Which SF Marketing Agencies Does AI Recommend? 2026 Study
Study date: November 7, 2026
Jives Media was the most-mentioned agency in this Beket AI San Francisco marketing agencies study, with 34 mentions. Web Tonic followed with 20, while Stackmatix and Victorious each had 11.
Beket AI asked 25 unbranded buyer questions about San Francisco marketing agencies across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overview. After excluding seven non-agency labels, the market report contained 35 agencies and marketing service providers with 242 mention events. Jives Media accounted for 34 of those 242 mentions, or 14.0%.
Counts are mention events, not recommendation rates or distinct-prompt appearances. An agency can be mentioned more than once in an answer. These results are a snapshot of what the engines named, not Beket AI's ranking of agency quality. San Francisco location targeting does not verify that every agency has a San Francisco office.
The study at a glance
| Detail | Result |
|---|---|
| Study date | November 7, 2026 |
| Scope | Marketing agencies in San Francisco, CA |
| Location setting | San Francisco, CA, USA |
| Language | English |
| Engines | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overview |
| Selected questions | 25 unbranded buyer prompts |
| Requested executions | 75 |
| Completed answer rows | 73 |
| Agencies/marketing providers retained | 35 |
| Agency/provider mention events | 242 |
ChatGPT and Perplexity each answered all 25 selected questions. Google AI Overview answered 23 of 25. No extra discovery prompts were added.
Which SF marketing agencies did AI name most?
Jives Media led overall. The top four agencies—Jives Media, Web Tonic, Stackmatix and Victorious—received 76 of 242 mentions (31.4%).
| Agency or marketing provider | Mentions | ChatGPT | Perplexity | Google AI Overview |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jives Media | 34 | 24 | 6 | 4 |
| Web Tonic | 20 | 11 | 6 | 3 |
| Stackmatix | 11 | 6 | 2 | 3 |
| Victorious | 11 | 7 | 1 | 3 |
| Jordan Digital Marketing | 10 | 7 | 3 | 0 |
| Linqia | 10 | 8 | 1 | 1 |
| BayCreative | 9 | 5 | 0 | 4 |
| RSO Consulting | 8 | 5 | 3 | 0 |
| Duncan Channon | 8 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Siege Media | 7 | 5 | 2 | 0 |
| Playkit | 7 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| Mekanism | 7 | 4 | 0 | 3 |
| Moburst | 7 | 5 | 2 | 0 |
| Hearst Bay Area | 6 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| Firebrand | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| Ideal Visibility | 6 | 5 | 0 | 1 |
| Cyrusson | 5 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| Searchbloom | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 |
| WebFX | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| Razorfrog Web Design | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 |
| SevenAtoms | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
| Venables Bell & Partners | 5 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Verbsz Marketing | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 |
| Goodby Silverstein & Partners | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| HireInfluence | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Ankord Media | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| RY Digital Marketing | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 |
| Fabric | 4 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| Tendo Communications | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| The Design Boutique | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| San Francisco Online Marketing (SFOM) | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Wheel Media | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Olivine Marketing | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Mix It Up Marketing | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| The Influencer Marketing Factory | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Source: Beket AI market audit, November 7, 2026. All 35 retained agency/provider labels are shown. Counts come from the completed market report's per-engine splits; no name variants were merged in this run.
The seven excluded non-agency labels accounted for 44 mentions. The raw report had 42 labels and 286 mentions; removing those seven leaves 35 labels and 242 mentions. The exclusions are listed in the method below.
For a city-level comparison in the same category, see the NYC marketing agencies study. The NYC run included discovery prompts and recovery duplicates, so its totals are not an equal-sample comparison with this SF run.
What did each engine name?
| Engine | Questions answered | Agency/provider labels | Agency/provider mentions |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 25/25 | 28 | 141 |
| Perplexity | 25/25 | 19 | 47 |
| Google AI Overview | 23/25 | 20 | 54 |
ChatGPT: Jives Media ahead of Web Tonic
ChatGPT named Jives Media 24 times, followed by Web Tonic with 11 and Linqia with 8. Jordan Digital Marketing, Playkit and Victorious each had 7. ChatGPT contributed 141 of the 242 retained mention events.
