Key takeaways
- We ran our live AI visibility audit tool against 22 established agencies and could scan 19. Average visibility was 47.4% across 95 live, grounded buyer queries. The median agency scored 60%.
- Agencies scored higher than the law firms (23.6%) and IT services companies (23.8%) we audited, though the samples differ in size and type. Even so, 8 of 19 were named in two of five queries or fewer, and 5 were not named once.
- Our earlier 29-company audit had six agencies averaging 77%. This larger and more varied sample averages 47.4%. Two agencies in both, Ironpaper and Directive, each scored 20 points lower this time.
- Specialty helped but did not guarantee anything. Two specialist agencies, one for hotels and one for creative firms, were not named once, and an agency's own site was only 2.2% of citations.
- Other agencies shape the shortlist. The single most cited domain was a competing agency, Thrive Agency, with 28 of 760 citations, and five directory and ranking sites made up another 49.
- This is a sample of established, mostly large and well-known agencies that we chose, with a few off-category entries. It likely flatters small and mid-size agencies.
Why we audited marketing agencies
Agencies are the people most likely to say they already do this. Visibility is the product. Founders and CMOs also use agencies the way companies in other industries use referrals, so it is easy to assume that an established agency with real clients is also easy to find, for people and for AI.
Client work takes the hours, and an agency's own marketing often waits. So we asked two questions. When a founder describes a marketing problem or asks for an agency without naming one, which agencies get named? And does being in the visibility business make you one of them?
47.4%
average AI visibility across 19 established marketing agencies, measured by live grounded search on 95 buyer queries
Deligatr Marketing Agency AI Visibility Audit, October 3, 2026
How the audit works
The tool reads each agency's homepage, classifies it in the words a buyer would use, writes five buyer-intent queries (one local-style, two category, one problem-first, one comparison) and runs each as a live, grounded AI search with the agency's own name left out. It is one run, five queries per agency, on one day. AI answers change between runs, so read every score as a snapshot. The full method is in our audit documentation, and all twelve industry audits are on our AI visibility research page.
An agency is either in the answer or it is not.
How this compares with our earlier audit
We have looked at agencies once before. Our 29-company audit across six B2B industries included six agencies, and they averaged 77%. That was a small sample of B2B agencies that publish a lot of content, including TopRank Marketing, Ironpaper, Directive, SmartBug Media, Walker Sands and Sagefrog.
This audit is larger and broader: 19 agencies, including paid search specialists, a social media agency, a home services specialist, global networks and a design consultancy. The average is 47.4%, and the median is 60%. Both can be true at once. The earlier result described a group of agencies that market themselves seriously, and this one describes a wider mix.
Two agencies appear in both audits. Ironpaper scored 80% then and 60% now. Directive scored 80% then and 60% now. Our tool writes fresh queries each run, so a drop of 20 points is a reminder that a single score is a snapshot, not a rank. We would not read it as either agency getting worse.
The distribution: a wide middle and five zeros
Agencies by AI visibility score
19 established agencies, each tested on 5 live grounded buyer queries. Number of agencies at each score.
Deligatr Marketing Agency AI Visibility Audit, October 3, 2026
Eleven of 19 agencies were named in three or more of their five queries. Eight were named in two or fewer, and five were not named once. The two perfect scores were IDEO and LYFE Marketing, and the five zeros were 97th Floor, Mediaboom, Monks, Newfangled and ThriveMyWay.
A fair caution on that list, and a reason to treat the 47.4% as a snapshot of a mixed sample. IDEO is a design and innovation consultancy, not a marketing agency, and ThriveMyWay is a marketing education blog, not an agency at all. Dentsu and Omnicom are global holding companies. We kept all of them in because the tool classified them from their homepages and the sample is fixed by what we attempted. Dropping IDEO and ThriveMyWay leaves an average of 47.1%. Dropping the two holding companies as well leaves 48.0%. The off-category entries do not change the story much, but you should know they are there.
Specialty helps, but it is not a guarantee
The agencies that did best mostly had something specific to say. LYFE Marketing, a social media agency for small businesses, scored 100%. HawkSEM, a paid search agency, and Brafton, a content marketing agency, each scored 80%. Blue Corona, which works with home services contractors, scored 60%.
The generic end looked different. Two agencies whose homepages read as broad digital marketing agencies, 97th Floor and Monks, were not named once. Asked a location question such as "digital marketing agency near me", the answers were dominated by Yelp listings and city pages from agencies that publish them. WebFX, which scored 60% overall, was not named on its own "near me" query.
But specialty alone does not explain the results, and we do not want to overclaim. Mediaboom, which markets to hotels, and Newfangled, which helps creative firms win new business, are both specific, and both scored 0%. The tool's own note on Mediaboom was that third-party roundups for hotel marketing named other hotel specialists, and Mediaboom surfaced only through its own blog post and review profiles. The lesson we take is that a specialty has to be corroborated by lists, publications and reviews that are not your own.
