Search visibility, AI discovery, paid efficiency, and progress against the Q2 marketing OKRs — an external read on what's working, what isn't, and what to act on this cycle. Scoped to US users on roomsketcher.com.
Jo's Q2 marketing OKRs define three objectives. This section reads each one against the data this cycle. The rest of the report contains the supporting detail. Two of the three moved in the right direction this period; the SEO/GEO objective is the one carrying risk.
| Key Result | Tracked Via | This Cycle | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Increased subs at lower CAC | Combined Google+Bing New Subscription, US, paid CPA | New Sub +42% / CPA -29% | Up vs last |
| Key Result | Tracked Via | This Cycle | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 in LLMs (LLM Visibility Score) | 2 anchor queries × 6 LLMs, NYC, weekly | creator 95.8% · software 79.2% | Baseline |
| — GSC position "floor plan creator" | GSC organic position (US) | ~24.1 (vs ~21.0) | -3.1 ↓ |
| Increased organic non-brand clicks (NORAM) | GSC clicks/day (US) | 1,171/day (vs 1,279) | -8.4% |
| Floor Plan Creator page live | GSC URL Inspection (carried) | Live & indexed; head term not yet earned | Holding |
| Key Result | Tracked Via | This Cycle | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Increased sign-up rate (NORAM) | GA4 sign_up + new_subscription (US) |
sign_up +28% / new_sub +5% vs last | Up vs last |
| Key pages updated | Key Page Audit & Update (initiative) | Pending | TBD |
Last cycle's reversal recovered. The 6-week view (4 wks ago → last → current):
/floor-plan-creator/ remains live and indexed but has not yet earned the unbranded head term — it is still being out-ranked by the comparison/blog pages, and the head term slipped further this cycle. The Affiliate Pilot and FloorCapture comparison pages remain externally undetectable (zero "affiliate"/"floorcapture" US query impressions). Section 10 actions are tagged with the OKR objective they serve.
Trackable KPIs updated every two weeks. Designed for quick scanning so trends surface immediately. All metrics are filtered to United States users on roomsketcher.com only.
user_location_view.country_criterion_id = 2840 (United States). Bing Ads xlsx filtered to Country = United States. Timeframes (three 14-day windows for trend visibility): Current: May 18 – May 31, 2026. Last Period: May 4 – May 17, 2026. 4 Weeks Ago: Apr 20 – May 3, 2026. Session metrics shown as daily averages. The Δ column compares Current vs Last Period; the 4-Wks-Ago column lets you spot when a movement is genuine direction vs noise. The "4 Wks Ago" and "Last Period" columns carry forward Issue #4's published "Last Period" and "Current" columns (each issue's Current becomes the next issue's Last). GSC daily values cover 13 of 14 days (5/18–5/30) due to GSC reporting lag; daily averages remain comparable.
| KPI | 4 Wks Ago Apr 20 – May 3 |
Last Period May 4 – May 17 |
Current May 18 – May 31 |
Δ vs Last | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Website Traffic (US) — daily averages | |||||
| Total Website Sessions | 4,485/day | 4,204/day | 4,598/day | +9.4% | |
| Direct Sessions | 2,070/day | 1,968/day | 2,164/day | +10.0% | |
| Organic Search Sessions | 1,510/day | 1,360/day | 1,261/day | -7.3% | |
| Paid Search + Cross-network | 517/day | 442/day | 765/day | +73.1% | |
| Paid Other (Microsoft Ads, GA4) | 151/day | 153/day | 124/day | -18.9% | |
| Bing / Microsoft (US) | |||||
| Bing Organic Sessions | 78/day | 67/day | 66/day | -1.2% | |
| Copilot Sessions | 2.9/day | 1.1/day | 1.3/day | +17% | |
| AI Referral Traffic (US) — ChatGPT + Gemini + Perplexity + Copilot + Claude | |||||
| All AI Platforms (total) | 37.5/day | 54.9/day | 56.1/day | +2.2% | |
| ChatGPT | 22.4/day | 44.7/day | 49.1/day | +9.9% | |
| Gemini | 7.8/day | 4.7/day | 2.6/day | -45% | |
| Perplexity | 3.2/day | 3.0/day | 2.4/day | -19% | |
| Copilot | 2.9/day | 1.1/day | 1.3/day | +17% | |
| Claude | 0.9/day | 1.4/day | 0.6/day | -53% | |
| Search Console (US) — current covers 13 of 14 days due to GSC reporting lag | |||||
| GSC Total Clicks | 1,373/day | 1,279/day | 1,171/day | -8.4% | |
| GSC Total Impressions | 133,035/day | 156,633/day | 114,442/day | -26.9% | |
| Avg. GSC Position | 8.55 | 8.82 | 10.32 | -1.50 ↓ | |
| Implied GSC CTR | 1.03% | 0.82% | 1.02% | +0.20 pts | |
| Key Keyword Positions (US) — OKR 2 anchor terms (Last + Current GSC positions re-pulled fresh; every head term slipped) | |||||
| "Floor Plan Creator" Position | ~16.8 | ~21.0 | ~24.1 | -3.1 ↓ | |
| "Floor Plan Maker" Position | ~17.8 | ~20.7 | ~27.1 | -6.4 ↓ | |
| "Floor Plan Software" Position | ~6.7 | ~8.5 | ~17.2 | -8.7 ↓ | |
| "Best Floor Plan Software" Position | ~5.6 | ~7.6 | ~9.8 | -2.2 ↓ | |
