Overview
The Configure tab is critical to how Scrunch analyzes your data and identifies your brand in AI responses. Properly configured settings ensure accurate presence tracking, citation detection, and competitive analysis.
Before You Start
Why Configuration matters:
Inaccurate Configure settings directly impact your brand presence tracking. If your brand is mentioned as "IBM" in AI responses but you haven't added "International Business Machines" as an alternative name, you'll miss those mentions entirely.
What proper Configure setup enables:
Accurate brand presence detection across all variations of your brand name
Complete citation tracking across all your owned domains and properties
Reliable competitive intelligence with full competitor mention tracking
Precise geographic targeting for persona-specific prompts
Initial Brand Setup
When you create a new brand using the + Create brand button, Scrunch auto-generates:
Brand description
Competitor list
Personas
Topics
Primary country
You can edit any of these auto-generated elements at any time from the Configure tab.
Primary Country
The primary country is set during initial brand setup and can be updated at any time from the Configure tab.
❗Important: Changes to primary country only affect new data collection moving forward - meaning future prompt runs will use the new country setting. Historical data cannot be retroactively updated with new country settings, and existing prompts will need to be re-run if you want them to reflect the new geographic targeting.
How to Use Personas and Topics
Personas
Personas serve three primary functions:
Filtering prompts by target audience
Adding persona injection to response collection (personas are injected into each prompt at collection time, so the AI model answers as if responding to that specific person)
Providing context for AI-generated prompts (detailed persona descriptions improve prompt quality)
Topics
Topics help you organize and categorize prompts for easier filtering and reporting. Unlike Personas, Topics don't affect data collection or targeting - they're purely organizational.
Best practices for Topics:
Create a consistent taxonomy that mirrors how your team thinks about the business (product lines, use cases, customer journey stages)
Use Topics to group related prompts for easier reporting and analysis
Assign multiple Topics to a single prompt when it spans categories
Keep your Topic list manageable - too many Topics makes filtering harder, not easier
When to Use Alternative Names (Primary and Competitor Brands)
Alternative names ensure accurate brand presence detection when your brand can be mentioned in multiple ways.
When to use Alternative Names:
Spacing variations or alternate spellings: Disney Plus, DisneyPlus, Disney+, Disney +
Acronyms: IBM, International Business Machines
Common abbreviations or nicknames
Case Sensitive Matching
Enable Case Sensitive Matching when your brand name is a common word that could appear out of context.
Example: "Apple" vs. "apple"
With case matching enabled, only "Apple" (capitalized) counts toward brand presence
Without it, every instance of "apple" (including the fruit) would count
Case matching applies to both the brand name and all alternative names.
When to Use Alternative Websites (Primary and Competitor Brands)
Alternative websites expand citation tracking beyond your primary domain.
How citation matching works:
Primary Website: Uses domain-level matching - any URL on that domain automatically counts as a Brand Citation
Alternative Websites: Uses path-level matching - only the exact page (or pages beneath it in the site's hierarchy) counts as a Brand Citation
Example: If you add linkedin.com/company/yourbrand as an alternative website, only that specific page and its child pages count as brand citations. Other LinkedIn URLs (like competitor pages) won't be counted as yours.
When to use Alternative Websites:
Additional domains you own: Including redirect domains or legacy brand domains
Subdomains: Track specific sections separately (blog.yourbrand.com, support.yourbrand.com)
Owned media properties:
Medium or Substack publications
YouTube channels
Company LinkedIn pages
Third-party authority sites:
Wikipedia pages
Industry directory listings (G2, Capterra, etc.)
Partner and reseller sites: Where your products or services are featured
Documentation and support sites: Developer docs, API references, knowledge bases
You can add alternative websites for both your primary brand and competitors.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Adding Too Many Broad Alternative Names
Adding overly generic variations can create false positives. For example, if your brand is "Apple Records," adding just "Apple" as an alternative name will incorrectly count mentions of Apple Inc., apple fruit, etc.
Solution: Be specific. Use case-sensitive matching when needed, and only add alternative names that genuinely refer to your brand.
Not Using Case-Sensitive Matching for Common Words
If your brand name is a common word (like "Apple," "Target," or "Amazon"), you'll capture irrelevant mentions without case-sensitive matching enabled.
Solution: Enable case-sensitive matching so only capitalized mentions count as brand presence.
Forgetting Competitor Alternative Websites
Tracking competitor citations requires adding their alternative websites just like you do for your own brand. Without this, your competitive intelligence will be incomplete.
Solution: Add the same types of alternative websites for competitors - their owned domains, LinkedIn pages, Wikipedia entries, etc.
Changing Country Settings and Expecting Immediate Results
Country changes only affect new data collection. Your existing prompt data won't automatically update.
Solution: After changing country settings, plan to re-run key prompts if you need them to reflect the new geographic targeting.
Historical Data & Configuration Changes
🔎 What can be retroactively applied:
Changes to names or websites can be applied to historical data. Scrunch can re-evaluate your existing dataset after these updates.
What cannot be retroactively applied:
Changes to primary country or persona only affect new data collection going forward.
💡 Key Takeaway
You can update the Configure tab at any time to improve accuracy. Regularly review and refine your settings as your brand evolves or as you discover new variations in how AI platforms reference your brand.