Most marketing copy is written in the wrong voice.
Companies default to talking about themselves (“We built an incredible platform…”) or writing in detached third person (“The platform enables teams to…”). Neither puts the reader at the centre.
The fix is simple: lead with second person. Talk to the reader, not about yourself.
A Quick Comparison
Grammarly defines the three perspectives clearly:
- First person (I, we, my, our) — the writer’s perspective. “We launched a new feature.”
- Second person (you, your) — the reader’s perspective. “You can now automate your reports.”
- Third person (he, she, they, the company) — an outsider’s perspective. “The company announced a new feature.”
Each has a role. The problem is most marketing content over-indexes on first or third person, and under-uses second.
Why Second Person Works Best for Marketing
Second person makes the reader the protagonist. Instead of describing what you built, you describe what they can do. This shifts your language from features to benefits, and from self-promotion to value.
Good writing serves the reader, not the writer. It isn’t self-indulgent. Good writing anticipates the questions that readers might have as they’re reading a piece, and it answers them.
Compare these:
| Perspective | Example |
|---|---|
| First person | ”We designed our dashboard to be intuitive.” |
| Third person | ”The dashboard was designed to be intuitive.” |
| Second person | ”You’ll find everything you need on a single dashboard.” |
The second-person version is the only one that puts the reader in the picture.
Impact on SEO, AEO, and GEO
Writing perspective has a real effect on how your content performs across search and AI engines.
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines reward content that demonstrates first-hand experience. First person signals lived experience (“I tested this over 90 days”), while second person matches how people actually search (“how do you set up…”). Third person is useful for informational, reference-style content but can read as generic — exactly what Google’s helpful content system penalises.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation)
AI assistants like ChatGPT and Perplexity pull direct, concise answers from content. Second person is the natural voice for how-to and instructional content — the kind that gets cited in AI-generated answers. “You can do X by doing Y” is the format AI engines prefer to surface.
GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)
Generative search engines favour content that is conversational, specific, and clearly structured. Second person fits this naturally. First person adds the credibility signal (“I’ve seen this work across 50+ campaigns”) that helps generative engines distinguish your content from AI-generated filler.
Impact on Authority
Here’s the nuance marketers miss: second person drives engagement, but first person builds authority.
When you write “You should test your headlines,” you’re giving practical advice. When you write “I tested 200 headlines and the pattern was clear,” you’re proving you’ve done the work. The first-hand experience is what satisfies Google’s Experience signal in E-E-A-T.
Third person sounds authoritative on the surface (“Studies show that…”) but can feel impersonal and unoriginal — especially when AI can produce the same detached tone at scale.
If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language.
The Best Approach: Lead With “You,” Season With “I”
The most effective marketing writing follows a simple formula:
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Lead with second person. Frame everything around the reader. What they need, what they’ll get, what they should do. This is the backbone of your content.
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Season with first person. Drop in personal experience, data from your own work, or opinions backed by practice. This is how you prove you’re not just aggregating information — you’ve actually done the thing.
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Use third person sparingly. Reserve it for citing research, referencing other companies, or writing formal case studies.
Here’s what this looks like in practice:
You need to test your landing pages before scaling ad spend. I learned this the hard way after burning through $10k on a page with a 0.3% conversion rate. Research from Unbounce shows the median landing page conversion rate is 4.3% — if you’re below that, your page is the bottleneck, not your traffic.
Second person carries the structure. First person adds credibility. Third person brings in external proof.
The Takeaway
If you remember one thing: write to your reader, not about yourself.
The shift from “we” to “you” is small in effort, significant in impact. It makes your content more engaging for readers, more useful for search engines, and more citable by AI — all at once.