| "Free Floor Plan Creator" Position | ~5.5 | ~5.3 | ~7.8 | -2.5 ↓ | |
| LLM Visibility Score (US · NYC) — OKR 2 primary KR (2 anchor queries × 6 LLMs, weekly readings) | |||||
| "best floor plan creator" (LLM) | — | — | 95.8% | First reading | |
| "best floorplan software" (LLM) | — | — | 79.2% | First reading | |
| Google Ads (US) — Spend & Efficiency (NOK) — via user_location_view, country_criterion_id = 2840 | |||||
| Google Ad Spend | 12,429 NOK/day | 12,746 NOK/day | 18,657 NOK/day | +46.4% | |
| Google Ad Spend (USD equiv.) | ~$1,131/day | ~$1,160/day | ~$1,698/day | +46.4% | |
| Google Ad Clicks | 663/day | 624/day | 1,073/day | +72.0% | |
| Google Ad Conversions (all) | 106.0/day | 82.8/day | 145.6/day | +75.8% | |
| Google CPA (NOK) | 117 NOK | 154 NOK | 128 NOK | -16.9% | |
| Google Ads (US) — Conversions by Goal (14-day totals) | |||||
| Google — Free Account (Personal) | 1,115 | 908 | 1,720 | +89.4% | |
| Google — Free Account (Business) | 174 | 137 | 151 | +10.2% | |
| Google — New Subscription | 142 | 80 | 133 | +66.3% | |
| Google — Premium Project | 30 | 16 | 26 | +62.5% | |
| Google — Ready Made Purchase | 8 | 10 | 8 | -20.0% | |
| Google — Renew Subscription | 17 | 8 | 0 | -100% | |
| Microsoft (Bing) Ads (US) — USD — spend held flat but efficiency slipped (CPA +23%) | |||||
| Bing Ad Spend | $5,183/day | $4,117/day | $4,033/day | -2.0% | |
| Bing Ad Clicks | 325/day | 317/day | 250/day | -21.1% | |
| Bing Ad Conversions | 29.9/day | 25.4/day | 20.3/day | -20.1% | |
| Bing Ad Revenue (attributed) | $5,974/day | $2,886/day | $2,305/day | -20.1% | |
| Bing CPA | $174 | $162 | $199 | +22.8% | |
| Microsoft (Bing) Ads (US) — Conversions by Goal (14-day totals) | |||||
| Bing — Free Account (Personal) | 302 | 277 | 221 | -20.2% | |
| Bing — Free Account (Business) | 47 | 45 | 36 | -20.0% | |
| Bing — New Subscription | 60 | 29 | 23 | -20.7% | |
| Bing — Premium Project | 7 | 2 | 4 | +100% | |
| Bing — Ready Made Purchase | 2 | 2 | 0 | -100% | |
| Combined Paid Media (US) — Google + Bing (USD) — OKR 1 lens | |||||
| Total Paid Media Spend | ~$6,314/day | ~$5,277/day | ~$5,731/day | +8.6% | |
| Total Paid Conversions | ~136/day | ~108/day | ~166/day | +53.7% | |
| Combined Paid CPA (USD) | ~$46 | ~$49 | ~$35 | -28.6% | |
| Google Share of US Paid Spend | 18% | 22% | 30% | +8 pts | |
| Bing Share of US Paid Spend | 82% | 78% | 70% | -8 pts | |
| Combined Paid Media (US) — Conversions by Goal (daily avg, Google + Bing) | |||||
| Free Account (Personal) — combined | 101.2/day | 84.6/day | 138.7/day | +63.9% | |
| Free Account (Business) — combined | 15.8/day | 13.0/day | 13.4/day | +3.1% | |
| New Subscription — combined | 14.4/day | 7.79/day | 11.1/day | +42.5% | |
| Premium Project — combined | 2.64/day | 1.29/day | 2.14/day | +65.9% | |
| Ready Made Purchase — combined | 0.71/day | 0.86/day | 0.59/day | -31.4% | |
| Renew Subscription — combined | 1.21/day | 0.57/day | 0.00/day | -100% | |
| GA4 Conversion Events (US, all sources) — OKR 3 lens (April reversal recovered) | |||||
Sign-ups (GA4 sign_up) |
233.9/day | 218.7/day | 280.1/day | +28.1% | |
| New Subscription (GA4) | 23.7/day | 18.4/day | 19.4/day | +5.4% | |
| Purchase (GA4) | 39.0/day | 30.7/day | 31.2/day | +1.6% | |
| Order Ready Made (GA4) | 9.1/day | 8.8/day | 7.6/day | -13.6% | |
| New Premium Project (GA4) | 3.8/day | 2.9/day | 3.5/day | +20.7% | |
| Site Performance — PageSpeed Insights, mobile + desktop avg of 2 runs each (June 1, 2026) | |||||
| Lighthouse Performance (Mobile) | 45 / 100 | 41 / 100 | 66 / 100 | +25 pts | |
| Mobile LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) | 13.67s | 13.57s | 8.40s | -5.17s | |
| Mobile FCP (First Contentful Paint) | 4.02s | 3.36s | 2.60s | -0.76s | |
| Mobile TBT (Total Blocking Time) | ~618ms | ~726ms | ~140ms | -586ms | |
| Mobile CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Flat (good) | |
| Lighthouse Performance (Desktop) | 75 / 100 | 64 / 100 | 98 / 100 | +34 pts | |
| Desktop LCP | 1.06s | 1.45s | 1.20s | -0.25s | |
| Desktop TBT | ~554ms | ~640ms | ~20ms | -620ms | |
| Accessibility Score | 97 / 100 | 97 / 100 | 96 / 100 | -1 pt | |
| SEO Score (Lighthouse) | 100 / 100 | 100 / 100 | 100 / 100 | Flat | |
sign_up +28%, but GA4 purchase was flat (+1.6%). Paid volume is filling the top of the funnel faster than it's converting to paid — the free→paid step is the thing to watch next cycle.US users drove 64,370 sessions across all channels during this 14-day period — a daily average of 4,598, up from 4,204/day the prior window (+9.4%). The mix shape is stable, but the recovery is concentrated in two channels: Paid Search + Cross-network nearly doubled (the Google scale-up) and Direct rose +10%. Organic Search is the only major channel that softened.
