Ep. 3 - The New Rules of Walmart Growth: How AI Is Reshaping Retail Performance

Walmart Marketplace search is starting to feel less like typing keywords and more like having a conversation, and that shift can either unlock growth or quietly bury your listings. We dig into what “agentic search” really means for Walmart sellers and suppliers, how tools like Sparky fit into the future of Walmart.com, and why Walmart will likely evolve carefully instead of flipping the table on rankings overnight.

We share a clear framework for SEO, GEO (generative engine optimization), and AEO (answer engine optimization). You will hear why strong Walmart SEO still matters, how product type and attribute precision can decide whether you are even eligible to rank, and why catalog consistency is becoming a competitive advantage as AI relies on structured truth instead of creative fluff. We also talk through what we are seeing on PDPs with AI Key Features and how that changes the way shoppers scan and decide.

Then we go off-site. Answer engines like ChatGPT and Gemini are already influencing shopping behavior and referral traffic, and they evaluate more than your Walmart listing. We explain the signals that build trust, why broader brand presence like helpful blog content still matters, and how to write key features and descriptions so an AI can confidently match your product to real questions. We close with practical testing methods to measure progress when there is no single “rank” to track. Subscribe, share the episode with a Walmart seller, and leave a review telling us what part of AI search you want us to unpack next.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Good morning everyone. Welcome back to the Marketplace Code. We're here with me again. It's David and your boy Michael. We'll be speaking about all the great, amazing things about Walmart Marketplace, Walmart.com, and you know how you can grow your business, whether you're a supplier, whether you're a seller, what matters to you? How can you grow on the platform? Today is a really fun topic, you know, AI, everyone's AI, AI, AI. And how can you optimize for agentic search, AEO, GEO? What does that even mean? Sparky, is that actually doing something? What about SEO? What about rank today? How do I handle all these different topics? So we had Sellcore take a really a three, a three-pronged approach, and we'll be diving into that today. So let's get right into it. What do you have to say, Mike? What's your initial thoughts here?

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Yeah, I mean, I think it's been really interesting how fast everything with AI has, how AI has grown. And I think it's really important to break it up into like what does it mean in different parts of the business and then how to action on it, right? Because there's, as you said, there's so many different ways how AI is affecting the landscape, right? Whether Walmart's building AI tools into like Walmart advertising product to help you run ads, and then there's like on the back end of Seller Center to help you with you making listings, and then there's how, like you said, some of the most important things, how you show up on Walmart.com, how you show up externally, how you drive traffic. So there's a lot of parts to it. So I think it's really important to understand which parts are the most impactful and then how do you best adapt to it? And there's just for now, it's so such early phases. So it's just really getting an understanding of the landscape. And then, you know, as you get more familiar with it, figuring out how to properly invest and making sure that you're ahead of the curve.

