The AEO Industry Index measures how AI answer engines recommend the players in a category. This August 2026 edition tracks brand management vendors across five AI platforms (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Copilot), scoring how often and how prominently each vendor is named when someone asks AI for guidance.
AEO Index · August 2026 · Updated Aug 18, 2026
The complete AI-visibility index for brand management vendors.
Two layers of AI visibility, durable memory and the live citation contest, the organic reality beneath them, and where the opportunity sits, in one view.
The signature view
The Delta Quadrant
Every vendor placed by what AI remembers (model memory) against what AI finds when it searches (live retrieval). Bubble size is mention volume. Tap any vendor to focus it; switch Layer, Platform or Signal to move the category.
Adjust this view
Layer
Platform
Signal
Dual leader
Citation-strong · reputation-weak
Reputation-strong · citation-weak
Low / low
What AI remembers → (model memory)
What AI cites now → (live retrieval)
AI has already decided which brand management vendors it recommends. Here is who, and why.
Two layers of AI visibility: durable memory, and the live citation contest.
Touch to explore
21 views · scroll down · tap any vendor to focus it · ask the index anything
Primary cohort
Extended cohort
Bubble size = mention volume · tap to focus
How this is measured
How this index is scored
Two layers, scored on the same five signals. The layers are what AI knows about a vendor without looking versus what it finds when it searches. The signals are how each layer is measured.
Methodology v2The two layers
Memory (weighted 0.32): what the model has internalized about the category, measured with web search off. The slow-moving reputation layer.
Live retrieval (weighted 0.68): what the model surfaces when it searches the web before answering. The fast, content-driven layer.
Each layer score is the weighted composite of the five signals. The blended score combines them at 0.32 memory and 0.68 retrieval, the same weighting on every Arcalea index so that two categories can be read on one scale.
The five signals
Entity Mention Frequency (EMF) (25%)
Share of tested responses that name the vendor. The foundational frequency signal.
Topical Range Score (20%)
Share of distinct question types where the vendor appears. Breadth, not volume. A vendor that leads its category will often score 1.000 here, because it shows up across every kind of question asked. The signal does its separating work further down the field.
Position Power Score (20%)
Where in the answer the vendor lands. Named first counts for more than named last.
First-Position Rate (15%)
How often the vendor is the first named of any listed. The advocacy signal.
Cross-Platform Stability (20%)
How evenly the vendor appears across engines rather than depending on one. Measured within a layer: the memory layer runs on fewer engines than retrieval, so the two are read within their own layer, not against each other.
Where they stand
Blended leaderboard
Memory and retrieval for every entity; blended is the weighted headline (w_p 0.32 / w_g 0.68). Tap a row to focus it across the whole index. The chip shows recommendation quality: how AI frames the vendor when it names it, a top pick (green) versus hedged with caveats (red). Hover for the recommended / neutral / cautioned split.
BlendedRec. quality
1Vistaprint0.488+0.21
2HALO Branded Solutions0.406+0.46
3LinkedIn0.378
44imprint0.372+0.16
5G20.371
6Taylor Corp0.332+0.14
7Smart Source0.302-0.02
8Better Business Bureau0.262
9Reddit0.262
10SwagUp0.255+0.75
11reddit.com0.227
12ASI0.205
13PPAI0.200
14The Sourcing Group0.182-0.32
15HH Global0.178-0.44
16Promotional Products Association International0.157
17Thumbprint0.146+0.33
18asicentral.com0.146
19The Shamrock Companies0.143-0.46
20ppai.org0.143
21g2.com0.139
22npn3600.000
Rigor you can see
Head-to-head, honestly measured
When AI compares two vendors, the naive answer is mostly an artifact of which is named first. We ask every matchup both ways; the number to trust is order-balanced. Toggle to watch the correction.