Direct is again the largest US channel at 30,296 sessions (47% of US traffic). It's also the most opaque: "Direct" in GA4 is a catch-all for any session GA4 can't attribute to a known source. The composition is stable cycle-to-cycle — roughly 40% of "Direct" is existing-user lifecycle traffic, dark-social shares, or noise rather than new acquisition.
| Landing page | Sessions | % of Direct | What it really is |
|---|---|---|---|
/user/add/ |
5,974 | 19.7% | Signup form return — users coming back from email/app to register |
/ (homepage) |
4,632 | 15.3% | True direct + dark-social mix |
(not set) |
3,556 | 11.7% | Lost-attribution sessions, mostly app-platform |
/get-started/ |
3,412 | 11.3% | Signup flow re-entry |
/360/?gid=... (virtual tour shares) |
1,809 | 6.0% | Dark-social shares (Slack/iMessage/Pinterest strip referrers) |
/user/login/ |
1,701 | 5.6% | Login page bookmark |
/pricing/ |
1,019 | 3.4% | Returning evaluators |
/download-windows/ + /download-mac/ |
1,124 | 3.7% | Install on second device — existing users |
/features/draw-floor-plans/ |
314 | 1.0% | True direct demand |
| All other pages | ~6,757 | ~22% | Long tail (deep pages, returning visits) |
Direct's conversion rate is again ~4× higher than Organic Search — the signal that "Direct" is dominated by existing users, not cold prospects. (Conversions = GA4 key events, US, this period.)
| Channel | Sessions | Key Events | Conv rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct | 30,296 | 3,181 | 10.5% |
| Paid Search | 8,275 | 609 | 7.4% |
| Cross-network | 2,433 | 172 | 7.1% |
| Paid Other (Bing) | 1,738 | 117 | 6.7% |
| Referral | 1,378 | 45 | 3.3% |
| Organic Search | 17,648 | 412 | 2.3% |
| 407 | 9 | 2.2% | |
| Unassigned (anomaly) | 1,709 | 940 | 55.0% |
The same anomaly flagged in Issue #4 is still here at almost identical scale: GA4's "Unassigned" bucket has 1,709 sessions with 940 key events — a 55% conversion rate that is impossible for genuine cold traffic. It's almost certainly existing-user conversions where GA4 lost the source attribution but kept the user_id. That's 940 conversions per cycle the channel scorecard can't attribute to anything — more than half of all Google-paid Free Account (Personal) conversions. It recurs every cycle, which makes it a structural reporting gap, not a one-off. Section 10 Action #5 carries the clean-up.
Carving out the ~40% of Direct that's lifecycle/share/noise drops the "true new-acquisition Direct" share of US sessions from 47% to roughly 28%. That's still a large channel — brand search and dark social are both real — but it reframes where new users actually come from, and it means the +10% Direct rise this cycle is partly an existing-user-activity rise (more signups returning to /user/add/), consistent with the paid scale-up driving more return-to-register traffic.
After last cycle's 46% surge, AI referral traffic plateaued this period — 785 US sessions over 14 days, up just +1% from 777. The plateau is healthy in shape: ChatGPT continued to climb (44.7 → 49.1/day, +10%) and now represents 88% of US AI traffic, while the smaller engines (Gemini, Perplexity, Claude) gave back ground. The category is still concentrating, not diversifying.
346957354), sessionSource dimension by sessions metric, filtered to country = United States. AI sources identified by the following sessionSource values: chatgpt.com (ChatGPT), gemini.google.com (Gemini), copilot.com (Microsoft Copilot), perplexity.ai + perplexity (Perplexity, summed), claude.ai (Claude). Period: May 18 – May 31, 2026 (14 days). Microsoft Copilot AI-citation export (Bing Webmaster AI Performance) was not available this issue — the citation-level rows are omitted and noted as not-tracked for this cycle.
The big question after Issue #4's ChatGPT doubling was whether it was a spike or a new level. The answer this cycle: it held and added to it — 635 → 688 sessions (daily 44.7 → 49.1, +9.9%), a new high for the tracked period. ChatGPT is now 88% of all US AI referrals (was 82% last cycle). The underlying citation surface RoomSketcher widened inside ChatGPT in April is still intact and still routing traffic, which is the most important confirmation in this section — AI gains in this category have been fragile elsewhere, and this one stuck. ChatGPT also routes more click-throughs per citation than any other LLM, so concentration here is the favorable place to be concentrated.
