How to Monitor Rankings, Traffic and AI Visibility With Semrush, Search Console and AgencyAnalytics

What does each tool contribute?

Step 1: set up Search Console

Connect every client site as a domain property. Two reports matter:

• Performance: clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position by query and page. An AI Overview counts as one position, and clicks on its links count as clicks.
• Generative AI performance: impressions of your links in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country and device. It has no query breakdown and may not appear for sites with few AI impressions. It is not in the Search Console API, so no dashboard tool can pull it; export its CSV each month and add it to the report yourself.

Watch for pages whose AI impressions rise while clicks fall; the answer may be satisfying searchers before they click.

Step 2: set up Semrush

• Position Tracking: add each client's priority keywords. It records Google positions and whether an AI Overview appears and cites you. Note that Semrush records an AI Overview citation as position one, which can make average position look better than organic rankings alone.
• AI Visibility Toolkit: $99 a month per domain for 25 prompts tracked daily in ChatGPT Search, AI Mode and Gemini, with weekly brand reports that include Perplexity. Freeze the prompt list for at least a quarter, and make most prompts unbranded questions buyers ask before they know your client.

For agencies with many clients, the per-domain cost adds up; the Semrush One bundles include more prompts but still price by plan.

Step 3: set up GA4

Create a custom channel group with an AI channel that matches referrers such as chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com, copilot.microsoft.com and claude.ai. Track key events, such as form fills and calls, so AI visits can be compared with organic visits on outcomes. Remember that many AI visits arrive without a referrer and count as direct, so this channel undercounts. The approach is explained further in whether GA4 or Semrush can measure AI brand citations.

Step 4: build the AgencyAnalytics dashboard

AgencyAnalytics costs $20 per client per month billed annually, with unlimited dashboards, reports, staff and client users, white labelling and more than 85 integrations, including Semrush, Search Console and GA4. Connect each source to the client, then build one dashboard with four sections: rankings, Google AI features, AI assistant visibility and AI traffic. Schedule a monthly report with an AI-written summary that you edit before sending.

AgencyAnalytics also sells an AI Tracker, in beta, at $20.83 a month per 250 credits billed annually. It runs a fixed prompt set across six engines, including ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Claude and Perplexity, and reports visibility, position, sentiment and citations. For agencies that do not want a Semrush toolkit per client, it can replace that part of the stack. Check how many credits your prompt set and engines use before choosing. Its rank tracker add-on costs $41.67 a month per 500 keywords.

What should the monthly report show?

For each client, keep the same rows every month:

1. Organic clicks and impressions from Search Console, with the change from last month.
2. AI Overview and AI Mode impressions by top pages.
3. Rankings for priority keywords, with AI Overview appearance marked.
4. AI assistant visibility: mention rate and average position for the frozen prompt set, by engine.
5. Citations: which client pages and which third-party sites AI answers cite.
6. AI referral sessions and conversions from GA4.
7. Two example answers, so the client sees what the numbers describe.

Explain one change and one next action per section, not every number. Clients rarely read long tables; a short written summary at the top, with the three most important changes and what you will do about them, is what gets read and acted on.

What traps should you avoid?

• Mismatched dates. Search Console lags by a few days; align all sources to the same complete month.
• Changing prompts mid-quarter, which changes the denominator and makes trends meaningless.
• Reading AI position one as a ranking. An AI Overview citation is not the same as the top organic result.
• Over-reading small moves. AI answers vary between runs; judge trends over months.
• Treating AI referral sessions as all AI traffic, given missing referrers.

How to connect visibility metrics with visits is covered in how to correlate AI visibility metrics with website traffic, and multi-client tracking in how agencies track AI visibility across multiple clients.

What does the stack cost?

Search Console and GA4 are free. AgencyAnalytics is $20 per client a month. For AI assistant tracking, choose either Semrush's toolkit at $99 per client domain or AgencyAnalytics' AI Tracker in credit blocks from $20.83 a month. Rank tracking comes from Semrush, if you already have it, or the AgencyAnalytics add-on. For ten clients using AgencyAnalytics with its AI Tracker and your existing Semrush licence for rankings, the incremental cost depends on engines: AI Tracker uses one credit per prompt, per location, per engine, per weekly check, so 30 prompts on two engines in one location use 240 credits a month and the same set on all six engines uses 720. Ten clients can cost from a few hundred dollars a month to roughly $800, depending on engines.

What might this look like in practice?

Consider an illustrative agency, Harlstead Digital, with 12 local service clients. It connected Search Console, GA4 and Semrush Position Tracking to AgencyAnalytics, froze 30 unbranded prompts per client in the AI Tracker, and built one dashboard template. For a roofing client, the first report showed rankings steady, generative AI impressions rising on cost guides, ChatGPT mentioning a competitor for "best commercial roofer", and 14 AI referral sessions with two quote requests. The agency's next action was a comparison page and pitches to two local business directories that ChatGPT cited.

What do people ask about this set-up?

Does AgencyAnalytics track AI visibility itself?

Yes, through its AI Tracker add-on, in beta, priced by credits.

Can Search Console show AI Mode data?

Yes. Its generative AI performance report shows impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode by page.

Do I need Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit as well?

Not if you use another AI tracker. Semrush remains useful for rankings and research.

How often should I report?

Monthly, with the same prompts and date ranges each time.