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.
| Key Result | Tracked Via | This Cycle | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Increased subs at lower CAC | Combined Google+Bing New Subscription, US, paid CPA | New Sub -46% / CPA +5% | Down vs last |
| Key Result | Tracked Via | This Cycle | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 in LLMs incl. "floor plan creator" | GSC position for "floor plan creator" (US) | ~21.5 (vs ~16.8) | -4.7 ↓ |
| Increased organic non-brand clicks (NORAM) | GSC clicks/day (US) | 1,279/day (vs 1,373) | -6.8% |
| Floor Plan Creator page shipped | GSC URL Inspection | Live, indexed, FAQ schema present | Shipped |
| Key Result | Tracked Via | This Cycle | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Increased sign-up rate (NORAM) | GA4 sign_up + new_subscription (US) |
sign_up -6.5% / new_sub -22% vs last | Down vs last |
| Key pages updated | Key Page Audit & Update (initiative) | Pending | TBD |
Last cycle's recovery in all-source conversion events did not hold. The 6-week view (4 wks ago → last → current):
/affiliate/ remains "URL is unknown to Google" via Search Console inspection (zero "affiliate" query impressions from US), and FloorCapture comparison pages haven't appeared (zero "floorcapture" 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 4 – May 17, 2026. Last Period: Apr 20 – May 3, 2026. 4 Weeks Ago: Apr 6 – Apr 19, 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. Note: some Issue #3 paid baseline numbers settled higher than originally reported as attribution caught up — "Last Period" values below reflect the now-settled data, which is why a few Δs vs the Issue #3 "Current" column differ. GSC daily values cover 12 of 14 days (5/4–5/15) due to GSC reporting lag; daily averages remain comparable.
| KPI | 4 Wks Ago Apr 6 – Apr 19 |
Last Period Apr 20 – May 3 |
Current May 4 – May 17 |
Δ vs Last | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Website Traffic (US) — daily averages | |||||
| Total Website Sessions | 4,460/day | 4,485/day | 4,204/day | -6.3% | |
| Direct Sessions | 2,005/day | 2,070/day | 1,968/day | -4.9% | |
| Organic Search Sessions | 1,528/day | 1,510/day | 1,360/day | -9.9% | |
| Paid Search + Cross-network | 598/day | 517/day | 442/day | -14.5% | |
| Paid Other (Microsoft Ads, GA4) | 80/day | 151/day | 153/day | +1.1% | |
| Bing / Microsoft (US) | |||||
| Bing Organic Sessions | 114/day | 78/day | 67/day | -14.1% | |
| Copilot Sessions | 1.1/day | 2.9/day | 1.1/day | -63.4% | |
| AI Referral Traffic (US) — ChatGPT + Gemini + Perplexity + Copilot + Claude | |||||
| All AI Platforms (total) | 37.7/day | 37.5/day | 54.9/day | +46.4% | |
| ChatGPT | 26.0/day | 22.4/day | 44.7/day | +99.7% | |
| Gemini | 6.7/day | 7.8/day | 4.7/day | -39.5% | |
| Perplexity | 3.4/day | 3.2/day | 3.0/day | -6.3% | |
| Copilot | 1.1/day | 2.9/day | 1.1/day | -63.4% | |
| Claude | 0.5/day | 0.9/day | 1.4/day | +46.2% | |
| Search Console (US) — current covers 12 of 14 days due to GSC reporting lag | |||||
| GSC Total Clicks | 1,363/day | 1,373/day | 1,279/day | -6.8% | |
| GSC Total Impressions | 134,384/day | 133,035/day | 156,633/day | +17.7% | |
| Avg. GSC Position | 8.66 | 8.55 | 8.82 | -0.27 ↓ | |
| Implied GSC CTR | 1.01% | 1.03% | 0.82% | -21% | |
| Key Keyword Positions (US) — OKR 2 anchor terms (head terms slipped this cycle; "free" variants improved) | |||||
| "Floor Plan Creator" Position | ~19.1 | ~16.8 | ~21.5 | -4.7 ↓ | |
| "Floor Plan Maker" Position | ~18.9 | ~17.8 | ~18.9 | -1.1 ↓ | |
| "Floor Plan Software" Position | ~9.5 | ~6.7 | ~9.0 | -2.3 ↓ | |
| "Best Floor Plan Software" Position | — | ~5.6 | ~7.7 | -2.1 ↓ | |
| "Free Floor Plan Creator" Position | ~3.9 | ~5.5 | ~4.8 | +0.7 ↑ | |
| Google Ads (US) — Spend & Efficiency (NOK) — via user_location_view, country_criterion_id = 2840 | |||||
| Google Ad Spend | 12,735 NOK/day | 12,429 NOK/day | 12,746 NOK/day | +2.6% | |
