have
Must have | Nice to have |
SEO, content, or growth background | Cybersecurity marketing experience |
Search intent and buyer research | Hands on with an AEO or GEO platform |
Analytics and prioritization | Understanding of CVE and compliance content |
Clear writing and SME interviewing | Familiarity with how LLMs cite sources |
Comfort owning a new metric set | Experience reporting to sales and leadership |
The tools your new hire will use
The role only works if the person has a platform that does the monitoring and optimization for them. On GrackerAI, a cybersecurity AEO/GEO manager gets AI monitoring across engines, a single AI Visibility Score, LLM citation tracking, competitor LLM monitoring, an AI prompt generator, and a technical AEO audit. Companies on the platform report a 25 percent average AI visibility increase within 90 days and up to 80 percent lower content cost compared with building in house.
Before you write the req, see what you are working with. Run a free AI visibility score in about a minute and you will know exactly where your brand stands across the six engines today. That number is the first thing your new manager will want.
Frequently asked questions
What does an AEO/GEO marketing manager do?
They make sure AI engines cite and recommend your company. They monitor visibility across AI assistants, research the prompts buyers ask, fix the gaps where competitors win, and publish content built to be quoted, then report it all as a tracked score and pipeline.
Is this the same as an SEO manager?
It is the next layer. SEO targets Google rankings. AEO and GEO target citations inside AI answers across many engines. A strong SEO manager can grow into the role, since search intent, content quality, and analytics all carry over.
What should the JD's KPIs be?
AI visibility score, share of voice against competitors, citation frequency and position per engine, sentiment, and AI-referred pipeline. Avoid a single blended number, since it hides which engine and which competitor is the real problem.
Do I need a cybersecurity background for this hire?
It helps but is not mandatory. The category vocabulary, compliance frameworks, and CVE tempo are learnable, especially when the platform ships security prompts out of the box. Prioritize search and analytics instincts first.
Conclusion
The AEO/GEO marketing manager is no longer a nice to have for cybersecurity companies. Your buyers are already forming shortlists inside AI, and someone needs to own whether you are on them. Use the template above to open the req, keep the KPIs honest and per engine, and give the new hire a platform so they are productive from week one.
Want to baseline before you hire? Check your free AI visibility score and bring the result to your first interview.