Benchmarks and baselines for evaluating AI search performance
To evaluate and improve AI search performance, start with a clear baseline. Track a focused set of metrics over time. Scrunch recommends monitoring a representative set of prompts across multiple AI platforms. Compare your brand's exposure and citations to competitors.
Baseline metrics to monitor
| Metric |
What it measures |
| Brand presence |
How often your brand is mentioned or included in AI responses, segmented by persona, country, topic, platform, funnel stage, or custom tag. |
| Citations |
Frequency of your brand being cited in AI answers to business-relevant prompts, plus which third-party sources are most cited for your topics. |
| Referral traffic |
Website traffic that comes from AI responses to your target prompts. |
| AI agent traffic |
How often AI agents visit your site for training, indexing, and retrieval. |
| Share of voice vs. competitors |
Your brand's presence and citation share versus key competitors for the same prompts. |
For a deeper dive on setting baselines, see the Scrunch blog on establishing initial benchmarks and baselines.
Measuring your brand’s performance over time
- Track trends in 2–3 week windows to separate real movement from one-off changes.
- Compare like-for-like periods (e.g., Q2 vs. Q1) by adjusting date ranges for brand presence, prompt placement, sentiment, and citations.
- Analyze side-by-side with competitors using line charts to see relative gains or losses over time.
- Review which sources AI models cite most for your priority topics and identify gaps you can fill.
If visibility declines, follow these steps:
- Check Insights to spot issues with content relevance or metadata.
- Identify citation gaps to see which sources are winning and why.
- Prioritize fixes on one or two high-impact topics.
- Verify AI agents can crawl your site (robots.txt and page rendering).
Learn more in the related FAQ on tracking visibility over time.
Comparing your visibility to competitors
- Measure AI share of voice by running the same prompt set across multiple AI platforms, then view results in aggregate and by platform to see where performance diverges.
- Track both presence and citation share to capture exposure and authority signals.
- Use filters (persona, country, topic, funnel stage) to understand where you win or lag.
Get step-by-step directions in the guide on how to measure AI share of voice.
How Scrunch measures AI visibility and trends
Scrunch focuses on exposure and authority signals that reflect how AI systems present your brand:
- Measures brand mentions, citations, prompt placement, and sentiment across a representative prompt panel and multiple AI platforms.
- Captures referral traffic from AI answers and AI agent traffic to your site.
- Surfaces issues and opportunities via Insights, and lets you drill down by persona, country, topic, platform, funnel stage, or custom tags.
How this differs from traditional keyword tools:
- Traditional SEO tools estimate keyword search volume in web search engines.
- AI platforms don't publish comparable "search volumes." Scrunch tracks observable outcomes instead: how often and how prominently your brand appears and is cited for target prompts.
- Think of it as a trend index of AI visibility. Benchmark your current exposure, then monitor directional change over consistent 2–3 week intervals.
How Scrunch compares to other AEO platforms
When evaluating answer engine optimization (AEO) tools, consider the following criteria:
| Criteria |
Why it matters |
| Model and platform coverage |
More platforms means a broader view of AI visibility across different user bases. |
| Data filtering and segmentation |
Granular filters (persona, region, funnel stage) surface where you win or lag. |
| Ease of use and reporting |
Clear dashboards reduce time-to-insight for teams without data science resources. |
| Competitive benchmarking |
Side-by-side comparisons reveal relative share of voice gains or losses. |
| Citation and source analysis |
Identifies which third-party sources AI models favor for your topics. |
| Vendor experience, reviews, and pricing |
Validates reliability, support quality, and cost fit for your team. |
With Scrunch, teams can:
- Monitor the same prompts across AI platforms. Segment results by persona, region, topic, funnel stage, and more.
- Benchmark brand presence, citation share, sentiment, and prompt placement against competitors.
- Use Insights to automatically flag content and metadata issues that may limit AI visibility.
- Pair measurement with action via Agent Pages to deliver AI-optimized content to AI agents visiting your website.
Quick example
Example: An HR software company wants to know if Q2 beat Q1. Follow these steps:
- Set the date range to Q2. View brand presence, competitive presence, prompt placement, sentiment, and citations.
- Switch the date range to Q1. Compare the numbers side by side.
- Plot brand presence vs. competitors as a line chart to see relative movement.
- If performance dropped, review Insights. Check which sources were cited instead, address gaps, and confirm AI agents can crawl your pages.
Related resources