More Leads, Lower Costs, and Happier Clients: Expert Matt Emgi’s Playbook

Two weeks ago, SEO influencer and friend Matt Emgi of Emgi Group, shared a Linkedin post about how automation has helped his agency business.

Having seen lots of news in the direction with agencies becoming impacted by the rise of AI, I decided to dig deeper with Matt about how he managed to go the other direction with a Q&A.

Question: In practical terms, which aspects of your link building and SEO services are now augmented or automated using AI? Can you share real examples?

Answer: Forward thinking agencies are now shifting towards agentic SEO solutions. Agencies are choosing to do this because it means lower costs and better margins. Not only that, but automation and AI provide scalability in terms of lead generation, content marketing, and client delivery. That’s the no-BS answer.

For link building, automated email campaigns allow us to reach more partners in the SaaS space, it enables us to produce content for guest posts where we can then add links back to the same partners.

Now we can produce content in 20 minutes that is accepted and earns us multiple link slots for free that we can give to clients. Almost zero delivery cost for the same value of backlinks.

Question: Many believe automation might compromise quality; how do you ensure AI strengthens, rather than weakens, your client value or results?

Answer: In terms of the links we provide for clients, the value of the link is in the domain quality and relevance. Using automation doesn’t compromise these aspects. In fact, it allows us to find better opportunities. We can use custom GPTs or develop solutions in-house that allow us to prospect hundreds of pages automatically, so we can find the best fits for clients. That is a huge win, since many agencies struggle to deliver links that align with the clients internal SEO team requirements.

Question: Are there specific AI tools, platforms, or proprietary solutions you rely on? How do you decide what’s worth building in-house vs. using third-party?

Answer: Using Google Gemini 2.5 Pro and GPT. Therefore, their API keys are “mission critical”. Additionally, N8N is a solid backbone for several automations we use.

Ideally, every automated solution will be in-house; it reduces our dependence on third parties. Outsourcing development work is something we are always open to and have done because requirements change, the industry shifts, new ideas formulate. There’s no value in our agency, that hasn’t yet reached 7 figures, looking at a quality in-house developer.

Question: Your post mentions more deals, increased referrals, and monthly growth. Which process improvements or automations have had the biggest direct impact on your pipeline?

Answer: More outputs in sales comes down to more inputs. We send more cold emails and produce more content on LinkedIn. Increasing sales and marketing is leading to more deals. Working with a lead gen agency on new campaign copies, targeting new segments, and simply increasing volume has been key.

When we get a positive email reply, we run an automation to produce a pdf looking at them and two SEO competitors. I personally send Looms to these prospects explaining what it means and how we can help. This creates high value interactions.

Referrals and monthly growth stack when clients are happy. We do this by providing links they love at a reasonable cost, therefore churn isn’t a major problem. Most clients are sticking around. They become our baseline. As such, new sales stack on top of that.

Question: How do you balance customization with scale as you automate service delivery for diverse clients?

Answer: I want to productise our service more, not less. Smaller agencies need to take on diverse clients as it’s a means to growth. I see an opportunity for automation to be used in a way where we can provide more custom reporting, and individualist aspects to a service (agentic competitor analysis, and monitoring). Ultimately though, we want to have a service where clients feel like they can be fully hands-off and let us focus on our speciality, great links with big impact.

Question: How do you see the role of agencies like EMGI changing as AI becomes more advanced in the SEO space?

Answer: Great question. I perceive a shift to agencies becoming more of a “growth partner” model. I imagine more full-funnel marketing agencies will have the greatest success. Traffic is becoming less important. More so, everyone cares about how SEO contributes to revenue. Agencies need to adapt to this, and become more helpful in the entire marketing/sales cycle. Consulting driven agencies will also do well as we all navigate even more sizable changes. Expertise and perceived value knowledge adds are arguably more important than the quality of product/service. Companies will want to feel “in safe hands” as they justify spending to C Suite.

Question: Looking ahead, what future AI developments do you expect to change your business model or the broader SEO industry?

Answer: “How do we rank in LLMs” is a question that will NOT disappear. That’s a question all agencies in SEO will need to address. I don’t like services that have already sprung up around “GEO” and “LLM Optimisation”, but aspects of these services are important and will be in high demand. Selling the trend and capitalising on FOMO isn’t something I morally agree with, so I hope that as an industry it only happens after we have clear evidence of what works.

Personally, I’m more focused on how I can use AI to offer more for cheaper. Essentially sticking with the advice that in the end “a good product sell itself”… same for services.

What does “delivering 10x value” mean in the context of automation; can you share a concrete example?

Answer: Following on from what I mentioned before…. I don’t care about “getting rich quick” I want to build an agency that commands respect and appreciation. In the context of automation, it’s all about building a better service.

My main goal is to make individual link costs cheaper, and make link delivery faster, so we can provide a service other agencies cannot compete with. Meaning, they use us as a white label partner too.

If you were advising other agency leaders considering automation, what’s the one pitfall you’d urge them to avoid?

Answer: Everything takes longer than expected to put into action. I had finalised a solid game plan a few months ago, and expected it to be fully operational now. It’s not. It takes time, developers are expensive, the results of individual automations can be underwhelming. I would advise agencies going all in automation to have cash flow available for mistakes, and to stick with their core business. Find unique ways to use automation in your specific agency. Don’t approach it with a mindset of, “if we automate X, we can fire Y”, but “if we automate X, we can fulfil Y”. Automation is a growth enabler and that’s what should excite us.

About the Author: Matt Emgi is the founder of EMGI Group, a link building agency with a specialism helping SaaS and B2B companies. EMGI has served dozens of clients across the world and has helped companies see results such as: 200% increase in organic traffic, 2000 clicks a month increases to service pages, and 5 figure reductions in ad spend.