Those 24 mentions are not a 24-of-25 recommendation rate. The market report exposes mention events, not how many distinct selected answers named each agency. Our AI share of voice guide explains why the denominator changes the meaning of a visibility metric.
Perplexity: Jives Media and Web Tonic tied
Perplexity named Jives Media and Web Tonic 6 times each. WebFX followed with 5, Fabric with 4, and Jordan Digital Marketing and RSO Consulting with 3 each.
The tie differs from ChatGPT's result. Perplexity returned all 25 selected answers but had fewer agency/provider mention events: 47, compared with ChatGPT's 141. That is a difference in the measured outputs, not proof that one engine is better at recommending agencies.
Google AI Overview: seven names tied at the top
Google AI Overview had a seven-way tie at 4 mentions each: Ankord Media, BayCreative, Cyrusson, Duncan Channon, Hearst Bay Area, HireInfluence and Jives Media. Web Tonic, the runner-up overall, received 3 mentions on this engine.
Google AI Overview answered 23 of 25 selected prompts. The two missing prompts were:
- “Best local SEO company in downtown San Francisco for a law firm”
- “Top creative advertising agencies in San Francisco”
The live progress indicator reported 25 AI Overview executions as landed, but the final completed-answer log contains 23. We use that final log for answer coverage. The tools do not expose a definitive cause for the two missing rows, and we do not treat them as measured zero-mention answers.
How much did the engines agree?
Only 8 of 35 agencies/providers appeared on all three engines:
- Jives Media
- Web Tonic
- Stackmatix
- Victorious
- Linqia
- Duncan Channon
- Venables Bell & Partners
- Goodby Silverstein & Partners
Another 16 appeared on exactly two engines: Jordan Digital Marketing, BayCreative, RSO Consulting, Siege Media, Mekanism, Moburst, Hearst Bay Area, Ideal Visibility, Cyrusson, Searchbloom, Razorfrog Web Design, SevenAtoms, Verbsz Marketing, RY Digital Marketing, Tendo Communications and Olivine Marketing.
The remaining 11 appeared on only one engine: Playkit, Firebrand, WebFX, HireInfluence, Ankord Media, Fabric, The Design Boutique, San Francisco Online Marketing (SFOM), Wheel Media, Mix It Up Marketing and The Influencer Marketing Factory.
An agency can lead or tie on one engine without appearing on the others. Ankord Media and HireInfluence, for example, each had 4 mentions on Google AI Overview and none on ChatGPT or Perplexity in this run.
Which sources did the engines cite?
The audit recorded 691 citation events. Its top-domain rollup was:
| Domain | Citation events |
|---|---|
| clutch.co | 64 |
| sortlist.com | 48 |
| google.com | 45 |
| agencies.semrush.com | 35 |
| revenuebase.ai | 31 |
| themanifest.com | 29 |
| marketing.sfgate.com | 19 |
| jordandigitalmarketing.com | 12 |
| sevenatoms.com | 10 |
| fabric.so | 9 |
Clutch.co led with 64 citation events, followed by sortlist.com at 48. The first is an agency directory, not an agency, so Clutch is excluded from the agency leaderboard while its citations remain in the source analysis.
Citation events are not unique URLs or endorsements. A name appearing in an answer is also different from a source being linked. See how to get cited by ChatGPT for that distinction. The domain rollup shows only the top ten domains, and the citation-item response may be sampled.
Method and exclusions
Beket AI ran one market audit for “marketing agencies in San Francisco, CA” on November 7, 2026. The audit was created at 3:16 PM PT and completed at 3:32 PM PT. Audit ID: 1bad6b29-0d4b-4277-8324-a02270e962ea.
