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Portrait of Samy Thuillier

Samy Thuillier

SEO Expert & AI SEO Strategist · Founder of SEOConversion · Co-founder of Shila

Samy Thuillier is an SEO expert and AI SEO strategist specialised in measuring the conversions and revenue that SEO and AI search (AEO/GEO) bring in, author of 110 articles on the SEOConversion blog, active in the field since 2013.

SEO expert and AI SEO strategist, founder of SEOConversion and co-founder of the GEO agency Shila. Samy has run 400+ SEO campaigns, built and sold the AI SEO SaaS Maverank, and led marketing at Adveris, LeHibou and Dacast.

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About Samy Thuillier

Samy Thuillier is an SEO expert and AI SEO strategist who has worked in digital marketing since 2013. Samy co-founded Shila, a GEO agency that gets companies cited in ChatGPT and Google answers, and founded SEOConversion.

Before SEO consulting, Samy spent four years as a consultant at Deloitte, then founded the e-commerce menswear brand Cavalier Bleu (10,000 orders in 22 countries). Samy went on to head digital marketing at the Paris agency Adveris for 90 client companies, including LIDL, KitchenAid and Nestlé, then became CMO of LeHibou and VP of Marketing at Dacast. In 2025 Samy founded Maverank, an AI SEO and visibility SaaS that grew to 1,500+ customers and was acquired in 2026.

As an independent SEO consultant since 2022, Samy has run 400+ SEO campaigns for B2B and e-commerce companies. The same question kept coming back from that client work: rankings and traffic are easy to report, the conversions and revenue behind them are not. Answering it in GA4 meant custom events, a tag manager and exploration reports, and visits from AI assistants were misfiled as referral or direct traffic.

In August 2026 Samy designed and built SEOConversion, a cookieless conversion tracker that credits each conversion, and its value, to organic search or to an AI assistant, by landing page. The articles on this blog cover SEO conversion tracking, SEO ROI and AI search.

Samy teaches SEO on Udemy (SEMrush, keyword research and ChatGPT for SEO courses), has taught digital marketing at ESCEN Paris and ISG Paris, co-authored the book Luxe & Digital (Dunod, 2016), and writes about SEO, GEO and AI search on LinkedIn, where Samy has more than 70,000 followers (October 2026). Samy holds a Master Spécialisé in International Risk Management from HEC Paris and a degree from Sciences Po Lyon.

Experience

  1. Founder, SEOConversion

    August 2026 – present

    Designed, built and runs SEOConversion, a first-party, cookieless tracker that shows which conversions come from Google, Bing and AI assistants.

  2. Co-founder, Shila

    May 2026 – present

    GEO agency: a 12-week program that rebuilds the site structure keeping ChatGPT and Google from citing a company.

  3. SEO Expert & AI SEO Strategist, Samy Thuillier SEO (independent)

    September 2022 – present

    B2B and e-commerce SEO consulting: audits, technical fixes, content and link building, analytics (GA, GSC, GTM, Looker Studio). 400+ campaigns.

  4. SEO Online Instructor, Udemy

    June 2022 – present

    SEO courses on SEMrush, keyword research and ChatGPT for SEO.

  5. Founder, Maverank

    March 2025 – January 2026

    AI SEO and visibility SaaS. Grew to 1,500+ customers; acquired in 2026.

  6. Fractional CMO, Freelance

    October 2022 – October 2024

    SEO, paid, social and email strategy for startups and e-commerce companies.

  7. VP of Marketing, Dacast

    2022 – 2022

    New SEO strategy after Google core updates, with an SEO team of four; paid search, branding and CRM.

  8. CMO & Head of Growth, LeHibou

    July 2020 – December 2021

    Inbound and outbound lead generation, SEO, rebranding and social media for a freelance-recruitment platform ranked #40 in the FT1000.

  9. Head of Digital Marketing, Adveris

    November 2018 – July 2020

    Built the digital marketing department (team of five) and ran acquisition for 90 client companies, including KitchenAid, LIDL and Nestlé. Member of the executive committee.

