New to product categories? Start here: What is a product category in Gumshoe?
A product category is the product line, service, or sub-brand you want Gumshoe to analyze. Choosing the right product category can be the single most important decision in your project setup. It shapes the personas, topics, and prompts Gumshoe generates, so a well-chosen product category produces sharper, more actionable insights.
Why does the product category matter so much?
Gumshoe uses your product category to decide which personas to generate, which topics to explore, and which prompts to send to the AI models. Change the product category, and you change the entire shape of your Visibility Audit (formerly known as a report).
Setting a clear product category:
- Produces more relevant personas, topics, and prompts
- Surfaces insights tied to one specific offering, so results are actionable
- Gives you a cleaner baseline to track improvements over time
For example, if you operate a theme park and a toy line, choosing a product category keeps the two analyses separate so you can see exactly how each is performing in AI search.
How do I select a product category?
On the product category step of project setup:
- Review the suggested product categories that Gumshoe has generated for your brand
- Select the one that best represents what you want to analyze
- If none of the suggestions fit, click Custom product category and type your own into the text field
- If you'd rather not choose one, click Continue without a product category, though Gumshoe notes this means broader, less targeted personas and prompts
- Click Continue
Location and language are set earlier in project setup, right after you confirm your brand details, not on this screen. For more on setting a location, see the article How Do I Use the Location Feature in Gumshoe?
What should I pick as a product category?
A good product category is specific enough to be actionable, but broad enough to generate meaningful conversation volume. Strong examples:
- A specific product line (for example, "best electric SUVs" rather than "cars")
- A defined service category (for example, "catering services" rather than "food")
- A sub-brand or business unit
- An aspirational category you want to grow into, even if you currently have low visibility there
Should I set up multiple projects?
Yes. A project is scoped to one brand, product category, location, and language, so we recommend one project per product category and one per geography. Combining multiple product lines or regions into a single project muddies the data and makes it harder to see which levers are working.
Separate projects give you cleaner data, clearer insights, and better outcomes for each offering.