Earlier this week I counted who ranks for "content marketing agency" (seven of nine page-one results were listicles and directories — post here). That post's comment thread left me with a next question: does a newer category term behave differently?

Short answer from this morning's pull: similar share, deeper problem.

For "AI marketing agency" (US results, live SERP data), page one holds eight results. Two are agency sites — Keenfolks and The Agency. The other six:

  • two "top AI marketing agencies" listicles
  • one "what is an AI marketing agency?" explainer — published by an agency (Darkroom) on its own blog
  • one "10 AI agents every marketing team needs" post riding the same term
  • one Reddit thread on r/Entrepreneur asking what these agencies even are
  • one "how to start an AI marketing agency in 2025" YouTube guide

Read that list as a demand signal. Before buyers pick an agency, they're figuring out what the category is. Six of eight aren't agency selling pages — they're lists, explainers, and questions. The one agency winning this layer isn't doing it with a sales page: Darkroom ranks with a definition post on its own blog.

What this means if you sell into a young category:

  1. The explainer gap is among the cheapest real estate left. One honest "what this is and what it costs" page competes with listicles and a Reddit thread, not with incumbents.
  2. Both agency homepages that rank are branded as the category itself. Their titles read "Keenfolks: AI Marketing Agency" and "The Agency: AI Marketing Agency" — in a young category, naming the category looks like table stakes. Yesterday's mature-term pull was the opposite: only city service pages survived there.
  3. Check your own category term before assuming. Search Console, one SERP pull. The mix tells you whether to fight the term, flank it with a definition page, or ignore it.

Disclosure: we build SupaMarketers (marketing data for AI agents). This count is homework we'd do anyway — run it in any SERP tool, or just Google the term and count.

Try it today: search your category term, count how many page-one results are actually you and not a list about you. If the answer is zero, your fastest win this month might be one well-made explainer page.