---
title: "I Tore Down an AEO Retainer: Which Line Items Produce Enquiries?"
description: "A line-by-line teardown of a typical AEO proposal, separating pages, fixes and earned mentions from the audits and reports that only measure visibility."
url: "https://groas.com/post/i-tore-down-a-typical-aeo-package-proposal-which"
image: "https://pub-87da24ecbbfc4c3bad6875f3aa013712.r2.dev/generated-images/d59b8966-7ce0-4473-aabc-bea55d4d6dd1.png"
published: "2026-11-02T06:33:05.938Z"
modified: "2026-11-02T06:33:05.980Z"
---

November 2, 2026 · 10 min read

# I Tore Down an AEO Retainer: Which Line Items Produce Enquiries?

[Alexander PerelmanHead Of Product @ groas](https://groas.com/author/alexander-perelman)[LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-433793253/)

![Clay animation scene: a contractor proudly unrolls a giant blueprint beside an unbuilt house as the owner peers into an empty red mailbox.](https://pub-87da24ecbbfc4c3bad6875f3aa013712.r2.dev/generated-images/d59b8966-7ce0-4473-aabc-bea55d4d6dd1.png)

In this article

1. [The seven-line proposal on the table](#the-seven-line-proposal-on-the-table)
2. [Line 1: The audit finds problems. Who fixes them?](#line-1-the-audit-finds-problems-who-fixes-them)
3. [Line 2: Prompt tracking measures a score, not an enquiry](#line-2-prompt-tracking-measures-a-score-not-an-enquiry)
4. [Line 3: ‘Content strategy’ is not a published page](#line-3-content-strategy-is-not-a-published-page)
5. [Line 4: Technical recommendations do not fix a site](#line-4-technical-recommendations-do-not-fix-a-site)
6. [Line 5: Earned citations get the smallest box](#line-5-earned-citations-get-the-smallest-box)
7. [Line 6: The report should show what the work earned](#line-6-the-report-should-show-what-the-work-earned)
8. [Line 7: The contract makes you carry the risk](#line-7-the-contract-makes-you-carry-the-risk)
9. [The eight checks I would make before signing](#the-eight-checks-i-would-make-before-signing)
10. [Scorecard: what I would keep, cut or rewrite](#scorecard-what-i-would-keep-cut-or-rewrite)

A founder forwarded me an AEO package last week: $3,500 a month, a 12-month term, and no commitment to ship a specific number of pages, technical fixes or earned mentions. I chose it as the basis for this composite teardown because it captures the problem with many SEO-plus-AI-search retainers: **the easiest work to count gets the most attention, while the work that could produce enquiries gets the fewest hours.**

The composite draws on a dozen proposals with the same shape. I read it the way I used to read search term reports: line by line, asking what changed because each line was there. Audits, prompt tracking, mention scores and monthly calls can all be useful. But they measure visibility. New pages that answer buyer questions, technical fixes that reach the live site, and earned citations give search engines something better to find and give buyers a reason to enquire.

## The seven-line proposal on the table

The document moves through an AI visibility audit, monthly prompt and brand-mention tracking, content strategy, technical SEO recommendations, authority and citation building, monthly reporting, and finally a 12-month term with a setup fee. That order matters. It puts the most tangible-looking deliverables first and leaves the question of who actually ships the work scattered through the middle.

The price is familiar, too. Mid-market GEO retainers run roughly [$2,000–$8,000 a month, with one-off AI visibility audits at $1,500–$5,000](https://www.shortlisted.website/pricing.html). Tracking tools alone can cost $85–$500 a month for measurement only. One rate card spells out the distinction: [$1,500 for a one-off Index Report, $3,000 a month for Core with a three-month minimum, and $6,000 a month for Category with a six-month minimum](https://www.shortlisted.website/pricing.html). It warns that below $3,000, you may be buying a dashboard with a person attached.

