How Driffle achieved 40% brand visibility and #1 citation share in 90 days

Company Overview

Driffle is a rapidly growing digital marketplace for gamers, providing instant access to game keys, gift cards, and software.

In a market dominated by legacy giants like G2A, Kinguin, and Steam, Driffle has carved a niche by focusing on price transparency and instant delivery.

The Challenge

As a newer market challenger in the gaming e-commerce space, Driffle faced significant competitive headwinds. Legacy competitors with over a decade of market presence had established strong traditional SEO dominance that would take years to overcome through conventional methods.

However, the team recognized a pivotal shift in consumer behavior. Gamers were increasingly using AI-powered answer engines (like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews) to ask complex questions like "Where is the cheapest place to buy Elden Ring keys safely?" or "Driffle vs G2A reliability".

Driffle wasn't just losing clicks; they were being excluded from these conversations entirely. AI models often returned generic lists of established players or, worse, hallucinated doubts about Driffle's reliability due to a lack of authoritative citations.

The Solution

Driffle turned to Cogni to execute a Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) strategy. The goal was to build "Brand Visibility" and "Citation Share"—ensuring Driffle wasn't just found, but recommended by LLMs.

The Strategy

Driffle took a data-driven, aggressive approach to achieving their goals. The team engaged deeply with Cogni's analytics to understand exactly where they appeared in Answer Engine responses and where competitors were winning.

Their tactical approach included:

1. Establishing Digital Truth: We used Cogni's Audit tool to identify how major AI models perceived Driffle. We implemented comprehensive schema markup and "About" data to explicitly define Driffle's entity relationships—connecting them to valid trust signals like Trustpilot reviews.
2. The "Answer Kit" Strategy: Instead of just product pages, we built structured information blocks designed specifically for AI ingestion. This included verifiable data points about delivery speeds, refund rates, and inventory tiers.
3. Review Sentiment Injection: Cogni identified that AI models heavily weigh user sentiment. We launched a campaign to aggregate and highlight specific, detailed user reviews that answered common friction points (e.g., "instant delivery verified").

The Results

Driffle didn't just meet their goals, they exceeded them dramatically within the first 90 days.

Lifts in brand visibility

• Increased Brand Visibility Score from ~15% to over 40% across core gaming topics.
• Achieved consistent visibility across 5 major AI platforms (Google, Perplexity, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini).

Citation domination

• Achieved #1 ranking for citation share in their industry among competitors like G2A and Kinguin.
• Dominated high-value comparative queries (e.g., "Driffle vs [Competitor]").

Business impact

• 3x increase in high-intent referral traffic from AI platforms.
• 40% Citation Share in comparative queries, establishing them as a top recommended brand.

Building a culture around AEO

Beyond the impressive quantitative results, Cogni transformed how Driffle operates. The team now tracks "Citation Share" as a core KPI alongside traditional SEO rankings.

"Cogni enables us to see exactly what the AI models are saying about us," says Chetan. "We can verify if our new 'Buyer Protection' policy is being picked up by Perplexity or if ChatGPT still thinks we're a 'new marketplace'. It gives us control over our narrative."

Looking ahead

Driffle's success proves that specifically targeting AI visibility is the most efficient growth lever for modern challenger brands. By speaking the language of LLMs, they leapfrogged competitors who are still obsessed with 10-year-old SEO tactics.

Ready to see how your brand appears to AI? Run a free audit with Cogni today.