← now switch to the honest, order-balanced number
Matchups (first vendor's balanced win rate)
Citation battleground
How AI frames them
Attribute association
Which factors the models associate with each vendor. Darker cell = stronger association.
| Vendor | Sourcing Model | Brand Platform | Category Breadth | Fulfillment Scale | Spend Aggregation | Turnaround Speed | Credentials | Industry Recognition | eCommerce | Employee Programs | Reputation | Experience |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vistaprint | 100% | |||||||||||
| HALO Branded Solutions | 70% | 30% | ||||||||||
| 4imprint | 100% | 20% | 20% | |||||||||
| Taylor Corp | 83% | 17% | ||||||||||
| Smart Source | 95% | 26% | ||||||||||
| SwagUp | 100% | |||||||||||
| The Sourcing Group | 100% | 85% | 15% | |||||||||
| HH Global | 100% | |||||||||||
| Thumbprint | 100% | 100% | ||||||||||
| The Shamrock Companies | 75% | |||||||||||
| npn360 | 97% |
What the machines look for
Search fan-out
One question quietly becomes many. These are the hidden sub-searches the models run to answer a category question, the content brief they wrote themselves: comparison and rankings dominate.
65×npn360 brand management print promotions packaging
14×supply logic brand management print promotions packaging
12×smart source brand management print promotions packaging
12×hh global brand management print promotions packaging
11×american solutions for business brand management print promotions packaging
8×npn360 reviews brand management print promotions packaging
8×npn360 customer reviews
8×the shamrock companies brand management print promotions packaging
7×the sourcing group brand management print promotions packaging
6×multi-location brands recommendations managing local marketing vendors
Where citations go
Citation flow
Read left to right: the kind of question on the left, the source AI cited on the right. Aggregators and a broad long tail dominate; vendor sites are a thin slice.
Vendor sites
Aggregators
Other
The content pattern
Citation sources & page types
Across 9,289 cited URLs, 13% point to vendor sites, 4.7% to aggregators, and 82% to everything else. Of the vendor pages that are cited, the mix concentrates in homepage (32%) and service page (28%).
Citation sources by side
vendors 13% aggregators 4.7% other 82%
Cited vendor page types
Measured and never the cited page: process guide, community forum.
npn360 accounts for 697 of those 1,251 cited vendor pages, and its own cited pages skew to service page (32%) and homepage (29%).
Google's AI layer
Google AI Overviews
An AI Overview appears on 70% of the 46 category keywords, the highest-volume AI surface. Even Google's own AI leans on third parties over the vendors: vendors are cited mostly on their own names, and on non-branded discovery queries citations concentrate on a few. Tap to focus.
Citations by vendor (total / non-branded)
Elite Promo5 / 5 nb
Vistaprint4 / 4 nb
4imprint2 / 2 nb
Taylor Corp2 / 2 nb
The Sourcing Group1 / 1 nb
Top cited domains
Act 4Organic reality and opportunity
AI vs organic
AEO vs SEO
How AI visibility diverges from organic standing.
Cross-instrument · August 2026| Vendor | AI rank | Organic SoV | Divergence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vistaprint | #1 | 13.2% | Aligned |
| HALO Branded Solutions | #2 | 0.3% | AI-ahead |
| 4imprint | #3 | 8.5% | Aligned |
| Taylor Corp | #4 | 0.4% | Aligned |
| Smart Source | #5 | 0.0% | AI-ahead |
| SwagUp | #6 | 0.9% | Organic-ahead |
| The Sourcing Group | #7 | 0.0% | Aligned |
| HH Global | #8 | 0.0% | Aligned |
| Thumbprint | #9 | 0.0% | Aligned |
| The Shamrock Companies | #10 | 0.0% | Aligned |
| npn360 | #11 | 0.0% | Aligned |
The citation economy
AI citations
Citation rate and the domains AI leans on.
Grounded layer · August 202694.5%
responses with citations
9,289
total citations
14%
to a tracked vendor
npn360.com
615
linkedin.com
250
smartsourcellc.com
109
shamrockcompanies.net
106
members.asicentral.com
105
reddit.com
83
marq.com
80
clutch.co
79
taylor.com
65
kt-dev.npn360.com
62
thesourcinggroup.com
56
en.wikipedia.org
54
Demand beneath visibility
Branded search footprint
Branded-search presence per vendor.
DataForSEO · August 20264imprint
78
Vistaprint
73
American Solutions for Business
72
Smart Source
69
SwagUp
68
HH Global
65
HALO Branded Solutions
65
The Sourcing Group
61
Elite Promo
61
Taylor Corp
60
Supply Logic
60
Thumbprint
58
GO2 Partners
57
The Shamrock Companies
53
npn360
47
The organic baseline
Organic share of voice
Share of estimated addressable organic clicks.
