Overview

The client is one of India’s fast-growing tile and ceramic brands, offering a wide range of products for residential and commercial spaces. With a strong retail footprint, a trusted reputation among architects, builders, and homeowners, and established visibility across high-intent search queries, the brand had built a solid digital presence. The objective was to strengthen its visibility across AI-powered discovery platforms, where consumers were increasingly researching tile brands, product recommendations, and buying decisions before visiting a showroom.

The Challenge

Building materials is a difficult category to build visibility in AI search because AI platforms often lack clear category understanding. For tile-related queries, they tend to rely on directories, marketplaces, and aggregator listicles instead of recommending manufacturers directly. As a result, brands that actually produce the products are often missing from AI-generated recommendations.

The client was also starting from a very low visibility base. An early tracked campaign showed only 1.3% overall AI visibility, with zero visibility on both ChatGPT and Perplexity. With no established presence and limited competitor benchmarks in the category, the challenge was not to improve an existing position, but to create one from the ground up.

Key Strategies Implemented

1. Establishing Brand Authority

Developed comprehensive, educational content covering tile types, finishes, sizes, applications, and buying guidance to position the brand as a trusted source of information. This strengthened the authority signals AI platforms rely on when recommending brands.

2. Strengthening Third-Party Presence

Enhanced the brand’s visibility across trusted directories, comparison platforms, and industry roundups where AI platforms frequently source recommendations. This ensured the brand was consistently represented across influential third-party sources.

3. Optimising for AI Discovery

Implemented platform-specific optimisation by creating structured, well-sourced content and enhancing product information for AI platforms such as Gemini and Perplexity. These efforts improved the brand’s discoverability for high-intent product and brand-related queries.

4. Showcasing Product Depth

Leveraged the breadth of the brand’s product portfolio through detailed, structured information on product specifications, finishes, sizes, and applications. This helped AI platforms surface the brand for specific use cases and product recommendation queries, beyond generic category mentions.

Results (November – June)

• Gemini Visibility for Tile Queries
  Reached 39%, increasing from a near-zero baseline to become the brand’s strongest AI discovery platform.
• Perplexity Visibility for Tile Queries
  Reached 34%, with the brand appearing in 1 out of every 3 relevant tile-related queries on a research-focused AI platform.
• Overall AI Visibility Across the Core Tile Portfolio
  Increased to 33%, up from approximately 1% during the initial tracking phase across more than 2,400 tile-related queries.