Gemini fell 66 → 36 sessions (the largest of the secondary engines, -45%), Claude 19 → 9 (-53%), Perplexity 42 → 34 (-19%). Only Copilot ticked up (15 → 18). None of these is large enough to interpret as a trend on its own, but the collective pattern — ChatGPT up, everything else down — is the third consecutive cycle of the same shape. Gemini's swing in particular (7.8 → 4.7 → 2.6/day over three cycles) is consistent with Google AI Overviews' dynamic source-set churn, where the cited sources change with each refresh and a brand can drop out without losing any on-page quality.
Perplexity has now sat between 34–45 US sessions for four cycles. Its citation graph is heavily Reddit-weighted (~47% of citations across major Perplexity studies). The good news, carried from Issue #4: RoomSketcher's Reddit presence (u/roomsketcher_sean) is live and sustained, with 13 comments now in r/floorplan — the single most citation-relevant sub for floor-plan queries. Perplexity's citation graph updates slowly (typically 6–8 weeks for a sustained presence to register), so this is the channel most likely to move next, if it moves. Until then Perplexity stays capped regardless of on-site content quality — a structural channel constraint, not a content problem.
With ChatGPT now 88% of US AI traffic, the AEO formatting pass on the top citation-target pages (floor-plan-symbols, electrical-symbols, ada-bathroom-requirements, floor-plan-dimensions, gross-floor-area-gfa) compounds the ChatGPT win directly rather than shoring up the smaller engines. The content patterns are the same as before — FAQ schema, structured Q&A blocks, clean H2/H3 headlines, table-formatted lists — but the expected payoff is now almost entirely in the surface that's actually growing. This is carried as Action #4.
Separate from the click-through traffic above, this is Jo's direct measure of whether the LLMs recommend RoomSketcher. Each of two anchor queries is run once a week (NYC, fresh chats) across six LLMs and scored 0 (absent) / 0.25 (mentioned, not listed) / 0.5 (listed) / 0.75 (#1 in a category) / 1.0 (definite #1 recommendation); the query score is the sum ÷ 6.0. Reading taken June 1, 2026. This is the first formally captured reading — it sets the baseline; future cycles will show the trend.
| LLM | "best floorplan software" | "best floor plan creator" |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Google AI Mode | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Microsoft Copilot | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Gemini | 0.75 | 1.0 |
| Claude | 0.75 | 1.0 |
| Perplexity | 0.25 | 0.75 |
| Score (sum ÷ 6.0) — first reading | 4.75 → 79.2% | 5.75 → 95.8% |
The "creator" query scored 95.8% (5.75/6) — ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Copilot, Gemini, and Claude all return RoomSketcher as the explicit best-overall creator, and Perplexity lists it as "best for polished results." This is the strongest single OKR 2 signal in the report: on the exact term the Floor Plan Creator initiative targets, the AI surfaces now overwhelmingly recommend RoomSketcher #1. It also diverges from classic search, where the "floor plan creator" GSC position slipped this cycle — the LLMs are ahead of Google's blue links on this term, which is the better place to be leading as AI discovery grows.
"best floorplan software" scored 79.2% (4.75/6) — the weaker of the two queries. The gap is Perplexity, which leaves RoomSketcher out of its named recommendations entirely (it appears only as a cited source, scoring 0.25) while recommending Floorplanner, Planner 5D, Magicplan, and Chief Architect; Gemini and Claude also frame the software query by use-case and slot RoomSketcher into the "real estate / presentation" niche (0.75) rather than naming it the overall winner. This lines up with the GSC picture: "floor plan software" is also RoomSketcher's soft term in classic search (position 8.5 → 17.2 this cycle, Section 4). Same term, softer on both Google and the LLMs; "creator" is where RoomSketcher is strongest on both surfaces. Perplexity's Reddit-weighted citation graph (Section 8) is the lever most likely to lift the software score over time.
This is the cycle's red flag. Every tracked head term gave back ground, and the slide was broad rather than concentrated: "floor plan software" 8.5 → 17.2, "floor plan maker" 20.7 → 27.1, "floor plan creator" 21.0 → 24.1, "best floor plan software" 7.6 → 9.8. US impressions fell -27% and average position dropped from 8.82 to 10.32. The breadth of the slip — head, free-variant, and long-tail terms all down together — points to a site-wide ranking event (a Google volatility window and/or the lingering effect of the two prior speed-decline cycles) rather than a per-page problem.
| Head Term | Current Impressions | Current Clicks | Current Position | Last-Period Position | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "floor plan creator" | 391 | 5 | ~24.1 | ~21.0 | -3.1 ↓ |
| "floor plan maker" | 257 | 3 | ~27.1 | ~20.7 | -6.4 ↓ |
| "floor plan software" | 713 | 18 | ~17.2 | ~8.5 | -8.7 ↓ |
| "best floor plan software" | 354 | 8 | ~9.8 | ~7.6 | -2.2 ↓ |
| "free floor plan creator" | 363 | 0 | ~7.8 | ~5.3 | -2.5 ↓ |
| "easy floor plan maker" | 458 | 14 | ~8.0 | ~6.1 | -1.9 ↓ |
| "floor plan app" | 425 | 6 | ~11.1 | ~6.2 | -4.9 ↓ |
Last cycle four head terms slipped while the "free" variants improved; this cycle the "free" and long-tail variants slipped too. When head, modifier, and long-tail terms all move down together in the same window, the cause is rarely page-level — it's almost always a site-wide signal change or a Google ranking refresh. Two candidates fit the timing, and the first is the likely driver: (1) the Google May 2026 core update (announced May 21, a "helpful content" update) plus some mid-May volatility — the -27% impression drop with a CTR rise is the classic signature of shedding low-position long-tail while keeping higher-CTR head positions, and at the page level it's broad, non-converting queries being cleared (Section 8); (2) the lagged effect of two prior cycles of Lighthouse decline, since Core Web Vitals has been a ranking input since 2021. Crucially, the second cause is now removed — site speed recovered sharply this cycle (Section 7) — so the next 1–2 cycles are the read on whether the slip reverses (speed was the driver) or persists (a ranking event we need to respond to with content/links).