  10. Growth Hacking & Digital Marketing Specialist, Freelance

    November 2017 – November 2018

    Traffic acquisition (SEO, Facebook Ads, Google Ads, email) and conversion optimization for fashion, luxury and health brands.

  11. Manager, Digital Services, Eurogroup Consulting

    2017 – 2017

    Set up digital factories that cut the time-to-market of digital projects by 50%.

  12. Founder & Head of Marketing, Cavalier Bleu

    May 2013 – December 2016

    Created a direct-to-consumer menswear brand; acquisition through social media, display and email.

  13. Senior Consultant, Financial Services, Deloitte France

    September 2008 – December 2012

    Organization, compliance and digital transformation projects for banks and asset managers.

Selected projects and results

  • SEOConversion. Designed and built end to end in August 2026: a first-party, cookieless tracking script under 4 KB gzipped, automatic conversion detection, and a dedicated reporting channel for visits from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini and Copilot.
  • Maverank. Founded an AI SEO and visibility SaaS in March 2025; grew it to 1,500+ customers before its acquisition in 2026.
  • Dacast (2022). New SEO strategy: +15% traffic to 270,000 unique monthly visitors, +12% revenue from SEO, and top-5 Google rankings for 9 competitive industry keywords.
  • LeHibou (2020–2021). +220% website traffic and +100% online leads year over year.
  • Technology startup (2022, fractional CMO). +300% organic search traffic and +120% leads within a year, with top-5 rankings for 80% of targeted keywords.
  • Cavalier Bleu (2013–2016). Built an e-commerce brand from scratch: 10,000 orders in 22 countries in three years, break-even in year two and €500K annual revenue in year three.

Areas of expertise

  • SEO conversion tracking and attribution
  • SEO and content marketing ROI
  • AI search optimization (AEO/GEO)
  • AI assistant referral traffic
  • Technical and B2B SEO strategy

Education and certifications

  • HEC Paris, Master Spécialisé, International Risk Management (2007–2008)
  • HEIP – Hautes Études Internationales & Politiques, MSc. International Business (2006–2007)
  • Sciences Po Lyon, Diplôme de l'IEP, international section (political science, economics) (2002–2006)
  • L'antichambre de Germinal (2021). Advanced Growth Marketing program.
  • Google AdWords Professional, Google

Articles by Samy Thuillier

110 articles on the SEOConversion blog, newest first.

  1. US State Privacy Laws: Every State, Dates, Rules and Thresholds
    · 15 min read

    Every comprehensive US state privacy law with its effective date, who it covers and what it requires, plus a worked threshold check and what the laws change for ad pixels and conversion tracking.

  2. SEO Revenue: How to Measure, Attribute and Grow It
    · 11 min read

    How to calculate the revenue organic search produces, split a change into impressions, CTR, conversion rate and order value, and fix the reports that get it wrong.

  3. SEO KPI Dashboard: What to Track, How to Build It, How to Read It
    · 10 min read

    Which KPIs belong on an SEO dashboard, where each number comes from, how to set targets, and how to read it top down when something drops.

  4. SEO Dashboard Template: 6 Panels, Free to Copy, With Revenue
    · 11 min read

    Copy a six-panel SEO dashboard that shows conversions and value by landing page, not just traffic, with a filled-in example and the reasons Search Console and GA4 never match.

  5. Referral Spam: How to Spot It and Stop It in GA4
    · 14 min read

    How to recognize referral spam, prove whether it is ghost or crawler spam, stop it with the GA4 settings that work today, and see what it does to your conversion rates.

  6. Plausible Alternative: Pick by the Limit You Hit, With 2026 Prices
    · 10 min read

    Fathom, Simple Analytics, Umami, Matomo, PostHog and more, sorted by why you are leaving Plausible, with prices checked on vendor pages and the revenue attribution gap explained.