DataForSEO · August 2026| Entity | Organic SoV | Keywords ranking | Est. clicks/mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vistaprint | 13.2% | 21 | 724 |
| 4imprint | 8.5% | 15 | 467 |
| Elite Promo | 1.5% | 3 | 83 |
| SwagUp | 0.9% | 2 | 48 |
| Taylor Corp | 0.4% | 6 | 20 |
| HALO Branded Solutions | 0.3% | 2 | 14 |
| npn360 | not ranked | 0 | 0 |
| The Sourcing Group | not ranked | 0 | 0 |
| Smart Source | not ranked | 0 | 0 |
| American Solutions for Business | not ranked | 0 | 0 |
| The Shamrock Companies | not ranked | 0 | 0 |
| HH Global | not ranked | 0 | 0 |
| Supply Logic | not ranked | 0 | 0 |
| GO2 Partners | not ranked | 0 | 0 |
| Thumbprint | not ranked | 0 | 0 |
Keyword reality
SERP and keyword coverage
Keyword-universe SERP appearances per vendor.
DataForSEO · August 2026| Vendor | SERP appearances | KW coverage | Top-3 rate | SEO composite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vistaprint | 21 | 14% | 10% | 0.308 |
| reddit.com | 18 | 21% | 1% | 0.266 |
| 4imprint | 15 | 8% | 4% | 0.200 |
| linkedin.com | 9 | 9% | 2% | 0.188 |
| Taylor Corp | 6 | 6% | 1% | 0.185 |
| Elite Promo | 3 | 1% | 0% | 0.160 |
| HALO Branded Solutions | 2 | 2% | 0% | 0.157 |
| quora.com | 3 | 2% | 0% | 0.082 |
| SwagUp | 2 | 2% | 0% | 0.032 |
| ASI | 1 | 0% | 0% | 0.000 |
"not ranked" means the vendor ranks for none of the tracked keywords, so no composite is computed. That is absence from this keyword universe, not a score of zero.
Open vs owned
Category concentration and saturation
Where the field is open versus owned.
Grounded layer · August 2026| Category | Concentration (HHI) | State |
|---|---|---|
| Geographic | 1.00 | Concentrated |
| Community | 1.00 | Concentrated |
| Comparison | 0.56 | Concentrated |
| Solution | 0.38 | Concentrated |
| Educational | 0.38 | Concentrated |
| Discovery | 0.31 | Concentrated |
| Other | 0.18 | Open |
| Decision | 0.18 | Open |
Unclaimed territory
White space
High-volume query clusters where no cohort vendor has built a strong position.
DataForSEO · August 2026| Cluster | Volume/mo | Keywords | Avg coverage | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Promo | 9,380 | 14 | 3% | Open |
| Fulfillment | 3,780 | 7 | 0% | Open |
| 3,460 | 9 | 1% | Open | |
| Packaging Display | 2,380 | 9 | 1% | Open |
| Brand Program | 820 | 12 | 0% | Open |
Drill down
Entity explorer
Per-vendor two-layer and organic detail. Tap any row to open the five signals behind its memory and retrieval scores.
Two-layer · August 2026| Vendor | Memory | Retrieval | Blended | AI mentions | Organic SoV | SEO composite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vistaprint | 0.528 | 0.469 | 0.488 | 44 | 13.2% | 0.308 |
| HALO Branded Solutions | 0.498 | 0.362 | 0.406 | 31 | 0.3% | 0.157 |
| 4imprint | 0.468 | 0.326 | 0.372 | 34 | 8.5% | 0.200 |
| Taylor Corp | 0.220 | 0.384 | 0.332 | 15 | 0.4% | 0.185 |
| Smart Source | 0.000 | 0.444 | 0.302 | 9 | not ranked | not ranked |
| SwagUp | 0.000 | 0.375 | 0.255 | 1 | 0.9% | 0.032 |
| The Sourcing Group | 0.000 | 0.267 | 0.182 | 3 | not ranked | not ranked |
| HH Global | 0.555 | 0.000 | 0.178 | 12 | not ranked | not ranked |
| Thumbprint | 0.000 | 0.215 | 0.146 | 1 | not ranked | not ranked |
| The Shamrock Companies | 0.000 | 0.211 | 0.143 | 2 | not ranked | not ranked |
| npn360 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0 | not ranked | not ranked |
The freshness lever
Freshness of cited pages
How recently each vendor's most-cited pages were last updated. Pages refreshed within 90 days earn far more AI citations than stale ones.
