Outreach

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Purpose

The Outreach page helps customers turn the third-party URLs that AI search engines cite into a manageable contact pipeline. When ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Grok, or DeepSeek respond to a tracked prompt, they often quote articles, blog posts, and reviews on sites the customer doesn’t own. Outreach surfaces those URLs, ranks them by how often they’re cited, and gives the customer everything they need to contact the author or editor and try to influence the next version of that content. The page sits at the end of the customer’s optimization workflow: Prompts → Olympus / Sources show what’s being cited, and Outreach lets them act on it. It pairs an analyst-style table view (Opportunities) for triage with a project-management style board (Progress) for tracking ongoing email conversations. Each URL can be tagged with a status, assigned to a teammate, drafted with an AI-generated email, and exported in bulk for offline workflows. The drawer also includes AI-assisted author discovery (name + LinkedIn extraction) and AI-drafted outreach messages tailored to each article, with per-website custom instructions so each customer can match their own voice.

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What’s on the page

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Page header

The header shows the title “Outreach” next to an info icon. The tooltip on the info icon reads: “Opportunities: Discover authors to reach out to. Progress: Manage your outreach pipeline.” To the right of the title is a two-option tab switcher (Opportunities / Progress). The active tab is reflected in the URL via the ?tab= query parameter (no parameter = Opportunities, ?tab=progress = Progress).

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Filter bar (Opportunities tab only)

A sticky filter row below the header holds the standard Athena contextual filters (see Filters section below), a Saved Views control, and on the right two action buttons: a primary Tags button (opens the Source Tags drawer) and a secondary ⋯ More options button (Columns and Export). On mobile the filters collapse behind a Filters button and the actions collapse into the trailing ⋯ menu.

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Outreach Opportunities table (Opportunities tab)

An infinite-scroll table of third-party URLs that have been cited by AI responses for the customer’s tracked prompts. Each row is one URL. Columns (with the exact tooltip text shown on hover):

• URL: the normalized URL of the source page with its favicon and an external-link icon (visible on row hover). The URL text is colored by source type: indigo for Owned, orange for Competitor, violet for Partner, neutral for Third-party.
• Intervene: a button that opens the Writer Contact Drawer for this URL. If outreach has already been started, a small colored dot appears next to the label (grey = Todo, amber = In Progress, indigo = Done, grey = Canceled).
• Type: stacked tag badges showing which custom Source Tags and which default source type apply to the domain. Up to four badges are shown; additional tags are condensed into a +N indicator. Clicking the cell opens the Edit Source Tags dialog.
• Citation %: tooltip: “Percentage of responses with citations from this domain”. Hovering the value reveals the full-precision percentage and the underlying citation count.
• Monthly Impressions: tooltip: “Citation % * Estimated Prompt Volume”. The estimated monthly impressions this URL generates inside AI responses.
• Citations: tooltip: “Number of times this domain was cited in simulated responses”. The raw citation count.
• Mentioned: tooltip: “Whether you were mentioned in sources from this URL”. A Yes / No badge for whether the customer’s brand is mentioned in the source content.
• AI Access: tooltip: “Scan whether AI search engines can crawl this domain”. A badge that, when clicked, opens the AI Accessibility dialog and runs an on-demand crawl-access scan against the domain.
• Competitors Mentioned: tooltip: “Competitors mentioned in sources from this domain”. Stacked competitor logos. Hovering each logo reveals the competitor name; a +N badge appears when more than four competitors are mentioned. “No” badge if none.

Table rows highlight on hover. Clicking anywhere on a row that isn’t itself a button or link navigates to the detailed analytics page for that URL (see Drilldowns). Cmd/Ctrl+click opens that page in a new tab.

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Table footer

Shows “Showing X of Y URLs” on the left and a Load More button on the right. The table also auto-loads more rows when the user scrolls near the bottom.

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Progress kanban board (Progress tab)

A horizontally scrollable board with four columns:

• Todo (grey indicator): outreach identified, not yet started.
• In Progress (amber indicator): outreach started; researching contact or in active email conversation.
• Done (indigo indicator): outreach complete (placement achieved or response received).
• Canceled (grey indicator). URL is not suitable for outreach.

