Enterprise procurement is its own art form. You’ve probably run RFPs for media agencies, technology vendors, consulting firms. But running a rigorous selection process for an AEO agency is a different challenge — partly because the category is new, partly because the evaluation criteria are less standardized, and partly because most procurement templates weren’t built with AI search optimization in mind.
This guide gives you a working framework: what to include in your RFP, what to evaluate in responses, and how to structure the selection process.
Before You Write the RFP
Spend time internally on two things before you approach any agency.
First, get clear on your objectives. Is this a brand authority play — building your enterprise’s credibility and citability in AI systems broadly? Is it a category capture play — establishing visibility in specific queries relevant to your products? Is it a competitive response — reacting to the fact that competitors are showing up in AI answers where you’re not? Each of these calls for a different emphasis in scope, and your RFP should reflect your actual goal.
Second, establish internal alignment. AEO programs touch multiple functions — content, SEO, PR, legal, IT, executive communications. Knowing which stakeholders need to be involved, what approval processes exist, and what constraints are non-negotiable will save significant time during vendor selection and onboarding.
RFP Structure for AEO Agency Selection
A well-designed AEO RFP should cover:
Section 1: Company and program overview. Describe your organization, your target audiences, your existing digital presence, and the objectives of this engagement. Be specific. Generic briefs produce generic proposals.
Section 2: Scope of work. Describe what you expect the engagement to include — diagnostic, strategy, content production, entity optimization, off-site authority building, measurement and reporting. Indicate what’s in scope vs. what your internal team will handle.
Section 3: Methodology questions. This is the most important section and the most commonly underweighted. Ask respondents to explain, in detail: their approach to entity optimization; how they structure content for AI discoverability; how they build off-site citation authority; how they measure AI visibility progress; and how they’ve adapted their methodology as AI search has evolved.
Section 4: Team and credentials. Ask for relevant team bios, specific experience in your industry, case study summaries (with results where possible), and references.
Section 5: Commercial proposal. Pricing, engagement structure, contract terms, and reporting cadence.
Evaluating RFP Responses
When responses come in, evaluate against these dimensions:
Methodology specificity. The most telling differentiator is how specifically an agency describes its approach. Generic answers (“we create high-quality, AI-optimized content”) are red flags. Specific, structured explanations of how they think about entity building, content passage optimization, and LLM credibility signals suggest genuine depth.
Evidence of results. This is tricky in a new category — historical case studies are limited. But agencies should be able to describe tangible outcomes, even directional ones: brands that went from rarely cited to frequently cited, AI Overview appearance rates that improved, specific queries where their clients gained visibility.
Honesty about limitations. The AEO field is still evolving. An agency that presents a perfectly packaged, no-uncertainty methodology should raise your skepticism. Credible agencies acknowledge what they’re still learning and how they handle the inherent uncertainty of AI search optimization.
Team quality. Look for seniority, relevant backgrounds (NLP, content strategy, technical SEO, publishing), and evidence that the people presenting will actually work on your account.
The Finalist Evaluation Process
After reviewing written proposals, bring two or three finalists in for structured presentations. Structure the session around:
A 20-minute agency presentation (their choice of emphasis — see what they lead with). A 30-minute live case study discussion — describe a specific challenge you face and ask them to walk through how they’d approach it. A 20-minute Q&A focused on methodology, measurement, and team.
Pay attention not just to what they say, but how they engage with uncertainty and hard questions. The best agencies will think out loud, acknowledge complexity, and ask clarifying questions rather than reaching immediately for a pat answer.
Commercial Considerations
Hire best AEO agency for enterprise procurement should include clear commercial expectations in both the RFP and the contract:
Pricing model. Retainer vs. project-based vs. hybrid. For ongoing AEO programs, a monthly retainer with defined deliverables tends to work better than one-off projects.
Measurement and reporting. Define upfront what success metrics will be tracked, how frequently, and in what format. Build in a 90-day review point where both parties assess progress and recalibrate if needed.
Intellectual property. Ensure any content, entity strategies, or optimization work produced under the engagement belongs to your organization.
Exit terms. AEO programs take time to show results. Build in reasonable minimum commitments (typically 6-12 months) while also defining clear exit provisions if performance falls significantly short of defined benchmarks.
A Final Note on Selection
The best RFP process in the world doesn’t fully replace relationship judgment. After you’ve done the rigorous evaluation, pay attention to who you’d actually want to work with for the next 12-18 months.
AEO is a strategic, evolving discipline. You want a partner who thinks clearly, communicates honestly, and has genuine intellectual curiosity about where AI search is going. Those qualities — more than any single methodology or case study — predict a successful long-term engagement.
The selection process is worth doing carefully. Choose the best AEO agency with both rigor and judgment.
