The first thing we read for this guide was Optimizely's online subscription agreement, and one clause in it sets the whole timeline. Section 3.1 says you can cancel the next renewal "by written notice to the other Party at least ninety (90) days prior to the end of the Subscription Term." Miss that date and section 1.3 renews the subscription for another twelve months on the same terms.
The second thing we found was stranger. Optimizely's older GEO Analytics dashboard, now a legacy feature for customers who had it before May 31, 2026, can download the whole dashboard as a PDF or CSV. Its replacement, Agent Visibility Analytics, only exports one tile at a time. If you're leaving, download the legacy dashboard while you still can.
This guide covers what exports from each part of Optimizely's AEO setup, what happens to your data after the term ends, and how to set up RankControl. It assumes you're keeping Optimizely CMS and moving only the AI search work, which is what most teams would do. If you're still comparing, our RankControl vs Optimizely AEO breakdown covers features and pricing. Everything below was checked on Optimizely's own support and legal pages on September 26, 2026.
What you're actually switching
Optimizely's AEO launch bundled three things, and each leaves differently. Agent Visibility Analytics and the Opal agents, such as GEO Auditor, are part of your Optimizely subscription. The Conductor agents that report what ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini say about you need a separate Conductor subscription, so their data follows Conductor's contract, not Optimizely's.
That split matters for timing. You might end the Conductor contract on one date and let Optimizely's AEO features lapse at renewal on another, while the CMS stays exactly where it is. Before you plan anything, check Conductor's own terms, because Optimizely's pages say nothing about what happens to that data.
Check the renewal clause first
Optimizely's agreement is short on flexibility. Section 2.1 says "all Orders are non-cancellable, except as expressly agreed otherwise, and all Fees are non-refundable." There's one opening worth knowing: if Optimizely raises the price at renewal, section 1.4 requires 120 days' written notice, and you can cancel that renewal term if you object.
Find your Order and your term end date, then count back 90 days. That's your notice deadline, and everything in the export section needs to fit before the term ends, not before the notice.
How to export your data from Optimizely AEO
Here's what each piece lets you take, based on Optimizely's own support articles.
| What | How | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Agent Visibility Analytics | Each tile: More, then Download As | CSV or Excel, data from November 28, 2025 |
| Legacy GEO Analytics dashboard | Dashboard actions, then Download | PDF or CSV for the whole dashboard |
| Opal agent reports (GEO Auditor and others) | Artifacts page, then Download as | PDF, Word or Excel, depending on type |
| Opal chat threads | Copy the chat | Clipboard only |
| CMS content | Settings, then Export Data | Export package of content items and types |
| CMP content items | Ask Opal to run its retrieve_from_cmp_as_csv tool | CSV |
The Opal row catches people. A GEO Auditor report saved as an artifact downloads cleanly, but the conversation that produced it, including any instructions you refined along the way, only copies to the clipboard. Paste the useful ones into a document before the term ends.
CMS content isn't going anywhere if you keep the CMS, but the GEO fields deserve a spot check. Optimizely's export docs list content items and types without naming the Q&A fields or GEO metadata its 2025 release added, so we can't confirm they travel with an export package. Export one page and look before you rely on it.
The CMP gap is odd. We found no export button in CMP's own interface; the documented route is an Opal chat tool that returns content items as a CSV. Calendar, asset library and task data have no bulk export we could find.
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Spend your remaining Opal credits
The Opal credits that come with your subscription are worth spending before you go. According to Optimizely's credits documentation, each Opal instance gets up to 200 complimentary credits a month under a promotion that runs through December 31, 2026, and a GEO Auditor run costs 70. That's two audits a month with a little left over, so pick your highest-traffic pages, run the audit on each and save the report as an artifact.
Optimizely doesn't say whether unused credits roll over, so don't count on a final burst in the last week. Spread the runs across the months you have left.
