UpstreamKit

Planning & Templates

AEO Report Template

A reusable answer engine optimization reporting template — the metrics to track, the cadence to track them on, and how to present movement.

Visibility

Sources

Traffic

Pipeline

Report template (Markdown)

# [Brand] — Monthly AEO report

**Period:** [start] to [end]  
**Prepared for:** Marketing leadership  
**Prepared by:** [name]

## 1. Headline

> One sentence on what moved and what it means. Write this last.

## 2. What we shipped

| Work | Status | Expected effect | Landed |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [item] | Shipped | [what it should move] | [date] |

## 3. Visibility

| Metric | This period | Last period | Change | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Citation share | | | | Share of tracked prompts where you are cited |
| Share of voice vs competitors | | | | Your mentions against the named alternatives |

## 4. Sources

| Metric | This period | Last period | Change | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| New sources earned | | | | Placements landed this period |

## 5. Traffic

| Metric | This period | Last period | Change | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Non-branded organic traffic | | | | The demand you did not already own |

## 6. Pipeline

| Metric | This period | Last period | Change | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Qualified leads | | | | The number the business actually cares about |

## 7. What we learned

- [A specific thing the data told us that we did not know last period]
- [Something that did not work, and what we are doing instead]

## 8. Next period

| Priority | Why now | Owner | Done by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [item] | [the gap it closes] | [name] | [date] |

## 9. Method notes

- Prompts tracked: [n], unchanged since [date]
- Assistants covered: [list]
- Model or platform changes this period: [note any, they explain swings]
- Anything we could not measure: [be explicit]

Two sections people skip, and shouldn't

  • What we learned. A report that only lists numbers going up teaches nobody anything. Say what surprised you and what you stopped doing.
  • Method notes. Record the prompt count, the assistants covered, and any model changes. Half of all unexplained swings in AI visibility are platform changes, and without this section you will take credit or blame for both.

Keep the prompt set stable

Changing which prompts you track between periods makes the trend meaningless. Add to the set by all means, but report the stable core separately so the comparison holds.