  7. Dark Traffic: What It Is, Where It Hides and How to Measure It
    · 11 min read

    Shared links, apps and AI assistants send visits that arrive with no source and get filed as Direct. Here is how to fix the leaks, estimate the rest and value it.

  8. Conversion Tracking Tools: Types, Free Options and How to Test Them
    · 12 min read

    Which tools actually count your leads, sales and calls, how they differ from CRO tools, and how to check one against your own backend before you trust it.

  9. Conversion Tracking Pixel: How It Works, Code Examples and Fixes
    · 13 min read

    What a conversion pixel sends, Meta and Google Ads code examples, how to stop double counting with a conversions API, and what pixels never see.

  10. Conversion Tracking Code: Google Ads, Meta Pixel and GA4 Snippets
    · 12 min read

    The exact base code and event code for Google Ads, Meta and GA4, where to paste them, how to send a real value and order ID, and how to prove they fire.

  11. Conversion Goals: Examples, Platform Setup and Realistic Targets
    · 8 min read

    What conversion goals are, how Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising and GA4 handle them, which to make primary, and how to set a realistic target with real arithmetic.

  12. Content Decay: How to Spot It, Price It and Fix the Pages That Pay
    · 14 min read

    How to confirm a traffic drop is content decay, read the Search Console pattern behind it, and refresh the pages that lost the most revenue first.

  13. Carrd Analytics: Native Views, GA4 Setup and Form Tracking
    · 12 min read

    What Carrd's new native analytics counts, which plan unlocks providers and events, how to track signups on a one-page site, and how to value each traffic source.

  14. Assisted Conversions: How They're Counted and Where They Are in GA4
    · 11 min read

    What assisted conversions are, how to count them and read the assisted/last click ratio, and how to get them from GA4, Google Ads or BigQuery.

  15. AI Search Traffic: How AI Answers Change Your Visits and Revenue
    · 10 min read

    AI answers cut clicks from Google while ChatGPT and other assistants send a new, smaller stream of visits. Here is where both show up in your reports and how to tell if you lost money.

  16. AI Search Statistics 2026: Users, Clicks, Traffic and Conversions
    · 11 min read

    ChatGPT has 900 million weekly users and AI Mode passed 1 billion monthly, yet Google keeps 89.94% of search. Every number here links to its original study, with what it means for your traffic.

  17. Self-Hosted Analytics: Tools, Server Costs, Setup and What Breaks
    · 14 min read

    Running analytics on your own server gives you the data and a fixed bill, and makes you the operator. Here is which tool to pick, what it needs, what it really costs and why self-hosted numbers go wrong.

  18. PostHog vs Plausible: Features, Real Costs and Which to Pick
    · 11 min read

    Plausible counts visits, sources and goals without cookies. PostHog follows users through your product. Here is how they compare on cost, cookie banners, self-hosting and data retention, checked against the vendors' own docs.

  19. Organic Revenue: Meaning, Formula and a Worked Example
    · 12 min read

    Organic revenue strips acquisitions, divestitures and currency out of reported revenue to show whether the existing business is growing. Formula, worked example and the marketing meaning.

  20. Not Provided Keywords: What They Mean and How to Recover the Data
    · 11 min read

    Why Google hides organic keywords, every place you can still get query data, and a worked example that turns Search Console queries into value per keyword.

Publications and teaching

Publications

  • Luxe & Digital: Stratégies pour une digitalisation singulière du luxe — Dunod (co-author, collective work edited by Éric Briones), March 2016. ISBN 978-2-10-074418-3
  • Why is Having Duplicate Content an Issue for SEO? — LinkedIn, November 30, 2023

Courses and teaching

Profiles and contact

Editorial standards and disclosures

How articles are written. Each article starts from a review of the pages currently ranking for its topic and follows editorial guidelines set by Samy, who is accountable for every article published under this byline. To report an error, use the contact page.

Conflicts of interest. Samy is the founder of SEOConversion and a co-founder of Shila. When an article on this blog mentions or recommends SEOConversion, it is a product Samy owns.

More about the company Samy runs on the About SEOConversion page.