Why Fundamentals Still Come First

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Oh, it's definitely. I mean, fundamentals are still fundamentals. We gotta, we gotta keep keep that top of mind that before you start going off and worrying about, you know, agentix search and even on-site, you know, through through GEO, you gotta first focus on the fundamentals. And it makes sense, right? If you think about the long-term picture of Walmart, Walmart's not trying to disrupt in the same way that a lot of, you know, a lot of companies are. Walmart's not trying to disrupt. They have a very core business that they want to maintain and keep keep healthy. They don't want it that suddenly when you go to their platform and you search for, you search for something using a long winded question rather than a specific keyword that is going to suddenly change the whole algorithm and how everything displays. If somebody's searching for, you know, chocolate versus someone searching was like really good chocolate to put in an Easter egg, right? That's going to be a very different, it can't, it can't be a very different search because obviously, you know, Walmart's Walmart has a massive store business that they need to maintain and continue and it needs to be consistent with the same order volumes and everything needs to be very, very similar. So I like to take a little bit of taking a look at history and seeing what happened historically, and maybe that'll allude to potentially what will happen again in the future. Now, although this is not a one-to-one comparison, take a look at the evolution of Walmart.com over the past, say, five years. You know, even prior to that, you know, maybe then there could be a little bit more disruption, even, you know, with the merging of pickup and delivery alongside marketplace. Those are maybe some bigger factors that existed. But even since then, look how far Walmart has grown. Walmart has grown so significantly in their dot com, and the health of that business is paramount. You can't just throw a wrench in and expect everything to just continue as normal. So just take a look at the evolution historically. Let's go back to item spec three, you know, when it was three and then it was four, and then it was now it's now five. How did that evolution happen, right? You started off with a with just a mere 30 odd categories, then it transitioned to about 77 categories, and then it went to product types now with over 6,600 different product types. And we know for those of you who have listened to the podcast, or those of you who are aware of how things work on Walmart, product type is a barrier to entry, so to say. If you're not of the right product type, you can't rank for a certain keyword. But then, you know, how are these items ranking for the keywords in the first place? How does that whole association happen? It's not like someone at Walmart was sitting there and saying, all right, this keyword belongs to this product type. There's millions of keywords that get searched. No, what does Walmart do? They would look at the keyword, they would see what is the mix of the items that are displaying over there, what product type best fits those items, and then create an algorithm based on that. So it was really a chicken and egg situation. And with that, we could uh we could take a little bit of learning into the future. So let's let's summarize what that was. They had a method that they had to have to update, they had to go from 70 categories to 6600 categories. And to do so, they had to see what we can do to take a look at what exists today, not disrupt that, continue that for the marketplace of tomorrow. So that when someone comes in today to set up their product, they're not going through the flow that existed two or three years ago by a category level. They now have to go and buy product type. And that is actually, like I'm saying, a barrier to entry for ranking for those keywords. So now let's let's understand again, it's about keeping things the same. It's about that if you were to search chocolate two years ago, the landscape is not so much different than if you were to search chocolate today. Because again, those staple items need to remain at the top. If suddenly a bunch of miscellaneous items are there, it would just cause such chaos. Merchants would be going crazy, suppliers would be going crazy, there would just be general unrest because of this. So we have to think now what's Walmart going to do now moving forward with the, you know, with the adaption and just the general growth of AI and on-site search, not necessarily through keywords, but rather through questions.

Walmart Search Changes Through History

SPEAKER_01 6:02

And Walmart's even like really mentioned multiple times in different settings that they want to start moving more towards conversational search, right? They want to start moving towards the search bar not being knives, you know, like what do I want from what do I need? I need I need I'm making a party and I need this, right? And to your point, it's you have to fully restructure a catalog to be able to populate those types of results, but results for the items that make sense and that are gonna be high converting and all that. So I think your point is really like Walmart's gonna have to make this whole switch. So if we learn from history and like how Walmart's done a similar switch, and it's not as large of a change, but it's still a very large change that they've done in the past. We could assume that there's gonna be similar actions happening now, and how do we best prepare for that?

