What are avatars?
An avatar in Mentova is a persona - a description of a hypothetical user who might ask AI a question about your topic. Avatars inject realistic audience context into the prompts Mentova sends to AI models, producing more representative results than generic queries.
Instead of asking "best CRM for small business", a prompt shaped by the avatar of a 40-year-old marketing manager will ask in language and with concerns that reflect that profile - making the AI response closer to what a real user in that segment would actually receive.
The three preset avatars
Preset avatars are available from the Starter plan onwards and can be selected in the campaign launch modal:
| Avatar | Profile |
|---|---|
| Alex | 20 years old - digital native, mobile-first, short attention span, discovery-oriented |
| Marie | 40 years old - professional decision-maker, thorough, research-driven, ROI-focused |
| Jean | 60 years old - experienced, trust-focused, prefers reliable recommendations, less tech-savvy |
These presets cover a wide demographic range and are useful for brands that want to quickly test whether their visibility varies across age groups without building custom profiles.
Custom avatars (Pro+ and Agency)
Pro+ and Agency plans can create up to 5 fully custom avatars per brand in Settings → Avatars. A custom avatar includes:
- Name and age - for display and identification.
- Occupation and context - shapes how questions are framed.
- Goals and pain points - influences what the AI is likely to prioritize in its answer.
- Language and tone preferences - affects phrasing.
Custom avatars are useful when your target audience is narrowly defined (e.g. "a CTO at a 200-person SaaS company evaluating security tools") and generic personas would produce misleading visibility data.
How avatars affect analysis
The avatar selected at campaign launch is stored with the campaign and passed through the entire analysis pipeline. Every prompt in that campaign is augmented with the avatar's persona context before being sent to AI models. The resulting visibility metrics, sentiment scores, and opportunities are therefore specific to how that persona type experiences your brand.
You can run parallel campaigns with different avatars on the same topic to compare how your visibility differs by audience segment.
Common pitfall
Avatars change the questions, not the models' underlying knowledge. If your brand is not cited for a topic, switching avatars will not fix the root cause - it may reveal which audience is most likely to encounter you, but improving visibility requires content and citation work.