Defense and aerospace break the marketing playbook: opaque, relationship-driven procurement, security and export constraints on what you can say, and buyers you cannot reach with a normal funnel. XQL is built for the part marketing can and should own here, the unclassified, commercial, and dual-use side: brand and credibility with the ecosystem, discoverability, talent attraction, and investor visibility. We are specialists at marketing technical products and building trust on long cycles, working within your security and ITAR constraints, and we are clear about the line: we do not do classified or cleared marketing, we make the public-facing side work.
Defense buying runs through program offices, primes and subcontractors, programs of record, and vehicles like SBIR, STTR, and OTA, over cycles measured in years and shaped by relationships and past performance more than by a marketing funnel. There is no form-fill path to a program of record. Marketing's job is not lead-gen for a fast close; it is building the credibility, relationships, and visibility that make you known and trusted long before and throughout a procurement you cannot shortcut.
Export controls, classification, and operational security constrain the marketing more than in any other sector. Your most impressive work may be unmentionable, technical details may be export-controlled, and a careless post can create a real compliance or security problem. Marketing has to build credibility and demand within those limits, knowing exactly what can be said publicly, what cannot, and how to be compelling without crossing a line, which most marketers have no framework for.
Program managers, prime contractors, and government decision-makers do not behave like a SaaS buying committee, and you cannot always target them with ordinary paid and inbound. Reaching them runs through ecosystem presence, events and industry days, associations, thought leadership, and relationships, channels a generic agency does not understand. The marketing has to build presence where these buyers actually form impressions, not where a standard B2B playbook would spend.
Many of the most interesting companies here are dual-use: the same technology serves commercial customers and defense. That means marketing to a commercial buyer and a defense buyer at once, with different messages, constraints, and sensitivities, without alienating either or blurring the positioning. A message that lands commercially can read wrong to a defense audience, and vice versa. Balancing the two, and knowing when to separate them, is a specific and underestimated challenge.
In mission-critical and safety-of-life systems, buyers, partners, and government evaluate you on trust, credibility, and track record above almost anything else. A slick campaign that reads as hype can actively hurt you. What matters is a credible brand, demonstrated seriousness, past performance, and the endorsement of the ecosystem, built patiently. Marketing here is reputation engineering more than demand generation, and it has to look and sound the part.
For defense-tech startups and dual-use scaleups, the pressing marketing jobs are frequently attracting technical and cleared talent, earning investor visibility and credibility, and building ecosystem awareness, because the customer procurement is slow and relationship-gated. These are real, high-value marketing outcomes that a customer-lead-gen mindset misses entirely, and increasingly they are shaped by search and AI, where a candidate, an investor, or a partner forms their first impression of you.
Let us be clear about the boundary first, because in this sector integrity is everything. We are not a cleared defense marketing shop, we do not do classified work, and we will not touch anything that belongs behind ITAR controls or a clearance. What we do is the unclassified, commercial, and dual-use side of your marketing, and we do it within your security and export constraints, in close coordination with your compliance function, so nothing crosses a line. We are also not aerospace engineers or defense-acquisition insiders, and we will not pretend to be. What we are is specialists in marketing technical products and building credible brands for skeptical, high-stakes, long-cycle buyers, across 9+ years and 60+ B2B tech companies. The defense and dual-use context adds constraints and a heavier weight on trust, talent, and ecosystem credibility than on classic lead-gen, but the underlying work, make complex technology legible, build reputation patiently, reach a hard technical audience, and tie it to real outcomes, is what we do. We learn your technology and your world fast through structured interviews with your team, respect the constraints, and build the public-facing brand, demand, talent, and investor visibility that the procurement cycle and the company actually need. We show our full portfolio here, honestly labelled, and we bring that transferable system to the unclassified side of defense rather than claiming credentials we do not hold.
A default stack built for a constrained, trust-driven, long-cycle market, focused on the unclassified and dual-use side marketing can legitimately own. We adapt it to your constraints, audiences, and goals, and we run it in coordination with your compliance function.
Before spend, we sharpen positioning for your commercial and defense audiences, deciding what is one story and what must be separated, and we work with your compliance function to define exactly what can be said publicly and what cannot. That guardrail, agreed up front, is what lets everything downstream move fast without risking a security or export problem.
We make the trust signals a defense, talent, and investor audience looks for legible: demonstrated seriousness and track record within what is shareable, ecosystem and partner credibility, technical thought leadership, and the seriousness markers that separate a real defense-tech company from a pitch deck, all cleared against your constraints.
We make you discoverable and credible where the public-facing audiences look, commercial buyers, dual-use evaluators, technical talent, partners, and investors, on the unclassified queries and topics you can own, with content deep enough to earn a technical reader's trust. It is the compounding base for the reputation a long cycle needs.
Candidates, investors, partners, and commercial buyers increasingly form first impressions through AI assistants and search. AI Search optimization builds the credible mentions, clean entity data, and context the engines rely on to represent you accurately, on the unclassified side. Across our work this drives roughly 80% AI Search recommendation success and first inbound interest from LLMs inside 30 days.
