AI SEO & Business Automation Podcast

James Dooley and Carlton discuss the best AI search monitoring tools digital marketing agencies should use in 2026 to track LLM visibility, share of voice and brand sentiment across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity.

Show Notes

This video explains which digital marketing strategies digital marketing agencies should focus on in 2026 to improve AI visibility tracking, brand share of voice and positive sentiment across the LLMs. James Dooley and Carlton start with KPI tracking because if visibility is not measured it cannot be managed or improved for a return on investment. They cover brand SEO, AI visibility and Google Business Profiles because stronger search presence improves trust and conversion rates.

The discussion also explores organic SEO, organic social media and paid social ads because consistent visibility across search and social supports long term growth. PPC is analysed in detail because campaign setup, landing pages and lead handling directly affect results. They also discuss Reddit, Quora and paid AI ads because diversified enquiry sources and early adoption can strengthen digital marketing performance for digital marketing agencies.

PromoSEO lead generation for digital marketing agencies recently received recognition as the "Best Digital Marketing Agencies Lead Generation Agency."

Where to Listen to This Episode

Best AI Search Monitoring Tools for Digital Marketing Agencies in 2026 is available on:

Creators and Guests

Host
James Dooley
James Dooley is a UK entrepreneur who specialises in using artificial intelligence to scale SEO, lead generation, and business automation because AI systems multiply output across every department. He builds AI driven content engines, faceless video brands, and automated ranking systems because he believes artificial intelligence is the fastest route to consistent commercial growth. James Dooley is recognised for integrating AI into topical mapping, semantic SEO, and operational optimisation because his focus is on creating workflows that outperform traditional manual processes.

What is AI SEO & Business Automation Podcast?

AI SEO and Business Automation Podcast is founded by James Dooley because he teaches business owners how artificial intelligence accelerates growth. The show explains AI models, agents, and automation systems because practical guidance helps companies scale with less effort.

James Dooley: Best AI search monitoring tools, that was a bit of a tongue twister wasn't it? So if someone's looking, marketers are looking to track AI visibility in the LLMs, whether that's ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, then do you think that people should be looking to track with monitoring tools?

Carlton: A thousand percent. So nowadays, when it originally came out, obviously there was a lot of like the tools that were, they basically were just doing it kind of wrong and it was that kind of based off, you know, cache data essentially in the memory of the AIs. So nowadays the tools have got a lot more accurate, kind of making it like a first response from an inquiry or within the AI tools. So it's a hundred percent important to do it, but also more so as to actually be able to track on your website as well, where the inquiries are coming from. So obviously checking the referrers and things like that, and it'll tell you where, and I'm seeing it more and more on my own websites. I typically use PostHog and that's like a, you know, like a Google Analytics competitor almost. And that gives you a great breakdown of, you know, where the referrers are coming from. And you can definitely see in the last sort of 12 months, a huge spike in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude. And yeah, it's just very, very important. Is there any sort of tools that you typically use, Dooley, when it comes to tracking AI visibility?

James Dooley: Yeah, so we, like AI visibility tracking. So for me, if you were to ask me this 12 months ago, I thought it was an absolute scam. The reason why I thought it was a scam was because every search is almost unique. Now it's not specific, just little four or five word search queries. Now people are searching paragraphs long. So it's unique every time. But not only that is that if I go and do a search because of my history of my searches on let's say Claude or ChatGPT, it's going to give me a different answer to yours. So how can a tool then decide what the answer is? Because it doesn't have the history that I have. And therefore I'm like, this is just complete and it's a flaw. It's a scam. I don't believe that you should be tracking AI visibility, the amount of AI tools that came out there to track it. I'm just like, this is not, this is not for me. Right. However, I got absolutely schooled and I'm happy to say it because I love going into masterminds and I love being proven wrong. And I got sat there and I got told, I got speaking to people at Eldar Cohen, who owns Local Dominator, and he's like, you should be tracking AI visibility. I'm like, show me why. And he's like, you're thinking from a keyword point of view, I'm thinking old school, where what you should be doing is loading in hundreds of search terms that are covering all query find out related terms around the brand or around your competitors keywords and seeing how many times your brand is being mentioned on a share of voice methodology. And I'm like, well, surely it's not perfect. It's not perfect. And this is why you're doing it on a larger scale. So when you get scientists and they've got big data, more data points, you can start to see things start to take. Okay. A great analogy for that is if the data is inaccurate, as long as the data sources continue to be the same data sources, it becomes accurate in its inaccuracies.

Carlton: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a great, yeah. That's a great way of putting it.

