Quebec Small Businesses: Measuring AI Search Visibility

How Quebec small businesses can measure visibility and results from AI search: start by accepting that no dashboard tells you where you stand in ChatGPT or Perplexity. I run ads and local SEO for small businesses around Mascouche and Greater Montréal, and owners ask me about this all the time. The honest answer involves manual testing, some digging in GA4, and a few habits most businesses skip.

How Quebec small businesses can measure visibility and results from AI search: what you can and cannot measure

You can measure whether AI tools mention your business, how accurately they describe you, and whether leads say they found you that way, but you can't read a ranking off a report. AI answers change with the phrasing, the location, the language and the session, so one check proves very little.

Owners in Mascouche and Repentigny often ask me to check their "AI visibility" and then get frustrated when I can't hand them a clean report. What I can do is run real questions in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, see whether the business comes up and whether the description is right, and then look at whether calls and form fills mention AI. It's slower than pulling a report, but it gets closer to the truth. If you want a first look at where you stand, our AI visibility check is a reasonable place to start.

Mentions, citations and recommendations: three signals that mean different things

A mention means the AI named your business, a citation means it linked to one of your pages as a source, and a recommendation means it told the person to pick you. They don't carry the same weight.

A mention with no link may still send someone to search your name later. A citation tells you which of your pages the tool trusts, so log the URL each time it appears. That shows you which content is doing the work. A recommendation is the one closest to a phone call, and it's the one I care about most.

Building a repeatable prompt set in French and English

A repeatable prompt set is a fixed list of questions you run the same way every month, in both French and English, so you compare like with like instead of guessing.

A Mascouche bakery might get recommended for "meilleure boulangerie Mascouche" and not for "best bakery near me", and a francophone customer in Mascouche types differently than someone searching in English from Westmount. So I write a short list of questions real customers would ask, like "best plumber near Mascouche" or "meilleur plombier à Mascouche", with service plus city and neighbourhood versions. I run each one in the same tools, in the same order, and log whether the business is mentioned, cited or recommended. That consistency is what lets you spot a real change.

GA4 and AI referral traffic: what shows up and what stays hidden

GA4 shows some AI referral traffic, but a lot of it lands in generic buckets like Direct or Referral, so you can't always tell a ChatGPT visit from a regular Google click.

When I audit an account, I look at three things. First, the session source/medium report, filtered for AI domains like chatgpt.com or perplexity.ai. Second, landing pages, since AI referrals tend to hit specific pages more than the homepage. Third, jumps in direct traffic that line up with new content or Google Business Profile updates. GA4 is one clue. You still need the manual prompt testing beside it.

Call tracking and form questions: capturing customers AI influenced but never clicked

Call tracking and a "How did you hear about us?" question catch the customers who asked an AI tool, then called or searched your name without ever clicking a link.

Lots of people ask ChatGPT or Perplexity for "best plumber near me" and simply call the number they see. GA4 never records that visit. With call tracking, you get an additional phone number that forwards to your real line, and you put that tracked number on your website and Google Business Profile. When someone calls, the software logs the call. That's the kind of setup we handle in our call and conversion tracking work.

I also add one question to every contact form, "How did you hear about us?", with an option for "AI chatbot" or "ChatGPT". It isn't perfect, but it catches people who wrote or called instead of clicking.

Google Business Profile and reviews as the entity signals AI answers rely on

Google Business Profile is often why an AI tool recommends one business over another, because AI systems draw on the same business information Google already trusts.

A thin or inconsistent profile makes it harder for you to show up at all. Every month I check that hours, address and phone number match everywhere online, that new reviews keep coming in rather than old ones sitting alone, and that categories and services match what customers actually search. Clean those up and AI tools get a clearer picture of who you are. This is the idea behind our Found on Google, cited by AI system.

Loi 25, Loi 96 and measuring AI search responsibly in Québec

Loi 25 and Loi 96 mean any tool you use to measure AI search visibility needs proper consent, a French-language experience and careful handling of personal information.

When I set up analytics for a client, every tool that collects data gets a clear consent step and a privacy policy in French. I avoid tools that send visitor data outside Québec without proper safeguards, and I keep records short and tied to a purpose. Before adding any tracking tool, I check:

Requirement	What I verify
Consent	Clear opt-in before tracking starts
Language	French available by default
Data storage	Location and retention period
Third-party sharing	Disclosed and limited
Security	Encryption and access controls

A monthly AI search measurement routine for a small team

A monthly AI search measurement routine can fit in about an hour, booked in the same week each month so it becomes a habit.

1. Run your prompt set in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, and note whether you're mentioned, cited or recommended.
2. Check GA4 for referrals from these tools, and watch direct visits too.
3. Compare that with tracked calls and form answers that mention AI.
4. Write down one change to make before next month, like updating a page or asking a customer for a review.

This won't give you a neat AI search ROI number. It shows you direction, tied to calls and booked work instead of vanity counts, and that's enough to make better decisions.