Setting Up Brands and Competitors

Setting Up Brands and Competitors

Properly defining your primary brand and a set of competitors is a prerequisite for all analysis within Bourd. This configuration serves as the foundation for tracking mentions, calculating share of voice, and gathering competitive intelligence from AI models.

Overview

The “Brands” section allows you to define the entities Bourd will track in AI-generated responses. All data is organized around a single Primary Brand, which is your brand. You can then add multiple Competitors to track their mentions relative to your own.

Bourd uses the names you provide to perform string matching and entity recognition on the text returned by AI models. Accuracy is critical for effective tracking.

Accessing the Brands Page

1. Log in to your Bourd account.
2. Select the Brands tab from the main navigation.

Creating Your Primary Brand

The primary brand is the central entity for all data collection and analysis in your Bourd workspace. You can only have one primary brand.

Step-by-Step Guide

1. On the Brands page, click the Create Brand button.
2. A modal will appear with the following fields:
   • Brand Name: Enter the canonical name of your brand. This should be the most common and recognizable name used publicly (e.g., “Stripe” not “Stripe, Inc.”). This name is used for mention detection.
   • Website URL: Enter the full primary domain of your brand (e.g., https://stripe.com). This is used for citation analysis.
3. Click Save Brand.

Your primary brand will now appear on the page. All subsequent analyses will be performed in the context of this brand.

Adding Competitors

Adding competitors allows Bourd to track their mentions in the same AI responses where your brand is analyzed. This is essential for calculating share of voice and understanding your position in the competitive landscape.

Step-by-Step Guide

1. On the Brands page, click the Add Competitor button.

2. Fill in the competitor’s Brand Name and Website URL. Use the same precision as you did for your primary brand.

3. Click Save Competitor.

4. Repeat this process for all relevant competitors.

Best Practices for Competitor Selection

• Start Focused: Begin with 3-5 of your most direct competitors.
• Be Specific: If a competitor has multiple products, track the brand name most relevant to your market segment.
• Review Regularly: Update your competitor list as the market evolves.

Managing Brands and Competitors

You can modify or remove brand entries as your strategy changes.

Editing a Brand or Competitor

1. Navigate to the Brands page.
2. Locate the brand or competitor you wish to edit.
3. Click the Edit (pencil) icon next to the entry.
4. Modify the Brand Name or Website URL in the modal.
5. Click Save.

Note: Changes will apply to all future analyses. Historical data will not be re-processed.

Deleting a Competitor

1. Locate the competitor you wish to remove.
2. Click the Delete (trash) icon.
3. Confirm the deletion in the prompt.

Important: The Primary Brand cannot be deleted. It is intrinsically linked to all historical data in your workspace. If you need to change your primary brand, you must contact support.

Permissions

Managing brands and competitors is restricted to specific user roles to ensure data integrity.

• Required Role: Admin or Owner.
• Users with the Member role can view brands but cannot create, edit, or delete them.

Troubleshooting

• Mentions Not Detected: The most common cause is a mismatch between the Brand Name configured in Bourd and the name used by the AI model. Ensure the name is the most common public-facing name. Avoid legal suffixes like “Inc.” or “LLC” unless that is how the brand is commonly known.
• Cannot Create/Edit Brand: If the buttons are disabled or you receive an error, verify that your user account has Admin or Owner permissions.

Next Steps

With your brand and competitors configured, the next step is to create prompts to begin analyzing your AI search visibility.

• Create Your First Monitoring Prompt