Because customers, talent, and investors are all won on credibility, this is the core motion: technical thought leadership, presence at the industry events and associations where impressions form, founder and expert visibility, and account-based outreach to the reachable commercial and dual-use accounts, plus the talent and investor visibility that matter near-term.
We connect activity to the right outcomes, ecosystem and program visibility, qualified technical and cleared-eligible talent, investor engagement, and unclassified commercial and dual-use pipeline, in your CRM and hiring and investor funnels, over a long horizon. Reporting reflects what marketing can move in this sector, not a customer-lead-gen number that misreads the game.
Strategy first, channels second, sales feedback always. We measure by the qualified demand and revenue we can trace back inside the CRM.
Our founder led their marketing as Head of Marketing, running a 7-person team across SEO, demand gen, and paid — $1M/year in marketing revenue. Re-engaged in 2026 and halved cost per MQL and SQL.
ServicesFractional CMO · SEO · Demand Generation · Paid Ads
Senior operators on every account. Never a junior pod.
Rebuilt inbound from scratch — 100% YoY SQL growth, 207% more traffic, domain rating from 12 to 45, and 141 articles shipped.
ServicesFractional CMO · SEO · Demand Generation
“We've seen a 207% increase in web traffic and our domain rating improved from 12 to 45.”
Took a referral-only firm to a real new-business engine — 5 deals and $240K revenue from Meta in a year, plus 2–4 SQLs/month from ChatGPT.
ServicesMeta Ads · Fractional CMO · AI Search
“Their expertise and proactiveness have impressed our team.”
Positioned them as the recommended Salesforce partner inside the major LLMs — two $1M enterprise deals closed from ChatGPT in a 3-month engagement.
ServicesAI Search · Fractional CMO · Meta Ads
“They operated with the discipline and initiative of an internal senior marketer.”
Built the marketing function from zero — website, SEO, paid, AI search — from 166 to 2,513 monthly clicks and 3 enterprise deals won.
ServicesFractional CMO · SEO · AI Search · Meta Ads
“They defined a clear marketing strategy and established our unique value proposition.”
Turned Salesforce-niche SEO into a deal channel — 2.73× traffic and MQL-to-SQL conversion up from 17% to 29%.
ServicesSEO · Content Marketing
“We have started receiving our first inbound requests.”
Restructured the marketing team and shifted to lead-driving SEO — doubling client count and growing SQLs 133% in nine months.
ServicesSEO · Fractional CMO
Switched them from brand-awareness content to lead-driving SEO — 20 of 25 service pages ranked top 5 and the first deals closed from organic.
ServicesSEO · Fractional CMO · Content Marketing
“XQL Group's marketing expertise is a hallmark of the engagement.”
Stood up SEO as a new acquisition channel — domain rating 27 to 44, 50+ leads, and 88 articles in nine months.
ServicesSEO
“Their subject matter expertise is highly impressive.”
After six months of zero results from another agency, we delivered +70% Google clicks and grew AI-assistant traffic from 10 to 154/month in three months — and the first SQLs from SEO.
ServicesSEO · AI Search
Meta appointment funnels at scale — 466 leads and over 100 booked sales conversations from a single paid channel.
ServicesAppointment Funnels · Meta Ads
“They've brought structure, strong execution, and constant initiative.”
Set up marketing from zero — positioning, website, LinkedIn social selling, and an ABM campaign that landed four new clients fast.
ServicesFractional CMO · ABM · LinkedIn
“Their ability to combine strategic vision with hands-on execution was particularly valuable.”
Positioned a small studio in a niche AI-search category — recommended by LLMs for 2 commercial keywords, landing a big client in one month.
ServicesAI Search · AEO/GEO · Website
“They knew how to approach AI search practically, not just in theory.”
Recommended by every major AI assistant for 3 commercial keywords, plus a deal closed from Meta appointment funnels.
ServicesAI Search · Appointment Funnels
“What impressed us most was their deep specialization with software development companies.”
Positioned for an important commercial keyword and recommended by the major AI assistants within a single month.
ServicesAI Search · AEO/GEO
Took over marketing as their agency after an unsuccessful in-house run — GTM strategy, paid funnels, AI search, and LinkedIn delivered 75 leads and the first qualified pipeline.
ServicesFractional CMO · GTM Strategy · Appointment Funnels · AI Search
A targeted ABM campaign booked 13 conversations with ICP accounts and opened three opportunities in two months.
ServicesABM
Repositioned the agency, revamped the site, and built appointment funnels that booked qualified intro calls at just $34 each.
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A custom AI-assistant paid funnel produced 76 leads and 34 booked appointments at $123 per call with an ICP.
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Meta appointment funnels delivered 35 leads at a $42 CPL and closed two deals on modest spend.
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The same standard applies to every market we work in: we measure marketing by qualified demand, accepted sales conversations, and revenue traced back to marketing inside the CRM.
Thanks to XQL Group's efforts, we've seen a 207% increase in web traffic and an improvement in domain rating from 12 to 45. The team has successfully optimized our SEO strategy and gained around 160 backlinks. Overall, they're responsive and thorough in their project management.
