Competitor tracking
You don't operate in a vacuum. Knowing your competitors' AI visibility, and how it changes over time, is what turns raw SOM data into competitive strategy.
How Outrigger discovers competitors
When Sonar runs your prompts, it doesn't just look for your brand. It extracts every brand mentioned in every AI response. Over time, this builds a comprehensive picture of who shows up in your category.
These auto-discovered competitors are ranked by how frequently they appear. The brands that show up most often in your keyword space are your true AI competitors, and they might be different from your traditional SEO or market competitors.
Setting focus competitors
From the auto-discovered list, select 3-5 focus competitors for detailed tracking. Outrigger will:
- Track their SOM alongside yours on every monitoring run
- Show head-to-head comparison on each keyword
- Alert you when a competitor's SOM changes significantly
- Identify keywords where they dominate and you don't
Choose focus competitors based on who appears most often in AI responses for your keywords, not who you compete with most in traditional sales.
Reading the competitor comparison
The competitor comparison chart shows SOM side-by-side:
Your brand vs competitors, per model: This reveals which AI models favor which brands. If a competitor dominates ChatGPT but you're stronger on Perplexity, that's useful for prioritization.
Your brand vs competitors, per keyword: This is where you find specific gaps. If Competitor A owns "best CRM for agencies" but nobody owns "CRM for creative agencies," that keyword is your opening.
SOM trend over time: Watch for competitors whose SOM is rising quickly. That movement does not establish what work they performed. Compare the actual answers and coverage before choosing a response.
Turning competitor data into action
Competitor tracking isn't just observation: it feeds directly into your campaign strategy:
1. find uncontested keywords
Sort keywords by sampled competitor SOM and inspect the answers and coverage. Low observed mention rates may identify a question to investigate; they do not establish low competition or predict the impact of a citation.
2. identify their citation sources
When a competitor has high SOM for a keyword, look at the AI responses to see which sources are being cited. Are Reddit threads mentioning them? Press articles? Review sites? Those same sources are your targets: get your brand into those threads and publications.
3. exploit their weaknesses
If a competitor has high SOM but negative sentiment, that's an opportunity. Review the actual answer and its source evidence. Provide accurate, useful information where relevant, without assuming it will change future recommendations.
4. monitor their velocity
A hypothetical 10-point increase is an observation, not evidence that a competitor is running a campaign. Check comparable coverage and the actual answers and sources before proposing an explanation.
Competitor alerts
The following are illustrative review triggers, not product defaults or universal significance thresholds. Use the controls actually available in the workspace and consider sample coverage:
- SOM change: A movement you judge worth reviewing in comparable samples
- New entrant: A brand newly appearing in the sampled answers
- Keyword takeover: A competitor overtakes you on a keyword where you were previously leading
These alerts help you react quickly rather than discovering competitive shifts weeks later in a monthly review.
In Outrigger
The competitor tracking dashboard lives within Sonar. You can view auto-discovered competitors, set focus competitors, and see head-to-head comparisons across all keywords and models.