Live fetch · August 2026| Vendor | Fresh <90d | Median age | Pages dated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Taylor Corp | n/a | n/a | 0/1 |
| Smart Source | 50% | 591d | 2/2 |
| The Sourcing Group | n/a | n/a | 0/1 |
| HH Global | 100% | 20d | 1/1 |
| The Shamrock Companies | 100% | 4d | 1/1 |
| npn360 | n/a | n/a | 0/14 |
The infrastructure lever
Citability infrastructure
Whether each vendor has the machine-readable infrastructure AI leans on to recognize and cite an entity: structured data, an encyclopedia presence, an AI-crawler guide, and named authors.
Live checks · August 2026| Vendor | Schema | Wikipedia | Wikidata | llms.txt | Authors | Infra score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vistaprint | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | · | · | 60% |
| HALO Branded Solutions | ✓ | · | · | · | ✓ | 40% |
| 4imprint | · | ✓ | ✓ | · | · | 40% |
| Taylor Corp | · | ✓ | ✓ | · | · | 40% |
| Smart Source | ✓ | ✓ | · | ✓ | · | 60% |
| SwagUp | ✓ | · | · | · | ✓ | 40% |
| The Sourcing Group | · | ✓ | · | · | · | 20% |
| HH Global | ✓ | · | · | · | · | 20% |
| Thumbprint | ✓ | · | · | · | ✓ | 40% |
| The Shamrock Companies | · | ✓ | · | · | · | 20% |
| npn360 | · | · | · | · | ✓ | 20% |
What to do
Recommendations
1
Close the grounded retrieval gap first
EvidenceThe index weights grounded retrieval at 0.68 and parametric memory at 0.32, and the cohort's grounded median is 0.3135. npn360 records 0.0 on memory, 0.0 on retrieval, a blended score of 0.0 and 0 mentions. Vistaprint sits at the top of the blended leaderboard at 0.4877 with retrieval of 0.4688.
DirectionWork the retrieval layer, meaning the sources an assistant pulls at answer time, before anything aimed at model memory. Smart Source shows retrieval can be won without memory, it carries 0.0 memory, 0.4438 retrieval and a retrieval edge of 0.4438, while HH Global shows the reverse risk at 0.5551 memory and 0.0 retrieval. The page level sequencing sits in the GEO Audit, not here.
2
Turn cited pages into named mentions
Evidencenpn360.com is the most cited domain in the run at 615 of 9289 citations, with a further 62 from kt-dev.npn360.com, and own domain citations total 697 at a self citation rate of 20.4 percent. Despite that, npn360 shows 0 mentions and a blended score of 0.0. In the head to head against The Sourcing Group, npn360 draws 44 citations to 18 with an order balanced win rate of 0.6.
DirectionThe layer to close is entity attribution: material is being retrieved but the vendor is not being named in the answer text. Prioritize making the vendor name, category and service set unambiguous inside sources that are already being pulled, rather than adding citation volume.
3
Claim the fulfillment cluster nobody covers
EvidenceThe fulfillment cluster holds 7 keywords and 3780 total volume with average coverage of 0.0 and no vendor among the 15 measured ranking on any of them. Its largest gaps have no best competitor recorded at all: direct mail services at 1600 volume and an opportunity score of 1158.4, direct mail company at 720, and warehousing and fulfillment services at 590. Print management services shows the same pattern at 1900 volume and an opportunity score of 1375.6.
DirectionThis is unclaimed ground, so the layer to close is topical coverage for a service set the cohort currently ignores. Treat it as a coverage decision at cluster level and let the audit assign formats and pages.
4
Build presence in third party comparison sources
EvidenceAssistants issued 1623 subqueries, of which 417 were comparison and 256 were rankings. On the citation side npn360 holds 0.0 share of vendor roundup pages against a competitor share of 0.031, 0.0 of editorial blog pages against 0.096, and 0.0 of vertical pages against 0.032, while concentrating in service pages at 0.32 and homepage at 0.288.
DirectionClose the third party layer, since comparison and ranking subqueries resolve through sources the vendor does not control. Aim at the intermediary and roundup surfaces the cohort already appears on, including the ones this run cites heavily such as members.asicentral.com at 105 citations and clutch.co at 79.