Each column shows the count of cards next to its name. Cards can be dragged between columns; the new status is saved immediately with an optimistic UI update.

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Kanban contact cards

Each card shows: the cleaned URL (no protocol), the author name (if extracted), the contact email (if found), the email subject (if drafted), a two-line preview of the message body, an assignee avatar (initials of the assigned teammate or an empty placeholder), and an “No message drafted” indicator with a pulsing dot when no subject or message exists yet. Clicking a card opens the Writer Contact Drawer for that URL. Clicking the assignee avatar opens an assignee dropdown without opening the drawer.

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Writer Contact Drawer

This is the workhorse panel. It slides in from the right when Intervene is clicked or when a kanban card is clicked, and contains:

• Header: the domain name (click to copy), an external-link button to open the article in a new tab.
• Status / Assignee row: two inline pickers: a status dropdown (Todo / In Progress / Done / Canceled) and an Assignee picker that searches organization members.
• Author card: shows the discovered author name, their email (click to copy), and a LinkedIn link badge. If no author has been extracted yet, a primary Find author button is shown; clicking it runs an AI extraction pipeline that pulls the author name and LinkedIn URL from the source article.
• Custom prompt editor (toggled by a Prompt / ⚙ button): a textarea where the user can enter per-website custom instructions for the AI message generator. The textarea is capped at 2,000 characters. Stored locally in the browser, keyed by user + website.
• Progress steps panel: shown while the AI is working: lists the steps (Extracting article content, Extracting the author, Drafting message) with a check or spinner next to each.
• Compose section: the AI-drafted (or manually edited) subject and message body. Includes an Edit button (⌘E), a Draft / Regenerate button (✨), a Cancel + Save pair while editing (⌘S to save), and a footer area for keyboard shortcuts.
• Activity log: an expandable timeline of changes (status, assignee, author name, LinkedIn, subject, message, email), each entry showing who changed what and when.

Keyboard shortcuts inside the drawer:

• ⌘E / Ctrl+E: start editing the message
• ⌘S / Ctrl+S: save edits (works inside the message textarea)
• ⌘⇧C / Ctrl+Shift+C: copy the full email (To + Subject + Body) to clipboard
• ⌘↵ / Ctrl+Enter: launch the user’s default mail client with To, Subject, and Body pre-filled

The mailto handoff strips unsafe characters from the recipient address and uses RFC-compliant percent encoding so Outlook and Apple Mail render the body correctly.

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Source Tags drawer

Opens from the Tags button in the filter bar. Lists all custom source tags for the website with their badge color and a domain count. Clicking a row opens the edit form; clicking Create a Type at the bottom opens the create form. Both forms support adding domains by CSV upload (with a downloadable template) or manual entry with https:// prefix protection. A trash icon on each row (visible on hover) deletes the tag (with a confirmation dialog).

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Edit Source Tags dialog

Opens when the Type cell of a row is clicked. Lets the user:

• Override the default Source type (Owned, Competitor, Partner, Third-party) for this domain or URL.
• Toggle membership in any custom tag.
• Create a new custom tag inline (typing a non-matching name shows a “Create new tag: ’…’” option).

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URL Breakdown export dialog

Opens from the Export item in the ⋯ menu. Lets the user pick how many URLs to export using +/− buttons (in increments of 1,000), a quick-select row (1,000 / 5,000 / 10,000), a “Reset to 1,000” link, and an “Export all” link that sets the count to the full total. Shows a summary of active filters and any search term. The Export button kicks off the CSV generation and shows a progress toast.

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AI Accessibility dialog

Opens when the AI Access badge in a row is clicked. Scans whether the major AI crawlers (GPTBot, PerplexityBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, Bingbot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, Googlebot, and others) can fetch the domain.