The dedicated page shipped in Issue #4 remains live and indexed, but "floor plan creator" fell again (21.0 → 24.1) and the page is still being out-ranked by the comparison/blog pages for the unbranded term. The follow-through prescribed last cycle — internal links from the homepage, /features/draw-floor-plans/, /blog/best-floor-plan-software-tools/, /features/ai-convert/, and /features/roomsketcher-app/ — is the lever to transfer enough internal authority for Google to associate the URL with the head term. With site speed no longer a drag, those internal-link signals should land more cleanly now. Carried as Action #3.
The keyword-family impression totals are pulled from GSC's query export, which caps at 25,000 rows per request. Both the current and last-period pulls hit that cap, so the long-tail impression sums are understated and not perfectly comparable between windows. The position figures in the table above are reliable (head terms sit well inside the top rows); the family-level impression magnitudes should be read as directional, not exact. The -27% aggregate impression drop is taken from the date-level GSC totals, which are not subject to the row cap and are reliable.
The competitive structure is unchanged from last cycle, and it sharpens why the head-term slip matters: Planner 5D continues to lead hard on AI (AI Floor Plan Converter, AI Floorplan Recognition, AI Room Design, all promoted on the homepage), while Cedreo holds dedicated creator/maker pages with no AI. RoomSketcher sits between them — it has the dedicated page and a strong AI product (AI Convert), but neither is winning the head terms right now.
| Competitor | "Floor Plan Creator" Page | "Floor Plan Maker" Page | AI Features | Key Differentiator |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Planner 5D | Yes — H1 "Free Floor Plan Creator Software" | No | AI Floor Plan Converter, AI Floorplan Recognition, AI Room Design, AI Interior Design | 7,000+ objects, mobile-first, AI-forward homepage — most AI-aggressive competitor |
| Cedreo | Yes — /floor-plans/floor-plan-creator/ |
Blueprint Maker page | None promoted (speed-focused: "draw a house in 2 hours") | Professional 3D, builder/remodeler-focused |
| SmartDraw | Yes — "Free Floor Plan Creator" | No | "Works with ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or something else" | US-based, 1,000+ templates; LLM-agnostic AI-hybrid positioning |
| Floorplanner | No (uses "floor planner" branding) | No | Unknown | 30M+ users, browser-based |
| Homestyler | No (generic page) | No | Yes | Autodesk-backed, rendering |
| Canva | No (generic "floor plans") | No | AI tools | Massive brand, design suite |
| Matterport | N/A | N/A | Reality capture | Different approach entirely |
| RoomSketcher | Yes — /floor-plan-creator/ |
No — US position 27.1 (was 20.7) | AI Convert | #1 overall per multiple reviews |
Planner 5D pairs an exact-match H1 ("Free Floor Plan Creator Software") with the most aggressive AI feature set in the category — this cycle its homepage promotes four distinct AI capabilities (AI Floor Plan Converter, AI Floorplan Recognition, AI Room Design, AI Interior Design). That combination is why it is the most direct competitor on both fronts the OKRs care about: traditional head-term ranking and the "get recommended by an LLM" GEO goal, because AI-feature-dense pages get described and cited more readily by ChatGPT and Perplexity. RoomSketcher's AI Convert is a genuinely strong proof point, but it is one feature messaged on a feature page, versus Planner 5D's four features on the homepage. This is the gap to close on the OKR 2 timeline.
Cedreo continues to position on speed and professional output ("the only 3D home design software to draw a complete house in just 2 hours") with no AI features promoted on its homepage. It holds a dedicated /floor-plan-creator/ page and a Blueprint Maker page, so it competes on the head terms, but it is not competing on AI discovery at all. That's an opening: in the AI-answer surfaces where Planner 5D is strong, Cedreo is effectively absent, and RoomSketcher's AI Convert can occupy that space if the AI messaging is surfaced more prominently (homepage, not just /features/ai-convert/).
Editorial dominance continues to hold even through a soft ranking cycle. RoomSketcher's own comparison page for "best floor plan software" slipped to ~9.8 this cycle but is still on page 1, and brand + AI Convert search variants continue to hold position 1. The editorial and brand foundation is intact; what softened is the non-brand head-term cohort, which is the more contestable, competitor-pressured part of the footprint.
Three structural strengths carried or improved this cycle. (The two largest bright spots — the site-speed recovery and the paid-efficiency win — are detailed in Sections 7 and 8 respectively.)
