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Guide · For agencies and PR firms
How to run an AI visibility audit for a prospect
“Are we showing up in ChatGPT?” is now a question clients ask their agencies. An audit that answers it with their own name, their own competitors and their own buyers' questions is the most persuasive slide you can bring to a pitch. Here is how to produce one in an afternoon, and what to sell once they have seen it.
By the Endata teamWhy does an AI visibility audit win pitches?
Most new-business decks describe a problem in general terms. An audit shows the prospect their own problem, in their own market, with a competitor's name on it. It works for three reasons:
- It is specific. Not “AI is changing search”, but “when a buyer asks this question, three assistants recommend the firm across town and none mention you.”
- It is new information. The prospect cannot see this in analytics or rank trackers, because the buyer never reaches their site.
- It implies the next step. Every gap is a question that needs a published answer, which is work an agency can scope, price and deliver.
Step 1 10 minutes
Choose the competitors and topics before you start
Write down the prospect's real competitors and the three to five things they want to be known for.
The audit is only as persuasive as its competitor list. Endata proposes competitors from the prospect's website, and you can change them. Use the names that come up when the prospect talks about lost deals, not the largest brands in the category.
- Competitors (2 to 6): the firms the prospect actually loses to. Ask on the discovery call, or read their case studies and comparison pages.
- Topics (3 to 5): the services or specialisms they most want to win. These shape the questions.
- Audience: who buys from them, in a sentence. A question written for the wrong buyer proves nothing.
Step 2 5 minutes
Run the free report on the prospect's site
Enter the prospect's website at endata.com, correct the audience, competitors and topics, and open the link sent to your email.
Endata reads the site, writes six questions a buyer might ask (none naming a business), and puts each to ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini with web search on. A couple of minutes later you have up to 24 answers, read for every mention of the prospect and of each competitor.
Acme Insurance
- Questions tested
- 6 × 4 assistants = 24 answers
- Answers that mention you
- 13% 3 of 24
Where your business stands
Summit Risk67%
Harbor Insurance54%
Northstar Coverage42%- Acme InsuranceYour business13%
Questions where you’re missing
Who offers commercial fleet insurance for small trucking companies?
ChatGPT mentionedSummit RiskWhich insurance brokers specialize in interstate trucking?
Perplexity mentionedHarbor InsuranceWhat does cargo insurance cost for a five-truck fleet?
Gemini mentionedSummit Risk
+ 2 more questions in the full report
How to read this. AI answers change from one run to the next, so these figures are a sample of what your customers may see, not a ranking.
Step 3 10 minutes
Read the report like a strategist
Find the one or two gaps closest to revenue, and the competitor who keeps taking them.
Look for three things, in this order:
- The headline number. The share of answers that named the prospect, beside each competitor's. This is your opening slide.
- The repeated rival. A competitor named by several assistants on the same question has an advantage worth explaining. Look at what they have published on that question.
- The buying questions. Among the missed questions, the ones asked just before choosing a supplier matter most. The action plan already ranks them this way.
Your visibility action plan
Example- Answer what fleet owners are askingHigh priority
Publish a clear answer on why trucking insurance rates are rising, with what you see at your own clients’ renewals.
- Missed question
- “Who offers commercial fleet insurance for small trucking companies?”
- Why this priority
- Summit Risk is mentioned here and you aren’t, on a question close to a sale.
- Make your expertise easier to findHigh priority
Publish your specialties, service areas, and experience in a structured article.
- Missed question
- “Which insurance brokers specialize in interstate trucking?”
- Why this priority
- Harbor Insurance is mentioned here, and AI found little that says what you specialize in.
- Strengthen an existing answerMedium priority
Update your commercial auto insurance guide with specific examples.
- Missed question
- “What does cargo insurance cost for a five-truck fleet?”
- Why this priority
- You already have a page on this, so it is a smaller fix with a smaller gain.
Also note what the report found that the prospect did not expect: businesses that kept appearing although nobody listed them as competitors. That is often the most memorable line in the meeting.
Step 4 20 minutes
Present it in the pitch
Download the PDF, and build three slides: where they stand, what they are missing, what you would publish first.
The report page has a download button that produces a PDF of the same results. The report and its PDF are Endata-branded; use them as evidence inside your own deck, as you would a chart from any research tool.
| Slide | What to show | What to say |
|---|---|---|
Step 5 After the meeting
Turn the audit into a retainer
Propose a monthly service with a fixed output and a fair measure: answers published, and the same questions retested.
What the prospect needs is recurring: assistants change their answers as the news changes, so a single round of content will not hold. Scope the service around two things you can commit to.
An output
A set number of researched, sourced answers published each month on the client's own domain, each one reviewed by your team and approved by the client.
A measure
The same six questions, asked again every month, with the change reported. Not a promise of a recommendation, which nobody can make.
On Endata's Agency plan, each client is its own workspace with 60 researched answers and 120 news articles a month, in an app that carries your agency's name and logo. The plan is $799 a month for 5 clients, then $99 for each one after that. What you charge the client is yours to set.
Step 6 First month
Deliver the first month
Add the client as a workspace, accept the questions from the audit, and publish the first answers.
- Add the client from your clients console. They get their own workspace, newsroom and allowance.
- Bring in the questions. Run the report inside the client's workspace so its gaps arrive as questions to answer.
- Review the drafts. Each answer cites its evidence. Add the client's own expert view, which is what makes it theirs.
- Get approval. Give the client Review only access to approve, or Collaborate if they want to edit alongside you.
- Publish and share. Answers go live on the client's newsroom; related articles post to their social channels.
- Report. Next month's report reruns automatically. Download its PDF for your client review.
The step-by-step version of the work itself is in How to fix a hidden AI visibility gap in 10 minutes.
Three objections you will hear
“Six questions isn't a real study.”
Agree. It is a starting sample, chosen to be close to buying decisions. Its value is that it names specific questions to fix. If the client wants broad daily tracking as well, pair this with a tracking tool; see Endata vs. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit.
“Can you guarantee ChatGPT will recommend us?”
No, and be wary of anyone who says yes. What an assistant recommends is its own decision. You can guarantee the work: clear, sourced, current answers to the questions buyers ask, published under the client's name and measured every month.
“Isn't this just SEO?”
It overlaps. Assistants that search the web read the same pages search engines index. The difference is the unit of work: whole questions answered directly, with sources, in a form a machine can quote.
Frequently asked questions
What is an AI visibility audit?
A test of whether AI assistants name a business when buyers ask the questions it should win. It asks a set of unbranded buying questions across several assistants and records who is recommended.
Is there a free AI visibility audit tool for agencies?
Endata's AI Business Visibility Report is free and needs no account or card. Run it on a prospect's website and you get the results by email, with a PDF to download. Start here.
Can I white-label the audit?
The free report and its PDF are Endata-branded. White label applies to the Agency plan: the app your clients sign in to carries your agency's name, logo and colours.
How many prospects can I audit?
Two reports a day and five in any 30 days per email address. It suits considered pitches, not bulk prospecting.
Which AI assistants does the audit cover?
ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini, each through its maker's API with web search on. It does not cover Google AI Overviews.
How long does an audit take?
The report itself takes a couple of minutes. Choosing the right competitors beforehand and building the slides afterwards takes most of the 45 minutes.
What should an AI visibility retainer include?
A fixed number of sourced answers published each month on the client's domain, the client's approval of each one, and a monthly re-measurement against the same questions.
What does it cost the agency to deliver?
Endata's Agency plan is $799 a month for 5 client workspaces, then $99 a month for each additional client. See Endata for agencies.