Competitor Citation Delta

Extended definition

Competitor Citation Delta quantifies the visibility gap between your brand and competitors by measuring citation rate differences across identical queries. If you're cited in 15% of category queries while your main competitor is cited in 47%, your delta is -32 percentage points. This metric reveals competitive positioning in AI visibility, identifies leaders and laggards, and tracks whether gaps are widening or closing. Deltas can be measured overall, by engine (e.g., stronger on ChatGPT, weaker on Gemini), by topic (strong in features, weak in use cases), or by query type (strong in how-to, weak in comparison).

Why this matters for AI search visibility

Citation gaps translate directly to competitive disadvantages in brand awareness and consideration. A negative delta means your competitors are capturing AI-driven mindshare you're missing. Large deltas indicate entrenched authority advantages that compound over time through reinforcement loops. Tracking deltas over time reveals whether your visibility efforts are working: closing gaps indicates effective strategy, widening gaps indicates falling behind. For competitive markets, Citation Delta is a leading indicator of market share shifts as AI search grows.

Practical examples

• Market leader maintains +38 point citation delta over nearest competitor, reinforcing dominant positioning
• A focused AI visibility campaign closes citation delta from -41 points to -12 points over 6 months
• Delta analysis reveals strength in technical queries (+15) but weakness in business value queries (-28), informing content priorities