The account took on +46% more Google spend and produced +76% more conversions, dropping Google CPA -17% (in NOK) and combined paid CPA -29% to ~$35. Free Account (Personal) signups from Google nearly doubled (908 → 1,720). Scaling up while improving efficiency is the hard combination to pull off — it usually means the account found genuinely under-served, in-budget auction demand rather than buying its way up a rising cost curve. The Competitors campaign is the clearest example: +95% spend produced +148% conversions.
AI gains in this category have been fragile (Gemini, Copilot, and Claude have all given back gains within a cycle). ChatGPT's April doubling not only held but extended (+10%), and it's now 88% of US AI traffic. This is the channel where RoomSketcher has a durable, growing position, and it's the favorable one to hold because ChatGPT routes the most click-throughs per citation.
RoomSketcher remains #1 in multiple US editorial reviews, the /blog/best-floor-plan-software-tools/ comparison page is still on page 1 for the high-volume buyer-intent term, and brand + AI Convert variants hold position 1. The non-brand head terms softened, but the brand and editorial foundation — the harder-to-displace asset — did not. That foundation is what makes a one-cycle ranking dip recoverable rather than structural.
Site speed audit run June 1, 2026 (mobile + desktop, average of 2 runs each). This is the headline win of the cycle: both surfaces recovered dramatically. Mobile Lighthouse went 41 → 66, desktop 64 → 98. The mobile LCP and TBT improvements (13.57s → 8.40s; 726ms → 140ms) are exactly the profile the Issue #4 Action #1 fix was designed to produce — the BCI lazy-load override and the JavaScript deferral appear to have shipped.
https://www.roomsketcher.com/, mobile and desktop each averaged over 2 runs. Both runs matched within 1% on every metric this cycle (run-to-run variance was low — itself a sign the heavy, variable JavaScript work has been removed from the critical path). Reported values: Mobile Performance 66, LCP 8.40s, FCP 2.60s, TBT 140ms, CLS 0.000; Desktop Performance 98, LCP 1.20s, FCP 0.50s, TBT 20ms, CLS 0.006.
Issue #4 identified the mobile LCP element as the "Better Core Iframe" plugin's lazy-loaded YouTube thumbnail, and the largest TBT contributors as the Forethought chat widget and unaudited GTM tags. This cycle's numbers are consistent with all of those having been addressed:
Recommend the team confirm what shipped (which of the three BCI routes, plus the Forethought/GTM work) so it's documented and doesn't regress. This is the single most important maintenance item now — the gain is large and the failure mode (a plugin update re-enabling lazy-load) is silent.
The recovery is real, but 8.4s mobile LCP is still in Google's "poor" band (the "good" threshold is 2.5s). The remaining LCP cost is most likely the homepage hero media itself (the YouTube embed/thumbnail) now loading eagerly but still being a large element. The next increment — serving a correctly-sized mobile thumbnail (last cycle it served 1280×720 for a 380×214 slot) and/or a lighter poster image — should pull LCP down further toward the 2.5–4s range. This is now a refinement, not a rescue: the page went from "poor across the board" to "good on desktop, fixable on mobile."
The head-term slip (Section 4) and the prior two cycles of Lighthouse decline cohorted in time, which was the basis for treating speed as a contributing cause. With speed now fixed, the clean test is the next 1–2 cycles: Core Web Vitals improvements take time to be re-crawled and re-weighted, so a real speed-driven ranking recovery would show up with a lag, not immediately. If the head terms recover over June, speed was a driver and the fix paid off twice (UX + SEO). If they don't, the slip is a separate ranking event and we respond with content/links. Either way, shipping the fix was the right and necessary move.
Mobile CLS 0.000, Desktop CLS 0.006, SEO 100/100, Accessibility 96/100. The page now loads fast and renders cleanly. With performance recovered, there are no remaining red metrics in the site-health audit — the work shifts from "fix" to "protect and refine."
Items that show up in the data this cycle as concerns or untapped levers, ordered by urgency. The headline risk this cycle is the OKR 2 organic slip; the secondary one is Bing paid efficiency. Both sit against an otherwise strong cycle for paid (OKR 1) and conversion events (OKR 3).
US GSC impressions fell 156,633 → 114,442/day this cycle, and average position drifted 8.82 → 10.32. Drilling into where the loss happened changes the read entirely: roughly two-thirds of the entire drop is the /blog/ section — not the gallery, not the product pages. The homepage barely moved.
| Section (US, impressions/day) | Baseline | Current | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| /blog/ (how-to articles) | 52,155 | 33,649 | -36% |
| /floor-plan-gallery/ | 16,090 | 12,868 | -20% |
| /features/ | 5,528 | 3,581 | -35% |
| Homepage | 2,863 | 2,750 | -4% |
Drilling into individual pages shows the loss is Google trimming high-volume, low-CTR impressions where pages ranked on the wrong query — not pages losing their real audience. The clearest case is /features/ai-convert/: impressions fell ~850 → ~90/day (-89%), but clicks stayed flat (~5/day) and CTR rose from 0.6% to ~6%. It simply shed ~800/day of page-2-to-9 impressions on broad queries it never converted, while holding its position 1–4 rankings on the commercial "image to floor plan" terms — that page is actually healthier, not hurt. The genuine blog losers behave the same way: /blog/floor-plan-dimensions/ (~10,000 → ~2,000/day) lost the head terms "floor plans" (14,400 impressions) and "plan" (15,000) where it sat on page 1–2 at a ~0.01% CTR, while keeping its on-topic "floor plan examples / with dimensions" queries.