| Google Ad Spend (USD equiv.) | ~$1,158/day | ~$1,131/day | ~$1,160/day | +2.6% | |
| Google Ad Clicks | 762/day | 663/day | 624/day | -5.9% | |
| Google Ad Conversions (all) | 102.8/day | 106.0/day | 82.8/day | -21.9% | |
| Google CPA (NOK) | 124 NOK | 117 NOK | 154 NOK | +31.4% | |
| Google Ads (US) — Conversions by Goal (14-day totals) | |||||
| Google — Free Account (Personal) | 1,134 | 1,115 | 908 | -18.6% | |
| Google — Free Account (Business) | 144 | 174 | 137 | -21.3% | |
| Google — New Subscription | 112 | 142 | 80 | -43.7% | |
| Google — Premium Project | 25 | 30 | 16 | -46.7% | |
| Google — Ready Made Purchase | 8 | 8 | 10 | +25.0% | |
| Google — Renew Subscription | 17 | 17 | 8 | -52.9% | |
| Microsoft (Bing) Ads (US) — USD — the Issue #3 scale-back happened: spend -21%, CPA improved | |||||
| Bing Ad Spend | $2,370/day | $5,183/day | $4,117/day | -20.6% | |
| Bing Ad Clicks | 269/day | 325/day | 317/day | -2.5% | |
| Bing Ad Conversions | 24.1/day | 29.9/day | 25.4/day | -15.1% | |
| Bing Ad Revenue (attributed) | $4,190/day | $5,974/day | $2,886/day | -51.7% | |
| Bing CPA | $98 | $174 | $162 | -6.5% | |
| Microsoft (Bing) Ads (US) — Conversions by Goal (14-day totals) | |||||
| Bing — Free Account (Personal) | 252 | 302 | 277 | -8.3% | |
| Bing — Free Account (Business) | 37 | 47 | 45 | -4.3% | |
| Bing — New Subscription | 41 | 60 | 29 | -51.7% | |
| Bing — Premium Project | 3 | 7 | 2 | -71.4% | |
| Bing — Ready Made Purchase | 4 | 2 | 2 | Flat | |
| Combined Paid Media (US) — Google + Bing (USD) — OKR 1 lens | |||||
| Total Paid Media Spend | ~$3,528/day | ~$6,314/day | ~$5,277/day | -16.4% | |
| Total Paid Conversions | ~127/day | ~136/day | ~108/day | -20.4% | |
| Combined Paid CPA (USD) | ~$28 | ~$46 | ~$49 | +4.9% | |
| Google Share of US Paid Spend | 33% | 18% | 22% | +4 pts | |
| Bing Share of US Paid Spend | 67% | 82% | 78% | -4 pts | |
| Combined Paid Media (US) — Conversions by Goal (daily avg, Google + Bing) | |||||
| Free Account (Personal) — combined | 99.0/day | 101.2/day | 84.6/day | -16.4% | |
| Free Account (Business) — combined | 12.9/day | 15.8/day | 13.0/day | -17.7% | |
| New Subscription — combined | 10.9/day | 14.4/day | 7.79/day | -46.0% | |
| Premium Project — combined | 2.0/day | 2.64/day | 1.29/day | -51.4% | |
| Ready Made Purchase — combined | 0.9/day | 0.71/day | 0.86/day | +20.0% | |
| Renew Subscription — combined | 1.2/day | 1.21/day | 0.57/day | -52.9% | |
| GA4 Conversion Events (US, all sources) — OKR 3 lens (the April recovery reversed) | |||||
Sign-ups (GA4 sign_up) |
226/day | 233.9/day | 218.7/day | -6.5% | |
| New Subscription (GA4) | 17.4/day | 23.7/day | 18.4/day | -22.3% | |
| Purchase (GA4) | 30.6/day | 39.0/day | 30.7/day | -21.2% | |
| Order Ready Made (GA4) | 6.3/day | 9.1/day | 8.8/day | -3.3% | |
| New Premium Project (GA4) | 3.4/day | 3.8/day | 2.9/day | -24.5% | |
| Site Performance — PageSpeed Insights, mobile median of 5 runs / desktop avg of 2 (May 17, 2026) | |||||
| Lighthouse Performance (Mobile) | 48 / 100 | 45 / 100 | 41 / 100 (34–52) | -4 pts | |
| Mobile LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) | 13.75s | 13.67s | 13.57s | Flat (still bad) | |
| Mobile FCP (First Contentful Paint) | 3.35s | 4.02s | 3.36s | -0.66s | |
| Mobile TBT (Total Blocking Time) | ~595ms | ~618ms | ~726ms (519–1808) | +108ms | |
| Mobile CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | Flat (good) | |
| Lighthouse Performance (Desktop) | 85 / 100 | 75 / 100 | 64 / 100 | -11 pts | |
| Desktop LCP | 0.75s | 1.06s | 1.45s | +0.39s | |
| Desktop TBT | ~340ms | ~554ms | ~640ms | +86ms | |
| Accessibility Score | 97 / 100 | 97 / 100 | 97 / 100 | Flat | |
| SEO Score (Lighthouse) | 100 / 100 | 100 / 100 | 100 / 100 | Flat | |
US users drove 58,859 sessions across all channels during this 14-day period — down from 62,785 the prior window (-6.3%). The mix is unchanged in shape, but volume softened across every paid + earned channel except Microsoft Ads (which held flat).