What kind of question loses the most
How often an agency was named, by query type
Share of queries in which the agency was named. 19 agencies, 95 queries.
Deligatr Marketing Agency AI Visibility Audit, October 3, 2026
Comparison queries did best, at 68.4%, which makes sense: they ask for a ranked list, and agencies are well represented in ranked lists. The weak spot was the buyer who describes a problem and does not yet know what kind of agency to hire. Only 6 of 19 agencies, 31.6%, were named on their problem-first query, such as "my brand needs more sales and traffic online, who should I hire". That is also the moment an honest "agency or in-house" answer would win the conversation.
Who is named when AI is asked about AI search
The newest question in the category is the one agencies are being asked about themselves: which agencies do AEO and GEO. Only three agencies in our sample were given a question about AI search, so this is anecdote, not a finding. Seer Interactive was named on its query, and the tool noted that Seer's own research and posts ranked. 97th Floor and Grow and Convert, both established SEO and content shops, were not named on theirs. Between them, four AI-search queries were run and one named the agency.
For 97th Floor, the tool noted that the results were roundup articles listing agencies such as Omnius, Conductor and iPullRank, and 97th Floor was not on them. In other words, the shortlist for an SEO agency asking about AI search was written by other agencies.
Who got named instead, and where the answers came from
When an agency was not named, AI named someone else, and the same names recurred. Thrive Internet Marketing Agency appeared as a named alternative in 14 of 95 answers. WebFX and Disruptive Advertising each appeared in 7, and KlientBoost, SmartSites and Siege Media in 6. SmartSites is one of the three sites we could not scan.
The sources behind the answers were fragmented, with 760 citations across 483 distinct domains. The pattern is notable for what sat at the top.
2.2%
of all citations pointed to the agency's own website (17 of 760), measured by matching the agency's domain. 13 of 19 agencies had no citation of their own site at all
Deligatr Marketing Agency AI Visibility Audit, October 3, 2026
The most cited domain in the whole audit was another agency's site. Thriveagency.com accounted for 28 citations, 3.7% of the total, spread across queries run for 13 of the 19 agencies. Most were city pages and "best of" lists the agency publishes on its own domain. Yelp was next with 25, all on local queries. Then came LYFE Marketing's own site (16), Clutch (13), the Semrush agency directory (12), Wikipedia (11), DesignRush (9), The CMO (8) and GoodFirms (7).
Five agency directory and ranking sites, Clutch, the Semrush agency directory, DesignRush, The CMO and GoodFirms, accounted for 49 of 760 citations, 6.4%. Ten of Wikipedia's 11 citations came on queries for Dentsu, IDEO, Monks and Omnicom. For most established agencies, directories and agency-written lists, not the agency's own site, are where the answer is built.
Of the 17 citations to an agency's own site, 8 were LYFE Marketing's, which also published a roundup of top social media agencies on its blog. Directive and HawkSEM had 3 each. LYFE was also named on all five of its queries, so its own content was cited where the rest of the web already named it.
The three we could not scan
Three of the 22 agencies we tried, Ignite Visibility, Single Grain and SmartSites, could not be audited. Our crawler could not read enough from the site to run an accurate audit. We cannot tell from outside whether that also affects the crawlers AI assistants use, and we do not want to imply it. But a site that cannot be read cannot be cited, and agencies selling SEO should check for themselves.
What to do with this, if you run an agency
- Say what you are best at in one sentence. "B2B SaaS content agency for Series A to C companies" is easy to place. "A full-service digital agency" is not. Say the same thing on your site, your profiles and your directory listings.
- Check your directory profiles. Clutch, DesignRush, GoodFirms and the Semrush agency directory were all cited in this audit. Make sure your name, services, sectors and reviews match across them. Earn reviews genuinely, and never pay for a particular rating.
- Publish proof that can be quoted. A case study with no client, scope, timeframe or measurement cannot be quoted. Name the client where you have permission, say what you did and over what period, and say how you measured it.
- Answer the question before the pitch. Agency or in-house, how to choose an agency, what an engagement costs and what to ask before signing. A fair answer, including when you are not the right fit, is what AI reaches for.
- Be honest if you publish a list. Agency-written roundups were heavily cited. If yours includes you, say so and show your criteria.
- Check whether your site can be read, then re-test. AI answers change, so a single score tells you little.
If you want this work done as a program, see our AEO, GEO and SEO service for marketing agencies. The free audit is for agencies checking their own site. If you want to offer AI visibility work to your own clients, see our white-label AEO service.
Book a free consultation and we will run your own constructed questions against live assistants and show you who is named instead of your agency. Inbound is $2,500 a month on monthly billing.
