Lead generation from regulation: how do you get leads from a new law that affects your customers?

You get leads from a new law by answering your buyers’ questions about that law first and correctly. That is lead generation without paying per click. For each rule you build an explainer, a “does this apply to me” page, a checklist, a deadline page and a page about the right software. Those pages lead straight to your product.

Your customers get a new rule on their plate and you sell the software that helps. Sales already hears the questions, but your website says nothing about it. This is our approach to content marketing that turns such a rule into pipeline.

Which rules drive demand for B2B software today?

These eight European and Belgian rules are currently generating a lot of buying questions for software vendors. Status as of 28 September 2026. Every date comes from the official source. What is still moving, you can read on the page for each rule.

The data come from the official sources. The Belgian NIS2 Act is in the Belgian Official Gazette. The Peppol mandate is on efactuur.belgium.be. The AI Act timeline is at the European Commission. There you can also read that the rules for high-risk AI have been postponed to 2 December 2027 and 2 August 2028. For CBAM, the Commission confirms the definitive regime since 1 January 2026.

Search volumes are averages over the last twelve months (Google Ads data, 28 September 2026).

How much search volume is there around a new EU directive?

Enough to build a lead generation channel. “Peppol” is searched about 60,500 times a month in Belgium. “Nis2” gets 6,600 searches in the Netherlands, “csrd” 4,400.

The real difference is in the cost per click (in USD):

Someone who types “csrd” wants to know whether the rule affects them. Answer that question well, and they already know your name when they later search “csrd software”.

Add to that the long questions no keyword tool measures. How to find those questions is covered in prompt research into your customers’ questions.

Which pages do you need around a rule?

For each rule we build the same set, so every buyer stage has an answer:

The first four pages build trust. The last two bring in the lead. Connect them with internal links into one cluster around the rule, as in a pillar page strategy. If you sell in Belgium and the Netherlands, write per market: the rules and the laws differ, as NIS2 shows. More on that in our multilingual B2B website strategy.

Start on time. In our Search Console data from six sites, new pages peak in week 1. Until week 8 they drop, after that they break through (one site stayed flat). So publish at least eight weeks before the deadline, preferably earlier.

How do you write compliance marketing content that is accurate and still sells?

Write for the marketer and the business owner, not for the lawyer. Give the few facts your buyer needs: who, what and from when. Then comes the real work: what does this mean for their team, their data and their software? Our fixed rules:

1. Every date and threshold from a primary source. EUR-Lex, the European Commission, the Official Gazette or the regulator. Never a blog as the source for a date.
2. Add the status. Write “status as of” plus the date, and say what is still being decided.
3. No legal advice. Explain, refer on, and leave the interpretation to a specialist.
4. Sell through the checklist. Show which step your software takes over, not that your software “makes you compliant”.

How do you keep regulatory content up to date when deadlines shift?

Schedule the check, because rules shift. The European Omnibus, for example, postponed CSRD reporting for the second and third wave. The AI rules for high risk also moved. This is how we handle it:

• One source list per rule. For each page we note which official page carries each date.
• A regular check. Every month we check the sources, and additionally after every European agreement.
• One place for the dates. The deadline page carries the dates. The other pages link to it, so a change means updating one page.
• Visible updates. Change the “updated” date and say what has changed.

An outdated date costs you trust. How to update pages systematically is covered in our content refresh strategy.

What does regulatory content deliver compared to Google Ads?

A page keeps working when your ad budget stops. With Google Ads you pay again every month for every click.

The clearest example is Hedgehog Company, software for carbon accounting. For the Hedgehog articles on CSRD and VSME that we checked on 28 September 2026, Google showed an AI Overview 4 times. Hedgehog was cited as a source all 4 times. “CSRD vs the EU Taxonomy” ranks number 1 in English and Dutch. It is a small sample: in that sample, a precise answer was cited every time. Read more in getting found in Google AI Overviews.

Do the maths yourself. Content costs 2,450 euros per month with us for 15 articles, with a minimum of three months and no setup fee. One article then costs about as much as four to five clicks on “csrd software”. Put your own cost per click next to the price of an article in the click or article calculator. Cost per click by software category is in the CPC benchmarks by industry. How this fits into a broader approach is covered in the guide to becoming less dependent on Google Ads.

When we are not the right choice

If you are looking for legal advice on your own obligations, a lawyer or consultant will serve you better. If the rule only affects your buyers in three years or more, it is still too early for a full set of pages. And if you need leads within four weeks for a deadline that falls now, a narrow campaign on buying intent works faster than new content.

Frequently asked questions