Commissioned research

Research on your position, not the industry's.

The published reports look at an industry. Tailored research looks at one organisation, and is commissioned and paid for by that organisation. Fixed scope, fixed price, and the limits stated before you buy.

Commissioned work is not independent research, and we will not call it that.

A report paid for by the organisation it is about cannot be independent of that organisation. Every tailored report says so on its first page, carries the commissioning party's name, and is licensed to you rather than published by us. The published reports and this work never appear under the same masthead.

Available first

AI engine optimisation assessment

Search is no longer the only front door. Buyers increasingly ask an AI assistant instead, and the assistant answers from whatever it can find and trust. This assessment tells you where your brand currently stands in those answers, and what would move it.

AEO assessment

US$99

One organisation, one brand, one assessment

Your brand queried across the major assistants, with every answer recorded verbatim and dated
What they say about you, what they get wrong, and which sources they draw on
Where an assistant volunteers an alternative to you, quoted exactly as it appeared, so you see the answer your buyer sees
The specific, checkable changes most likely to move those answers, ranked by effort
Delivered as a dated PDF, normally within ten working days

Commission an assessment

What it is not

Not an SEO audit, and not a substitute for one. Not a guarantee of any placement, ranking or mention. Not ongoing monitoring, and not implementation.

Nobody can promise a position in an AI-generated answer. Any supplier who does is selling you something they cannot deliver, because the systems are not deterministic, not under their control, and change without notice.

We do not assess other companies

This is an assessment of your organisation, not of anyone else's. Where an assistant names another company, we record what it said, word for word and dated. We do not evaluate, rank, score or comment on that company.

The distinction matters to you as well as to us. A quoted machine output is something you can act on and verify. Our opinion of a competitor would be neither.

A point in time

The assessment records what the assistants said on the dates we asked them. The same question a month later can produce a different answer. That is a property of the systems, not a defect in the report, and it is why every finding is dated.

Fully bespoke research

Research built to a question only you are asking.

The AEO assessment above is a fixed product at a fixed price. This is the opposite: work scoped to your question, priced to the work it takes, and yours alone when it is finished.

Read this before you enquire: bespoke work is considerably more expensive, and there is a reason.

A published report costs the same to research whether five people buy it or five hundred. The price each buyer pays is a share of that cost, which is why a 33-page report can sell for US$99.

Commissioned work has no such arithmetic. It is written for one organisation, it belongs to that organisation, and it is never resold. Every hour has to be paid for by the one client, because no second buyer will ever contribute to it.

So expect four figures rather than two, scaling with scope and depth. If that is not what you had in mind, the published reports and the US$99 assessment are genuinely better value, and we would rather point you there than take a commission that disappoints.

What we are asked for most

Market and entry questions

Sizing a scope or a geography, mapping who already serves it, and what the evidence does and does not support about the opportunity.

Regulation and standards horizon

What is actually coming in the schemes and standards you work to, traced to the official text and the issuing body, with the dates that bind you.

Evidence checks

You have a figure, a claim or a vendor's business case in front of you. We check it against its original source and tell you what it will bear.

Something else

If it is a research question and the answer can be evidenced, describe it. If it is outside what we can do well, we will say so rather than take the work.

Start a conversation

Tell us the question.

Nothing here is a commitment. Filling this in opens a conversation about whether the work is worth doing and what it would cost.

This form does not send anything by itself. It opens your own email programme with the message written out, so you can read it before it goes. Nothing you type here is transmitted to us, or to anyone else, until you press send.

Prefer to write it yourself? allen@deepdivereports.com.

How commissions work

The terms, in short.

Scope is fixed in writing first. For the AEO assessment, the scope is the list above and nothing beyond it. For anything else, we agree a written scope, price and delivery date before work starts, and neither side is committed until both are agreed.

You get a licence, we keep the copyright. The report is licensed to your organisation for unlimited internal use. You may not publish it, quote it in marketing, or supply it to a third party without our written consent, because our name on a public claim about your own brand is a thing we have to be able to stand behind.

Findings are not negotiable. We will correct anything factually wrong, gladly. We will not change a conclusion because it is unwelcome. If that is a problem, this is the wrong supplier.

It is research, not advice. A tailored report is information to inform your decision. It is not legal, regulatory, financial, investment or professional advice, and no advisory or fiduciary relationship arises from commissioning one.

Refunds work differently. Because the work is done for you specifically, the published-report refund policy does not apply. Cancel before work starts and you are refunded in full. Once work has started, we refund the part not yet done.

The full terms are in the Terms of Sale, which has a separate part covering commissioned work, and in the Disclaimer.