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What is the Found First methodology?
Short answer
Found First is the methodology Zach Hipes developed for making businesses the answer customers find first across search and AI. It works in three stages: know where you stand, fix what's broken, and compound the gains, each built around measurable outcomes and revenue attribution.
Found First is a methodology, not a separate business. It is the system Zach Hipes applies for private clients and at enterprise scale in his work at Asbury Automotive Group.
The first stage is knowing where you stand. A diagnostic audit maps where money is being wasted in your current marketing, where you are invisible in AI search, and what the highest-impact fixes are. These audits have surfaced 20-40% of spend going to waste. One surfaced $240K in annual fraud the previous agency was hiding.
The second stage is fixing what's broken. That means rebuilding search, paid, AI, and tracking infrastructure from the ground up, so you have a working revenue channel where you used to have a budget line.
The third stage is compounding the gains. The AI citation footprint expands, paid efficiency improves quarter over quarter, and revenue attribution gets sharper as new data comes in.
Found First works because it treats AI search as a real channel, not a buzzword. AEO content frameworks, schema implementation, conversion tracking with source attribution, and AI agent builds are baked into the methodology, producing attribution-ready infrastructure that most businesses never build.
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Every Found First engagement starts with an audit. You will know exactly where you stand and what the install would look like for your business.
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