AEO for ecommerce brands
Answer engine optimization for ecommerce.
Product discovery is moving into the assistant, and the assistant returns two or three options rather than a grid of forty. Ecommerce also has the most structured data of any vertical, which cuts both ways: the baseline is high, so incomplete or stale product markup is a visible deficiency rather than a missing bonus.
Free scan. $99 one-time if you continue — refunded in full if you aren't mentioned on 2+ engines in 45 days.
The questions that decide it
What your buyers actually ask.
These are the shapes of question that put a ecommerce brand on a shortlist. Your tracked prompt set is built from the versions your buyers use.
“best [product category] under $100”
“what's the best [product] for [use case]”
“[brand] vs [brand] which should I buy”
“most durable [product category]”
“best sustainable [product category] brands”
“is [product] worth the money”
“alternatives to [popular product]”
“best [product] for beginners”
Where it matters most
Not every engine matters equally here.
Gemini and AI Overviews lead because they sit on Google's Shopping graph, where your product feed already lives. Perplexity is growing fast for comparison shopping and cites sources visibly, which makes it the best early indicator of whether your product content is being read.
What we find
Why ecommerce brands stay invisible.
These are the patterns that come up again and again in this vertical — not a generic checklist.
Product schema present but incomplete
Most stores emit Product markup and stop short of the fields that decide retrieval: availability, condition, GTIN, aggregate rating, shipping and returns. Partial markup is treated as unreliable rather than partial.
Descriptions written for the brand, not the buyer
Evocative copy without materials, dimensions, compatibility or use case gives a model nothing to match against a specific need. "Best X for Y" queries are answered from specifications.
Reviews trapped in a widget
Third-party review apps often inject ratings client-side, so the social proof that would most help you is invisible in the served HTML.
No buying guides
Comparison and 'best of' queries are answered from guides. With none of your own, engines answer from affiliate content whose incentive is to rank whoever pays the highest commission.
The structured data that matters here
Choosing the most specific applicable type is what turns a generic business into a recognisable ecommerce brand.
ProductOfferAggregateRatingBreadcrumbList
What corroboration looks like
Engines weigh what other sources say about you. In this vertical, these are the sources that carry weight.
- Verified reviews rendered server-side
- Marketplace presence with consistent product identity
- Independent press and roundup mentions
- Consistent GTIN/MPN across every channel
FAQ
Questions from ecommerce brands.
We sell on marketplaces too. Does our own site still matter?
Yes, because the marketplace listing rarely carries your brand's full story. The site is where category context, comparison and materials live, and it is what an engine reads when justifying a recommendation.
Do AI engines actually drive purchases yet?
They increasingly shape the consideration set rather than the checkout. The purchase may still happen on Google or a marketplace, but the two brands the shopper is choosing between were often named by an assistant.
How many products should we optimise?
Start with the ones that map to real category queries. A hundred perfect product pages nobody asks about is worth less than ten that answer the questions your buyers actually type.
How is this measured?
Your prompts are asked on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude and the answers recorded — whether you were named, in what position, and which pages were cited. The record is what the 45-day guarantee is judged on, so there is no interpretation involved.
What does it cost?
$99 once for a 45-day sprint. If your business isn't mentioned on at least 2 of the four engines by the end of it, you are refunded in full.
AEO for other industries
Ready to become the answer?
Free scan in ten seconds. $99 to fix it — refunded in full if we don't.