Query Bank

A Query Bank is the measurement instrument of AEO analytics. It is a carefully curated set of queries that represent the questions your target audience would ask AI engines about your product category, industry, or brand. By running these queries through multiple AI engines and analysing the responses, you can calculate Share of Model, Citation Rate, and other key AEO metrics.

Building an effective Query Bank requires understanding your audience's intent categories: informational queries ("what is a CRM"), comparative queries ("best CRM for small business"), transactional queries ("CRM pricing comparison"), and brand-specific queries ("is Salesforce good for startups"). Each category reveals different aspects of your AI visibility.

Query Banks should be refreshed regularly to account for evolving language patterns. AI users tend to phrase queries more conversationally than traditional search users, so Query Banks should include natural language variations alongside keyword-focused queries. For example, "CRM small business" might be a traditional search query, while "what CRM would you recommend for a 10-person startup" reflects how users actually talk to AI engines.

The size and composition of a Query Bank directly affects the accuracy of your AEO metrics. Too few queries produce unreliable data; too many become impractical to run regularly. Most effective Query Banks contain 30-100 queries per product category, covering the full spectrum of relevant intents.