Case Studies — Arclign

Huel

Nutrition & DTC 6-month engagement · 2025 UK & US markets

How Huel went from AI afterthought to category leader in 6 months.

The challenge

Huel had built the UK's most recognised meal replacement brand through paid media and influencer marketing. But by Q4 2024, they noticed a troubling pattern: when consumers asked AI engines "What's the best meal replacement?" or "Is Huel worth it?", Huel was appearing in fewer than 1-in-4 responses — while newer, smaller competitors were frequently recommended.

With AI-driven discovery growing 68% YoY in their category, every uncited query was lost pipeline. The team needed a measurable, systematic programme to fix it.

Baseline metrics (Jan 2025)

AI citation rate (target queries) 23%

AI share of voice vs category 3rd of 5

Monthly AI-referred sessions 4,200

FAQ pages on site 2

AI Citation Rate — Jan to Jun 2025

% of target queries in which Huel is cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude & Bing Copilot

6-Month Results

+309%

Citation rate increase
(23% → 71%)

+340%

AI-referred organic
traffic growth

£847K

Revenue attributed to
AI-referred traffic

AI share of voice for
"meal replacement" UK

What we did

Entity authority audit

Corrected inconsistent brand naming across 23 third-party listings. Implemented organisation schema markup. Claimed and optimised the Google Knowledge Panel with accurate category classification.

Content gap programme

Created 19 new FAQ-optimised pages targeting high-volume AI queries in nutrition. Published a definitional "What is complete nutrition?" guide that now ranks as Huel's most-cited page by AI engines.

Third-party citation campaign

Secured 14 editorial placements in Men's Health, Healthline, GQ, and 4 specialist nutrition publications. Drove 320+ Trustpilot reviews to bolster community signal strength.

Weekly citation monitoring

Deployed tracking across 68 priority queries on all 4 major AI platforms, enabling rapid iteration when citation patterns shifted. Monthly reporting to CMO level.

"We'd invested heavily in brand-building but were completely invisible to AI search — the channel that was driving 18% of our new customer signups. Arclign changed that fundamentally. The citation data is unambiguous: we went from being invisible to being the first brand ChatGPT recommends in our category."

Sarah Chen

VP of Digital, Huel

Verified client

AI Share of Voice — Meal Replacement UK

Huel 71%

Was 23% · +48pp

Soylent 38%

Was 44% · −6pp

Saturo 22%

Measured across 68 target queries, Jun 2025. Scores may sum to >100% as multiple brands appear in single responses.

Paddle

B2B SaaS · Payments 4-month engagement · Q3 2025 Global markets

How Paddle captured 41% AI share of voice in the merchant of record category.

The challenge

Paddle had established itself as the definitive merchant of record platform for SaaS companies — but its position in AI search told a completely different story. When founders and CFOs asked ChatGPT or Perplexity about "merchant of record", "SaaS billing infrastructure" or "Stripe alternatives for global tax compliance", Paddle appeared in just 8% of responses.

Stripe — despite not being a true merchant of record — dominated these queries at 45% share, largely because of its content depth and third-party authority. Paddle needed to reclaim the category conversation before the window closed.

Baseline metrics (Jul 2025)

AI SOV for "merchant of record" 8%

AI trial signups (monthly) 180

Category queries with content coverage 31%

G2 reviews 148

AI Share of Voice — Before vs After

"Merchant of record" category queries, Jul → Nov 2025

4-Month Results

+413%

AI share of voice growth
(8% → 41%)

+280%

Trial signups from
AI-referred traffic

£142

CAC from AI channel
vs £340 from paid

340+

New G2 reviews
in 90-day campaign

What we did

Category ownership content

Built a 4,200-word "What is merchant of record?" guide that definitively explains the category — with Paddle positioned as the authoritative source. Now cited in 62% of definitional AI responses on the topic.

Comparison page programme

Published 4 direct comparison pages (Paddle vs Stripe, vs LemonSqueezy, vs FastSpring, vs Gumroad) targeting the high-volume "alternative to" query class. Combined, these pages captured 28% of new AI-referred trial signups within 60 days.

Expert thought leadership

Monthly attributed articles by Paddle's CEO and CTO on SaaS billing, global tax compliance, and AI in fintech — placed in TechCrunch, SaaStr, and CFO Magazine. Each piece increased AI entity authority scores measurably.

G2 & community signal programme

Structured post-onboarding review requests generated 340+ new G2 reviews in 90 days. Seeded authentic Reddit discussions in r/SaaS and r/entrepreneur, lifting Paddle's community signal presence by 4×.

"The GEO data was genuinely alarming at the start — we were the category leader with almost no presence in the channel that our target buyers were increasingly using for research. Four months in, we own the conversation. Our CAC from AI traffic is 58% lower than our paid channels. It's the most efficient acquisition programme we've ever run."

Marcus Thornton

Head of Growth, Paddle

Verified client

CAC by acquisition channel — Nov 2025

AI-referred (GEO)

£142

Organic Search

£210

Paid Search / Display

£340

Customer Acquisition Cost to paid trial. AI-attributed using UTM + GA4 channel grouping.

Real results.
Real brands.

How Huel went from AI afterthought to category leader in 6 months.

How Paddle captured 41% AI share of voice in the merchant of record category.

Ready to see your name in the answer?

Real results.Real brands.

How Huel went from AI afterthought to category leader in 6 months.

How Paddle captured 41% AI share of voice in the merchant of record category.

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Real results.
Real brands.