Avenue Z
This New York digital and PR firm runs AI Visibility Audits, entity/schema work, and earned media for fintech and consumer brands.
Facts
| Website | avenuez.com |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | New York, New York |
| Founded | 2023 |
| Ownership | Founder-owned |
| Stance | Full-service with GEO |
| Typical buyer | New York-area fintech, finance, consumer, and crypto brands adding AI search to an existing marketing relationship |
| Delivery | Full-service digital retainer with AI Optimization leads |
| Verticals | Private Equity, Media, B2B SaaS |
| Specialties | Content & Thought Leadership |
GEO / AEO philosophy
Avenue Z treats AI search as a brand-influence problem: how models describe and recommend a company shapes consideration before a click ever happens. They believe AI Optimization should sit with PR and digital marketing so mentions, media, and site structure move together.
Offering
- Runs AI Visibility Audits that map brand and competitor mentions across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and related surfaces.
- Implements AI-ready schema, entity taxonomy, crawlability fixes, and conversational content for fintech, finance, consumer, and crypto brands.
- Earns media placements and digital PR aimed at the third-party sources models cite, alongside product-feed work for AI shopping surfaces.
Editorial scores
This directory's ratings on a 1-10 scale, with each score compared to the median across the full directory.
| Dimension | Score | Score bar | Vs Directory Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Technical GEO | 4 | 1 | |
| Lead generation | 4 | 2 | |
| Thought leadership | 5 | = | |
| Entity / knowledge graph | 3 | 1 | |
| Local / multi-location | 3 | = | |
| Enterprise readiness | 5 | 1 | |
| Innovation | 3 | 2 | |
| Measurement | 3 | 2 |
Service mix
This directory's estimate of how the published practice splits across work types.
Best At
- New York full-service digital with search-adjacent work
- adding GEO inside an existing digital relationship
- general digital programs for New York-area brands
Poor Fit When
- the buyer needs a thick GEO dossier
- the goal is a GEO-native specialist engagement
- you need AEC construction shortlists
Clients
No named clients recorded for this profile.
Claim strength
- Named clients
- Clients in case studies
- Verified clients
Innovation
Avenue Z’s key innovation is packaging AI Optimization as a New York digital-plus-PR motion: AI share-of-voice tracking, entity and schema work, and earned media aimed at the sources models cite, with extra weight for fintech, finance, consumer, AI, and crypto brands. The public case library is still heavier on classic SEO and site-revamp metrics than on named AI-citation arcs.
Review Excerpts
“Avenue Z’s AI Visibility Audit showed competitors owning the ChatGPT answers for our category while we only appeared on branded prompts. That gap list became the brief for schema and media outreach.”
“They secured trade-press mentions in the outlets our buyers already trust, then tied those placements back to how Perplexity and Gemini described us the following month.”
“We kept SEO and AI Optimization in one New York relationship. Entity taxonomy and product-feed work for AI shopping surfaces were concrete deliverables, not a slide.”
Pricing vs Performance Spectrum
Practice timeline
June 2023
Founded
Founded by Jeffrey Herzog.
2023
Acquired The Snow Agency
Part of the Avenue Z launch.
July 2023
Acquired Bevel
July 6, 2023.
Swipe left or right to see the full timeline.
Agency Leadership
| Name | Title | Background |
|---|---|---|
 Jeffrey Herzog | Founder & CEO | Herzog founded Avenue Z in 2023 and is listed as CEO on the About page (Chairman & CEO on his profile); he previously founded iCrossing (acquired by Hearst in 2010) and ZOG Digital (acquired by Investis in 2018) and became sole owner of Avenue Z in 2025. |
 Whitney Hart | Chief Strategy Officer & Director, AI Lab | Hart is Chief Strategy Officer and Director of the AI Lab, appointed in March 2025 to lead Avenue Z’s AI Optimization work after roles including Executive Director of Feral File and interim CMO of Trilitech. |
 Tina Fleming | VP, AI Strategy | Fleming is VP, AI Strategy on Avenue Z’s About roster and describes the job as leading AI Optimization so brands are found and cited in answer engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. |
 Melena Gurganus | Director, AEO | Gurganus is Director, AEO on the About page; LinkedIn titles the same role AEO & SEO Strategy Director. |
| Thomas Stern | Chief Revenue Officer | Stern is Chief Revenue Officer on Avenue Z’s About leadership list, with a public bio covering performance marketing, digital strategy, and revenue oversight. |
Proof ladder
This section ranks the public proof behind the agency from strongest to weakest.
| Rung | Evidence for this agency |
|---|---|
| 1 - Independent Third-Party Coverage | None recorded |
| 2 - Case Studies | None recorded |
| 3 - Named Clients | None recorded |
| 4 - Anecdotes | “Avenue Z’s AI Visibility Audit showed competitors owning the ChatGPT answers for our category while we only appeared on branded prompts. That gap list became the brief for schema and media outreach.” ◆ “They secured trade-press mentions in the outlets our buyers already trust, then tied those placements back to how Perplexity and Gemini described us the following month.” ◆ “We kept SEO and AI Optimization in one New York relationship. Entity taxonomy and product-feed work for AI shopping surfaces were concrete deliverables, not a slide.” |
Evidence stack
This section weighs the public evidence of the agency's credibility, breaking down each piece of evidence by its category ("Type"), a description, and how strong it is ("Strength").
| Type | Description | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Named clients | None recorded in this edition. | None recorded |
| Original research | Included as a landscape generalist. Confirm current AI-search deliverables. | Directory note |
| Tools / product | No standalone GEO product recorded. | As published |
| Third-party writeups | None recorded in this edition. | Third party |