Competitor Benchmarking

When you ask ChatGPT for "best sustainable running shoes" and it recommends Hoka over Allbirds, competitor benchmarking tells you who keeps beating you, how often, and on which engines — so you know exactly where to fight back.

Visibility scores tell you how often you appear. Competitor benchmarking tells you who's taking the spots you're missing — and what backs their recommendations.

How It Works

For every tracked prompt, A2Z Reach captures all brands mentioned in the AI response. When you're absent but competitors appear, that's a loss. When you both appear, we compare positioning. Over hundreds of prompts, clear patterns emerge:

• Share of Voice: What percentage of total brand mentions belong to you vs each competitor
• Win/loss tracking: For each prompt, did you appear or did a competitor take your place?
• Head-to-head records: Across all prompts, how often does each competitor beat you?
• Engine-level splits: You might dominate on ChatGPT but lose consistently on Perplexity

Share of Voice — Real Example

Allbirds tracks 30+ prompts across sustainable footwear. Across all engines and prompts, the Share of Voice breakdown reveals who owns the AI conversation:

Engine-Level Differences

The aggregate hides important variation. Allbirds holds 54% visibility on ChatGPT — but drops below 20% on Perplexity, where Hoka and On dominate. This matters because each engine weights different source types:

• ChatGPT: Favors editorial roundups and review aggregators — Allbirds has strong coverage here
• Perplexity: Heavily cites recent articles and technical reviews — where performance brands (Hoka, On) have deeper presence
• Google AI: Blends organic authority with freshness — mid-range for Allbirds

This tells you where to focus: if you're already winning on ChatGPT, invest in the source types Perplexity trusts — technical running publications, recent gear tests, and comparison reviews.

Competitor Citation Sources

For each competitor that beats you, A2Z Reach identifies which publications back them. For Allbirds, the pattern is clear:

• Hoka's backers: Runner's World, Believe in the Run, roadtrailrun.com — performance-focused review sites
• Nike's backers: GQ, Esquire, Wired — lifestyle and mainstream tech publications
• On's backers: T3.com, TechRadar, running-specific blogs — tech-forward review outlets

These aren't guesses — they're the actual URLs cited in AI responses where competitors beat you. Your action: get featured on these specific publications to compete for the same backing signals.

Finding Vulnerabilities

The most actionable insight from competitor benchmarking isn't who's ahead — it's where they're weakest. Look for:

• Prompts where competitors have low mention counts: These are contested territory you can win with targeted content
• Engines where a competitor is weak: If Hoka dominates Perplexity but barely appears on ChatGPT, that's your opening on ChatGPT
• Source gaps: Publications that cite you but not your top competitor — lean into these relationships
• Category edges: "Sustainable running shoes" may be lost, but "eco-friendly trail shoes" might be uncontested