Book a consultationEvery agency we audited
Agency | Visibility | Appeared on | Top rival named instead |
|---|---|---|---|
| IDEO | 100% | Local, Category x2, Problem, Comparison | Frog Design |
| LYFE Marketing | 100% | Local, Category x2, Problem, Comparison | Sociallyin |
| Brafton | 80% | Local, Category x2, Problem | Siege Media |
| HawkSEM | 80% | Local, Category x2, Comparison | KlientBoost |
| Seer Interactive | 80% | Local, Category, Problem, Comparison | iPullRank |
| Blue Corona | 60% | Local, Category, Comparison | Hook Agency |
| Dentsu | 60% | Category x2, Comparison | Publicis Groupe |
| Directive | 60% | Category, Problem, Comparison | Belkins |
| Ironpaper | 60% | Category, Problem, Comparison | Martal Group |
| Tinuiti | 60% | Category x2, Comparison | Disruptive Advertising |
| WebFX | 60% | Category x2, Comparison | Thrive Internet Marketing Agency |
| Grow and Convert | 40% | Category, Comparison | Animalz |
| Wpromote | 40% | Local, Comparison | Searchbloom |
| Omnicom | 20% | Comparison | Razorfish |
| 97th Floor | 0% | None | Thrive Internet Marketing Agency |
| Mediaboom | 0% | None | Tambourine |
| Monks | 0% | None | Thrive Internet Marketing Agency |
| Newfangled | 0% | None | Manifest |
| ThriveMyWay | 0% | None | HubSpot Academy |
Off-category or unusual entries: IDEO (design and innovation consultancy), Dentsu and Omnicom (global holding companies), Monks (large global digital and brand network), ThriveMyWay (marketing education blog, not an agency).
Not scanned (the crawler could not read enough from the site): Ignite Visibility, Single Grain, SmartSites.
Check your own number
Every agency above was run through the same tool below. It takes about ninety seconds, and your agency's name is never in the query. Use it on your own agency's site. It is not meant for auditing a client's.
Do AI assistants recommend you?
Five buyer-style queries for your category, run through live AI search, show who gets named instead of you. Takes about ninety seconds.
Free. The full report arrives by email so the tab can close.
Methodology and honest limitations
What we did. On October 3, 2026 we ran the live audit tool that powers our free checker against 22 established marketing, advertising and digital agencies: one run, five queries per agency, visibility measurement only. The step-by-step method is in our audit documentation. An agency that disputes its result can ask us to re-run it.
The sample. We chose real, identifiable agencies that are mostly large and well known, across SEO, paid media, content, social, performance and global networks. It is a sample we picked, not a random one and not a census. It likely flatters the average, because small and mid-size agencies, which are most of the industry, are not in it. A few entries are off-category: a design consultancy, two holding companies and a marketing education blog. An agency's score also depends on how our classifier read its homepage, and the queries are generated from that reading.
What it does not cover. Only the homepage was read, so an agency with a thin homepage and strong inner pages may be undercounted. Five queries per agency is a small sample of real buyer language, and only three agencies were asked an AI-search question. Results come from one run on one day, and AI answers change over time, as the movement in Ironpaper and Directive shows. We did not test whether any agency pays for directory placement. We counted an agency's own site by matching the agency's domain in the cited URL.
Compared with our earlier audit. The six-agency result in our 29-company audit and this 19-agency result use the same tool but different samples and different generated queries, so they are not a trend. We do not claim agencies have become less visible.
FAQ
How visible are established marketing agencies in AI answers?
More visible than most industries we have audited, but still uneven. Across the 19 agencies we could scan, average visibility was 47.4% over 95 buyer queries. Eight agencies were named in two of five queries or fewer, five were not named at all, and two scored 100%.
Does this contradict your earlier audit, where agencies scored 77%?
Not exactly, but it should change how you read it. The earlier figure came from six B2B content-led agencies in a 29-company audit. This sample has 19 agencies of more varied types, and the average is lower. Ironpaper and Directive were in both, and each scored 20 points lower this time, which shows how much a single run can move.
Does having a niche get an agency named?
It helps, but it is not enough on its own. Several agencies with a clear specialty were named often, yet two specialist agencies, one serving hotels and one serving creative firms, were not named once. The agencies that did well also appeared in outside lists and directories.
Where does AI get its answers about agencies?
Mostly from third parties, including other agencies. Across 760 citations on 483 domains, the most cited domain was a competing agency, Thrive Agency, at 28 citations, followed by Yelp (25), Clutch (13), the Semrush agency directory (12), Wikipedia (11), DesignRush (9), The CMO (8) and GoodFirms (7). An agency's own site was only 2.2% of what was cited.
Are the results representative of small and mid-size agencies?
No. We chose established, mostly large and well-known agencies, and a few entries are off-category. Small and mid-size agencies were not tested, and they are likely to fare worse than this sample did.
Why could three agencies not be scanned?
Ignite Visibility, Single Grain and SmartSites returned an error because our audit crawler could not read enough from the site. We cannot tell from outside whether the same barrier also affects the crawlers AI assistants use, which is worth checking for any agency that sells SEO.
