How an organic dog supplement brand earned 26 AI citations and beat competitors with 10x the budget
A small organic dog supplement company was invisible in AI answers despite having better ingredients than the brands being recommended. ChatGPT now mentions them by name.
The problem
The brand sold organic joint, skin, and digestive supplements for dogs through their DTC store. Their formulas used better ingredients than most competitors, and they had strong customer loyalty. But they had a fraction of the marketing budget of brands like Zesty Paws and PetHonesty. When dog owners asked ChatGPT or Perplexity for supplement recommendations, those bigger brands appeared every time. The founder tested 45 prompts and found the brand mentioned once, buried in a list of alternatives.
What are the best organic supplements for dogs with joint problems?
Popular dog joint supplements include Zesty Paws Hip & Joint Bites, PetHonesty Hemp Hip + Joint, Nutramax Cosequin, and VetriScience GlycoFlex. These are well-reviewed and widely available...
What we did
Prompt research
We mapped 890 prompts across dog health, joint care, organic pet products, and breed-specific supplement queries. Pet owners ask very specific questions: best supplement for a golden retriever with hip dysplasia, or organic alternatives to Cosequin. We found 18 prompt clusters where the brand's organic formulations were the best answer but had no AI presence.
Citation building
We built citations on 11 high-authority pet health resources, veterinary databases, and dog wellness publications. We got the brand mentioned in ingredient comparison articles that AI models pull from when answering supplement questions. We also structured their product pages with detailed ingredient sourcing and third-party testing data.
Monitoring and growth
By week seven, ChatGPT started recommending the brand in organic dog supplement queries. The traffic increase was 124% in AI-referred visitors. What stood out was that this small brand was now appearing alongside competitors spending 10x more on marketing. AI levels the playing field when you have the right citation signals.
The results
Citations by platform
“We could never compete with the big brands on ad spend. But AI does not care about your budget. It cares about your ingredients, your reviews, and whether trusted sources mention you. Akravo built that for us in three months.”
Want your brand recommended by AI?
We can show you exactly where your brand stands in AI results today, and what it would take to change that.