On timing and cause: the slide began ~May 15–16 — a few days before Google announced the May 2026 core update (May 21) — and continued through it, with peak volatility on the May 23 and May 30 weekends. So it's a mix of mid-May volatility and the core update, a "helpful content" update that demotes generic informational summaries; RoomSketcher's how-to blog content is in that category, and these definitional queries are increasingly answered by Google's AI Overviews directly. Either way, the mechanism is the same — broad, non-converting impressions being cleared.
Two things keep this from being alarming. (1) Clicks fell only -8.4% vs impressions -27% — /features/ai-convert/ is the proof, losing 89% of its impressions with zero click loss. The impressions that left were never converting. (2) The -27% is partly a comparison-window artifact: the baseline (5/4–17) happened to capture an early-May impression peak (5/4–7 were the highest days in six weeks); measured against the window before that (~134k/day), the real decline is closer to -15%. Google's guidance is to not make changes mid-rollout and to reassess ~a week after it completes (mid-June) — so the move is to hold, not react (Action #3).
While Google scaled efficiently, Bing went the other way: spend held flat (-2%) but conversions fell -20% and CPA rose $162 → $199 (+23%). The campaign-level breakdown shows why — the budget concentrated into the most expensive line:
| Campaign (Bing US) | Spend Δ | Conv Δ | Curr CPA |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0. B - Branded - NORAM | +39.1% | -2.7% | $321 |
| 1. B - Search - NORAM | -38.6% | -44.8% | $111 |
| 2. B - Competitors - NORAM | -21.7% | +23.5% | $166 |
| 3. P-Max - NORAM | -28.2% | Flat | $120 |
Bing Branded spend rose +39% ($24,664 → $34,299) for flat conversions (110 → 107), pushing Branded CPA to $321 — while the efficient Search campaign ($111 CPA) was cut -39% and lost 90 conversions. A branded campaign costing $321 per conversion is the opposite of what brand traffic should cost; either brand CPCs spiked (competitor bidding on the brand term) or the budget allocation needs rebalancing back toward Search. This is the single clearest paid-efficiency lever this cycle. Action #2.
Google paid Free Account (Personal) signups jumped +89% and GA4 all-source sign_up rose +28% — clear top-of-funnel strength. But GA4 all-source purchase was essentially flat (+1.6%) and new_subscription up only +5%, even as paid New Subscription conversions rose. In other words, the scale-up is buying a lot more free signups but the free→paid conversion step isn't scaling at the same rate. That's normal in the first cycle of a volume push (new free users take time to convert), but it's the metric to watch next cycle: if purchases and subscriptions don't follow the signup curve up within 1–2 cycles, the paid scale-up is buying volume that doesn't monetize. Recommend tracking the free→paid cohort conversion rate explicitly.
The ~801 pages with identical meta descriptions / ~797 with identical titles flagged in prior cycles — almost certainly the template gallery (~841 gallery pages received US impressions this period, up from 782) — remain unresolved. Gallery impressions actually fell -26% this cycle (225k → 167k) in line with the broader organic softness, and gallery clicks fell -19%. The fix is unchanged: pattern-based templated metadata via WordPress template logic clears hundreds of pages in one pass. Carried as Action #6.
Zero US query impressions for "affiliate" or "floorcapture" again this cycle; /affiliate/ remains externally undetectable. These initiatives are still pending from a search-discovery perspective. No change since Issue #3/#4 — flagged here only so it doesn't fall off the list.
The sustained Reddit presence (u/roomsketcher_sean) is the right structural move for Perplexity/GEO and is working at the comment level (13 r/floorplan comments). The compounding expansions remain open: posts have not yet appeared in the four largest design-relevant subs (r/InteriorDesign, r/RealEstate, r/HomeImprovement, r/architecture), the post cadence paused after late February, and Quora — Perplexity's parallel citation graph — is entirely absent. This is a Section 8 longer-horizon item, not a two-week action; it's the lever most likely to move Perplexity over the next 1–2 cycles if the team chooses to invest.
No new market-size data this cycle — carrying forward the category baseline. Two industry-trend reads worth noting given the Q2 OKRs and this cycle's data.
Planner 5D now promotes four distinct AI features on its homepage; SmartDraw messages LLM-agnostic AI compatibility; Canva and Homestyler both list AI tools. The category is converging on "AI features visible above the fold on the homepage," not buried on a feature page. RoomSketcher's AI Convert is a stronger product proof point than most of what competitors are messaging, but it lives on /features/ai-convert/ rather than the homepage. Surfacing it more prominently is both an SEO/GEO move (AI-dense pages get cited more by LLMs) and a positioning move — it's the natural pairing with the OKR 3 "Credentialing Update."
RoomSketcher's AI referral mix this cycle (ChatGPT 88%, Gemini 5%, Perplexity 4%, Copilot 2%, Claude 1%) mirrors what industry studies show across the B2C web in mid-2026 — ChatGPT's share of LLM click-through traffic has grown faster than any other surface for the fourth quarter running. The category is concentrating, not diversifying. The OKR 2 implication is unchanged but reinforced: AEO investment compounds in ChatGPT first; the other engines are smaller, slower wins. It changes the expected timing of the payoff, not the plan.