We selected 25 unbranded buyer questions in English and supplied “San Francisco, CA, USA” as the location. The connectors were ChatGPT (CHATGPT_APP), Perplexity (PERPLEXITY) and Google AI Overview (GOOGLE_AI_OVERVIEW). The prompts mirror the NYC study's buyer-intent structure, with city references changed to San Francisco and neighborhood references mapped to downtown San Francisco, SoMa and the Mission District.
Extra prompt generation was disabled. That produced 75 requested executions with no additional discovery prompts. The final answer log returned 73 completed rows, all unbranded, with no duplicate prompt/engine pairs and no off-topic rows. No recovery or additional audit was run. Mention totals and per-engine counts come from the market report; answer coverage comes from the final answer log.
We excluded these seven non-agency labels:
| Excluded label | Mentions | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Clutch | 17 | Agency directory |
| Shopify | 8 | Ecommerce platform |
| Semrush | 6 | Software and agency directory |
| RevenueBase | 4 | B2B data platform |
| Amazon | 4 | Ecommerce platform |
| Sortlist | 3 | Agency directory |
| Olipop | 2 | Beverage brand |
| Total excluded | 44 |
No name merges were needed. Linqia, Playkit and Hearst Bay Area were retained as marketing service providers: their public sites describe managed influencer, UGC or marketing services, rather than only software. This is an editorial classification, not an API field. The retained list therefore includes agencies and marketing service providers, not only independently verified standalone agency businesses.
Counts are mentions, not recommendation rates, distinct-prompt appearances, market share, adoption or quality scores. Repeated references to a name within an answer can contribute multiple mention events. We have not inferred how many distinct prompts named an agency from its mention total. The answer API returns metadata rather than complete model prose, so surrounding recommendation context was not independently validated.
Location targeting also does not verify each agency has an SF office. Agencies outside the city can surface for San Francisco buyer questions. The study tests what AI names under those settings, not office locations, pricing, service quality or whether an agency is the right fit for a particular buyer.
All 25 buyer prompts
- What is the best SEO agency in San Francisco for a small business?
- Who should I hire for Google Ads management in downtown San Francisco?
- Which PPC agencies in San Francisco are worth the money?
- Best social media marketing agency in San Francisco for a restaurant
- Top branding agencies in San Francisco for a startup rebrand
- Recommend a web design agency in San Francisco for a professional services firm
- What are the best full-service digital marketing agencies in San Francisco?
- Best B2B marketing agency in San Francisco for a SaaS company
- Which ecommerce marketing agency in San Francisco is best for a Shopify brand?
- Best marketing agency in SoMa for a local business
- Who are the top digital marketing agencies in the Mission District, San Francisco?
- Affordable marketing agency in San Francisco for a small budget
- Best content marketing agency in San Francisco
- Which San Francisco agency should I hire for TikTok and Instagram marketing?
- Best local SEO company in downtown San Francisco for a law firm
- Top performance marketing agencies in San Francisco for DTC brands
- Best healthcare marketing agency in San Francisco
- Which San Francisco agency is best for paid social and Meta ads?
- Best real estate marketing agency in San Francisco
- Top creative advertising agencies in San Francisco
- Best marketing agency in San Francisco for a B2B tech startup raising Series A
- Which website design and development company in SoMa should I use?
- Best influencer marketing agency in San Francisco
- Who is the best email marketing agency in San Francisco?
- What marketing agency in San Francisco do small businesses recommend most?
What to take from this snapshot
Jives Media led the aggregate and ChatGPT results, but Perplexity tied it with Web Tonic and Google AI Overview spread its lead across seven names. Only eight of the 35 retained agencies/providers appeared on all three engines. A single-engine check would have given a narrower picture of which names surfaced.
This is one run of a mixed buyer-intent sample, not a universal agency ranking. SEO, branding, paid media, web design and influencer marketing are different buying decisions. The two missing AI Overview answers make the engine samples unequal, and future runs can change both names and counts.
The free Beket AI audit starts on the homepage and covers 25 prompts across 3 engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overview. That is a brand visibility check; this article reports a separate market-level study.
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