Direct is the largest US channel at 27,556 sessions (47% of US traffic). It's also the most opaque, because "Direct" in GA4 is a catch-all for any session GA4 can't attribute to a known source. This cycle we ran the standard diagnostic to see what's actually in there. The short answer: at least 42% of "Direct" is existing-user lifecycle traffic, dark-social shares, or noise — not new acquisition.
| Landing page | Sessions | % of Direct | What it really is |
|---|---|---|---|
/user/add/ |
4,709 | 17.1% | Signup form return — users coming back from email/app to register |
/ (homepage) |
4,343 | 15.8% | True direct + dark-social mix |
(not set) |
3,416 | 12.4% | Lost-attribution sessions, mostly app-platform |
/get-started/ |
2,738 | 9.9% | Signup flow re-entry |
/pricing/ |
1,080 | 3.9% | Returning evaluators |
/user/login/ |
1,019 | 3.7% | Login page bookmark |
/download-windows/ + /download-mac/ + iPad/iPhone/app |
1,415 | 5.1% | Install on second device — existing users |
/360/?gid=... (virtual tour shares) |
1,000+ | ~4% | Dark-social shares (Slack/iMessage/Pinterest strip referrers) |
/features/draw-floor-plans/ |
386 | 1.4% | True direct demand |
| All other pages | ~7,450 | ~27% | Long tail (deep pages, returning visits) |
Direct's conversion rate is 4× higher than Organic Search — another signal that "Direct" is dominated by existing users, not cold prospects:
| Channel | Sessions | Conversions | Conv rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct | 27,556 | 2,630 | 9.5% |
| Paid Search | 4,305 | 315 | 7.3% |
| Paid Other (Bing) | 2,137 | 135 | 6.3% |
| 425 | 20 | 4.7% | |
| Cross-network | 1,882 | 86 | 4.6% |
| Referral | 1,510 | 46 | 3.0% |
| Organic Search | 19,035 | 457 | 2.4% |
| Unassigned (anomaly) | 1,551 | 852 | 55.0% |
Separate from Direct but related — the GA4 "Unassigned" bucket has 1,551 sessions with 852 conversions and only 14% engagement rate. That's wildly anomalous and almost certainly existing-user conversions where GA4 lost the source attribution but kept the user_id. That's 852 conversions per cycle that the channel scorecard can't tell you anything about — nearly as many as the 908 Free Account (Personal) conversions Google Ads is taking credit for. Worth investigating separately from the main Direct cleanup.
If we carve out the ~42% of Direct that's lifecycle/share/noise, the "true new-acquisition Direct" share of US sessions drops from 47% to roughly 27%. That's still a big channel — brand search and dark social are both real — but it changes the picture of where new users actually come from. Section 10 Action #7 details the attribution clean-up Kworq will run to make this measurable going forward.
AI referral traffic from US users surged 46% to 768 sessions over 14 days — almost entirely driven by ChatGPT doubling. ChatGPT alone is now 82% of US AI traffic. Gemini, Copilot, and Perplexity all gave back the gains they made last cycle on small bases. The category is 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), duck.ai (DuckDuckGo AI). Period: May 4 – May 17, 2026 (14 days).
This is the strongest move on the report and the only channel meaningfully expanding right now. Daily average went 22.4 → 44.7 (+99.7%). Total AI referrals of 768 sessions is the highest the brand has recorded in any 14-day US window since tracking became reliable on Feb 17. ChatGPT is now 82% of all US AI traffic (was 60% last cycle); the category has concentrated, not diversified. This matters because (a) ChatGPT routes more click-throughs than any other LLM right now, so a 2x increase here is worth more than a 2x increase on any other surface, and (b) it suggests the underlying citation surface for RoomSketcher inside ChatGPT widened — either more pages got cited, or more high-volume queries started routing to them. A periodic check of the actual ChatGPT-cited pages (via direct prompting, not GA4) would tell us which it is.
Gemini fell 109 → 66 sessions (-39%) on a base big enough to take seriously. Copilot 41 → 15 (-63%) and Claude 13 → 19 (+46%, but tiny volume). The Copilot reversal is notable because the underlying Bing citation base hasn't changed materially — suggests the Microsoft 365 Copilot surfaces that drive most click-throughs route queries through different intent classifiers, and the floor-plan-related cohort shifted away from RoomSketcher this period. The Gemini pullback is harder to read — Gemini's surface is more opaque, but the +16% last cycle and -39% this cycle pattern is consistent with Google Search AI Overviews dynamic ranking, where the source set changes with each refresh.
Perplexity went 45 → 42 US sessions (-6%) — effectively flat for the third issue in a row. Perplexity's citation graph is heavily Reddit-weighted (~47% of citations across major Perplexity studies). Until RoomSketcher has a visible Reddit presence in r/InteriorDesign, r/HomeImprovement, r/floorplan, and the real estate subs, Perplexity will stay capped at roughly current volume regardless of content improvements on roomsketcher.com. This is a structural channel constraint, not a content quality problem. Carried over from Issue #3 as still open.