Those reports become your baseline. When RankControl starts writing new articles on the same topics, you'll have a record of what Optimizely flagged on your existing pages, and your team can work through those fixes on its own schedule. RankControl scores only the articles it writes, so the old reports stay your record for everything else.
What happens after the term ends
Section 3.2 of the agreement is blunt. At the end of the term you "must immediately" stop using the service and stop accessing customer data, and "Optimizely may delete all Customer Data at any time after thirty (30) days" from the last day.
The data processing agreement adds a firmer line for personal data: it's destroyed "no later than thirty-five (35) days" after access ends. It also says data "shall be returned to the Customer in an industry standard format mutually agreed by the Parties," with any reformatting cost paid by you. That return happens on request, so put the request in writing with your notice, not after the term ends.
Where things land in RankControl
RankControl has no import tool, and most of what you export stays as reference. The AI search work is set up fresh, and most of it gets typed once.
| From Optimizely AEO | Into RankControl |
|---|---|
| Prompts you ran through Conductor or Opal | Up to 50 tracked queries, checked weekly on six AI engines |
| Conductor share-of-voice competitors | Up to 10 competitors in your share of voice |
| GEO Auditor reports | A fix list for pages you already have, which RankControl doesn't audit |
| Agent Visibility Analytics tiles | Your before-picture; RankControl logs AI crawler visits once analytics is connected |
| Optimizely CMS | Stays put; new articles arrive through a webhook or the Content API |
Start with the prompts. Copy them into AI visibility tracking, rewriting any keyword-style entries as the full questions buyers ask. RankControl asks all 50 every week on six engines, including Claude, Grok and Google AI Mode, which Optimizely's own pages never name as tracked.
The weekly schedule is the real change from Opal, where agents run when someone calls them. In Glen Allsopp's September study for Ahrefs of more than 70,000 AI responses, ChatGPT gave the identical set of brands for the same prompt on only 0.3% of day pairs. A cited rate built from repeated checks tells you far more than one run on the day someone remembered.
The CMS row needs a plain answer. RankControl publishes natively to WordPress, Webflow, Shopify and six other destinations, and Optimizely CMS isn't one of them. Teams on Optimizely would have their developers connect RankControl's webhook destination or its Content API, which delivers each approved article for the CMS to publish. Auto-publish is off by default, so nothing moves until you approve it.
The rest is setup. Brand Control reads your live site and drafts your voice, products, buyers and competitors, and you correct the draft. The content engine then plans articles from your tracked queries and scores each one for how easily AI engines can quote it, with a fix list. Link Control looks for link prospects for each published article and drafts outreach from your own mailbox.
15 hours a week manually. Or 15 minutes with RankControl.
Track citations, monitor competitors, and fix content gaps across every AI search engine. Automatically.
The switch from Optimizely AEO, step by step
- Find your Order, note the term end date, and count back 90 days for the notice deadline: about 20 minutes.
- Check Conductor's contract separately and decide whether it ends too: about 20 minutes.
- Download each Agent Visibility Analytics tile you use, and the full legacy GEO Analytics dashboard if you still have it: 30 to 45 minutes.
- Download Opal artifacts and copy any chat threads worth keeping: about 30 minutes.
- Export one CMS page to check the GEO fields, then pull CMP content through Opal if you need it: about 30 minutes.
- Start RankControl, correct the brand draft, and add tracked queries and competitors: about an hour.
- Have a developer connect the webhook destination or Content API to Optimizely CMS: depends on your team.
- Send written notice before the 90-day deadline, with a request for data return in the same email.
That's roughly four hours of your time, plus the developer work in step 7. The notice deadline is the only date that can't move.
You can keep doing the AI search work by hand after the switch. Someone turns reports into briefs and articles, someone publishes and pitches, and someone re-reads 300 AI answers every week. Or RankControl's agents can do it every month, at $400 a month with a 7-day free trial, while your team keeps running the site in Optimizely.
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