Reference

"Michael Merlino - Agentic workflows over rankings, short-form UGC video"

Merlino's revenue-over-rankings case, built on call tracking, agentic workflows, and a short-form UGC video play (PAA plus geo) that ranks across Google's image, video, and short-video tabs.

On this page

Main takeaways
Key points
Source

On Day 2, Michael Merlino (who also introduced himself on stage as "Mike Falino"; the session filename uses "merlino," and which spelling is the legal one cannot be resolved from the recording) gave a high-energy, slide-light, off-the-cuff talk arguing that rankings matter less than conversions and that agencies must adopt agentic workflows to survive. He manages 250 of his own Google Business Profiles and zero client profiles, tracks money-per-call in software he built, and routes follow-up through AI agents. His signature tactic is a short-form UGC video built from a People Also Ask question plus a geo, embedded on the relevant page and syndicated across social.

Main takeaways

Optimize for revenue, not rankings. His line was "It's not about the rankings, it's about the conversions," and he says he hasn't looked at a geo grid. The non-negotiable metric is money-per-call, tracked in his own call-tracking software (named "Bird's Eye ROI" in the recording; phonetic, not for sale).
The core ranking play is a short-form UGC video: take a People Also Ask question, add the geo, produce a 15 to 30 second video answering it with the offer, and it can rank across Google's image, video, and short-video tabs.
Social activity is now a trust and prominence signal. A business with only a website and a GBP, with no active social and no field content (before/afters), loses to active competitors.
Agencies that fail to adopt AI and agentic workflows will be left behind. The first symptom is heavy payroll, because churn is up, clients are down, and clients want to spend less.

Key points

Self-positioning

Profane, off-the-cuff, slide-light; says he does not make his own slides (a teammate does). Describes himself as having ADHD, OCD, and dyslexia, and as being from Brooklyn.
Manages 250 of his own Google Business Profiles and zero client GBPs.
Runs an agentic setup; referenced "agents, OpenClaw, and Hermes running" (tool names are phonetic transcriptions and unverified). A teammate named Elias (from Macedonia) built his local-guide bots, review bots, and GMB bots.
Agents monitor RSS feeds and sitemaps for new SEO articles, digest them, and test the worthwhile ones at scale.
His company is Pocket Marketer (a session sponsor), co-founded with a partner named Daniel; he describes himself as a CMO by trade who built it for "second-act entrepreneurs."
His team went from 27 to 15 people; he warned of more cuts unless he finds new roles, and said long-tenured staff who adopted AI now produce far more.

Revenue over rankings

"It's not about the rankings, it's about the conversions." Says he hasn't looked at a geo grid.
Built his own call-tracking software, "Bird's Eye ROI" (phonetic; not for sale): it logs money-per-call per day and routes calls to networks plus his own jobs.
The UI uses icons to mark call outcomes: an emotion icon for a quote amount (example given: $7,500), a credit card for a taken deposit, a megaphone box for a quote only, and a calendar for a booked in-house estimate.
For a missed call, he presses a button and an agent named "Hawkeye" (phonetic) opens a follow-up email or call.

Short-form UGC video play (his core tactic)

Take a PAA (People Also Ask) question and add the geo; target local, not national, because he wants a local phone call or social-platform contact.
Produce a 15 to 30 second UGC video that answers the question with the offer and "the intent behind the intent."
Thumbnail secret: put the FULL PAA question as text on the thumbnail; the UGC face or clip can be small in the corner. Google needs to see a face on camera (AI or real) because it is weeding out spammers and now expects real-person content.
Then embed the video on the relevant page (his point: Google ranks pages, not whole websites), syndicate it across social, and optionally add it to a podcast.
It can rank in the image tab, the video tab, and the short-video tab; if the SERP is weak enough, it ranks fast. With enough engagement, the content can start showing up in the AI Overview.
Case-study YouTube channels he named: "H Town Plumbers" and an NYC local-SEO channel. Example: "most common water heater problem in Houston" ranking in the video and short-video tabs (one video had about 1.2K views); "local SEO worth it NYC" where only the image showed because video was too competitive.

"Knowledge panel stacking" / "KP stacking" (a term he may have coined): stacking multiple knowledge panels as signals to Google; each GBP carries a unique identifier (he was unsure whether it is the MID, place ID, or CID).
He used to spin up software for video citations and get 100 knowledge panels in a day; the same plays are less effective now.
The Google Maps share/viewer link (transcribed phonetically as "MIB," carrying CID or place ID parameters): when you click a listing's Google link, a business active on social shows its social profiles there. Demonstrated live; he noted "Google's always changing" the link format.
An attendee-validated theory (from an audience member's old blog): each of the three map listings has a numeric ranking score, and to get a solo knowledge panel for a keyword instead of the 3-pack you need roughly 2.5x the score of the number-two listing. Merlino said his knowledge-panel dominance works this way.

AI Overview read

He says he can judge in seconds whether he can get into an AI Overview: if the sources are not all top-level authority domains, or if any social, Reddit, or the Google Maps share link is present, he can get in. He called this "forensic science" and referenced RAG systems and whether the sourced sites can be manipulated or bought.

"Trust, prominence, trust, prominence." Social activity is how Google reads trust and prominence; a business with only a website and GBP, no active social, no citations, and no field content loses to active competitors.
Diagnostic: when you cannot tell how a competitor ranks despite a clean audit, check their social media; they will be very active on at least one platform.
Reddit: add a PAA with a Reddit post, no links, drop value, use brand mentions ("Reddit is about value"). He also uses Quora daily and Facebook groups.
HVAC aside: "HVAC" is a vanity keyword; focus on actual service terms and know the sub-services or you do clients a disservice.

Agency survival warning

Adopt AI and agentic workflows or get left behind; the first symptom is heavy payroll, because churn is up, clients are down, and clients want to spend less.
Do not simply replace humans (he calls that unethical); retrain low-level workers instead.
AI clone of client idea: make an AI version of a camera-shy client, then show it to them or use it for outreach (for example, "I built you a better website, here's a ranking video").

Source

Day 2 SEO Spring Training session (Hartzer, Hawkins, Merlino block). No deck was provided for Merlino; he presented largely off the cuff with live demos, so this page is drawn from the session transcript notes. The original knowledge folder is not published on this site. Tool and product names spoken by Merlino ("OpenClaw," "Hermes," "Bird's Eye ROI," "Hawkeye," and the "MIB" Maps share link) are phonetic transcriptions and should be verified before reuse.