The AEO RFP: Fifteen Questions to Ask Every Vendor

Why AEO Needs Its Own RFP

Most procurement teams reach for an SEO checklist when they evaluate an answer engine optimization vendor, and that is the first mistake. AEO is not SEO with new vocabulary. The unit of success is a citation inside an AI-generated answer, not a blue link on a results page. The platforms are different, the measurement is harder, and the failure modes are subtle. A vendor can produce a lot of content and still move your mention rate by zero.

The questions below are built to expose that gap. Each one has a version of the answer that sounds confident but means nothing, and a version that tells you the vendor actually does this work. We have grouped them into the four areas that matter most when real budget is on the line.

Measurement: Can They Prove Movement

If a vendor cannot measure your starting position, they cannot prove they improved it. This is where the most expensive contracts quietly fail.

1. How do you measure my current AI visibility before any work begins? A good answer describes a baseline audit across multiple engines with a defined set of prompts tied to your buyer's real questions. A weak answer talks about keyword volume.
2. What is the primary metric you report against? You want to hear citation rate, mention rate, or citation share. If the first metric out of their mouth is organic traffic or domain authority, they are measuring the wrong game.
3. How do you handle the variability of AI answers? Answers change between sessions and model updates. A serious vendor samples each prompt multiple times and reports trends, not single snapshots.
4. Can you show me a sanitized client report? If they cannot show you what the deliverable actually looks like, assume it does not exist yet.

Coverage: Which Engines, and How

Optimizing for one model is not AEO. Your buyers use whichever assistant is in front of them.

5. Which answer engines do you track and optimize for, by name? The honest answer is a specific list. OnlyAEO works across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and DeepSeek simultaneously because citation behavior differs across them.
6. How does your approach change across engines? Each model weights sources differently. A vendor who says the work is identical everywhere has not looked closely.
7. How do you handle a new engine entering the market? You want a process, not a promise. The space moves monthly.

Cadence: Volume That Matches the Problem

AI search rewards breadth of authoritative coverage. A handful of articles per quarter rarely moves citation share in a competitive category.

8. What is your monthly publishing volume per client, and how is that number set? The right answer ties volume to the number of buyer questions you are not yet cited for. OnlyAEO publishes 500 or more articles per month per client precisely because comprehensive topic coverage is what earns compound visibility.
9. How do you decide what to write next? Look for a data-driven answer: gaps surfaced from citation tracking, competitor citation analysis, and unanswered buyer queries. "We brainstorm topics" is not a strategy.
10. How do you maintain quality at volume? Ask to see the editorial and fact-checking process. Volume without accuracy gets you cited for the wrong reasons or not at all.

Reporting: Transparency You Can Audit

The fastest way to lose trust with a vendor is a report you cannot verify. The fastest way to keep it is one you can.

11. How often do I get reporting, and in what form? Monthly is a floor, not a ceiling. The format should let you click into the underlying prompts and see the actual AI answers.
12. Can I independently verify your numbers? A confident vendor hands you the prompts and invites you to run them yourself. That openness is a strong signal.
13. How do you attribute outcomes to your work versus background noise? Honest vendors acknowledge they cannot claim every gain, and they show controlled comparisons rather than taking credit for everything that moves.

Guarantees and Accountability

The last questions are about skin in the game.

14. Do you offer any performance guarantee, and what exactly does it cover? Be specific. "Results may vary" is not a guarantee. OnlyAEO offers a 60-day citation-improvement guarantee with defined terms, which only makes sense for a vendor confident in the method.
15. What happens if we are not seeing movement at the 90-day mark? You want a named escalation path: a strategy review, a revised plan, and a clear remedy. Silence here is the answer.

How to Score the Responses

Read the answers side by side rather than in isolation. The pattern matters more than any single response. A vendor who names engines, reports citation share, ties cadence to gaps, hands you verifiable data, and stands behind a guarantee is doing AEO as a discipline. A vendor who softens every answer into "it depends on AI" is selling you the idea of AEO, not the practice of it.

For deeper context on the metrics behind these questions, our team has written extensively on how to measure AI visibility and on why citation share is the metric that matters. Both are worth sharing with whoever signs the contract.

Why OnlyAEO Passes Its Own RFP

We wrote this list because we answer it the same way every time, on the record. OnlyAEO baselines your visibility with Gumshoe before any work starts, optimizes across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and DeepSeek together, publishes 500 or more articles per month per client mapped to real citation gaps, and reports with prompt-level data you can verify yourself. The 60-day citation-improvement guarantee exists because we have run this playbook enough times to know it works. If you are about to issue an AEO RFP, send us yours.