Five months after their limited engagement partnership ended, a RealTruck marketer typed a simple question into ChatGPT and discovered their content sitting at the top of AI citations, outperforming competitors who were still sleeping on the LLM revolution. Here’s how they became early movers and reached a whole new echelon of visibility in the trucking industry.
RealTruck is a global manufacturer of truck accessories that competes in search with Amazon and other top-five providers in its space. They have a strong owned media presence with a robust blog that covers guides, research, and news.
Like many other strong brands, though, by relying on their owned channels for distribution, they were mostly preaching to the choir rather than capturing new consumers. They were up against incumbents, so talking to their existing audience alone was not going to cut it.
They set out to uncover: How do you extend your digital terrain to become more competitive when you're already doing content well? For RealTruck, the answer came through partnering with Stacker on content strategy and distribution, and the results would prove even more valuable than they initially realized.
Between November 2024 and April 2025, RealTruck collaborated with Stacker on content and distribution. The partnership produced strong media saturation with 1,400+ total media pickups that translated to valuable backlinks and improved search rankings.
To help expand their brand authority, Stacker provided a content roadmap of timely story ideas that RealTruck could distribute to media publishers via our newswire, complete with a rationale showing how similar stories were performing. (Today, these recommendations come weekly to brands through Stacker’s Portal 3.0 and Sparks.)
RealTruck implemented the Stacker content strategy by syndicating the recommended stories, and they all performed well. Though when they distributed their blog story, “Lift Kit Laws by State: Rules and Guidelines for Lift Enthusiasts,” on Stacker’s newswire, they hit gold.
Like many industries, the lead-up to the holiday season is one of the busiest times of year. Trucking is no different. In November 2024, trucking policies were a more frequent topic of conversation due to the recent elections and potential legislative changes brought about by new administrations at the state and federal levels. Lifted trucks are just one example of the potential changes that truckers, whether enthusiasts or professionals, found themselves seeking out answers—answers that more readers were able to find because of the Stacker newswire.
But at the end of their limited-run engagement, after distributing several stories with Stacker, the partnership came to a close as business needs changed, despite its success.
Five months after RealTruck and Stacker parted ways, a RealTruck marketer got curious. They could see in Stacker’s dashboard that the Lift Laws story had great pickup, but they decided to test ChatGPT, asking, “What lift height is legal for a truck in Pennsylvania?”
Sitting at the top of the AI citations was their original Lift Laws content from their blog. The next two articles cited were media sources from Stacker’s distribution of the story. The team verified it internally and shared on a call: “The stuff we did with them is performing.”
[Include a screenshot of ChatGPT citations]
Soon after, they emailed Stacker, saying, “We’ve been noticing Stacker getting some good accolades in the AIO-readiness world lately. Congrats. We recently took a quick peek back at our limited-run engagement, and noticed some of our syndicated ‘stories’ are holding up well in ChatGPT mentions…”
RealTruck’s numbers were compelling evidence that Stacker’s earned reach strategy had worked.
RealTruck’s domain rating (DR) for backlinks from Stacker averaged around 60 compared to DR 13 from other sources, showing the massive difference in the quality of Stacker as a trusted source. Though Stacker contributed only 7% of the content links to RealTruck’s website, the algorithmic weight of those contributed to 24% of the traffic of their entire domain.
This is what we’ve been showcasing over and over again: placements with high-authority media outlets can move the needle more than volume alone.
The impact of these stories extended across RealTruck’s entire domain performance:
The Lift Laws story had the elements that make content sticky to LLMs:
RealTruck can now rinse and repeat these strategies by identifying more comprehensive topics in their niche where they can:
RealTruck became an early mover in LLM citations before most of the industry realized their value.
Their partnership with Stacker didn’t just generate backlinks and media pickups — it positioned their content to win in the AI-powered search landscape that’s rapidly becoming the norm.
Ready to Make a Move in LLM Citations Like RealTruck?
Tamara Sykes is a strategic communicator specializing in content strategy, PR, and brand storytelling. As Head of Client Content Strategy at Stacker, she helps brands achieve earned media success through journalist-crafted content strategies. With expertise in digital PR, media partnerships, and audience engagement, she’s passionate about elevating brand visibility and driving meaningful impact.
Photo Illustration by Stacker // Canva