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More holiday shoppers will start with a question to an AI this year. Adobe expects AI-referred traffic to retail sites to rise 130% year over year, according to Retail Dive. Those visits bring in 43% more revenue per visit.
Salesforce goes further. It predicts AI agents will drive 20% of holiday ecommerce traffic.
So here's the question that matters. When an AI reads about your product, what does it say?
Rebecca Wettemann, CEO of Valoir, put it simply to Retail Dive: "Brands need to think about whether AI can find, accurately explain and differentiate their products."
Find. Explain. Differentiate. Most brands only plan for the first one.
Seven questions to answer before the holidays
- What does an AI say about you today? Ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity to recommend a product in your category. Are you in the answer? Is what they say true?
- Does your product page answer what a store clerk would? Who it's for, how to use it, how it compares, what size to buy.
- Can a machine read your claims? If your best selling points live inside images, an AI may never see them. Put them in plain text.
- Do your reviews say what makes you different? Recent, specific reviews give an assistant something to quote.
- Is your product info the same everywhere? Your site, Amazon, Walmart and Target should tell one story. Conflicting details make you look less reliable.
- Do you have honest comparison content? Shoppers ask "which is better?" If you don't answer, someone else will.
- Can you see AI traffic in your analytics? Set up a channel for AI referrals now, so you can tell in January what it was worth.
Holiday ads still matter. But this year, a lot of first impressions will happen in a chat window. Make sure the machine knows your story.