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What you can do here

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Top-level

• Switch tabs. Opportunities (default) vs Progress (kanban). The URL ?tab= parameter is kept in sync.
• Apply filters: see Filters section below.
• Load / save filter views: using the Saved Views control in the filter bar.

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From the Opportunities table

• Click Intervene on a row → opens the Writer Contact Drawer.
• Click a Type badge → opens the Edit Source Tags dialog for that domain / URL.
• Click an AI Access badge → opens the AI Accessibility scan dialog.
• Click the external-link icon next to a URL → opens the source article in a new tab.
• Click anywhere else on a row → navigates to /sources/analytics/{url}?returnTo=/outreach. Cmd/Ctrl+click opens that page in a new tab.
• Sort: click any sortable column header (URL, Citation %, Monthly Impressions, Citations, Mentioned).
• Resize columns: drag the right edge of any column header; double-click the edge to auto-fit.
• Click the Tags button → opens the Source Tags drawer.
• Click the ⋯ More options button → opens a small menu with Columns (column visibility / reorder popover) and Export (URL Breakdown export dialog). On mobile this menu also contains a Download item and a Tags item.
• Click Load More in the footer → fetches the next page of URLs.

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From the Progress kanban

• Drag a card between columns to change its status. The change is saved immediately; if the save fails the card reverts and a toast appears.
• Click a card to open the Writer Contact Drawer.
• Click the assignee avatar on a card to assign or unassign a teammate without opening the drawer.

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Inside the Writer Contact Drawer

• Status dropdown: change Todo / In Progress / Done / Canceled.
• Assignee picker: pick any organization member or “Unassigned”.
• Find author. AI-extracts the author name and LinkedIn URL.
• Click the email pill under the author: copies the email to clipboard.
• Click the LinkedIn pill: opens the LinkedIn profile in a new tab.
• Prompt / ⚙: toggle the custom-instructions editor; type to customize the AI generator’s voice for this website. Clear wipes the saved instructions.
• Draft / Regenerate: runs the AI pipeline (extract article content → generate subject + body).
• Edit (⌘E): switch to editable subject and message fields.
• Save (⌘S) / Cancel: persist or discard the edits.
• Copy full email (⌘⇧C): copies To + Subject + Body to clipboard.
• Open in Mail Client (⌘↵): launches the OS mail client.
• External link icon (top right): opens the source article in a new tab.
• Activity log: expand to see the change history.

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Inside the Source Tags drawer

• Create a Type → opens the create form.
• Click a row → opens that tag’s edit form.
• Trash icon on a row → deletes the tag (after confirmation).
• Inside the form: pick a name and color, upload a CSV of domains (template available via the Template link), or add domains manually one at a time. Save persists; Cancel discards.

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Inside the Edit Source Tags dialog

• Source type buttons: pick Owned / Competitor / Partner / Third-party. Picking the inherited default deletes the override.
• Tag checkboxes: toggle membership in each custom tag.
• Search box: filter the tag list, or type a brand-new name and click “Create new tag” to spawn one on the spot.
• Save / Cancel.

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Inside the Export dialog

• + / − buttons and quick-select chips to choose the number of URLs to export.
• Reset to 1,000 / Export all (N) links.
• Export runs the download; a progress toast tracks completion.

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Data shown

• The list of third-party (and owned / competitor / partner) URLs cited by AI search engines in responses to the customer’s tracked prompts.
• Outreach contact records the customer has created: author name, email, LinkedIn URL, email subject, email body, status, assignee, and a per-field change history.
• The list of teammates in the customer’s organization (used in the assignee picker).
• The customer’s custom source tags and which domains belong to each.
• Estimated monthly prompt volume, used together with citation rate to compute Monthly Impressions.
• The customer’s competitor list and their favicons/logos.
• Custom AI-generation instructions stored per-user, per-website in the browser.

Data honors the standard Athena filter context: date range, model selection, prompt and prompt-tag filters, persona and location filters where applicable, and the customer’s domain ownership configuration.

