Case Study

How a premium skincare brand went from invisible to 34 AI citations in 90 days

A European DTC skincare brand had strong Google rankings but zero presence in AI answers. We changed that in one quarter.

0 citations
AI citations earned
+0%
AI-referred traffic increase
3.2x
Conversion rate vs Google organic

The problem

The brand ranked well on Google for most of its target keywords. But when potential customers asked ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini for skincare recommendations, the brand was nowhere. Competitors with weaker products kept getting mentioned because they had the right citation signals. The brand's head of digital estimated they were losing 15-20% of potential customers who now start their research in AI tools instead of Google.

ChatGPT

What are the best European luxury skincare brands for anti-aging?

Some well-regarded European luxury skincare brands for anti-aging include La Prairie, Augustinus Bader, Dr. Barbara Sturm, Sisley Paris, and Skinceuticals...

Brand not mentioned in any AI response

What we did

Day 1-30

Prompt research

We mapped 847 prompts that potential customers actually type into AI tools when looking for products like theirs. Not guesses. We tested each prompt across all four platforms and logged which competitors appeared, how often, and in what context.

847 prompts mapped
Day 30-60

Citation building

We built citations on 12 high-authority sources that AI platforms pull from. This included getting the brand mentioned in ingredient databases, skincare comparison resources, and expert roundups that LLMs consistently reference.

12 high-authority citations built
Day 60-90

Monitoring and growth

We tracked citation changes daily across all four platforms, caught two hallucination issues early, and adjusted the strategy based on which citation sources were actually driving recommendations.

34 total citations achieved

The results

0
AI citations earned
0
Prompts mapped
0
AI platforms covered
+0%
AI-referred traffic increase
3.2x
Conversion rate vs Google organic

Citations by platform

ChatGPT14
Perplexity9
Gemini7
Claude4

We had spent two years building our Google presence. Akravo did something similar for AI in three months. The traffic from AI referrals converts better because those users already trust the recommendation.

Head of Digital, Premium Skincare Brand

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