Since working with XQL Group, our domain rating has improved from 27 to 44. In addition, we've seen a 15% increase in monthly traffic within nine months. The team completes work on time and within the agreed budget. Moreover, their subject matter expertise is highly impressive.
XQL Group's efforts have resulted in 44 leads from paid campaigns and improved web traffic from Germany by 5x. The team is responsive, quickly surfaces issues, and communicates regularly through chats and virtual meetings. Their expertise and proactiveness have impressed our team.
Organic traffic has increased by 10–15% each month, and we have started receiving our first inbound requests. XQL Group's optimization tips have also helped improve keyword rankings, and internal stakeholders are impressed with the team's collaborative approach.
XQL Group has successfully defined a clear marketing strategy and established our company's unique value proposition. The team has also helped hire critical specialists for our marketing team. They are communicative and organized, and their expertise in the tech industry is impressive.
Thanks to XQL Group's efforts, we have defined our marketing strategy and hired key developers for our website. The team has launched retargeting campaigns on LinkedIn and developed a strong content marketing strategy. XQL Group's marketing expertise is a hallmark of the engagement.
They were not just talking about AI search in theory; they knew how to approach it practically.
What impressed us most was their deep specialization in working with software development companies.
They've brought structure, strong execution, and constant initiative to improve outcomes.
They operated with the discipline and initiative of an internal senior marketer.
Their ability to combine strategic vision with hands-on execution was particularly valuable.
Their focus on results and true interest in making things work set them apart.
XQL Group's project management was exemplary.
The quality of their work is consistently high.
It is a B2B marketing agency for the unclassified, commercial, and dual-use side of defense, aerospace, and dual-use technology companies, brand and credibility, discoverability, talent attraction, investor visibility, and reachable commercial and dual-use demand. To be clear about the line: we do not do classified work or cleared-personnel marketing, and we will not touch anything behind ITAR or a clearance. We build the public-facing side, in coordination with your compliance function, and we are specialists at marketing technical products and building trust on long, high-stakes cycles.
No, and we will tell you so plainly, because integrity is everything in this sector. We are not cleared, we do not do classified work, and we do not handle ITAR-controlled or export-restricted material. We work strictly on the unclassified, commercial, and dual-use side, in close coordination with your security and export-compliance function, which defines what can be said publicly. What we bring is expertise in marketing technical products and building credible brands for high-stakes, long-cycle audiences, applied within your constraints.
Because the transferable work is real and the boundary is honest. Building credibility, making complex technology legible, and reaching a skeptical, high-stakes, long-cycle technical audience is a pattern we know from 60+ B2B tech companies; defense weights trust, past performance, and ecosystem endorsement even higher and constrains the message, which shapes how we work but not whether we can. We show our full portfolio honestly labelled, we do not claim defense credentials we lack, and we stay on the unclassified, dual-use side where a commercial marketing partner genuinely adds value.
By building credibility on what is shareable and rigorously respecting what is not. We work with your compliance function up front to define the public boundary, then build brand, thought leadership, and demand within it, demonstrated seriousness, ecosystem credibility, unclassified technical depth, and the trust markers your audiences look for, without ever touching classified or export-controlled specifics. In a sector where a careless post is a real problem, that disciplined, constraint-aware approach is a feature, not a limitation.
Not through a standard funnel, and we will not pretend otherwise. Those buyers are reached through ecosystem presence, industry days and events, associations, thought leadership, and relationships built over a long procurement, plus account-based outreach where it is appropriate. Marketing's role is to build the credibility and visibility that make you known and trusted in that ecosystem well before and throughout a procurement, rather than to generate a lead that skips the relationship. We build presence where these buyers actually form impressions.
Yes, and for many defense-tech and dual-use companies those are the highest-value near-term marketing outcomes, because customer procurement is slow and relationship-gated. The same brand, thought-leadership, and discoverability work that builds ecosystem credibility also attracts technical and cleared-eligible talent and earns investor visibility, and increasingly those audiences form their first impression through search and AI. We build and instrument that, treating qualified talent and investor engagement as real, measured outcomes, not a side effect.
By deciding deliberately what is one story and what must be separated. The same technology can require different messages, channels, and sensitivities for a commercial buyer versus a defense audience, and a message that lands in one can read wrong in the other. We build positioning that serves both without blurring or alienating either, keep the constraints straight across audiences, and separate the motions where needed. Getting that balance right is one of the specific things a dual-use company needs from a marketing partner.
Bring your offer, channels, and revenue goals. We'll show you where the biggest growth constraint is and what to build next.
For B2B tech companies selling complex expertise to serious buyers.
I’m Danylo, founder of XQL. For 9+ years I’ve helped B2B tech companies turn technical expertise into pipeline — 60+ clients and $30M+ in CRM-tracked revenue.
30 minutes, no deck. Bring your offer, channels, and revenue goals — I’ll come with a read on where your biggest growth constraint is and what to build next.
