Competitors

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Purpose

The Competitors page is where you manage how Athena tracks your own brand and your competitors across AI responses. It allows you to build a definitive list of tracked competitors, define the exact keywords (identifiers) and web domains used to detect when a company is mentioned or cited, and review AI-generated suggestions for new competitors or keywords. Whenever you change how a brand is tracked, such as adding a new identifier, toggling case-sensitive matching, or renaming a company, this page helps you manage the “backfill” process. Backfilling reanalyzes your historical AI response data using your updated tracking rules so your past metrics stay accurate. You can review all pending changes here and choose whether to apply them historically or only to new incoming data.

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What’s on the page

Page header The top of the page includes the page title, a helpful description tooltip, tab navigation to switch between views (Tracked competitors, Discovered competitors, and Deleted), and the primary “Add competitor” action button. Identifier suggestions bar When Athena’s AI detects new ways your brand or competitors are being mentioned, a bar appears above the table. It shows pending identifier suggestions with inline buttons to accept or dismiss them, plus a “Review all” option to open a modal with the full list. Discovered competitors section A table of non-tracked competitor candidates that Athena’s AI has naturally surfaced in responses. You can expand these to see evidence and promote them to your tracked list.

• Competitor: Logo, name, and root domain. The row can be expanded to show evidence snippets.
• Mention %: Percentage of AI responses mentioning this competitor. Tooltip: “Percentage of AI responses that mention this competitor”
• Mentions: Total mention count across all responses. Tooltip: “Total number of times this competitor was mentioned across all responses”
• Mentioned in: Unique responses mentioning this competitor out of total analyzed. Tooltip: “Unique responses mentioning this competitor out of total analyzed”
• Last seen: The date of the most recent mention.
• Actions: An “Add” button to promote the candidate to a tracked competitor, or an “Added” label if it is already tracked.

Deleted competitors section A table of competitors that have been soft-deleted.

• Name: Logo and competitor name.
• Website: Display URL with an external link.
• Actions: A “Restore” button (opens a confirmation dialog).

Change queue / backfill status bar A sticky command bar at the bottom of the screen. It summarizes any pending identifier, domain, or competitor changes you’ve made. It also shows live progress while a backfill is running, or an error state if a backfill fails. Bulk selection command bar Appears when you check the boxes next to rows in the Tracked tab. Offers bulk Delete, Export, and Reset actions. Add Competitor drawer A side panel to add one or multiple competitors. It supports a single-entry form, pasting a bulk list of names/URLs, or uploading a CSV/Excel file, complete with a preview step. Edit Competitor / Edit company name drawer Side panels for renaming a competitor or your own brand. These also ask if you want to add the new name as a tracking identifier. Delete competitor dialog A standard confirmation modal before a competitor is removed from your tracked list. Competitor history drawer A timeline view showing an audit log of changes made to a specific competitor, such as renames or identifier tweaks. Review & backfill dialog A detailed modal listing all queued changes. You can review changes, undo them, pick a historical date range, and calculate the credit cost before starting a backfill.

• Change: An icon (+/−/•) plus a human-readable description of the change (e.g., added identifier, rename) and a relative timestamp.
• Identifiers count: For new competitors, shows the number of auto-generated identifiers (hoverable for the full list).
• Undo: A per-row undo button (hidden while a run is active).

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Data shown

• Tracked competitors and own website: The manually curated list of brands you monitor, including custom keywords and website domains.
• AI-discovered competitor candidates: Companies Athena’s AI has naturally observed being mentioned alongside your brand during regular analysis.
• AI-generated identifier suggestions: Variations of brand names or product keywords Athena recommends you track, based on how AI models output text.
• Soft-deleted competitors: Brands you previously tracked but have since removed.
• Competitor/website change queue: A staging area for edits (like new identifiers, domains, renames, and case-sensitivity changes) waiting to be historically reanalyzed.
• Live backfill run status: Real-time progress showing how many past responses have been successfully re-evaluated during an active backfill.
• Audit log history: A timeline of structural tracking changes made to a specific competitor by anyone in your organization.
• Logos: Automatically fetched company logos based on the domain names you provide.

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Common workflows

Add a single competitor

1. Click “Add competitor” in the top right.
2. Select the “Single” tab and enter the website URL (autocomplete will suggest the company name).
3. Enter or confirm the competitor’s name.
4. Click “Add”. Identifiers are auto-generated and the competitor appears in your Tracked table.

Bulk import competitors via CSV

1. Click “Add competitor”, then switch to the “Multiple” tab.
2. Download the template or upload your own CSV/Excel file containing Name, URL(s), and Identifiers columns.
3. Review and edit the generated preview (adjusting names, URLs, identifiers, or domains as needed).
4. Click “Add N competitors” to confirm and import the list.

Promote a discovered competitor

1. Switch to the “Discovered competitors” tab.
2. Expand a candidate row to review the evidence snippets showing how the AI mentioned them.
3. Click the “Add” button to promote the candidate into your tracked competitors list.

Review and backfill queued changes

1. Edit identifiers, domains, case-sensitivity, or competitor names, which automatically queues changes.
2. The Change Queue Bar appears at the bottom of the screen showing a summary of your pending changes.
3. Click “Review & backfill”.
4. Optionally undo any unwanted changes or select a specific historical date range for reanalysis.
5. Click “Start backfill” (which charges credits) or “Skip backfill” (which applies changes to new data only without spending credits).

Restore a deleted competitor

1. Switch to the “Deleted” tab.
2. Click “Restore” on the row of the competitor you want back.
3. Confirm in the dialog. The competitor will return to your Tracked tab.

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Empty, loading, and error states

• Empty:
  • Tracked table: “No results.”
  • Discovered tab: “No discovered competitors yet”
  • Deleted tab: “No deleted competitors”
  • Backfill dialog: “No changes to review”
  • History drawer: “No activity recorded”
• Loading: An animated loader appears inside the table container while the competitors, candidates, or deleted lists are being fetched.
• Error: Failed actions (like adding, updating, deleting, restoring, or backfilling) trigger standard toast error messages in the corner of the screen. There is no dedicated full-page error state.

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Common support questions

• What is a backfill and why does it cost credits? When you change how Athena identifies your brand or competitors (like adding a new keyword), those changes apply to new AI responses automatically. A backfill retroactively re-reads your past AI responses using your new rules so your historical charts stay accurate. Because this requires heavy AI processing, it consumes credits.
• What are identifiers and why use case-sensitive matching? Identifiers are the exact text strings Athena looks for to know a brand was mentioned. Case-sensitive matching is useful if a brand name is a common dictionary word (like “Apple”) and you only want to track it when it’s capitalized properly.
• Why can’t I remove an identifier? Athena requires at least one identifier per entity. You also cannot remove the default identifiers (the exact company name and the root domain).
• Why can’t I edit a competitor’s URL? You cannot type a new URL into the Edit Competitor drawer. To change a primary URL, open the “Domains” popover on the main table, add the new domain, and click “Make primary”.
• Why is the export button showing an upgrade screen? Exporting your competitor data to a CSV file requires a paid subscription plan. If you are on a free plan, clicking export will show you upgrade options.
• How are discovered competitors found? Athena’s AI continuously monitors the responses it gathers. If it notices another company frequently being mentioned alongside your brand, it suggests them as a candidate in the Discovered tab.