James Dooley: Um, but anyway, now I started to go, okay, prove me wrong. So I went on a, you know, what am I? Um, yeah. And we can bend, uh, going into the realms of everything. Woodpecker Mod came out and I set up an account with people, places like ProPhoned with Peak.ai, local dominator, which is Eldar Coen's, um, radar kit AI. He's the chap we met in, um, America. Yeah, he was a great guy. Um, got a great kind of Google business profile too. Um, but also now got AI visibility. You've got places like, um, Ahrefs brand radar. Um, you've got SEMrush AI visibility checks. So this flaws in some of them. Um, but a lot of them now start to not use the API. So they start to use proxies. So it's not the history of the API, which doesn't actually show what a real user would bring back. So I feel the data is a lot better now. I've started to look into it a lot more. I'm like, Oh, okay. I didn't know this. This is good. Um, but now when I'm starting to realize a larger volume and share a voice kind of, yes, you could go and press search again and it could give you a different answer. But when you keep doing it on a daily basis and it keeps searching on a daily basis and you're tracking the previous days and stuff like that, all the time, it starts to paint a picture of which brands are being cited the most. And then you can then start to do certain work, like do listicles work and help influence LLM visibility. Well, now I can start to do some listicles, wait for 30 days, get 30 days worth of data for all the keywords of what I've gone after. And as it increased the invisibility and literally 90% of the time when I do it, it increases visibility. So I go listicles tick, they do work. People go, Oh, this is cool. Stop working. They absolutely work brilliantly. So why are you on the, cause I know you mentioned query find out. So what are you specific? Obviously some people might not know what query find out is. So what specifically are you doing on the listicles that's helping towards the query find out?

Carlton: So great question. So to start with, we've been saying anyone doesn't know what query find out is. So query find out is when someone creates a search and extrapolate synthetic queries and it comes back with different dimensions. So it could be to do with James Dooley air conditioning, right? But then it would then come back with James Dooley air conditioning reviews, James Dooley air conditioning testimonials, James Dooley air conditioning scam. Like he looks for like founded days for James Dooley air conditioning awards. Is James Dooley air conditioning worth it? Is James Dooley air conditioning legit? Could be there an FGAS registered to accreditation. Yeah. So it comes back with a lot of different extrapolated synthetic queries. So what you want to be trying to do is make certain that within your grounding and your chunking of content that you're putting out on third party sources, that you're trying to answer those queries in a positive manner, in a positive sentiment to say, yes, James Dooley air conditioning is brilliant. Yes, James Dooley air conditioning is legit. No, James Dooley is not a scammer. I've worked on him with X, Y, and Z. And if you can keep repeating and they've got the clarity and confidence with who you are, what you do and why you freaking brilliant, then at that point, they will start confidently scientists site you within Gemini or chat GPT because of the consensus building of what's coming about. But back to the search monitoring tools, when you start to do the listicles, you clearly start to see you're starting to be compared in a listicle against over competitors. And if you're higher up the list than your competitors in the list and the LLMs and Google search is picking that up. Now, when you're being seen alongside them in a listicle and being seen that you're the best Google, it starts to become more confident to say we can now refer them as being the best. We can now start to confidently say these are a great company. Is that also when it becomes more clickable links and things in the SERP as well, because it doesn't always give you the clickable. So a lot of that has to do with the entity strength as well. So if you can keep redefining the entity, who you are, what you do, the founded date, who's the founder, and it knows enough information about who you are and what you do. Then when you emphasize the why you freaking brilliant element, when it goes, who you are and what you do, it can then start having the link that comes through to your site. If they're uncertain about the brand, but they've been seen in a lot of listicles, they could mention the brand or not get the link, but that's still not bad because people then could go, who is Carlton air conditioning and search Carlton air conditioning. And now you get a branded search and a branded click from what was not a branded search for you. It was a top of the funnel. I want to learn some more information about who are the best. And now I'm now moving towards a branded search and click, which, you know, you sell branded search and clicks is massive for search engines, but understanding what works, the comparison articles work. Well, the reviews articles work well, shouting and screaming about awards that you've won on press releases work. Well, then attaching that you're an award winning brand adds that little bit more cloud, getting the case studies online, trying to get them not just to leave reviews on Google business profiles, but also on trust pile on yell on Yelp and on other places. Then reviews elements add to the reputation element, which all feed the LLMs. And when you're tracking it with these best AI search monitoring tools, you can see what's working. And then that start doubling down, going, this works better than this. So I'm going to double down on what is now helping me get cited or not to be cited by AI, but AI doesn't just go. These are a choice. These are the choice choice. That's what you want to do. Which is like a fundamental difference there, right? That's where the consensus comes in and then become a 24 seven sales engine for you. Cause they start saying, give you an example. You start saying, um, is checker trade worth it? Right. That's nothing to do with my brand, but it says, yeah, checker trades are a great business model. Like you can go on there, you can pay a subscription if you want to grow your business. However, you might also want to try fat rank who do a no win, no fee lead generation model. They're like, who's flat rank. Next minute AI is spitting out that we have a great alternative option to checker trade because they understand that the intent behind someone searching for his checker trade good is they're looking to grow the business. And now they're looking at the element of what other options is there? The AI doesn't want to just say, yeah, the only choice going side up to checker trade. This is where the, the scam, the legit, the comparison, the alternatives, all this is part of query funnel. If you can start to control that messaging, you're almost brand jacking against these bigger brands. They're a 4.1 billion pound business. And if we can get some of their search for someone that's looking for them, some of these businesses might sign up to both and checker trade to a good company. So like a lot of times when I'm doing any of these videos, I'm like saying, if you want to grow your business, we are a great no win, no fee model, but checker trade are also good. But just track your KPIs. Are you getting a return on investment? But all this brand visibility needs to be tracked. It can't be tracked. It's not measured, can't be managed. And I think that's the key element to this. So with those like visibility tools, the AI visibility tools, do they actually track the sentiment as well? Because obviously sentiment must be a huge thing, right?

