Retail & E-Commerce

Advertise where AI shops for your customers.

When shoppers ask ChatGPT or Perplexity for product recommendations, AI reads trusted publisher pages to build its answer. Smalk places your ads on those exact pages — so AI recommends your brand and products.

800M+
Weekly AI Search users
#1 spot
Only one brand gets recommended per query
85%
Of people trust AI assistants by default

A new advertising channel for retail

Google gave you Shopping Ads. Marketplaces gave you Retail Media.
Now AI search is the fastest-growing product discovery channel.

Current Retail Ad Channels
Google Shopping — PPC bidding on search results
Display banners — ignored by AI when it reads pages
Retail media networks — limited to one marketplace
Not one of them shows up inside an AI answer
Smalk Search DSP
Ads on the review & roundup pages AI cites for shopping
Native, AI-readable — survives how AI parses pages
Target category, product, and 'near me' prompts
Your products enter the AI recommendation
The Shift

Your ad stack stops short of AI search

AI assistants don't render banners or tap your Shopping feed. They read trusted editorial content and name the brands and products they find there.

Banners Never Reach the Answer

When ChatGPT reads a product review page, it ignores banners and display ads entirely. Your current media spend has zero effect on what AI recommends to shoppers.

Your Shopping Feed Skips the AI Shopper

A growing share of consumers skip Google entirely and ask AI directly: "best running shoes under $150." Your Google Shopping budget doesn't reach these buyers at all.

No Presence Means No Recommendation

AI builds its product recommendations from editorial content on trusted publisher pages. If your brand isn't present on those pages, AI has no reason to mention you.

Our Solution

The first ad platform built for AI shopping

Smalk pinpoints the pages AI trusts when answering shopping questions, then lets you run contextual placements on them. Your products become part of the recommendation itself.

Land your products in AI buying shortlists

When shoppers ask AI for "the best wireless earbuds under $100" or "top-rated air fryers," your SKUs appear on the review and roundup pages it cites to build that list. You go from invisible to recommended at the exact moment of decision.

Cover every stage of the shopping journey

Activate across discovery, comparison, and purchase prompts — from "gifts for runners" to "Dyson vs Shark vacuum" to "where to buy organic protein powder." Smalk meets shoppers wherever AI is shaping the basket.

Win comparison and 'best value' queries

Get accurate pricing, specs, and live promotions onto the pages AI reads, so it weighs your products fairly instead of quoting stale numbers. Your bestsellers stay front and center when shoppers ask AI to compare options.

Turn 'near me' searches into store visits

Surface your store locations and stock on the local pages AI cites for "[product] near me" and "open now" prompts. AI routes ready-to-buy shoppers straight to your aisles.

Defend your category from competitors

Show up in the consideration set when shoppers research rival brands, lock out competitor placements, and control exactly where your products appear. Protect share in the prompts that drive your category.

Attribution built for retail

Track mention share, recommendation rank, and sentiment by product line and category — tied back to spend. See which SKUs AI is actually pushing and double down on what converts.

How it works

The media buying playbook you already run — pointed at a brand-new channel, fresh inventory, and measurable AI search results.

01

Map the shopping prompts AI answers

We surface the "best of" lists, product comparisons, and buying-guide questions AI fields in your categories — plus the exact retailer and publisher pages it cites to answer them.

02

Match your catalog to real demand

Align your bestsellers, hero SKUs, and store footprint to the prompts and pages that move revenue — for a product launch, a seasonal push, or the categories you're defending.

03

Go live across every AI engine

Native, AI-readable placements launch on those pages across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot — so your products land inside the recommendation, not in a banner AI never reads.

04

Optimize by SKU and category

Track recommendation lift per product and category, then shift budget toward the SKUs, prompts, and seasons that win shortlist spots and add-to-carts.

AI & Shopping Behavior

How AI search is rewriting product discovery

Online shopping used to mean a scroll through search results, a handful of open tabs, and a comparison spreadsheet living in your head. That entire funnel is compressing into a single conversation. A shopper now types "what's the best robot vacuum for pet hair under $400?" into ChatGPT and gets a ranked answer — complete with picks, reasons, and price ranges — before they ever land on a retailer's site. The research, the shortlist, and increasingly the decision all happen inside the assistant.

For retailers and DTC brands, the hard part is that the assistant doesn't pull from your paid campaigns. It synthesizes its recommendation from the editorial sources it trusts — buying guides, expert roundups, review sites, and marketplace listings. If your products are missing from those pages, priced wrong, or described with outdated specs, AI quietly recommends a competitor in your place. Unlike a search results page where you can at least buy your way to the top, the AI answer usually names just one or two products — and the rest simply don't exist to that shopper.

The stakes are highest at the bottom of the funnel, where intent is unmistakable: "where to buy," "best [product] for [use case]," "X vs Y," "is [brand] worth it." These are the queries that used to convert your most profitable traffic. Smalk gives retail and e-commerce brands a way to compete for them — placing contextual, AI-readable content on the exact pages AI reads, with accurate pricing and product data, so your catalog shows up the moment a purchase decision is being made.

Decisions move upstream
Shoppers build their shortlist inside AI assistants now, often before they ever visit a retailer or marketplace.
Winner-takes-most answers
AI typically names one or two products per query, so being left off the list means being invisible to that buyer.
Data accuracy decides
Stale pricing, specs, or availability can drop you from the answer — current product data is what earns the recommendation.
High-intent local demand
"Buy near me" and "in stock now" prompts send ready-to-purchase shoppers straight to your store or site.

FAQs

Common questions about advertising in AI search for retail & e-commerce brands.

SMALK

AI is the new shelf. Advertise on it.

Shoppers ask AI before they buy. Smalk places your ads where AI reads — so your brand and products get recommended.