Conversational Search And Sparky Direction

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Yeah, and you can see it happening today in some capacity with Sparky, and it makes a lot more sense, right? How many times have you bought a product on any marketplace and it shows up as a tiny version of it, but like you're not really like you didn't necessarily read the copy because that item was ranked well, and it makes sense because it's priced well, and then until it shows up at your door, you're like, oh man, this is not this is not what I need. And if you if we do go through conversational search, it just makes that process a little bit a little bit better because then you're gonna get exactly what you're looking for because it understands it a little bit more. So we could understand this kind of the direction that Walmart's taking over here. We could see Sparky already happening today, and then the piece that we haven't necessarily dived into so much is on the on the off-site piece, as you know, that's that's a major, major piece. People searching through Chat GPT, through Gemini, through whatever different, different, you know, uh uh agentic models to find to find products. So let's get back to with that in mind, with that in mind that Walmart's not going to try and make this major change to how you know the search results are and how items display. So, how can you prepare today to optimize and be able to maintain, you know, or gain that ability to rank in this conversational search? So to start, we begin with the like one fundamental, which is I know this is not it's not general people want to hear, but you gotta just continue doing what you're doing today. And what that means is to actually invest and put time into making sure that you are ranking organically for your top search terms. Because if you're doing well in SEO, like we just said, it should continue and maintain into that GEO, um that GEO search. What does that mean? This means that you want to make sure the very simple things, obviously, your content scores are doing well. You want to make sure you're categorized correctly, but you also, this is actually where it gets a little bit more complicated than it was historically. You need to make sure your attributes are perfect. This is something that was actually a big driver of the product type shift again from that 77 categories to the 6,600 categories, uh product types, is fine-tuning attributes by cat by product type. So, what I mean by that is you'll see, let's say, additional features is a very common attribute. But the values for additional features vary drastically between product types. And it makes sense, obviously, right? If you're selling a toothbrush versus if you're selling the sofa, their additional attributes are going to be, you know, removable cushions doesn't necessarily make sense for your toothbrush, unless you have a very weird toothbrush, it does just doesn't make any sense for you, right? And similarly, I mean, this has to apply to every single product. Almost every single product type has additional features as an attribute. So they're made, it used to be freeform attributes for a lot of this, but then when again, when there just has to be more continuity, they have to make these drop downs. And similarly, here, where do they get those values from the drop-downs? What do they look at? They looked at what the top items had, what were the top performers in the product type, what were their attributes on the drop-down, taking those, normalizing it, and then creating, okay, this is what makes sense. And what's the reason for that? This allows is actually you'll hear Walmart speak about this, is that they don't want search. Obviously, search is very keyword driven, but they want when someone goes into search to not just look at the keywords in the copy, but also looking at the attributes. I think a super common example of this is if you were to look in, let's say, apparel, you search for a red shirt, you're gonna see the red shirt variations are going to pop up first over, let's say, a green shirt, even if let's say the green shirt was a parent listing. How does Walmart know that? Because again, they're looking at the color attribute. Now, that's a very simple explanation of it, but that is so broad and vast across. Think about that, that every single search is taking a look at some sort of attribute if there is more than just a single keyword, especially if you go to like more long tail keywords, every single piece becomes so much more important. And this is like a diet version, you know, of what the conversational search is going to be. Like, think of a long tail keyword as the beginning, the opening to that conversational search. So if you're able to master and really get those attributes down, something that people quickly overlook, it's like, oh yeah, I'll just fill in whatever. I can just give my strong content score and let me move on. No, actually think about does this apply to your product, how does it apply to your product, making sure that it's that's accurate. If it is a free form filled, fill it in correctly, because these things are all going to impact the that next that next generation.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Can you explain a little bit like what a free form filled is?

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Yeah, so just you know, the the main difference would be like if it's a drop-down or just like uh like just open text. Yeah, if you just want to like just write in information over there. Obviously, this is a a very common theme with uh with AI, is you don't you want to make sure obviously when people use search, they're making typos all day. But when you're having a catalog, and let's say especially with a broader catalog, you need consistency. This is actually one of the key pieces for optimizing for GEOs. You need consistency within your catalog. You don't want it to say different things for different products, it just creates AI is gonna be using, needs to try it tries to use as much consistent truth as possible. So if they're looking at three different listings and all say something vastly different, it doesn't create this cohesive story of how this product is or what this brand is. It's giving you three different data points, like, wait, what's what's going on up here? And then they find the brand that maybe is a little bit more consistent across their product set, and they all share the same ideas and stories and and that the the goals, it it again, it's just more sources of truth for that for that brand and that product, and it'll line it up. So it's very important to be consistent.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

To bring it back a step, what do you think are the, you know, we spoke about multiple different types of AI and ways you have to think of it. Maybe we could outline here's the three abbreviations, what they stand for, and then how like a one or two sentence liner for how to think about it because I think that's really helpful because even for me, there's so much going on, and I'm like, this, that, what do I care about? So I think that'll be really helpful.

