Competitor Heatmap

Visualize how your brand and each tracked competitor perform across topics by Mention % or Citation %, so you can spot gaps and strengths at a glance.

Open in AthenaHQ

app.athenahq.ai/heatmap

Purpose

The Competitor Heatmap page allows customers to visualize how their brand performs against tracked competitors across various topics. It provides a color-coded grid that makes it easy to spot visibility gaps, competitive strengths, and overall market position at a single glance.

By toggling between metrics like Mention % and Citation %, marketers can quickly diagnose whether they are being talked about in AI responses (Mention) or actively linked to as a source (Citation). It condenses thousands of AI responses into a highly readable, comparative dashboard.

This page fits into a customer’s workflow when they need to report on high-level competitive intelligence, identify specific topics where competitors are winning share of voice, and prioritize which topics require more optimization effort.

What’s on the page

Page Header Displays the title “Competitors vs Topics Heatmap”.

Filter Row A persistent bar at the top containing:

• Metric Toggles: Two tabs (“Mention %” and “Citation %”) that determine which metric is displayed inside the heatmap cells and used for color-coding.
• Filter Bar: A standard contextual filter builder to narrow down the data shown in the heatmap.
• Saved Views: A dropdown to save the current filter combination or load a previously saved one.
• More Options Menu (⋯): An overflow menu containing the Export action.

Competitor vs Topics Heatmap (Chart) The core visualization on the page. It is an interactive, color-coded grid:

• Rows: Represent the topics your brand tracks, sorted alphabetically.
• Columns: Represent the tracked entities. Your Brand is always pinned to the first column (highlighted in indigo), followed by your competitors (sorted alphabetically by default).
• Cells: Show the selected metric’s percentage value formatted to one decimal place (e.g., “42.3%”). The color intensity scales from light to dark based on how high the value is. Hovering over a cell dims all other rows and columns to help the user focus, and a tooltip appears showing the metric value and a comparison to the brand’s baseline.

Heatmap Footer A summary bar directly below the matrix that displays a count of what is currently visible, such as “Showing 5 topics across 3 competitors”. If filters return no results, it shows “No topics or competitors to display”.

No Competitors Blank State If the user has not added any competitors to their account yet, the heatmap grid is replaced by a blurred, placeholder mock table overlaid with a card that reads “No Competitors Yet” and an “Add Competitor” button.

What you can do here

• Toggle the metric: Click “Mention %” or “Citation %” in the tabs above the filters to instantly recalculate and recolor the entire heatmap grid.
• Apply Filters: Add or adjust filters in the filter bar. The heatmap updates immediately to reflect the new criteria.
• Sort by column: Click on any column header (Brand or a Competitor) to sort the rows based on that column’s metric values. Clicking cycles through descending, ascending, and unsorted.
• Reorder columns: Click and drag a column header left or right to manually reorder how competitors appear.
• Pin/Unpin a column: Hover over a column header and use the context menu to pin it. Pinned columns snap to the left side (just after Your Brand), are visually highlighted, and stay visible as you scroll horizontally. You can unpin them at any time.
• Drill down into a cell: Click any filled heatmap cell to drill down. This takes you directly to the Prompts page, automatically applying filters for the clicked Topic and (if you clicked a competitor’s cell) the clicked Competitor, so you can see the exact AI responses driving that score.
• Export to CSV: Click the three-dot (⋯) menu in the top right of the filter bar (or the “Export CSV” button in the mobile overflow menu) and select Export. This downloads the current, filtered heatmap data in the exact column order you’ve arranged on screen. Note: Data export requires a paid subscription plan. If a free-plan user clicks this, they will be shown an upgrade dialog instead of the download.
• Save / Load / Manage Views: Open the Saved Views dropdown to save your current filter layout, load a past view, rename an existing view, or permanently delete one.
• Clear All Filters: Click “Clear All” in the filter bar to remove all non-default filters.
• Add Competitor: If you have no competitors, click the “Add Competitor” button in the blank state to navigate to the Competitors page and set them up.

Data shown

• AI Responses & Metrics: The percentages (Mention or Citation) are calculated from the AI model responses collected for the prompts your brand actively tracks.
• Topics: The row labels are pulled from the topic categorizations you have configured for your prompts.
• Competitors: The columns reflect the competitors you are currently tracking.
• Logos: Company logos displayed in the column headers are fetched securely based on the brand’s and competitors’ domains.

Common workflows

1. Compare brand vs competitor topic coverage

1. Navigate to the Heatmap page.
2. Add filters for specific AI Models or Date Ranges you want to analyze.
3. Toggle between the “Mention %” and “Citation %” tabs to see the data from different angles.
4. Scan the color-coded grid for dark cells in competitor columns, these highlight topics where competitors are outperforming your brand.
5. Click a specific cell to jump to the Prompts page and read the exact AI responses where that competitor was mentioned for that topic.

2. Focus on specific competitors

1. Click the “Filter…” bar and select the “Competitors” filter.
2. Choose only the two or three competitors you care about.
3. The heatmap will instantly hide the others, making the grid easier to read and compare.

3. Reorder and pin columns for a presentation

1. Hover over a key competitor’s column header and click the pin icon.
2. The competitor jumps to the left side of the grid, locking in place next to Your Brand.
3. Drag and drop remaining column headers to group similar competitors together.

4. Export heatmap data to CSV

1. Apply all desired filters and arrange your columns.
2. Click the ”⋯” menu on the right side of the filter bar.
3. Click “Export”. (If on a paid plan, the file downloads immediately. If on a free plan, you’ll be prompted to view plans).

Empty, loading, and error states

• Empty (No Competitors): If no competitors have been tracked yet, users see a blurred mock table overlaid with a card prompting them to “Add Competitor”.
• Empty (No Data from Filters): If the applied filters yield no results, the heatmap area displays the text “No data available for the selected filters.” The footer also reads “No topics or competitors to display”.
• Loading: While data is actively being fetched, a large animated loading spinner appears centered in the empty heatmap area.
• Error: There are no explicit red error banners; if the data fetch fails, the page gracefully falls back to showing the “No data available” state.

Linked from / links to

• Linked from: Users arrive here by clicking “Heatmap” in the main left-hand navigation sidebar.
• Links to: Clicking a cell takes users to the /prompts page. Clicking “Add Competitor” takes users to the /competitors page.

Common support questions

Why is my heatmap totally empty? If you haven’t added any competitors to your account yet, the heatmap won’t generate. You need at least one competitor to compare against. If you do have competitors, check your filters, you may have selected a date range or model combination that has no captured AI responses yet.

Why can’t I click on certain cells? Cells that are completely empty (showing a dash or representing null data) cannot be clicked. You can only drill down into cells that have an actual metric value attached to them.

Why did my column ordering reset? If you drag and drop columns to reorder them, that custom order is reset if the total number of columns changes. For example, if you apply or remove a competitor filter, the grid redraws itself and resets to alphabetical sorting.

Why is a specific topic missing from the rows? The heatmap is anchored to your brand. It only displays topics that your brand actively tracks. If a topic is only tracked by a competitor (and not by your brand), it will not appear as a row.

Why didn’t my CSV export download? Data export is a premium feature. If you are on the free plan and click Export, you will be shown an upgrade window instead of receiving the file. Note that the button itself doesn’t have a padlock icon, but the action is restricted.

Why did the Mention % filter hide a whole competitor column? Filters like “Mention %” and “Sentiment %” applied in the top filter bar evaluate at the entity level. If you filter for “Mention % > 50%”, any competitor that doesn’t have at least one topic meeting that 50% threshold will have their entire column hidden from the chart.