Issue #3 Action #7 surfaced an AEO formatting pass on the top 5 Copilot-cited pages (floor-plan-symbols, electrical-symbols, ada-bathroom-requirements, floor-plan-dimensions, gross-floor-area-gfa). With ChatGPT now 82% of US AI traffic, the same content patterns — FAQ schema, structured Q&A blocks, clean H2/H3 headlines, table-formatted lists — will compound the ChatGPT win, not just shore up Copilot. The page set is the same; the leverage moved from "Microsoft ecosystem" to "all surfaces, ChatGPT especially."
The picture is split. Every head term gave back ground ("floor plan creator" 16.8 → 21.5, "floor plan software" 6.7 → 9.0, "best floor plan software" 5.6 → 7.7), but the "free" modifier variants and several specific long-tail queries continued to improve. The new /floor-plan-creator/ page is live but hasn't yet been picked up by Google as the canonical destination for the head term — it's currently only showing for brand-modified queries.
| Head Term | Current Impressions | Current Clicks | Current Position | Baseline Position | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "floor plan creator" | 439 | 9 | ~21.5 | ~16.8 | -4.7 ↓ |
| "floor plan maker" | 239 | 3 | ~18.9 | ~17.8 | -1.1 ↓ |
| "floor plan software" | 554 | 17 | ~9.0 | ~6.7 | -2.3 ↓ |
| "best floor plan software" | 300 | 5 | ~7.7 | ~5.6 | -2.1 ↓ |
| "free floor plan creator" | 594 | 4 | ~4.8 | ~5.5 | +0.7 ↑ |
| "easy floor plan maker" | 420 | 23 | ~6.2 | ~6.9 | +0.7 ↑ |
| "best free floor plan software" | 116 | 3 | ~7.2 | — | First measurement |
Google Search Console URL inspection on https://www.roomsketcher.com/floor-plan-creator/ returns: verdict PASS, "Submitted and indexed," last crawl 2026-05-12, googleCanonical = userCanonical (clean), sitemaps both registered, breadcrumb + FAQ + video rich-result schemas detected. This is the single biggest Q2 OKR 2 deliverable to date and it cleared the gate. The referring URL discovered by Google is /blog/can-claude-create-floor-plans/ — meaning there's at least one internal link pointing in, which is what Google needs to discover and weight the page. This action item from Issue #3 is now done.
Despite the page being live, the head-term "floor plan creator" position fell 16.8 → 21.5 over the same period. GSC shows the new page itself receiving only 22 impressions in the period, all on brand-modified queries ("roomsketcher ai floor plan generator official"). This is normal for week-1 indexing — Google needs more internal-link signals and more time before it associates a new URL with the unbranded head term, and the existing comparison/blog pages are still the ones ranking. Two things speed this up: (1) more internal links from high-authority pages on roomsketcher.com pointing to /floor-plan-creator/ — especially from the homepage, /features/, /pricing/, the /blog/best-floor-plan-software-tools/ post, and the AI Convert page; (2) point a few external backlinks at it (a fresh blog post on a partner site or an outreach mention). Once internal authority transfers, the page should pick up the head-term lift the OKR is targeting.
While the head terms slipped, four useful long-tail queries moved the right way. "free floor plan creator" climbed 5.5 → 4.8 (now solidly top-5 in the US, the only of the OKR 2 anchor terms to land top-5 this cycle). "easy floor plan maker" sits at 6.2 with 23 clicks — the second-highest click count on any maker/creator variant we tracked. "best free floor plan creator" 3.0, "free floor plan creator from image" 2.0, "free floor plan creator with measurements" 3.5 are all sub-5. These collectively suggest the "free" cohort is RoomSketcher's strongest cluster — consistent with the new landing page's "free" emphasis in the H1, but also a hint that the page should anchor each long-tail variant in its own H2 section with a screenshot.
Two things changed externally + internally in the same window that fit the data. (1) Planner 5D's H1 is now literally "Free Floor Plan Creator Software" — an exact match for the high-volume head term, which is a direct on-page-SEO upgrade on their side. SmartDraw refined their AI messaging ("works hand in glove with your existing AI workflow whether you prefer ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or something else"). Both moves consolidate competitor authority on the term. (2) Lighthouse Mobile fell another 4 points (45 → 41), Desktop fell 11 (75 → 64). Google's algorithm has formally used Core Web Vitals as a ranking factor since 2021 and the deterioration cohorts with the head-term slip across all five tracked anchor terms. Neither factor alone explains -4.7 positions on "floor plan creator" — the combination plausibly does.