On-Site SEO And Attribute Accuracy

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Yeah, no, for sure. So the basic is obviously SEO, which is not even AI, just search engine optimization. This is something it's been around for a while. You know, obviously, I think Google was a big, I don't know, don't quote me on this. I think Google was probably where that got really big. I don't know. I wasn't around. I wasn't I wasn't doing this back then. I just I just know Walmart. Don't ask me about other things. All right, let's talk about the three different search results, let's say. SEO, GEO, AEO, what do they mean? What do they stand for? Let's start simply with you know, the the father, the father of this all, SEO, search engine optimization. This is what do you think, Mits? Let's say Google, when you're searching for for you type something into Google, which could be a question, it could be a specific keyword, and then it returns those results. And that's gonna come from layering keywords into things. There's backlinks, there's all sorts of different different ways to rank for this. It depends on the platform. Simply on Walmart, SEO is primarily going to be within your copy. That's gonna be like the simplest way to optimize for SEO and turning those keywords, but also all these other things we've been discussing. Geo is generative engine optimization, and that's the idea when you are conversing with with a with an AI, not necessarily a question base, but just giving it a little bit of a longer piece, not necessarily a keyword, just a bit of a longer conversation. And where you're gonna see this is within like AI chat box. That's really common. You're gonna see conversational. Sparky is a great example for this with Walmart. Obviously, you know, let's say Rufus on Amazon or any website you visit these days, and they're annoying little chatbots like, hey, he's talking, like that is that's what the GEO is for. And then there's AEO, which is answer engine optimization. Now, what's that? What's that? That's for question based. It's like, what is the best blah blah blah blah blah for blah, blah, blah, blah that I could use for blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? Just like a, you know, what is the best hairspray that I could use while traveling on vacation with high UVs? Like something like that. Just so, like, so I don't get, you know, sunburnt hair. I don't know. Something like just like reverse, just a question that I could find on Walmart.com. You know, you can keep on adding to this, and it'll just be like, all right, it's gonna start targeting each of these, break down your question, and find what's the best way to answer those. So again, SEO, we've covered, we've covered quite quite extensively here. For GEO, now we started talking on it, it's about consistency, it's about being again, the generative piece relies on truth, it relies on proofs, it relies on these consistent data points across a brand, and that's what helps it do well. And you again, you'll see this with Sparky today. And if you even search for for like your top products, and you're like, hey, recommend me the top X product on Walmart, it's like, hey, why is my product not necessarily finding coming up? Because oftentimes there's not that consistency versus a smaller brand that maybe hasn't necessarily put in as much effort as showing up over there. Now, obviously, that's why maybe Sparky isn't you know the search bar yet, because there still is going to be work to be done there because, like we're saying, and they're not trying to disrupt, but it is having, I mean, having used Sparky just from it's where it started to where it is today, we can see how much more it's advanced and improved to really better understand products. And the interesting point on this is that if you go to Walmart today and you search for a lot of like large, like a lot of like I find this more with like bigger, bigger products on necessarily every product, and you just click into the PDP, you'll see AI key features, something that was previously just your standard, like key features long description, what happened over there, and also it's interesting how they're laid out. So if let's say you have five bullet points on your listing, right? Your five key features in whatever structure you have it, if you look at the AI version of it, what they do is they consolidate it and make it super simple to read with the first two words bolded, and then it gives you a little bit of description on it. So it could be like, let's say you're selling a food. If you're like low fat, high energy, as like your your start of your pull out and then you wrath about it, they'll be like fat-free, high energy. Like they just want to keep it very concise, like very quick two words for a number of reasons, but also it just helps, it helps again with the that data that feeding back to their own, you know, their own search results, which again keeps that simplicity over there, as well as it makes it a lot more user readable for, you know, let's say mobile users or or any right, how much shopping today, how much shopping is happening through through either mobile or through app. You need that short, you need that short copy, you need those as a boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It just gives you that quick bite of what this product is instead of having to read this whole long text that you, you know, obviously you love to rant and rant about how beautiful your products are, but people just want something short and straight to the point. And it also, again, helps feed out, feed that that GEL piece.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Something I've seen with Sparky is like a lot of brands are getting very concerned if their items aren't showing up in Sparky. And I think that there's really two things to keep in mind. When you're thinking about Sparky, it's it's very early for Walmart as well. So because your item isn't showing up there, it's not necessarily a cause for concern. You might be doing a lot of the things well, but it's just taking time for their AI to learn. And it's taking time for their AI to really process which items to promote, how to do it, and all that. So you want to make sure you're aware of it and you're starting to optimize towards it. But like if your item isn't showing up there, don't panic because it, number one, it could be you're not doing the right things, which is a possibility. And if that's the case, you work on that. Look to David's point, you have to work on consistency of your content, you have to work on thinking about how it's adjudging your items and making sure you're infusing that into your listings. But also know that it's taking time for Sparky to actually learn and really absorb the right information and start promoting the right items. And, you know, this is just uh prediction, but I think that Sparky is gonna be the frame that they use to actually start implementing it through outside in a larger way, whether eventually and eventually the search bar. Um, so it's really about if you think about you know everything today is like how do you optimize for the search bar? So the way you do that for what the search bar is gonna be, in our opinion, is really optimizing for Sparky.