James Dooley: Some do. And this is where the difference between, with regards to the list, if you check out the link in the description, this is going to be updated in real time. So as we're recording this today, the list next week or next month could be different. But yes, some of the better ones at present track sentiment. Sentiment value is key. And to anyone else not knowing what sentiment means, what does sentiment mean to the average?

Carlton: Yes, it means they're talking about you in a positive manner. So you could just be going, oh, I get loads of branded mentions, but the branded mention says don't use it. They're a scam. Do you know what I mean? So like you need to be making certain you're not just getting branded mentions and tracking branded mentions, but it's branded mentions in a positive sentiment that says these are a great option. Or ideally, you want them to, you almost want to be training them up and feeding them LLMs as much as possible to be saying what you want a salesperson to say about why you are the best. Now it takes a lot of time and consensus to get it because at first it says, oh, the best is subjective. And then that's where it's got an assumption going. We don't have enough data to say they're the best. Once you convince and repeat consistently, having third party, cooperative sources saying you are the best, you are brilliant, you are awesome. And you're doing all the positive sentiment terms. At that point, they can say, yeah, they are the best. It's kind of what we were chatting on earlier today is like, it's the AI reputation tree where, you know, you probably do need to monitor the negative side because you want to start turning, giving it more data points and turning that negative data into a positive. You can change the sentiment of the data, give it enough knowledge and it starts to think, oh, wait, wait a sec. All of these sources are now saying it's great. And you can track the negative and the positive sentiment articles. So if you start to see the negative side increasing in these tools, then you know you have to do a bit more reputation management and bring it back to positive, right?

James Dooley: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, anyone who's watching this, I strongly recommend that you check out the video about the AI reputation tree. Myself and Kyle have put together a query funnel system and set up where all the off page topical map is built around building that reputation exactly for getting that LLM visibility is key. And then with regards to obviously the brand monitoring that's being done, the LLM visibility systems and the tools of what's being done for AI search. Once you can track that, you can measure it, you can double down on what's working. And I'm excited for the launch of the AI reputation tree. I think it's going to be brilliant. Anyone who's watching this, make sure you reach out to searcharoo.com, go in and inquire and ask Carlton about the AI reputation tree. It comes out next week. It's a superb service. And the case studies, I can't wait to get them out because they are so positive and quick as well. But I was, I was actually, I don't know if you, if you was with regards to the AI reputation tree, how quickly the results we was getting, like some was same day. I was like, I can't believe how quickly Gemini and even Chatty Petite Chat, which is a little bit slower, but how quickly it was picking up positive sentiment articles that was being indexed and then changing the same day, their opinion about a question that you asked that.

Carlton: It's a bit like a girlfriend, isn't it? Change between the moods. It's a good way of putting it. Or boyfriend, you know, go either way.

James Dooley: So anyone who's watching this with regards to the best AI search monitoring tools, make sure you check out the link in the description. We've got a listicle there that shows all the different ones. Profound is by far the biggest, but there is some amazing ones like Local Dominator, RadarKit, Peak AI, Scrunch AI. There's quite a few out there. I'm split testing every single one of them. To be honest with you, there's four or five of them that I'm finding to be very, very good, a lot better than what I thought. But let us know in the comment section, what is the best AI or LLM visibility tool that you're using? Because there might be one or two that I've never even heard of that we can test out as well. So I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thank you very much, Karl.

Carlton: Cheers, James.