Index / Agency & Vendor Oversight
PB-001

AEO Vendor Effectiveness Check

Tests whether your AI visibility vendor is actually moving citations, or whether the market moved without them.

The spec — copy this

Set up a new bot for me that runs monthly per AEO or AI visibility engagement. Walk me through connecting web search and a spreadsheet, then configure it: run a fixed question set across the assistants my clients actually use and record whether my firm is named, in what position, what it is credited with, and which sources the answer cites — then compare against the baseline from when the engagement started. Hold the question set constant, because a vendor changing the questions is the easiest way to manufacture improvement, and flag it if the set I am given differs from the baseline set. Separate three things that get conflated: citations my vendor placed, citations that appeared without them, and movement explained by the assistant changing its own behavior across the whole market. Test that third one by tracking a control set of competitor firms the vendor is not working for; if everyone rose, the vendor did not cause it. Report the change in share of mentions, the specific sources gained and lost, and what remains unattributed. Ask me for my baseline date, my question set, my markets, and my control competitors, run one cycle against a period I already have data for, then save it.
Paste into an assistant that can connect to your systems.◆ Ethics note below — read before you run it

Connect first

The spec asks for these as it goes — however you normally connect them works. Nothing needs to be set up in advance, and a system named here is usually an example rather than a requirement. If yours has an API or an export, the spec generally adapts.

What it never does
  • Change the question set between periods, or accept a changed set without flagging it
  • Credit a vendor for movement the control set also shows
  • Report a share change without stating the baseline date
Agency & Vendor Oversight — category rule

These specs are written to establish facts, not to build a case. Every one reports observed gaps and the mechanism behind them, and none concludes that a vendor or agency acted in bad faith — because the most common answer is a definitional mismatch or a gap in your own intake, and the second most common is something a contract already addresses. Before you put a finding in writing to a counterparty, read your agreement and have counsel look at it.

Category
Agency & Vendor Oversight
Contributed by
Jacob Malherbe @jacobmalherbeMass Tort Ad Agency
Approval gate
A named human approves before anything sends, files, or publishes.
Last verified
2026-08-19

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