I learned in paid search to ignore what a keyword was supposed to do and look at the queries it actually bought. Here, I skip verbs such as _optimise_, _monitor_ and _strategise_. I ask who touches the site, how many pages go live, and whether the resulting enquiries get tracked. **Does the line change what Google and ChatGPT can find and quote, or does it only report on it?**

## Line 1: The audit finds problems. Who fixes them?

The AI visibility audit opens the proposal because it looks like rigour: crawl charts, schema gaps, and a list of prompts where competitors appear and you do not. A useful audit has more than a score. It includes a [full buyer-question set, per-engine answers, named competitors and cited sources, crawler and schema checks, a prioritised fix list with owners, and a re-check date](https://www.lilachbullock.com/what-an-aeo-audit-should-include/). If the audit does not show the questions tested and sources quoted, you may be getting generic tips wrapped around a number.

My objection is not to finding the problems. It is to stopping there. **An audit that never reaches production is waste.** The same warning applies to SEO audits generally: [recommendations that never find their way into practice make the audit a waste of time](https://searchengineland.com/seo-audits-waste-fix-439063). I used to tell clients an audit was foundation work. I was wrong about how often that foundation gets built on. With roughly [half of AI citations coming from content published in the last 12 months](https://www.tisdigitech.com/blog/geo-vs-digital-pr-how-earned-mentions-influence-generative-citations/), a one-off view also gets stale.

Verdict: keep the audit, but pay for it only when the same agreement names the people who will ship its fixes and the dates they will do it.

## Line 2: Prompt tracking measures a score, not an enquiry

Next comes the line that can consume hours without changing much: 50 prompts tracked weekly, a brand-mention score, and a chart that goes up two points. The mechanism is shaky when the prompt list is invented in a workshop rather than grounded in buyer questions. [Prompt tracking sold this way resembles rank tracking copied into AI search](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-measure-ai-search-visibility/579893/). I ran brand lists for PPC location tests years ago. A team can improve a score built on its own questions without winning a single enquiry.

Even a genuine citation is not necessarily a recommendation. In one analysis, [an AI Overview cited a brand’s own listicle but left that brand out of the recommendation 69% of the time](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-measure-ai-search-visibility/579893/). The same source reports that ChatGPT recommendations changed 80.2% when search was switched on, with only a 0.4 correlation between cited and recommended brands. A monthly snapshot has another problem: on average, [getting two identical brand lists from Claude or ChatGPT would take 1,500 asks](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-measure-ai-search-visibility/579893/). One run is a thin basis for a confident trend line.

Verdict: keep a narrow, repeatedly sampled set of buyer questions and connect what you can to enquiries. **Do not mistake a rising mention score for demand.**

## Line 3: ‘Content strategy’ is not a published page

The proposal promises content strategy, briefs and two posts a month. What the deck calls strategy, I call a plan for pages that do not exist yet. Google and ChatGPT cannot quote an unpublished brief. A live page that answers a buyer’s question with prices, service area, process steps and proof gives them something to find and use. A slide about comparison keywords does not.

Count the pages, not the decks. How many net new buyer pages go live each month? Who writes them, who publishes them in the CMS, and what happens to pages that earn zero enquiries after 60 days? If the answer is two blog posts and refreshed meta titles, the activity is clear. The connection to enquiries is not.

**Shipped pages are the unit that matters.** That is why I grade an SEO and AI-search offer on whether new pages and fixes actually ship. [groas SEO & AI Search](https://groas.com/pricing) scopes that work at a flat fee, rather than making the monthly strategy call the centre of the offer. My verdict on this line: replace an open-ended strategy promise with a page-ship count and named publishing owner.

## Line 4: Technical recommendations do not fix a site

The fourth line usually promises 20 to 30 technical recommendations per quarter: schema, internal links, page speed and crawl fixes. The catch is in the noun. **Recommendations do not rank, and PDFs do not get cited.** Somebody has to open the CMS, edit the template, compress the images, fix the broken canonical and confirm the change in Search Console.