RoomSketcher closed the asymmetry flagged last cycle: /floor-plan-creator/ is now live. Two competitor refinements detected this cycle — SmartDraw broadened its AI messaging beyond ChatGPT & Claude, and Planner 5D moved "Free Floor Plan Creator Software" into its H1.
| Competitor | "Floor Plan Creator" Page | "Floor Plan Maker" Page | AI Features | Key Differentiator |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cedreo | Yes — /floor-plans/floor-plan-creator/ |
Blueprint Maker page | None promoted | 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; AI-hybrid positioning (broadened this cycle) |
| Planner 5D | Yes — H1 now "Free Floor Plan Creator Software" | No | AI Floor Plan Converter, AI Interior Design, Design Generator (upload photo) | 7,000+ objects, mobile-first, AI-forward homepage |
| 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/ NEW |
No — US position 18.9 (was 17.8) | AI Convert | #1 overall per multiple reviews |
Last cycle's most pointed external finding was that three of the four Q2-OKR-named competitors had dedicated /floor-plan-creator/ URLs and RoomSketcher didn't. That gap is closed. roomsketcher.com/floor-plan-creator/ is live, indexed (last Googlebot crawl 5/12), canonical-clean, with FAQ + breadcrumb + video rich-result schemas detected. The H1 is "Floor Plan Creator" and the page integrates AI features prominently. This is the most concrete competitive move RoomSketcher has shipped this quarter from an external-SEO perspective.
Planner 5D's /use/free-floor-plan-creator page now leads with H1 = "Free Floor Plan Creator Software" — an exact match for the head term + the "free" modifier (the highest-intent variant in the family). Combined with their existing AI features (Design Generator, AI Floor Plan Converter, AI Room Design), this is the most SEO-optimized competitor page on this term in the US category. RoomSketcher's new page does include "free" but its H1 is just "Floor Plan Creator." A small copy edit could close that gap.
The "Works with ChatGPT & Claude" headline flagged in Issue #3 has been rewritten: "SmartDraw works hand in glove with your existing AI workflow whether you prefer ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or something else." This positions SmartDraw as agnostic to the LLM the user already uses — broader than the original ChatGPT/Claude pairing. The substantive claim (that SmartDraw can ingest AI-generated images and produce precise scaled drawings) is unchanged; the framing got more general. Suggests the broader "hybrid AI" market is fragmenting beyond the top two consumer LLMs — useful context for how RoomSketcher's AI Convert messaging should position over the next two cycles.
Editorial dominance continues. RoomSketcher's own comparison page for "best floor plan software" slipped from position 5.6 to ~7.7 this cycle but is still in the top half of page 1. Strong vehicle for OKR 3's credentialing update and an important asset to refresh given the head-term slippage on its parent query.
Two structural strengths held this cycle that aren't covered in detail elsewhere. (The two largest bright spots — the Floor Plan Creator ship and the ChatGPT surge — are detailed in Sections 4 and 3 respectively.)
"free floor plan creator" climbed 5.5 → 4.8 (now top-5 US), "easy floor plan maker" 6.9 → 6.2 with 23 clicks, "best free floor plan creator" sub-5, "free floor plan creator from image" position 2.0. The "free" cohort is the strongest cluster in RoomSketcher's keyword footprint and is the variant the new /floor-plan-creator/ page already emphasizes — small alignment win.
RoomSketcher remains #1 in multiple US editorial reviews. The /blog/best-floor-plan-software-tools/ comparison page slipped from 5.6 to 7.7 in the US but is still top-of-page-1 for the high-volume buyer-intent term, and the homepage is appearing for many non-brand head terms (average position 24.9 across 35,561 impressions). Brand and AI Convert search variants continue to hold position 1. The brand foundation is intact even as the head-term cohort softened this cycle.
Site speed audit run May 17, 2026. Mobile median of 5 runs is 41 (was 45); desktop is 64 (was 75). Both surfaces fell again. The diagnosis and prioritized P0–P2 fix plan from Issue #3 hasn't been confirmed shipped — the data here is consistent with the fixes not landing in this cycle's window.
https://www.roomsketcher.com/. Mobile reported as median of 5 runs because TBT variance on mobile is large (this cycle: 519–1808ms across the 5 runs); desktop reported as average of 2 because the two desktop runs matched within 1% on every metric. LCP element + subpart breakdown carried over from Issue #3 — nothing in this period's audit indicates the underlying LCP element or root cause changed.
The Issue #3 finding correctly identified the lazy-loaded element and its filename, but framed the fix as a standard hero-image edit. The actual hero block on the homepage is a YouTube Embed (confirmed via WP block-editor inspection), wrapped by the "Better Core Iframe" plugin (BCI). BCI's click-to-play pattern shows a static thumbnail <img class="dk-bci-thumbnail"> before the user clicks play, then swaps it for the actual YouTube iframe. Lighthouse identifies that BCI thumbnail as the LCP element — not an image block in the page editor. The diagnosis at the attribute level still holds:
loading="lazy" (BCI's default behavior) — the LCP element shouldn't be lazy.fetchpriority="high" hint — browsers don't know to prioritize it.sizes="auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" picks a too-large srcset entry on mobile (1280×720 served, displayed at 380×214 — ~26KB waste).This isn't fixable via the standard Image-block UI because there is no image block — the thumbnail is generated by the BCI plugin. Observed this cycle: mobile median LCP 13.57s (vs 13.67s last cycle — effectively flat) and mobile Performance fell another 4 points to 41/100, consistent with the plugin's lazy-load behavior still applying.