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Common workflows

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1. Identify and contact an author for a high-citation URL

1. Open the Opportunities tab (default).
2. Sort by Citation % descending (the default).
3. Click Intervene on a high-citation third-party URL.
4. In the drawer, click Find author to extract name and LinkedIn.
5. Click Draft to AI-generate a subject and message body.
6. Optionally click Edit (⌘E), refine the copy, click Save (⌘S).
7. Click Open in Mail Client (⌘↵) to launch the email pre-filled.
8. Move the contact to In Progress in the status dropdown.

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2. Manage the outreach pipeline on the kanban board

1. Click the Progress tab.
2. Drag a card from Todo to In Progress when you begin contact.
3. Drag it to Done when a response or placement is achieved.
4. Drag to Canceled if the URL turns out not to be suitable.
5. Click any card to open the drawer and review or refine details.

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3. Assign outreach contacts to teammates

1. On the Progress tab, click the avatar icon on a card.
2. Pick a teammate from the dropdown.
3. The card updates immediately with the teammate’s initials.

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4. Export the outreach opportunity list

1. On the Opportunities tab, apply the desired filters (date range, models, etc.).
2. Click the ⋯ More options button → Export.
3. Pick the number of URLs (1,000 / 5,000 / 10,000 quick-select, or custom).
4. Click Export: a CSV downloads when the progress toast completes.

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5. Create and apply a custom source tag

1. Click the Tags button in the filter bar.
2. Click Create a Type.
3. Name the tag, pick a color, upload a CSV of domains (template available) or add domains manually.
4. Click Save.
5. Back in the table, the new tag appears in the Type column for matching domains; use the Source Tag filter to slice by it.

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Empty, loading, and error states

• Initial loading: a full-screen spinning loader inside the table or board area while the website context and first page of data load.
• No results: the table shows the message “No sources data available.” in a centered card. The kanban shows empty drop zones in each column.
• In-flight kanban update: the card being moved shows a skeleton placeholder so the user can see the save is in progress.
• Errors: failed status changes, assignee changes, message generation, author extraction, and exports all surface as toast notifications. A failed drag-and-drop reverts the card to its original column. A failed export keeps the dialog data intact.

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Linked from / links to

Links to

• /sources/analytics/{url}?returnTo=/outreach: clicking a non-interactive part of a table row.
• The source article’s URL: clicking the external-link icon in the URL cell, or the icon in the drawer header.
• mailto:: the user’s default mail client, when Open in Mail Client is clicked.

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Common support questions

Q: What does “Citation %” mean?
A: The percentage of AI responses (within the selected filters) that include a citation from this URL. Hover the value to see the exact percentage and the underlying citation count. Q: How is “Monthly Impressions” calculated?
A: Citation % multiplied by the estimated prompt volume: i.e. roughly how many monthly AI-response impressions this URL is driving. Q: Why is a URL I expect to see missing from the table?
A: The default filter for Opportunity status is set to active, which hides URLs marked Canceled. Loosen the Opportunity status filter, or check Date Range, Models, and Brand Mentioned filters. The Outreach view also blacklists a few high-volume domains (youtube.com, reddit.com, etc.) from the opportunity list. Q: Where did my AI-drafted email go after I switched websites?
A: The saved subject and message persist on the contact record per URL + website, but the custom instructions in the Prompt / ⚙ editor are stored locally in your browser, keyed per user + website. They don’t sync across browsers or devices. Q: I dragged a card and it snapped back. Why?
A: The save to the server failed. A red error toast appears in the corner. Try again; if it keeps failing, contact support. Q: How do I move a URL out of “Canceled” once it’s there?
A: Go to the Progress tab and drag the card back into another column, or open the drawer for that URL and change the Status dropdown. Note that canceled URLs are hidden from the Opportunities tab by default (see Opportunity status filter). Q: Can I bulk-export everything I see?
A: Yes: open the ⋯ More menu, click Export, and use the Export all link in the dialog to set the count to the full total. The CSV honors all currently applied filters. Q: Why can’t I hide the Intervene column?
A: The URL column and the Intervene column are both pinned and cannot be hidden or reordered. Intervene is always locked into the second column position.