Northline results · Product analytics
When buyers ask AI for product analytics, Northline does not show up.
We asked the buying questions marketers care about — best for startups, Amplitude vs Mixpanel, open-source alternatives — and scored who AI answers actually name, cite, and recommend.
Takeaway for stakeholders: Northline's Answer Share is 0 today while PostHog leads at 89.7. The play is publish clear answers for those questions, then remeasure the same ones.
Northline AI visibility today
Answer Share is a simple visibility score: how often Northline is named, recommended, linked as a source, and how early it appears. Zero today is expected — Answer Contracts are not on a durable public host yet.
Category leader right now: PostHog at 89.7 · Northline ranks #5 of 5
Did the AI mention Northline by name?
Did the AI suggest Northline as a fit?
Did northline.dev appear in citations?
Same questions get re-asked after publish.
Who shows up when buyers ask AI
Live category leaderboard from the baseline run — the market Northline has to earn share from.
Captured 9/14/2026 · Live generative-answer captures via Duck.ai (DuckDuckGo AI chat) after Perplexity required login. Answers annotated for mention/citation/recommend/prominence across tracked brands. Engine tagged as chatgpt (closest schema match for Duck.ai/GPT).
The experiment, in plain English
Hypothesis: If we publish clear, evidence-backed answers for the questions buyers ask AI, Northline should start showing up in those answers — and we can measure that as Answer Share lift.
Measure the blank slate
Ask real buying questions. Score who gets named, recommended, and linked. Northline starts at 0 — that is the honest baseline.
Put answers where AI can find them
Publish Answer Contracts and clear answer pages for each buying question — machine-readable answers with proof, not another blog post.
Ask the same questions again
After discovery, re-run the same questions (plus paraphrases and surprise prompts) and report Northline's Answer Share lift.
What buyers asked — and how Northline fared
Each row is a real question from the baseline run.
“What is the best product analytics tool for a startup?”
“Best analytics platform for early-stage SaaS”
“Recommend a product analytics stack for a 10-person startup”
“Amplitude vs Mixpanel vs open-source for startups”
“Best open source alternative to Amplitude”
“best product analytics for startups”
How we keep the test fair
More than one wording, more than one AI, and a few surprise questions we do not coach — so the lift number is something a marketer can trust.
Core jobs like ‘best for startups’ or ‘open-source alt’.
Same intent, different wording — so we are not gaming one phrase.
Held-back prompts we do not put on contracts until after scoring.
duckai · chatgpt · perplexity
Target sample after publish: 45 scored answers (15 questions × 3 AIs). Baseline today used 6 answers — enough to prove invisibility, not enough alone to claim durable lift.
After we publish — did visibility improve?
Remeasurement starts after public publish + discovery.
Contracts and answer pages are prepared. Once they are on a public host AI systems can crawl, we wait for discovery, ask the same buyer questions again, and this section becomes a before/after scorecard.
What “good” could look like
Illustrative model only — not a live engine result. Useful for setting stakeholder expectations.
Live truth replaces this once treatment captures are in.
What to do with this
- Share the baseline: Northline is invisible on category AI answers today (Answer Share 0).
- Keep the prepared answer pages public and crawlable so engines can discover them.
- After discovery, remeasure the same buyer questions and report lift as a simple before → after scorecard.
Details for analysts
Coverage map
Covered 0/6 baseline prompts · 4 contracts
- What is the best product analytics tool for a startup?uncovered
- best product analytics for startupsuncovered
- Best analytics platform for early-stage SaaSuncovered
- Recommend a product analytics stack for a 10-person startupuncovered
- Amplitude vs Mixpanel vs open-source for startupsuncovered
- Best open source alternative to Amplitudeuncovered
Robust pack targets
Measurement 15 · Holdouts 4 · Engines duckai, chatgpt, perplexity · Target captures 45
Raw probe sheet
| Engine | Prompt | Mention | Cite | Rec |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| chatgpt | What is the best product analytics tool for a startup? | — | — | — |
| chatgpt | Best analytics platform for early-stage SaaS | — | — | — |
| chatgpt | Recommend a product analytics stack for a 10-person startup | — | — | — |
| chatgpt | Amplitude vs Mixpanel vs open-source for startups | — | — | — |
| chatgpt | Best open source alternative to Amplitude | — | — | — |
| chatgpt | best product analytics for startups | — | — | — |
- Mention rate
- 0%
- Recommend rate
- 0%
- Citation rate
- 0%
- Prominence
- 0%
Formula: 100 × (0.35·mention + 0.30·recommend + 0.25·citation + 0.10·prominence)