Three routes from easiest to most involved. Any one of them should reclaim ~2.5s mobile LCP and move mobile Lighthouse from 41 toward the mid-60s:
<img class="dk-bci-thumbnail"> tags to loading="eager" fetchpriority="high". ~10 lines of code, applies site-wide, safe because it only touches the BCI-generated thumbnails.The full P1/P2 plan from Issue #3 still stands and is independent of how the BCI fix is implemented:
wp-polyfill.min.js from the critical path, dequeue Gravity Forms CSS on the homepage.Desktop performance has now regressed across three consecutive cycles: 98 (Apr 14) → 85 (May 3) → 75 (May 3 measurement) → 64 (today). Desktop LCP went 0.75s → 1.06s → 1.45s. Desktop TBT 340ms → 554ms → 640ms. The pattern is not specific to mobile-only constraints — something heavier is loading on the desktop critical path too. Most likely additions in the same family as the P1 mobile findings (third-party JS, chat widget, GTM tags). The P1 cleanup work targets both surfaces; getting it done would lift desktop noticeably too.
Google's algorithm has used Core Web Vitals as a ranking factor since 2021. Two consecutive cycles of Lighthouse decline (Mobile -3, -4; Desktop -10, -11) align in time with this cycle's slip on every tracked head term ("floor plan creator" -4.7, "software" -2.3, "best software" -2.1, "maker" -1.1). Site speed is unlikely to be the only factor — competitor moves explain part of it — but the cohort fits. Shipping the P0 fixes is the most direct lever the team has to stop the SEO slide on the OKR 2 anchor terms.
Mobile CLS 0.000, Desktop CLS 0.008, SEO 100/100, Accessibility 97/100. The page loads slowly but renders cleanly. The performance issues are isolated to JavaScript loading and image priority, not structural HTML or accessibility problems — the fix scope is still targeted, not a rebuild.
Items that show up in the data this cycle as concerns or untapped levers, ordered by urgency. The new top-line risks are the conversion-event reversal (OKR 3), the paid-data gap (OKR 1), and the head-term slip across the OKR 2 anchor terms.
The 4-week pattern across the three main conversion events:
| GA4 Event (US, all sources) | 4 Wks Ago | Last Period | Current | Δ vs Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| sign_up | 226/day | 233.9/day | 218.7/day | -6.5% |
| new_subscription | 17.4/day | 23.7/day | 18.4/day | -22.3% |
| purchase | 30.6/day | 39.0/day | 30.7/day | -21.2% |
| new_premium_project | 3.4/day | 3.8/day | 2.9/day | -24.5% |
The shape is "April spike, May revert" on every event except order_ready_made (which is essentially flat). Sessions fell -6.3% in parallel, so part of this is volume not conversion rate. Two plausible drivers: (a) the April recovery was a tracking-attribution catch-up not a baseline shift — meaning the true underlying conversion rate has been roughly steady all along and the April reading was noisy upward; (b) the head-term position slippage and Mobile/Desktop Lighthouse decline are dragging both top-of-funnel volume and mid-funnel conversion at the same time. Either way, this is the most important pattern in the report and the one the team should diagnose first — recommend pulling daily sign_up + new_subscription for Apr 1 – May 17 and looking for the inflection-point date, then cross-referencing with site changes or campaign launches on that date.
Google + Bing ads-attributed New Subscription went from 202 conversions to 109 over the 14-day window (10.9 → 14.4 → 7.79/day across the three windows). This is the OKR 1 anchor KR and it took the worst hit of any metric in the scorecard. The breakdown:
Two characteristics make this harder to explain by macro/seasonal factors. (1) The drop is sharper than the overall conversion volume drop (combined -20% vs New Sub -46%) — the funnel is converting Free Accounts at roughly normal rates but stopping at the paid-conversion step. (2) GA4 all-source new_subscription dropped -22% over the same window (332 → 258), so it's not purely a paid attribution issue — the actual subscription event is firing less often. Worth a focused look at the subscription/checkout flow in the 5/4–5/17 window for anything that changed (pricing page edit, payment processor friction, A/B test launch, conversion goal redefinition).
Google Ads US campaign-level breakdown:
| Campaign (Google US) | Spend Δ | Conv Δ | Curr CPA (NOK) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0. Branded - NORAM | +1.4% | -40.5% | 138 NOK |
| 1. Search - NORAM | +96.4% | +55.4% | 120 NOK |
| 2. Competitors - NORAM | +29.0% | +34.2% | 234 NOK |
| 3. P-Max - NORAM | -34.6% | -43.7% | 174 NOK |
Branded campaigns are usually the most stable line in any account — users searching for the brand name are already qualified, and conversion rate should be close to constant. A 40% drop in conversions on flat spend on Branded is anomalous and aligns in time with the broader conversion-event reversal (Section 8, top finding). Most likely either (a) conversion tracking changed for the Branded campaign goals, or (b) the subscription/free-account flow regressed and Branded is the first place to see it (because Branded sees the most qualified traffic). The other campaigns moved in expected directions: Search scaled up (+96% spend produced +55% conv at slightly worse CPA, normal diminishing return); Competitors -29% scale produced +34% conv (efficient); P-Max pulled back -34% with -44% conv (in line). The OKR 1 issue is concentrated in Branded.
