How Our Clients Did Last Month
Month-over-month traffic trends. Source: Google Search Console
Skip Ahead:
Read this post if you want to know…
- The most important GEO performance metrics you should be tracking
- Which tools you need to track your success
Pop quiz for seasoned digital marketers: How do you know your GEO is working?Â
If the question was about SEO, that’d be easier, right? You look at metrics like rankings, impressions, and clicks. You look at other things like sign-ups, downloads, and demo requests. You take out your trusty SEO calculator to determine if the deals closed from SEO represent a greater number than your SEO investment.Â
But with GEO, things are a little more nuanced.Â
So, how do you go about measuring GEO performance if the nature of online visibility has completely changed?Â
That’s what we’re going to look at. But first, a reality check.
Why Is It So Much Harder to Measure GEO Success?
Much of the data we need to really understand how users arrive at our doorstep is under lock and key.
Search engines like Google and Bing make certain information available that ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini keep private.Â
Like search volume.
Or in the case of GEO, maybe it’s more appropriate to call it prompt volume?
What a bummer, hey? Imagine how much easier your marketing job would be if you knew how often users are looking up specific topics. If it were traditional SEO, you could leverage search volume to prioritise keywords and develop a strategy. But no such luck here.Â
Not only is prompt volume kept under lock and key, but so are the queries themselves, which is just as well because people don’t search ChatGPT like they do trusty old search engines.Â
For example, how the heck are you even expected to measure a conversational query that took ten minutes and started off as ‘how do I get my significant other to stop grinding their teeth in their sleep?’ but resulted in a discussion about the differences between Tai chi and Qigong?
The fact that mortals bounce from one train of thought to the next would make categorising these queries impossible, even if they were made public.
But, pushing all that aside, there are still plenty of useful GEO metrics that will give you and your marketing pals plenty of actual insights.
Key GEO Measurements You Should Be Watching
We’re still in the early days of GEO, so the way we measure its progress will likely evolve, but here’s what you can track right now to start understanding your success in GEO:
This is the key metric you have to track for your GEO efforts. Unlike SEO, where the whole purpose is to rank on page one of Google search result pages, the goal of generative engine optimisation is to show up as a citation or mention within an AI-generated response.
Your favourite analytics tools have probably added citation and mention capabilities. Getting a high citation rate is similar to ranking number one; however, this isn’t the full picture. Remember that context is everything and provides deeper insights into how these AI platforms understand what you offer and who you are as a brand.Â
AI mention/brand citation rate is but one factor. For example, what if you’re cited inaccurately? What if all the mentions portray your brand in a negative light?
Unlike show business, not all publicity is good publicity. That’s why context should also be looked at alongside this metric.
Similar to page ranking is where your brand is mentioned in an AI response. This metric looks at the position of your brand citation or mention in, say, a list, summary, or main point.Â
Even though you’ve made it to the list, your brand position matters to users. Perception is everything. This metric represents a more nuanced insight into how AI platforms perceive your authority on a particular topic (and how relevant your content is).
AI platforms don’t list blue links like traditional search engines, but they do cite their sources (some of them more prominently than others). Â
Your favourite analytics tool is probably already tracking your referral traffic from AI platforms. For example, Geeky Tech clients all have custom Looker Studio reports with LLM traffic dashboards that display segmented session data from the most popular LLMs, i.e., Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot.
Â
Share of search is the total number of searches for your brand compared to the searches for all brands in your market/industry/sector. Basically, how many times do people query about you specifically? The higher the number, the more brand awareness and popularity in AI-powered search engines. The more people are searching for you, the less they’re searching for others, which means, of course, that the opposite is also true. Follow this trend as you optimise and refine your content for GEO.Â
Share of voice is important. This measures the percentage of times your brand is mentioned or cited in AI-generated answers within relevant queries. For example, if you’re a footwear company, you’ll have a high share of voice if your brand is frequently mentioned in queries about footwear, such as ‘What is the most reliable shoe for walking the Camino de Santiago in the spring?’Â
Unlike traditional SEO share of voice, which tracks search ranking positions, GEO share of voice is about brand relevance. This metric is important because ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews only mention/cite a few sources in their answers to related queries. So being included in that shortlist is pretty indicative of your brand visibility and authority.
Â
Competitor AI Mentions for Better Benchmarking
Your competitor’s success or failure is an important performance indicator in SEO. For example, if they’re outranking you in five low-difficulty keywords but you’re outranking them for one high-difficulty keyword, you might be in better shape than them. You never really have the big picture until you compare your traditional SEO metrics with those of your rivals.
