Customer Acquisition

During the holiday season, retailers’ online traffic numbers skyrocket, but so does their competition. With standard site navigation, Black Friday and Cyber Week shoppers must click through product pages to find what they’re looking for. If they can’t easily find it, shoppers abandon their carts and visit other sites. However, modern artificial intelligence commerce agents…

The most significant shift in the history of performance marketing is happening right now, and most of the industry is responding by doing more of the same. Artificial intelligence isn't just changing how ads get delivered. It's changing the nature of the buyer journey itself. Answer engines are replacing search, agentic shopping tools are beginning…

Companies selling into retail are quickly learning that artificial intelligence discovery is not just another version of search. Retail business buyers are no longer simply scanning a list of links. Increasingly, they're asking AI tools to compare options, summarize categories, explain tradeoffs, and recommend what to consider next. This shift is already visible in buyer…

More than half of consumers (58 percent) have replaced traditional search engines with generative artificial intelligence tools for product recommendations. That figure was 25 percent just two years earlier. Your next storefront visitor may not be a person at all. It may be a large language model (LLM) deciding whether to recommend your products. Most…

Ulta Beauty shoppers will soon be able to purchase Bath & Body Works' signature fragrances, hand soaps ​and candles in more than 600 stores as both companies pursue turnaround plans that include more partnerships. Part of Bath & Body Works' "Consumer-First Formula" aims to give shoppers more ways to find the company's ​lotions and candles,…

There's a belief embedded in retail marketing culture that organic traffic is essentially free. It shows up in merchant budget presentations, agency pitches, and omnichannel strategy decks. The logic seems airtight: search engine optimization (SEO), social media, product review communities, and content marketing cost nothing to place, ergo they cost nothing to run. But “no…

Artificial intelligence is changing where and how buyers discover retail brands. Shoppers who once searched across product pages, marketplaces, reviews and buying guides are increasingly turning to AI-powered search engines and shopping assistants to compare options and narrow decisions. For retailers, that creates a new visibility challenge: the moment of intent is moving into environments…

Retailers entered 2026 bracing for a slowdown, with a clear expectation that younger consumers, particularly Gen Z, would pull back on discretionary spending. So far, however, the reality has been quite different. Rather than tightening their belts, younger consumers are showing a greater willingness to spend than their older counterparts, according to new research surveying…

Retail media networks (RMNs) have emerged as a powerful channel to reach audiences, particularly for brands lacking direct touchpoints with prospective customers. Their proximity to checkout, closed-loop measurement, and shopper data make RMNs highly effective at converting demand and delivering bottom-funnel impact. However, RMN campaigns are often planned, executed and measured in isolation, creating a…

Every day, thousands of people are searching and reading about your company. About your team's expertise. Learning from guides and marketing collateral. These actions have been building trust in your brand. All without ever clicking through to your website. A manager in need of help with chatbot implementation might take their questions to an artificial…