Issue #3 flagged that Bing scale doubled spend but worsened CPA $98 → $174 (+79%). This cycle, Bing spend pulled back -21% ($5,183 → $4,117/day) and CPA improved -6.5% ($174 → $162). Campaign-level: Branded -25% spend / -28% conv (CPA $231), Search -12% spend / -5% conv at $103 CPA (efficient), Competitors -47% spend (right move — that campaign had the worst CPA). The +76% combined CPA jump that was the Issue #3 alarm did not continue — combined CPA went $46 → $49 this cycle (+5%). Action #2 from Issue #3 was a direct hit; the New Subscription specific issue above is a separate problem.
Every tracked head term fell at least 1 position vs last cycle: "floor plan creator" 16.8 → 21.5 (-4.7), "floor plan maker" 17.8 → 18.9 (-1.1), "floor plan software" 6.7 → 9.0 (-2.3), "best floor plan software" 5.6 → 7.7 (-2.1). GSC daily impressions actually grew (+17.7%) but clicks fell -6.8%, so the implied CTR dropped from 1.03% to 0.82% (-21%). The most likely driver is the combination of (a) Planner 5D and SmartDraw tightening their on-page SEO on the same terms (Section 5) and (b) two consecutive cycles of Lighthouse decline that algorithmically depresses ranking on technical-quality signals. Bright spot: "free floor plan creator" 5.5 → 4.8 — the "free" cohort remains the strongest cluster and the new /floor-plan-creator/ page H1 already includes "free." A small H1 edit on the new page ("Free Floor Plan Creator" instead of "Floor Plan Creator") would match Planner 5D's exact-match advantage on the highest-intent term.
GSC URL Inspection shows /floor-plan-creator/ indexed with one discovered internal link (from /blog/can-claude-create-floor-plans/). Across the period, the new page received 22 impressions, all on brand-modified queries. Google needs more authoritative internal links pointing in before it will rank the page on the unbranded head term. The highest-leverage links to add:
Five new in-content links from these high-authority pages should transfer enough internal PageRank to push /floor-plan-creator/ into competitive ranking range on its target term within the next 1–2 cycles.
Issue #3 surfaced 3,200 errors across 2,800 pages flagged by Bing Webmaster Tools, dominated by 801 pages with identical meta descriptions and 797 with identical titles — almost certainly the template gallery (~1,600 pages receiving US impressions). Bing US organic sessions continued to slide this cycle (-14% on a smaller base). The fix is templated pattern-based metadata via WordPress template logic — one engineering pass clears hundreds of pages. Still open as Action #4 in Section 10.
Search Console URL Inspection on roomsketcher.com/affiliate/ still returns "URL is unknown to Google." Zero impressions on "affiliate" or "floorcapture" queries from US in this period. The Affiliate Pilot and FloorCapture comparison pages are still pending from an external-discovery perspective, in contrast to /floor-plan-creator/ which shipped successfully. Carried over from Issue #3.
The brand account u/roomsketcher_sean (Sean Montebello, PR) has been running a sustained campaign since 2025-08-08 — verified account, 8,252 total karma, most recent activity 3 days before this report (2026-05-15).
Posts (12 visible) — pop-culture fan-sub strategy, with several viral hits:
Comments (50 recent, Sept 29 2025 – May 15 2026) — quietly expanding into design subs: r/floorplan (13 comments — the single most active sub), r/RealEstatePhotography (4), r/Homebuilding (2), r/FengShui (2), r/Architects (1), r/centuryhomes (1), r/interiordecorating (1), plus comment threads under each of the fan-sub posts. In several r/floorplan comments Sean openly discloses "I work at RoomSketcher" — clean Reddit etiquette that avoids astroturf risk.
Why Perplexity referrals haven't moved yet (42/day, flat for 3 cycles): Perplexity's citation graph updates slowly — it typically takes 6–8 weeks for a sustained presence to show up in citation behavior. The pop-culture posts also generate engagement in fan subs that Perplexity doesn't weight for floor-plan tool queries (the top Perplexity citation sources for floor-plan queries are r/floorplan, r/InteriorDesign, r/HomeImprovement, and r/architecture, per Perplexity's published citation studies). The 13 r/floorplan comments are the most recent expansion (mostly last 30 days) and are the lever most likely to move Perplexity in the next 1–2 cycles.
Where natural expansion still exists if the team wants to compound the work:
No new market-size data this cycle — carrying forward the category baseline. Two industry-trend updates worth noting given the Q2 OKRs.
RoomSketcher, SmartDraw, Planner 5D, and Cedreo all now have dedicated /floor-plan-creator/-style URLs. Floorplanner, Homestyler, and Canva still don't. The category split between "topic-page-optimized" and "homepage-only" players is more permanent, and RoomSketcher is now on the right side of it. Beyond the ranking lift the new page will earn, dedicated topic pages get cited more often by LLMs because the URLs map cleanly to user queries — reinforcing the OKR 2 GEO goal even before the page picks up traditional search authority.
