Top of Mind — Is Your Brand Recalled Before Competitors?

What Top of Mind Measures

Top of Mind (TOM) measures whether an AI model recalls your brand before competitors. The metric accounts for the order in which the brand first appears and the number of competitors mentioned — the earlier the brand and the less "noise" from competitors, the higher the score.

In marketing, Top of Mind is the first brand a consumer thinks of in a category. In the AI context, it's the first brand the model names in its response.

When It Applies

Top of Mind is calculated only for organic context (Query Context = Organic) — when the user didn't mention the brand in their query.

For Brand Prompted and Unclear contexts, the metric is not applicable (N/A), since mention order is determined by the query wording rather than the model's "memory."

Components of Top of Mind

Brand Mention Order

The position of the brand's first mention in the response (1–10). If the brand isn't mentioned, TOM = 0.

The gap between 1st and 2nd place (0.40) is significantly larger than between 2nd and 3rd (0.25) — first place has disproportionately high value.

Crowding Penalty

The more competitors mentioned in the response, the lower the score. Each competitor reduces TOM by 0.07 (maximum penalty of 0.40 at 6+ competitors).

Crowding Penalty = min(0.40, competitors mentioned × 0.07)

The logic: if the model lists 5–6 brands, even the first in the list loses some of the recommendation's "exclusivity."

Competitor Positions

For each competitor from your brand profile, the system captures:

• Canonical name of the competitor
• Matched name variant (if recognized by a synonym)
• Mention position in the response

This data forms the Brand TOM competitive table for position comparison.

Formula

If Query Context ≠ Organic:
  Top of Mind = N/A

If brand is not mentioned:
  Top of Mind = 0

Otherwise:
  Crowding Penalty = min(0.40, competitors mentioned × 0.07)
  Top of Mind = 100 × clamp(0, 1, Position Score − Crowding Penalty)

Examples

TOM = 93 — Leader with Minimal Competition

Brand mentioned first, 1 competitor:

Position Score = 1.0
Crowding Penalty = min(0.40, 1 × 0.07) = 0.07
TOM = 100 × (1.0 − 0.07) = 93

TOM = 46 — Second Position

Brand mentioned second, 2 competitors:

Position Score = 0.60
Crowding Penalty = min(0.40, 2 × 0.07) = 0.14
TOM = 100 × (0.60 − 0.14) = 46

TOM = 0 — Far Position in a Crowded Response

Brand mentioned 4th, 4+ competitors:

Position Score = 0.20
Crowding Penalty = min(0.40, 4 × 0.07) = 0.28
TOM = 100 × clamp(0, 1, 0.20 − 0.28) = 100 × 0 = 0

TOM = 0 — Brand Not Mentioned

The model doesn't mention the brand — TOM is automatically 0.

Brand TOM Competitive Table

At the scenario level, BrandWise generates a summary table across all brands: target and competitors. For each brand, the following are calculated:

This table is the primary competitive analysis tool in BrandWise. It shows not just the brand's absolute position, but the distance to each competitor.

Learn more about derived metrics in Derived and Aggregate Metrics.

Related Metrics

• Visibility — overall brand prominence
• Consideration — shortlist inclusion
• Metrics System Overview — all metrics and Overall Score

Start tracking Top of Mind