COMMERCE GRAPH · AQXLE

Adidas AI Visibility & Running-Publisher Link Analysis

3AI providers
7.73Moutbound links
Jul 2026

Adidas is the #2 athletic brand in AI answers on both platforms tracked here — 48% visibility on Gumshoe (64 brands) and 49% on Profound (389 brands). Nike leads both. In the top-10 domains AI models cite for running-shoe queries, Runner's World and RunRepeat are the only two third-party publishers that appear on both lists.

1
GUMSHOE · COMPETITIVE LEADERBOARD
Adidas hits 48% — 25 points behind Nike, 9 ahead of New Balance
Nike leads at 73%. Three brands sit within 10 points of Adidas: New Balance, Under Armour, ASICS.
Adidas
48%
visibility · 38 mentions across 80 prompts
Rank #2 of 64
Gap to leader (Nike) −25 pts
Lead over #3 (New Balance) +9 pts
Brands within 10-pt band 3 (New Balance, Under Armour, ASICS)
2
PROFOUND · COMPETITIVE LEADERBOARD
Adidas averages 49% — 15 points behind Nike, 5 ahead of Brooks
Nike leads at 64%. Only Brooks sits within 10 points of Adidas across the 389 brands tracked.
Adidas
49%
average visibility · 3 AI surfaces
Rank #2 of 389
Gap to leader (Nike) −15 pts
Lead over #3 (Brooks) +5 pts
Brands within 10-pt band 1 (Brooks)
3
TOP 10 CITED SOURCES
Gumshoe cites brand sites; Profound cites publishers and communities
Adidas.com is Gumshoe's #1 source at 4.7%. YouTube is Profound's #1 at 8.0%. Runner's World and RunRepeat appear in both top-10s.
GUMSHOE % of 383 total citations across 80 answers
    PROFOUND % of 4,107 total citations · Apr 23–29 2026
      WHAT THE TWO LISTS TELL YOU
      4 of 10
      Brand-owned domains in Gumshoe's top 10
      adidas.com, nike.com, brooksrunning.com, newbalance.com. Four of the top eight Gumshoe sources are brand-owned pages.
      7 of 10
      Editorial & community sources in Profound's top 10
      YouTube (8.0%), Reddit (3.7%), Runner's World (3.4%), RunRepeat (3.2%), iRunFar, Outdoor Gearlab, Fleet Feet. Adidas.com sits at #7 with 1.5%.
      2
      Publishers that appear in both lists
      Runner's World & RunRepeat are the only third-party publishers on both. RW ranks #4 on Gumshoe (3.9%) and #3 on Profound (3.4%); RunRepeat is #9 (1.8%) and #4 (3.2%).

      Runner's World links out 7.18M times; RunRepeat links out 544K times. Of RW's outbound, 86.6% stays inside the Hearst graph and 3.1% is commercial. Of RunRepeat's outbound, 98.6% is commercial — 44.0% to Amazon and 40.9% to affiliate networks. Columns read left-to-right: Source → Bucket → Top destinations within bucket.

      PAGE 3 · SIDE-BY-SIDE

      RW is 3.1% commercial; RunRepeat is 98.6% commercial

      Three composition views, each normalized to 100%: all outbound by bucket, the commerce slice alone, and the affiliate-network slice alone.

      A
      Total outbound composition
      RW 7.18M links · RunRepeat 544K links — split by bucket
      B
      Commerce-link composition
      RW 224K commerce links · RunRepeat 537K — split across Amazon, networks, retailer, brand DTC
      C
      Affiliate-network composition
      RW 68K network links · RunRepeat 223K — which networks each property runs through
      Where they differ most
      86.6%
      of RW outbound goes to Hearst-owned domains
      vs 0.004% for RunRepeat (21 links total)
      6.22M links flow to buysub.com, hearst.com, and Hearst's international editions. RunRepeat has 21 links to Hearst domains — 15 of them to runnersworld.com itself.
      3.1%
      of RW outbound is commercial
      vs 98.6% for RunRepeat
      RW ships 224K commercial links out of 7.18M total. RunRepeat ships 537K out of 544K — leaving only 7K non-commercial links across the whole property.
      57%
      of RW's affiliate-network links go through Skimlinks
      vs 0% for RunRepeat
      RW: 38K Skimlinks, 11K Awin, 6K Impact. RunRepeat: 62K Awin, 41K Partnerize, 40K CJ, 21K Impact, 21K Rakuten — five networks within 3x of each other.