SmartDraw rewrote its AI compatibility line from "Works with ChatGPT & Claude" to "works hand in glove with your existing AI workflow whether you prefer ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or something else." The substantive claim (ingest an AI-generated image and produce scaled drawings) is unchanged; the framing got more general — positioning SmartDraw as LLM-agnostic. Planner 5D continues to lead with three AI feature pillars on the homepage. Expect Cedreo and Floorplanner to follow within the quarter. RoomSketcher's AI Convert is a stronger product proof point than anything competitors are messaging — the OKR 3 "Credentialing Update" is well-timed to lock in that positioning.
RoomSketcher's AI referral mix this cycle (ChatGPT 82%, Gemini 9%, Perplexity 5%, Claude 2%, Copilot 2%) mirrors what industry studies show happening across the entire B2C web in May 2026 — ChatGPT's share of LLM click-through traffic has grown faster than any other surface for the third quarter running. The category is concentrating, not diversifying. The implication for OKR 2: any AEO investment compounds in ChatGPT first; the other engines are smaller wins. Doesn't change the AEO plan but does change the expected timing of the payoff.
Despite this cycle's softening: #1 in multiple US editorial reviews, strong AI feature (AI Convert), the highest US AI referral volume the brand has recorded, the dedicated topic page now live, and editorial dominance on "best floor plan software" still in top half of page 1. The foundation is intact even when individual quarters reverse. The actions in Section 10 are short-cycle adjustments, not strategic resets.
Action items to run before the next biweekly call (June 1, 2026). Each is tagged with the Q2 OKR objective it serves. Ordered roughly by sequence — items 1-3 unblock the visibility into the rest.
Diagnosis corrected this cycle (Section 7): the LCP element is the "Better Core Iframe" plugin's thumbnail for the homepage YouTube embed, not a standalone hero image. Three viable routes — pick whichever is operationally easiest for the team:
functions.php filter that rewrites .dk-bci-thumbnail images to loading="eager" fetchpriority="high"Near-zero-risk in all three cases. Two consecutive cycles of Lighthouse decline cohort in time with this cycle's head-term slip — this fix is also the most direct lever to stop that SEO drift. Kworq will share the functions.php snippet on request.
The Google Branded NORAM campaign normally produces the most stable conversions in the account (qualified brand searchers, predictable conversion rate). This cycle it dropped from 142 to 80 New Subscriptions and from 694.7 to 413.5 total conversions on +1.4% spend — an unusual pattern that's also the largest contributor to the -46% combined New Subscription drop (Section 8 top finding). Two questions for the account team to look into:
Recommend pairing this with a daily-level pull of the subscription/checkout funnel for the same window — if GA4 all-source new_subscription dropped on the same date(s), it's a site/flow issue, not an ads issue.
All-source US sign_up, new_subscription, and purchase all declined 6–22% vs last period after rising the prior cycle (Section 8). The bump-and-revert shape across multiple events suggests a specific date when something changed, rather than a gradual trend. Recommend pulling daily counts for each event for Apr 1 – May 17, US, all sources, and identifying the date(s) when the level shifted — then cross-referencing with site changes, campaign launches, attribution-window changes, or third-party tracking deploys on those dates. Distinguishes between "the April reading was a noisy spike that we're now reverting from" (most benign) and "something specific broke conversion tracking or page conversion rate in early May" (more pressing).
The new /floor-plan-creator/ page is live and indexed but only ranking for brand-modified queries so far. Two complementary moves to accelerate authority transfer:
Carried forward from Issue #3. Top citation-target pages (floor-plan-symbols, electrical-symbols, ada-bathroom-requirements, floor-plan-dimensions, gross-floor-area-gfa). With ChatGPT now 82% of US AI traffic (+100% this cycle), the leverage has moved from "Microsoft ecosystem upside" to "compound the ChatGPT win" — same content patterns, larger payoff. Five-page pilot first, then scale to 20 if measurable lift in next cycle.
Carried forward from Issue #3. Bing Webmaster Tools still flags 801 pages with identical meta descriptions and 797 with identical titles. Bing US organic sessions continued to slide this cycle (78 → 67/day). 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.
Section 02a identifies that ~42% of Direct is lifecycle/share/noise rather than acquisition. Kworq will run the following clean-up so future cycles report Direct as a meaningful channel:
?utm_source=share&utm_medium=360tour&utm_campaign=customer-share when the app generates a share link. Recovers ~1,000 sessions/14 days from Direct into a dedicated Social-Share channel./user/, /projects, /home/wizard/, /splash, or /download-* from Direct. Doesn't change raw data but separates "new-acquisition Direct" from "existing-user Direct" in Explorations.(not set) + sub-2%-engagement bot sessions out of channel reporting. Currently ~2,460 sessions/14 days of noise. Add a GA4 internal-traffic filter or hash-based exclusion.?source=app query param when the Flutter app opens external browser URLs. Currently the Flutter app's in-app web opens present as Direct because Flutter doesn't pass referrers. A single query param at the app source routes those into a dedicated channel. (Coordination with the Flutter dev team; likely lowest-effort meaningful gain.)/floor-plan-gallery/ section of the site (~1,600 template pages).