Google announced the May 2026 core update on May 21 and is rolling it out through early June — its second core update of the year, explicitly a "helpful content" update that rewards first-hand expertise and demotes generic informational summaries. Reported volatility peaked on the May 23 and May 30 weekends; RoomSketcher's own decline began a few days earlier (~May 15–16) and continued through the rollout, so mid-May volatility and the core update both contributed. Aggregator/how-to content absorbed the sharpest movement sector-wide — the category RoomSketcher's blog how-to articles fall into. This reframes the organic slip from "unexplained" to "a known, industry-wide event hitting informational content." Google's guidance is explicit: don't make rapid changes during the rollout, and wait ~a week after completion before evaluating GSC and acting. The likely-recoverable read holds — especially with site speed now fixed — but the honest expectation is settle-and-reassess in mid-June, not an instant rebound.
Net of the organic slip, the cycle strengthened the things that are hardest to build: a fast site (finally), a scaling and efficient paid account, a durable and growing ChatGPT position, and intact editorial/brand dominance. The organic head-term softness is real and is the thing to watch, but it sits on top of a foundation that got materially stronger this cycle. The Section 10 actions are short-cycle adjustments, not a strategic reset.
Action items to run before the next biweekly call (June 15, 2026). Each is tagged with the Q2 OKR objective it serves. Ordered roughly by sequence — items 1–3 are confirmations/diagnostics that unblock the read on the rest.
Mobile Lighthouse jumped 41 → 66 and desktop 64 → 98 this cycle, with mobile TBT down 726ms → 140ms — the profile of the Issue #4 fix landing. Before anything else, confirm with the WP team exactly what shipped (which BCI route, plus the Forethought/GTM deferral) and document it. The failure mode is silent: a plugin update can re-enable lazy-load and erase the gain without anyone noticing. Kworq will add a lightweight PSI check to the biweekly so a regression surfaces immediately.
Bing CPA rose +23% this cycle because Branded spend grew +39% for flat conversions ($321 CPA) while the efficient Search campaign ($111 CPA) was cut -39%. Two questions for the account team: (1) Why did Branded CPCs/spend climb — is a competitor bidding on the RoomSketcher brand term, and does it warrant a brand-defense vs. a budget-cap response? (2) Should the budget pulled from Search be restored, given Search is converting at roughly one-third the Branded CPA? This is the clearest single paid-efficiency lever on the board.
The organic impression drop is mostly low-CTR broad-query impressions being trimmed (clicks barely moved — /features/ai-convert/ lost 89% of impressions with zero click loss), likely the Google May 2026 core update (May 21 – early June) plus some mid-May volatility (Section 8). Google's explicit guidance is to not make rapid page changes during an active rollout and to wait ~one week after it completes before evaluating Search Console. So the move this cycle is to hold steady on the affected pages and re-pull GSC around mid-June to see where rankings settle. The productive work in the meantime is the AEO pass (Action #5): the informational queries losing blue-link impressions are exactly the ones being absorbed into AI Overviews, so the durable win is getting cited inside the AI answer rather than chasing the old listing back.
The dedicated page is live and indexed but still hasn't earned the unbranded head term (which slipped again, 21.0 → 24.1). With site speed no longer a drag, internal-link authority is the remaining lever. Add in-content links to the page from the homepage, /features/draw-floor-plans/, /blog/best-floor-plan-software-tools/, /features/ai-convert/, and /features/roomsketcher-app/; and change the H1 to "Free Floor Plan Creator" to match Planner 5D's exact-match on the highest-intent variant.
Carried forward. Top citation-target pages: floor-plan-symbols, electrical-symbols, ada-bathroom-requirements, floor-plan-dimensions, gross-floor-area-gfa. With ChatGPT now 88% of US AI traffic, the AEO formatting pass (FAQ schema, structured Q&A, clean H2/H3, table-formatted lists) compounds the channel that's actually growing. Five-page pilot first; scale to 20 if it shows measurable lift next cycle.
Carried forward. Bing Webmaster still flags ~801 pages with identical meta descriptions and ~797 with identical titles — the template gallery (~841 gallery pages received US impressions this cycle). Gallery impressions fell -26% in line with the broader organic softness. Pattern-based templated metadata (e.g., "{Template Name} Floor Plan — {Sq Ft} sq ft, {Bedrooms} BR | RoomSketcher") resolves hundreds of pages at once via WordPress template logic.
The LLM Visibility Score (the sum of 0–1 scores across 6 LLMs × the two anchor queries, NYC VPN, weekly) is the primary OKR 2 KR but no fresh reading was available for this issue. Get the latest reading from Jo before the next call so the scorecard reflects the current AI-visibility position alongside the GSC anchor terms — especially important this cycle given the organic head-term slip, to see whether the LLM surface moved in parallel or held independently.
For the second cycle running, GA4's Unassigned bucket shows ~1,700 sessions with ~940 key events (55% conversion rate) — existing-user conversions where GA4 lost the source but kept the user_id. It recurs every cycle and accounts for more conversions than half of Google's paid Free Account (Personal) total, yet the channel scorecard can attribute none of it. Kworq will run a GA4 Exploration on Unassigned-with-conversions broken down by user_id, landing page, and event_name to identify whether these belong to Email, Direct, or a custom channel, and propose the attribution fix. This also feeds the broader Direct attribution clean-up (360-share UTMs, ActiveCampaign email tagging, app ?source=app param).
/floor-plan-gallery/ section of the site (~841 template pages received US impressions this cycle).