5
Enter the AI Overview source set
EvidenceAI Overviews fire at a rate of 0.6957 across the 46 keywords tracked. The vendors cited inside them are Elite Promo at 5, Vistaprint at 4, 4imprint at 2, Taylor Corp at 2 and The Sourcing Group at 1, and npn360 appears in none. The most cited overview domains are www.youtube.com at 11, www.shopelitepromo.com at 6 and www.vistaprint.com at 5.
DirectionTreat the overview source set as its own layer, distinct from blue link ranking, and target the source types Google is already drawing from on these 46 keywords. Track it as a presence metric per edition rather than a ranking metric.
6
Broaden the attributes assistants attach to npn360
Evidencenpn360's attribute profile is concentrated almost entirely in category breadth at 0.967, with asset light sourcing at 0.133, spend aggregation at 0.033, third party recognition at 0.017 and experience tenure at 0.017. It reads 0.0 on brand guardrails platform, national scale fulfillment, ecommerce technology, employee programs, speed turnaround, industry credentials and reputation reviews. Others hold specific ground: The Sourcing Group at 1.0 on asset light sourcing, ASI and PPAI at 1.0 on third party recognition, and Thumbprint at 1.0 on employee programs.
DirectionClose the differentiation layer, because a single dominant attribute gives assistants nothing to select the vendor on in comparison answers. Pick two attributes to establish and hold them consistently across the sources that already get retrieved, including the credentialing bodies that own third party recognition in this cohort.
7
Establish an organic ranking base
EvidenceAcross the 97 keywords analyzed, npn360 has 0 keywords ranking and 0.0 percent share of voice, while Vistaprint holds 13.231 percent from 21 ranking keywords and 4imprint holds 8.541 percent from 15. Of 5470 addressable clicks, 1357 are captured, a cohort capture rate of 24.8 percent. In cluster terms Vistaprint takes 93.5 percent of packaging and display and 76.7 percent of print, while the brand program cluster records 0.0 for every vendor listed.
DirectionClose the organic layer as support for retrieval, not as a separate goal, since assistant grounding draws on pages that also need to be findable. Start with the clusters where the cohort has no incumbent, then contest promo where the leaders are already established.
These are directional, ordered by leverage: which layers to close, not which pages to edit. The page-level plan for one vendor (the specific URLs, entities, schema, and crawler fixes, sequenced with owners) is a GEO Audit.
Next step
Turn this into a plan.
This index shows where each vendor stands and which layer, model memory or live retrieval, is holding it back. A GEO Audit turns that into a prioritized action plan for one vendor: the pages, entity infrastructure, schema, and AI crawler access to fix, in order, with the measurement re-run afterward to prove the lift.
Arcalea AEO Index · neutral two-layer baseline August 2026 · 11 vendors · a Galileo-family measurement surface
FAQ
Common questions about the AEO Index
What is the AEO Industry Index?
What is the difference between the memory and live-retrieval layers?
The index measures two instruments and never blends them. The parametric (memory) layer queries each model with web search off, capturing what the model has internalized about the category. The grounded (live-retrieval) layer lets the models search the live web before answering. Memory is the slow-moving reputation moat; retrieval is the fast, content-driven citation contest. The gap between the two layers is itself the finding.
Why does a vendor rank differently on memory versus live retrieval?
A vendor can hold a strong place in a model's memory yet lose the live-retrieval layer when competitors publish more citable, current content, or the reverse. The Delta Quadrant plots both layers at once, so you can see which lever a vendor must pull: build durable reputation, or win the live citation contest.
How is AI visibility different from an SEO ranking?
SEO measures where a page ranks on a results page. AEO measures whether a brand is named and cited inside the AI-generated answer, where most people never click through to a link. A vendor can rank well organically and still be absent from the AI answer, or lead the AI answer while trailing in organic search. This index reports both and shows where they diverge.
Which platforms and prompts does the index use?
Five platforms: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Microsoft Copilot. Each runs the same frozen prompt set. Most prompts are entity-neutral, meaning no vendor is named and the model chooses who to recommend on its own; a separate head-to-head track deliberately names two vendors per prompt to test direct comparisons. Scores aggregate across platforms and prompt categories, with per-platform detail in each section.
Can Arcalea build this index for my category?
Yes. The methodology is category-agnostic. Give us your market and competitive set and we build the same two-layer index for your industry and your brand's position within it. Use the Get Your Index button to start.