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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 13 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

13 articles on the SEOConversion blog, newest first.

  1. Last Click Attribution: How It Works, Examples and GA4 Behavior
    · 11 min read

    Last click gives all the credit to the final click before a conversion. Here is how it works, what GA4 actually does with it, and how to tell when it is misleading you.

  2. Is SEO Worth It? How to Decide With Your Own Numbers
    · 12 min read

    When SEO pays off, when it doesn't, what it costs, and a worked break-even example that tells you how many leads your budget needs.

  3. How to Rank in ChatGPT: 10 Steps, Fixes and How to Measure It
    · 11 min read

    ChatGPT has no fixed rankings, but you can raise how often it mentions and cites you. Here are the 10 steps, a debugging checklist, and how to tie ChatGPT visits to conversions.

  4. Content Marketing ROI: Formula, Worked Example and Template
    · 12 min read

    The content marketing ROI formula is simple. Counting the right costs, crediting the right revenue and measuring over the right window is not. Here is how, with a 12-month worked example.

  5. AI Visibility Score: How It's Calculated and What It Can't Tell You
    · 9 min read

    What an AI visibility score measures, how it is calculated with a worked example, why it jumps around, and how to tell whether visibility in AI answers is worth anything.

  6. AI Search vs Traditional SEO: What Actually Changes for Measurement
    · 6 min read

    AI search and traditional SEO create different user journeys. Here's what actually changes for measurement, and why visibility alone doesn't tell you if it's working.

  7. What Is AEO & GEO? A Practical Guide
    · 6 min read

    AEO and GEO explained in plain terms, plus the part most guides skip: how to know whether your AEO or GEO work is bringing in anything real.

  8. Cookieless Conversion Tracking for SEO: How It Works
    · 11 min read

    Cookies aren't the only way to measure whether search traffic converts. Here's what you can track without them, and where the limits are.

  9. How to Track ChatGPT, Perplexity & Gemini Conversions, Not Just Mentions
    · 7 min read

    Being mentioned in a ChatGPT answer isn't the same as earning a customer. Here's how to track AI referral visits through to conversions and value.

  10. SEO Conversion Tracking: Measure Conversions and Value from Organic Search
    · 14 min read

    Traffic tells you who showed up. Here's the full guide to measuring what organic search actually contributes to the business.

  11. How to Calculate and Present SEO ROI
    · 10 min read

    Rankings and traffic are up, but what's the return on what you're spending on SEO? Here's the formula, and how to present it honestly.

  12. Organic Conversion Attribution: Tie SEO Landing Pages to Business Value
    · 8 min read

    Google Search Console tells you which pages get clicks. Here's how to find out which ones actually drive conversions and business value.

  13. How to Calculate the Value of a Lead or Conversion
    · 7 min read

    Most conversions aren't purchases. Here's the simple formula to turn leads, signups and demo requests into a real dollar value.

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.