Fintech, VA home lendingAEO program6 months, Oct 2025 to Apr 2026
NewDay USA: 64% growth in AI brand presence and near-first rank on Google AI Overviews
NewDay USA is a VA mortgage lender with real offline authority: Admiral Thomas Lynch as chairman and decades of service to veterans and their families. In AI answers it was under-represented. Here is what six months of AEO work changed, measured weekly across five engines.
Topic presence in AI answers, before and after Q1 Jan 2 vs Mar 27, 2026
Mar 27, 2026Jan 2, 2026
0.0%brand presence in AI answers, up from 8.4%
0.00average rank on Google AI Overviews
+0.0point ChatGPT presence gain in one week
0of 10 perception dimensions improved
The numbers that tell the story
Every figure is a tracked reading, compared against the baseline at the start of the engagement.
+64%0.0%brand presence in AI answersfrom 8.4% at the trough in early March
+23.4 pts0.0%ChatGPT presence, the strongest enginefrom largest single engine gain on record
near first0.00average rank on Google AI Overviewsfrom rank 1.0 on VA cash out refinance, spark shows proximity to number 1
exceptional0.00peak innovation score out of 5from 2.93 overall perception at program start
Known offline, under-represented in the answer
NewDay had the credentials buyers care about. The models simply were not surfacing them, and on half of its core topics the brand did not appear at all.
Presence stuck in single digitsBrand presence sat at 8.4% of relevant AI responses in early March 2026, with the weakest readings on Gemini and Perplexity.
Three core topics with zero presenceMilitary home financing, VA loan benefits and mortgage process returned no NewDay presence at all in January.
Perception below the good lineOverall perception scored 2.93 of 5, with brand reputation at 2.40 and customer experience at 2.20.
Where NewDay USA startedbaseline vs April 3, 2026
Overall brand presence
NewDay USA, baseline8.4%
NewDay USA, April 313.8%
Brand reputation score, out of 5
Baseline, Oct 20252.40
April 20262.80
Topics with any presence
January 20263 of 6
March 20266 of 6
What drove the results
Four levers did the work, and the tracking data shows each one landing within weeks of going live.
Content structured for LLM citationRebuilt around standalone claims, named expert sources, FAQ structure and specific data. The veteran homebuyer cluster published March 3 to 5 produced presence on two new engines within two weeks.VA specific PR placementsRealtor.com, HousingWire, U.S. Veterans Magazine and Consumer Affairs each produced measurable LLM visibility within one to three weeks. Outlet relevance beat outlet scale every time.Technical SEO, state pagesState specific pages with unique content indexed on March 4 and lifted Google AI Overviews within two weeks, concentrated on VA cash out refinance and VA loan.Leadership authorityContent naming Admiral Lynch as a source, and connecting his naval career to veteran homeownership, moved how models frame the brand. ChatGPT and Gemini both scored it exceptional.Three new topics unlockedMilitary home financing, VA loan benefits and the mortgage process had zero presence in January. Purpose built pages gave the models something to cite, and all three ranked by late March.Weekly measurement loopsPresence, rank and perception tracked weekly across five engines. Every placement was verified within one to three weeks, so the next move followed the reading, not the hunch.
Where the brand shows up now
Presence and rank are different questions. NewDay answers both well on the surfaces that matter most for a VA lender: ChatGPT for the research question, Google AI Overviews for the decision.
Presence rate by engine April 3, 2026
Where NewDay lands in the answer now position 1 means cited first
How the models describe the brand
Perception is scored 1 to 5 across ten brand dimensions. Six improved over the program, and the two that moved most are the two that decide a mortgage: reputation and customer experience.
Perception by dimension Oct 2025 vs Apr 2026
April 2026October 2025
peak moment0.00 of 5
Innovation reached exceptional on March 20, 2026, the highest single dimension score of the program, after the FinTech Breakthrough Award and NewDay Home app content were indexed.
one week+0.00 pt
Brand reputation jumped a full point in the week of April 3, when Consumer Affairs and HousingWire placements started being cited directly inside LLM answers.
Against the targets we were set
Both Q1 visibility goals were beaten by a wide margin.
Q1 2026 KPI results relative improvement
target
How these numbers were measured
6 monthsWindowOctober 2025 to April 2026
5 surfacesEnginesChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity
weeklyCadenceWeekly tracking of presence, rank and perception on a fixed prompt set
10 dimensionsPerceptionTen brand dimensions scored 1 to 5 from how the brand is described in answers
Every figure on this page is drawn directly from the weekly tracking data collected by the Moburst organic team over the program window.
Fintech, VA home lending
