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app.athenahq.ai/heatmap

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Purpose

The Competitor Heatmap page gives marketers a high-level, visual overview of how their brand performs against competitors across different topics. Instead of reading through lists of responses or digging through individual prompt metrics, users can scan a color-coded grid to instantly spot strengths and content gaps. By comparing Mention % or Citation % side-by-side, users can quickly identify which topics their competitors are dominating in AI responses and which topics their own brand owns. It serves as a powerful starting point for competitive analysis, allowing users to spot a weak area and immediately drill down into the underlying AI prompts to see exactly what went wrong.

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What’s on the page

  • Page header: Displays the title “Competitors vs Topics Heatmap”. If the user navigated here from a specific competitor’s profile, a back arrow appears allowing them to return to the previous page.
  • Filter row: A standard bar for refining the data shown in the heatmap. Users can filter by date range, AI models, prompt status, locations, countries, personas, prompt variations, specific tags, and owned domains. Users can also apply “Mention %” or “Sentiment %” thresholds to hide competitors that don’t meet a minimum performance bar.
  • Metric toggle tabs: Two buttons labeled Mention % and Citation %. Selecting one updates the entire grid to display that specific metric.
  • More options menu (⋯): Located at the far right of the metric tabs (or in the sticky menu on mobile), containing the “Export as CSV” action.
  • Heatmap grid:
    • Rows (Topics): Listed alphabetically down the left side. These represent the specific topics your brand tracks.
    • Columns (Companies): Your brand is always locked as the first column, followed by your tracked competitors. Each column header features the company’s logo and name.
    • Cells: The intersection of a topic and a company. It displays the selected metric percentage. The cell’s background color intensifies based on how high the value is, making it easy to spot high-performing areas.
  • Footer summary: A status bar at the bottom of the grid that reads, for example, “Showing 15 topics across 4 competitors.”

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What you can do here

  • Switch metrics: Click the “Mention %” or “Citation %” tabs to instantly swap the data populating the heatmap cells. This preference is saved in the URL, so it persists if the page is refreshed or shared.
  • Drill down into a cell: Clicking any percentage cell in the grid will take you directly to the Prompts page. The app automatically applies filters for the clicked topic and the clicked competitor (unless you clicked your own brand’s column), allowing you to immediately inspect the AI responses driving that score.
  • Sort by column: Click any column header (a company name) to sort the topics. Clicking once sorts the rows from highest to lowest percentage for that company; clicking again sorts lowest to highest; a third click removes the sorting.
  • Reorder columns: Click and drag a competitor’s column header left or right to rearrange the grid. This is useful for placing your closest rival right next to your brand for direct comparison.
  • Pin columns: You can pin a column to the left side of the grid so it stays visible while you scroll horizontally through a long list of competitors.
  • Export as CSV: Open the ⋯ menu and click Export as CSV. This downloads the heatmap data exactly as it appears on your screen, honoring your current metric selection, custom column order, and applied filters.

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Data shown

  • Topics (Rows): Derived from the topics configured across your brand’s tracked prompts. “Uncategorized” prompts are excluded from this view.
  • Competitors (Columns): Drawn from the list of competitors you have actively added to your workspace.
  • Percentages (Cells): Calculated by aggregating the AI responses for the specific topic and competitor over the selected date range and models.

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Common workflows

Identifying and investigating a competitor’s strength:
  1. Ensure the Mention % tab is selected.
  2. Scan the grid for dark-colored cells under a competitor’s column that align with light-colored cells under “Your Brand”.
  3. Click the high-percentage cell under the competitor.
  4. You will be taken to the Prompts page, automatically filtered to show only the prompts for that topic where the competitor was mentioned, allowing you to read the exact AI outputs.
Creating a custom side-by-side export report:
  1. Use the filter bar to narrow the data down to a specific timeframe or AI model (e.g., ChatGPT only).
  2. Drag the column headers of your top two competitors to place them immediately next to your brand.
  3. Click the ⋯ menu in the top right and select Export as CSV.

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Empty, loading, and error states

  • No Competitors Yet: If the workspace has no competitors added, the page displays a blurred, non-interactive mock table in the background. An overlay appears reading “No Competitors Yet” with the description “Add competitors to compare your brand visibility” and an Add Competitor button that routes to the Competitors page.
  • No Data: If filters are applied that result in no matching data, the grid disappears and is replaced with the text “No data available for the selected filters.” The footer updates to say “No topics or competitors to display.”
  • Loading: An animated loading spinner appears in the center of the grid area while the competitor list or metric data is being fetched.
  • Errors: If the data fails to load due to a system issue, the UI generally remains in the empty/loading state, and the error is logged internally for engineering to review.
  • Linked from: The main navigation menu. It can also be reached from the Competitors page via a drilldown link that pre-filters the heatmap to focus on a specific competitor.
  • Links to: The Prompts page (by clicking any cell in the grid) and the Competitors management page (via the “Add Competitor” button in the empty state).

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Common support questions

Why is a specific topic missing from the rows? The heatmap only displays topics that your brand is actively tracking. Even if a competitor performs well in a topic, it won’t appear here unless you have assigned prompts to that topic in your own workspace. Prompts without an assigned topic (“Uncategorized”) are also excluded. Why does a cell say 0.1% instead of 0%? To help users distinguish between a “true zero” (meaning absolutely zero mentions) and an extremely low score, the heatmap sets a minimum display value. Any actual percentage that is greater than 0 but less than 0.1% is rounded up and displayed as 0.1%. Why am I being asked to upgrade when I try to export? Exporting the heatmap to a CSV is a premium feature. If you are on the Free plan, clicking the export button will open a dialog outlining subscription options. Where did my other competitors go? If you apply a filter for “Mention %” or “Sentiment %” in the top filter bar, any competitor that does not meet that minimum percentage threshold across any of the topics will be hidden from the grid to reduce clutter.