When it comes to GEO, tracking your competitors’ AI mentions is highly recommended for benchmarking.Â
AI platforms are becoming a big part of the way people use the web, so you don’t want to ignore your competitors’ mentions and visibility in AI-generated answers. Just like with SEO, your measurements are only impressive if they’re better than your competitors. Besides, competitor benchmarking helps you identify content gaps and detect opportunities to improve your own visibility and positioning.
But What About Engagement Metrics?
Engagement metrics like Time on Page and Conversions do help us understand GEO performance, but because of the nature of user behaviour on these AI platforms, you’ll have to consider all other factors when looking at user engagement metrics.
For example, there might be nothing wrong with your content, but if the user has already learned what they need to know about your brand on ChatGPT, will they be spending as much time on your page as someone coming from a SERP? Maybe not.
If you want to know what happens to users coming in from AI platforms, the usual engagement metrics apply:
- Pages Per Session: A higher number of pages per session indicates that the user is exploring your site.
- Bounce Rate: A high bounce rate could suggest that your content might not be matching user intent or expectations.
- Conversion Rate: Just like with SEO, this is the percentage of AI referral visitors completing a desired action.
- Time on Page: The more time a user spends on a page, the more likely it is that they find it valuable. Pat yourself on the back.
Tools to Help You Track Your AI Visibility
That’s all fine and well, but how do you go about tracking your performance across LLMs? We’ve already mentioned how you can customise your Looker Studio dashboard for better GEO insights. Here are other tools you might want to add to your arsenal:
Ahrefs
- Brand Radar tracks AI platform mentions and competitor visibility.
- Its platform connects backlinks with AI citations.
Ahrefs is already a digital marketing staple because of its powerful backlink index, but with its new AI insights, you’ll get the whole picture all in one platform.
Its new AI visibility tracker looks at citations, which you can filter by specific AI tool. You can also easily compare your visibility to your competitors.
And, Ahrefs being what it is, you can also see which links are most often cited in AI responses, giving you plenty of insights on how to optimise your content and realign with user needs.
Semrush AIO
- Semrush offers AI visibility scoring that tracks brand mentions across your favourite platforms, like ChatGPT.
- Its AI data slides into your existing SEO metrics to give you a better view of overall performance.
If you’re used to tracking your SEO efforts, then you’re probably already using Semrush. So why not take full advantage of this robust new AI feature that monitors AI citations and gives you a visibility score that’s similar to domain authority? This number may not mean much outside of the platform, but it’s an indicator of how your AI presence stacks up against your competitors.Â
Scrunch
- Scrunch makes it easy to see how your brand performs compared to your competitors and allows you to track share of voice across the top AI platforms.
- It offers additional insights to detect less-than-ideal AI mentions and citations and offers persona journey mapping.Â
Full disclozh, we don’t use Scrunch at Geeky Tech. But it has been recommended by so many platforms (including Semrush) as one of the top GEO performance tracking tools that it feels important to mention here.
What makes Scrunch such a fan favourite? From what we can see, it stands out by enabling tracking not only of broad AI visibility but also by persona and regional segments. This level of customisation can help you when you want to boost your presence for specific audiences and markets.
Beyond that, Scrunch can detect negative or incorrect AI-generated statements, which might be affecting your AI visibility or brand reputation. This feature makes it easier to manage your brand’s reputation by allowing you to address the issues causing these negative statements.
Want to See the Dial Move Up?
GEO is still young, but there are plenty of ways to track its performance without resorting to vanity metrics. If you’re not confident in your analytics game, get in touch with an SEO/GEO agency that can help, as digital marketing without data is like driving blindfolded.
If you’re ready to track your GEO performance, that must mean your marketing team has worked its collective butt off to broaden your SEO strategies to integrate more GEO-friendly content (and then some), right?
Need to take a few steps back? Check out our other posts in this GEO series:
Generative AI uses a combination of sophisticated technology to better understand the real intent behind a query:
Final Thoughts
By focusing on key AI visibility metrics—like brand citations, share of voice, and AI-driven referral traffic—you’ll get the insights that matter most to understanding and improving your GEO strategies.
If you’re new to GEO or want to deepen your approach, consider partnering with experienced SEO/GEO specialists who can help tailor your strategy, set up advanced tracking, and unlock the full potential of AI-powered search.