Many proposals leave that somebody as you, your developer or a future phase that nobody has scoped. I have watched the stall from inside a retainer: an agency sends a spreadsheet in week three, the client forwards it to a busy freelancer, and three months later the same items remain ‘pending’ in the report. The recommendation was delivered. The fix was not.

Verdict: if the proposal does not say who ships fixes and how quickly, grade this line zero. Ask for CMS access, shipped fixes within the fee, and a weekly log of what went live.

## Line 5: Earned citations get the smallest box

Authority and citation building is often the thinnest section: two guest posts, a directory refresh and a press release on a wire. Yet it is one of the places where the proposal can change what appears in an AI answer. A May 2026 study of more than 25 million AI-cited links found [84% of AI citations came from earned media versus 0.3% from paid media, with journalism accounting for 27%](https://www.tisdigitech.com/blog/geo-vs-digital-pr-how-earned-mentions-influence-generative-citations/). Paid placements and syndicated filler are a weak substitute for independent sources naming the business.

That distinction matters more than the old reflex to ask for another link to the homepage. Separate Ahrefs research finds [brand mentions correlate roughly three times more strongly with AI citation frequency than backlinks](https://www.tisdigitech.com/blog/geo-vs-digital-pr-how-earned-mentions-influence-generative-citations/). The useful question is whether independent pieces name the business and include service details an engine can lift, not whether a report can count placements.

Ask which publications are in scope, how many earned mentions the team will pursue each month, and what those mentions will say about the business. A burst followed by silence is not a sustained presence. **This line deserves substantial work, not two bullets at the bottom of page four.** My verdict: if the citation plan is vague while the monitoring plan is meticulous, the proposal is built backwards.

## Line 6: The report should show what the work earned

The monthly report is where activity goes to look like outcome. Impressions rise, average position improves, the visibility score ticks up, and a 45-minute call walks through the charts. None of that tells you whether the pages and mentions produced calls, forms or booked jobs.

I judge the report by one question: **can it connect shipped work to enquiries?** Show the new pages, the mentions earned, and the enquiries attributed to that work. If the team tracks buyer prompts, show what those prompts add to the picture without pretending a mention score is a sale. Otherwise the report proves that the agency worked, not that the work worked. For a comparison focused on that distinction, see [AEO agencies ranked by what their reports show about enquiries](https://groas.com/post/aeo-agencies-ranked-by-what-they-put-in-the-report-mentions).

Verdict: keep the report short enough to expose the work and its results. Cut the guided tour of charts that cannot answer the enquiry question.

## Line 7: The contract makes you carry the risk

The terms page arrives last, once the deliverables sound reassuring. A $2,500 setup fee plus 12 months at $3,500 commits you to $44,500 before a single page has produced a lead. The concern is not that useful work takes time. It is that [a 12-month lock-in without performance clauses or an early exit lets an underperforming agency collect every invoice](https://bigredjelly.com/blog/should-you-sign-long-term-contract-marketing-agency/).

A rolling three-month or month-to-month arrangement after setup gives you a way to judge what actually ships. My verdict: **do not accept a long commitment in place of a delivery commitment.** If you are at the signature page, read [the founder checklist for clarifying an AI visibility retainer before signing](https://groas.com/post/to-the-founder-about-to-sign-an-ai-visib) before wiring the setup fee.

## The eight checks I would make before signing

Run these against the proposal, not the sales call. A vague answer is useful information: it tells you which deliverable may absorb money without producing work you can inspect.

1. **How many net new buyer pages go live each month, and who publishes them?** A strategy deck is not a ship count.
2. **Who puts technical fixes live, and where is the weekly log?** Recommendations without an owner stay pending.
3. **How many earned mentions are in scope, and on which sites?** A directory refresh is not an earned-citation plan.
4. Which buyer questions are tracked, and where did the list come from? Invented prompts flatter the score.
5. How does the team sample answers across runs? One snapshot is noise.
6. **How are enquiries tied to pages and mentions?** Impressions alone cannot answer that.
7. What is the term, and what happens after 90 days if nothing ships? The exit matters as much as the start date.
8. **When will the team re-check the audit fixes?** This is the item most easily skipped. Without a re-check date, a $1,500–$5,000 audit can become an ageing PDF while the $3,500 monthly bill continues.

