Mention Rate
Mention Rate is how often your brand appears in the analyzed AI answers, expressed as a percentage. It tells you how often your brand shows up, without judging how well it is presented.
How to read the number
For one prompt and one engine, we divide the number of answers that mention your brand by the number of answers analyzed. Repeating the name several times in the same answer still counts as one appearance.
When you summarize many prompts, check what the metric covers. Within Visibility Score, mention frequency is first calculated for each prompt and engine and only then averaged.
What this metric doesn’t show
A mention can be positive, neutral or negative. Your brand can also appear without any link. That’s why it’s worth reading mention frequency together with sentiment and Visibility Score.
Why you should break it down by topic
An average mention rate can look healthy while your brand is left out of answers about your most important service. Check prompts about different use cases, customer groups and locations separately. If your company appears mainly in one narrow area, the overall number doesn’t reflect an even presence. That breakdown lets you pick content to review without guessing from a single percentage.
Always consider the number of answers. Going from one mention to two out of two samples looks impressive, but it rests on very little data. A longer series makes it easier to see whether your presence is consistent. When you compare engines, make sure the prompts and time periods are similar too.
Your brand’s position adds context: the first company in an answer is presented earlier than the fifth, but not necessarily more favorably. In Heuriso, order affects mention quality in Visibility Score. Mention Rate deliberately stays a simpler measure of presence alone.
Common mistake: counting repeated names as separate wins
A long answer may name your company several times, but it is still one answer that mentions your brand. Counting every repetition would reward wordy answers rather than real frequency. Check the context too: a brand named in a warning raises Mention Rate just as much as a recommendation. You only get a sense of quality by combining frequency with the content and tone of the answer.
Example
Your brand appeared in 4 of 5 answers to the same prompt. The Mention Rate for that sample is 80%, even if it came last in every answer.
Key takeaway
Don’t confuse the share of answers that mention your brand with your share among all brands. The latter is Share of Voice.
Sources and methodology
Heuriso methodology: one answer counts as at most one mention of a given brand. The aggregation described here refers to the mention frequency used in Visibility Score.