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Every number Citino measures from answers comes with two marks: n, how many answers it rests on, and ±, how far it could be off. Read them before you read the number.

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n

How many answers a number is based on. The more answers, the more you can trust it.
n counts answers, not questions. Each question is asked on every engine you track every day, so n grows every day. Some numbers only count some answers:
  • Visibility and share of voice count every answer in scope.
  • Position counts only the answers that named you.
  • Sentiment counts only the answers that named you and described you one way or the other.

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±

How far the true number could reasonably be from the one shown. It is wide when there are few answers or few questions behind it, and narrows as more come in.
We work the range out at 95%: wide enough that the true figure is very likely inside it.

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Why it depends on questions, not only answers

Answers to the same question tend to agree with each other. Ask one question on many days and you get much the same brands each time. So a pile of answers to a few questions tells you less than the count suggests. That is why we work out the range by resampling whole questions rather than single answers. It gives a wider range than treating every answer as independent, and an honest one. Two things follow:
  • One question on its own has no range. As the app puts it: “A single question has no ± range; ranges are worked out across many questions.” Where there is no range to show, you see ±—.
  • A project with few questions keeps a wider range than one with many.
The calculation is fixed, so the same answers always give the same ±. A range only changes when the answers behind it do. How bands are computed has the method.

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Low sample

This number rests on only a few answers, so read it as an early signal rather than a settled result. It firms up as we collect more each day.
The badge appears in three places:
  • on Prompts, beside one question’s visibility, below 15 answers;
  • in Overview’s Segments table, beside a segment’s visibility, below 30 answers;
  • on Objections, beside an objection’s score, below 30 answers.
Position and sentiment carry no badge, so read their n yourself. A low sample never hides a number. From the first answer, the figure is shown with its ± and n, and the badge sits beside it as a quiet cue.

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When there is no number

Within noise

Why a change smaller than its ± is not a move.

How bands are computed

The method, in more detail.

Visibility

The headline number these marks sit beside.

Glossary

Every term, in the app’s words.