A topic is the subject. A scenario is one realistic question that a person asks about that subject. Scenario performance shows the phrasings that you win and the phrasings that you lose.

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Why the difference is important

Two scenarios in one topic can give opposite results. For example, “Best CRM for a small team” and “CRM for a team of five that outgrew spreadsheets” are in the same topic. They frequently get different answers, because the answer engines use different sources for them. A topic score is an average, and it hides this difference. The scenario view shows it.

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What scenario performance tells you

The framing that you lose. Possibly you win the general question and lose each specific question. Then your content is positioning material with no concrete detail in it. If the opposite occurs, you have the detail but no overview. The scenarios where a competitor is strong. When a competitor wins one scenario each time, one source usually supports it. Open the conversation and examine the cited sources. Whether a scenario is realistic. A scenario that no person types gives answers that no person gets. Scenario performance is where you find a badly written scenario. Frequently, the fix is to write the scenario again.

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How to act on scenario performance

Write content briefs at the level of the scenario. A brief for a scenario has a question to answer. A brief for a topic has only a subject to discuss, and that is much weaker. For more information, see Creating scenarios.