The ratio of pipeline (or revenue) generated by AEO investment to the AEO investment itself. Expressed as 'X.Y times.'
The AEO ROI multiplier expresses the return on AEO investment in dollars-out per dollars-in. If you spent $40K on AEO in a quarter and AEO-attributable pipeline was $200K, your ROI multiplier is 5.0×. The multiplier is the headline metric on monthly ROI reports because it's the number CMOs and CFOs care about most. A multiplier above 3.0× is generally considered healthy for AEO programs; below 1.0× signals the investment isn't paying back.
ROI multipliers turn abstract 'visibility' metrics into a CFO-readable financial number. A monthly report saying 'AEO drove $180K in pipeline at 4.8× ROI' is exponentially more defensible than 'we improved share-of-voice by 15%.'
Lantern's monthly ROI report headline: 'Your AEO program drove $180,000 in pipeline last month. ROI multiplier: 4.8×.' Below the headline, the report shows the funnel: 12 prompts gained visibility → 340 AI-referred sessions → 47 MQLs → 12 SQLs → 3 closed-won at $180K ARR. The 4.8× is calculated as pipeline ($180K) divided by total AEO investment that month ($37.5K including tools, agency, content production).
The terms in this glossary aren't theoretical — they're what Lantern's product calculates and reports every month for B2B SaaS teams. See yours in 7 days. 14-day free trial.
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