Consistency Across Listings For GEO

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Most definitely. Most of that seems to definitely be the trajectory. And then one I would say like one more key piece for Sparky optimization is just what the product is for. And I think this small word for is crazy. It's crazy how strong for is because people will just go with a just a standard uh keyword, which is just a just two words. Let's say here, like people will typically go for just a simple keyword, let's say woman's shirt, but rather like a shirt for a woman. That's a very like again, super simple, super simple example. But for it just it just unlocks so much because when especially when you're when people are are asking, they're always asking for. It's just like I need this for, right? So that four piece, people always the AI is always gonna be looking, what is this for? What is this product and who is it for? What is it for? And you'll see a lot in any category, you'll see blender for kitchen, like even something like that. And it's actually it's funny because a lot of the top keywords on Walmart have four in it. So it's already, if you already know your keyword research, you'll already have this information. But like kitchen blender versus blender for kitchen, two very big keywords, but the four is gonna help you a little bit more in that long run. And you can have both if you know how to you know layer your title properly, but it's just a strong piece about it, and again, it's gonna be about that simplicity within your within your copy. That fluff is just gonna create too much ambiguity. And it's funny because people use AI for copy and it's just all fluff, and then the AI has to reduce the fluff. It's it's kind of funny, just a general like AI anecdote. I feel like so much these days is AI speaking to each other on both sides. How many of you guys, you know, you're and you reach out to someone, you send them a whole AI email, and then they get the email that they just put in AI that they shouldn't respond, like like just kind of cut it. Everyone should just send prompts to each other. I feel like it'd just be so much easier to work with people. But it's it's great. But that's essentially what you're doing here is you create this AI listing, then you ask AI to find you the product. It's just it's just all nonsense happening in the background, just a funny concept. But if you have that consistency, and I think like another very simple concept of this is variations, right? Making sure that your naming is consistent. How many times do you have like brown versus I don't know, light brown or just brown with the typo or capital B, lowercase B, like just simple little things. And like you call this one camo and you call this one green. It's like keep consistency across your listings. That I would say is gonna be one of the one of the simplest things that you could do today, just to make sure that you are you are set for that GEO. And again, the the last part we'll we'll speak about after all this is measurement. But that that's like just gonna be a very simple way, just to see like I did I made these changes. How can I now go ahead and measure and see how that uh how has that actually impacted my listings? How am I now showing up better? Am I now not? No, I'm just I'm just listening, I'm learning. Is listening? Oh, yeah. I feel like I'm talking. This whole thing over here. All right. Now let's talk about the last one. Let's talk about that answer engine optimization, this AEO piece. Let's first understand what it is. I'll use the simplest example here. Let's take the chat GPT. It's going to be asking it a question about it's going to be this typically an off-site, not necessarily like this on-site piece. It's going to be like, how do I optim how do I how do I optimize it? You ask it, what is a good product for X, Y, and Z, right? Again, that's what we've what we've been talking about on Walmart.com. What is ChatGPT gonna show you? It might show you the top five, let's say you say one of the top five. What drives what ChatGPT is gonna respond to? So the best part, one of my favorite things about ChatGPT is it's not like Google where, like, not not hating on Gemini right now. It's not like the Google of your where you ask it, what determined why you said this? Like it's not, it's just it's just search results, just a bunch of pages. Whereas with AI, you're having you can have that conversation. You can be like, why did you tell me these five and why did you rank one as one and three as three? And obviously, if you're using the higher end models, they'll give you more information over there, but they're actually telling you and giving you insights into their now, obviously they're not checking their algorithm, they're just seeing what other people wrote about their algorithm, but they do give you some good information over there.

