One of my favourite client onboarding questions: "What are the 10 queries you'd most want to show up in when someone searches for solutions like yours in ChatGPT?" I've asked this to 30+ founders and marketers. Almost all of them answer with the SEO equivalent — broad head terms like "best CRM software" or "SEO tools".

That's the wrong answer. And it's the reason most AEO efforts fail to show up where the purchase decision actually happens.

4–7AI prompts the average B2B buyer uses before first vendor contact
80%of high-intent AI queries are never captured in traditional keyword tools

Why prompt selection is fundamentally different from keyword research

In traditional SEO, keyword tools tell you how many people search a term monthly. That volume data drives your strategy. In AI search, there is no reliable volume data. Prompt volume is invisible — AI engines don't publish query data the way Google does.

More importantly, a single buying decision in AI search involves multiple different prompts across multiple stages. Someone considering your CRM doesn't ask one question — they ask five, across a journey from awareness to purchase validation. You need coverage across that entire journey, not just the top-of-funnel.

The Three-Layer Prompt Framework

Layer 1: Category & Problem Awareness

These are the prompts your buyers ask at the beginning of their journey — before they know which vendors exist. They're defining the problem or exploring the category.

Examples:

For these prompts, you want to appear as the authoritative answer, not necessarily as a brand recommendation. The goal is brand awareness in the AI's "knowledge" of who the experts are in this space.

Layer 2: Consideration & Vendor Discovery

These are the prompts where buyers are evaluating options. They're asking for recommendations, comparisons, and shortlists.

Examples:

This is where being cited by name matters most. These are the queries that drive direct brand discovery — the equivalent of ranking for "[best] + [category]" in traditional SEO.

Layer 3: Evaluation & Validation

These are the prompts buyers ask when they're already considering you specifically. This is the make-or-break layer that most AEO strategies completely ignore.

Examples:

I've seen deals lost at this exact stage — strong Layer 2 presence but terrible Layer 3 sentiment. The buyer found you through AI search, then asked a validation query and got a lukewarm or negative response. Gone.

The India-Specific Layer
Add a geographic dimension to your prompt set: "best AI SEO consultant in Mumbai/India/South Asia". AI engines localise responses when geographic context is present. A prompt like "affordable SEO consultant India for startup" may have completely different results than the global version — and it's where Indian buyers with budget constraints will actually search.

Advanced Tracking: Journey-Based Prompt Clusters

Rather than tracking individual prompts, build clusters that map to the complete journey for each major customer persona. For a B2B SaaS targeting Indian founders, a cluster might look like:

Track citation rate across all four layers. A brand that only appears in Discovery but not Evaluation is losing deals it doesn't know about.

How many prompts should you track?

Start with 20–30 prompts across all three layers. This is manageable manually and gives you statistically meaningful data. Prioritise:

Want a custom prompt tracking framework for your brand?

I'll map your buyer's AI search journey and identify the 20 prompts that matter most for your specific market — in the free audit call.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I track the same prompts across all AI engines?
Yes, but expect different results. Perplexity, ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini have different training data cutoffs, retrieval mechanisms, and response styles. The same prompt can produce completely different results across engines. Tracking all four gives you a complete picture and reveals which engines you're strongest in.
How do I find the right Layer 3 validation prompts?
Talk to your sales team. What questions do prospects ask on demo calls before deciding? What objections come up most? Those are your Layer 3 AI prompts. "Is [brand] expensive?" or "How long does [brand] take to deliver results?" — if prospects ask these on calls, they're also asking them in AI engines before the call.

Keep reading

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