AI citation tracking template for competitor review
See which competitors AI answer engines cite, for which prompts, and with what wording — the gap research that shows where you are absent.
- Google Sheets
- Notion
- Looker
- ChatGPT
- Perplexity
- Google Gemini
Compare our citations to our top 3 competitors across "ai marketing agent" prompts.
- Ran the prompt set32 prompts, 8 runs each across 4 engines
- Recorded competitor presenceCompetitor A cited 34%, B 22%, us 18%
- Mapped the gaps11 prompts where a competitor is cited and we are not
- Captured wordingEngine calls Competitor A "the platform for solo founders"
Eleven prompts have a competitor cited and us absent. The wording the engine uses for the top competitor — "the platform for solo founders" — is the claim we need to contest. Six gaps are schema fixes; five are content rewrites.
An ai citation tracking template compares who AI answer engines quote against who they skip. It runs the prompts your buyers use, records which competitors appear, for which question types, and with what wording. The output is a gap map — the prompts where a competitor is quoted and you are not — so the fix work has a target instead of a vague sense that "AI does not mention us."
What is an ai citation tracking template?
A research procedure that runs a fixed prompt set across engines, records which competitors are cited, and maps the prompts where they appear and you do not. The output is a gap list, not a leaderboard — the point is to find where to focus the fix work.
Track competitors
- Record which competitors appear per prompt
- Aggregate by question type, not by engine
- Capture the wording used to describe them
Find the gaps
- Flag prompts where a competitor is cited and you are not
- Group gaps by fix type — schema, content, freshness
- Rank gaps by citation potential, not by traffic
How does competitor citation analysis work?
For each prompt, record which competitors appear, how often, and with what wording. Aggregate by question type — definitional, commercial, evaluation — because the competitors cited differ by type, and the fix work differs too.
How do you measure answer engine share?
Run each prompt five to ten times per engine, record the share of answers where each competitor is mentioned, and report the trend. Single runs are noise; the share over many runs is the signal that points at a real gap.
What does a citation gap research output look like?
A list of prompts where a competitor is cited and you are not, grouped by question type, with the wording the engine uses to describe them. That wording is the clue — it tells you what the engine thinks that competitor is for, which is the claim you need to contest.
How the ai citation tracking template fits your stack
The agent pulls your tracked competitors and prompt set from workspace Knowledge, runs the prompts across engines, and writes the gap map to Sheets or Notion. It pairs with the AI visibility baseline so the baseline measures your share and this template explains the competitor presence.
- Google Sheets
- Notion
- Looker
- ChatGPT
- Perplexity
- Google Gemini
Who uses this ai citation tracking template
- SEO teams
- Find where competitors are quoted and you are not.
- Brand marketers
- See how competitors are described in AI answers.
- Founders
- Know which prompts to fix first.
How to run this ai citation tracking template in Metaflow
Lock the prompt set
The prompts your buyers use, sourced from real conversations.
Run across engines
Agent records which competitors appear and with what wording.
Map the gaps
Prompts where a competitor is cited and you are not.
Hand off to the fix
Gaps feed the extractability audit and FAQ rewrite.
What you provide
- Buyer prompt set
- Tracked competitors
- Engine list
- Run count
What you get back
- Gap map
- Competitor citation share
- Description wording log
- Fix list by type
Why use this ai citation tracking template?
Outputs a gap map, not a leaderboard
Captures the wording engines use to describe competitors
Groups gaps by fix type so the work has a target
Pairs with the baseline and the fix templates
AI citation tracking template FAQs
How do you track competitor citations in AI answers?
Run a fixed prompt set across engines repeatedly, record which competitors appear, and aggregate by question type. The gap is the prompts where a competitor is cited and you are not — that is where the fix work goes.
What does an AI citation gap look like?
A prompt where a competitor is quoted and you are not, plus the wording the engine uses to describe them. The wording is the clue — it tells you the claim you need to contest.
How often should you run citation tracking?
Monthly for the prompts that map to revenue, quarterly for the long tail. The competitor set shifts as new entrants appear, so revisit the tracked list each quarter.
Which competitors should you track?
The ones that appear in your buyer prompts, not the ones you compete with on classic SERPs. AI answer engines surface a different set — track the ones they actually cite.
Similar AEO checklists and AI visibility templates
Key takeaways
- The gap is where the fix work goes, not the leaderboard
- Capture the wording engines use to describe competitors
- Track the competitors AI cites, not the ones you rank against