## Scorecard: what I would keep, cut or rewrite

| Proposal line                   | Does it change what engines can find or quote?  | Verdict                                                      |
| ------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| AI visibility audit             | Not until the fixes ship                        | **Keep with owners and fix dates**                           |
| Prompt and mention tracking     | No; it measures                                 | Keep a small buyer-question sample tied to enquiries         |
| Content strategy                | Not while pages remain in draft                 | **Replace vague plans with a monthly page-ship count**       |
| Technical recommendations       | Not until someone implements them               | Keep only with a shipping owner and weekly log               |
| Authority and citation building | Yes, when independent sources name the business | **Give it real scope and a specific plan**                   |
| Monthly reporting and calls     | No; they account for the work                   | Keep a short account of pages, fixes, mentions and enquiries |
| 12-month term and setup fee     | No; they allocate risk                          | Prefer an arrangement that lets you judge delivery earlier   |

**Overall verdict:** this proposal devotes its clearest commitments to measuring visibility, then leaves the three jobs most likely to produce enquiries underspecified. I would keep the audit as a short diagnostic and a narrow prompt sample for direction. I would move the working hours to buyer pages published, technical fixes put live, and earned mentions, each with counts, owners and dates.

That is what I would sign. I grade groas ahead of this retainer shape because its flat-fee offer scopes new pages, shipped fixes and authority work with a named owner, rather than a thicker report. Ask for those commitments in writing, then check the first 30 days for pages, fixes and enquiries. If the only thing that has grown is the report, leave it on the table.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### What makes a visibility audit a waste of time for a retainer?

A visibility audit becomes a waste of time if it does not lead to production. Audits should include a prioritized fix list with named owners and a re-check date. Without these, a one-off view of problems is insufficient for long-term improvement and can become outdated quickly.

### Does tracking an AI mention score prove a business is succeeding?

A rising mention score alone does not equal business demand. A team can improve a score based on its own questions without generating a single enquiry. It is necessary to sample a narrow set of buyer questions repeatedly and connect those mentions directly to enquiries.

### What is the required deliverable for 'content strategy' in an SEO proposal?

The key metric is the number of net new buyer pages that go live each month. A strategy deck or a list of unpublished briefs cannot be cited by search engines or AI. The focus must be on shipped pages that answer buyer questions with details like service area and pricing.

### How do technical SEO recommendations become valuable to a client?

Recommendations only become valuable when someone is responsible for implementing the fixes in the CMS. Unless the proposal names the person who will ship the changes and outlines a timeline, the fixes remain pending in a report. The agency must commit to executing the technical work itself.

### How should earned citations and authority building be scoped in a proposal?

Authority building should focus on independent sources naming the business rather than paid placements. Mentions correlate roughly three times more strongly with AI citation frequency than simple backlinks. A successful plan must specify which publications are in scope and what details those mentions will include.

### What is the best way for an SEO report to demonstrate value?

The report must connect shipped work to actual enquiries rather than just showing increased impressions or position scores. It should show the new pages, the mentions earned, and the enquiries that were attributed to that specific work. If the report only proves the agency did the work, it is not proving the work worked.

### What should a client look for regarding the terms and commitment of an SEO retainer?

Clients should avoid long-term commitments like a 12-month lock-in without performance clauses. A rolling three-month or month-to-month arrangement after a setup phase allows a client to judge delivery before committing to large sums. The goal is to avoid accepting a long contract in place of a commitment to delivery.

## Paid Ads & SEO, Run For You

Businesses pay one flat monthly fee per service, agencies resell it under their own brand, and groas does the work either way.

[See Pricing](https://groas.com/pricing)

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