SEO Vs GEO Vs AEO Explained

SPEAKER_01 23:21

I think one of the biggest things is like you're constantly getting closer and closer to what you need in your answer. So, like if you think about Walmart search or even Amazon search or Google search, you search one thing and the results are crap. So you're like, okay, this is not working out. So you have to fully restart your search. Your second search is not taking any learnings from what was good about your first search. And then it's like, okay, that didn't work. So let me start getting more and more and more targeted. But it's really not, it really isn't taking any of the learnings before at as opposed to chat. It's like, okay, this part wasn't good, but let me keep that part and then it keeps owning down. And it learns you. Exactly. So for like product selection, it's like, okay, I wanted a shirt and I wanted a pink shirt, but like I didn't like this part about it. So it's like, okay, here's more results. And I think it'll just allow, I think if you think about how it's gonna affect the whole shopping behavior, it'll allow for a much more extended assortment because it used to be if your item was too niche or if your item was too specific, it would be really hard to get found because people wouldn't think to search for that. Right. Right? Like you're not gonna search for this really long keyword. Exactly. So they're not gonna search for that, even if that's what they're looking for, right? And it's gonna be hard to get that in front of them because the thing that's gonna show up is the more general thing, right? Like if you wanted a certain type of, you know, if you wanted a certain type of shirt and you wanted black buttons on it, um, you know, you just and whatever it is, like you're just not gonna think to search that's what you search shirt and then you see a bunch of details, but if it's not applicable to you, then you're just you're not gonna end up purchasing it now. So I think extended assortment is gonna become larger and larger and larger. And it's gonna be about how to start populating those items and making sure that they kind of show on the top. And that's why marketplace is gonna be really key because marketplace allows you to have that extended assortment and lean into that where you could really start really being more give the customers what they're really looking for. Because if they're doing that really targeted search, they're gonna want to see results that come up that actually match that because the AI might be really good, it might know exactly what you're looking for. But if you don't have the items to match that demand, then like it's it's gonna ruin the experience because you're gonna still populate some items and it's just not gonna be as as high-converting or applicable items, and then people lose trust with the experience and as much, you know, they they just don't have as much of an efficient shopping experience.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Most definitely, most definitely. That's a great as a great takeaway. And just thinking about also the direction of how much shopping is happening through AI and the necessity, uh again, obviously stick to fundamentals today and think about the future and consider. But obviously, it's changing rapidly, but in every category.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

It's so crazy. I was at dinner on Friday with a couple lawyers and like um financial people, like investors, and they're like, one of them had like, he's a newer guy in the in the industry, but he had like three analysts, and he said he he fired all his analysts because he just started using cloud for his for his analyst work, and it was like way better. He's like, I was at follow-up with my analyst for the notes, and then the notes are not so accurate, and then afterwards they have to do this whole model, and it's like after that, he's like, I just you know, half these people's time, all they spend is making like these presentations, and he's like, he created a cloud model that just will automatically plug into his PowerPoint and just update, take the Excel sheet, update everything, it sees it's not working, he updates it. So I think it's like obviously there's rapid change everywhere, and it's really about it's gonna affect e-commerce in a really big way. It's just about, and if you wait till it fully happens, it's gonna be really hard to learn about it. But if you over, if you do too much now, it's also not worth it because it's changing so quickly. So it's like I don't even know what's gonna happen. You don't know what's gonna happen. So it's how do you balance where there's the most impact? How do you still care about you know the current infrastructure? Because especially the larger the companies, the harder for them to make massive shifts. And Walmart's good at shifting and always, you know, and that's why they've been able to be the leaders for so long. But it's still you have to be cautious about switch. Like you said, these big these some of these items, they're big items, they have a lot of inventory of. They can't just all of a sudden not be searchable and not be found. So I think it's gonna affect in a big way. So it's like at this stage, it's if you're a supplier seller, how do you learn? Know what's gonna come and start preparing for it? Not gonna be fully right, but at least you'll be educated on it. And as changes start coming, you could be well equipped for it. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

I mean, uh again, Walmart is at the cutting edge of this, just their willingness to lead in with open AI and you know, and have that partnership and driving that. I mean, now there's a big Google partnership. Yeah, for sure. Exactly. And if you look at some data, uh I don't quote me on the specifics here, but uh I know there's some data that's been put out there of Walmart dominating about over a third of all referral traffic to to Walmart.com. It's like 34% or 35% of all ChatGPT is through ChatGPT. Like that's crazy. That's when you ran the number when I ran the numbers, it came out to maybe be about like 1% of total e-comm sales in like totallycomm searches.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Totallycom no, I think sales. Well, it's hard to know exactly how much of that. Yeah, I mean it's hard to know what referral traffic actually translates to sales, but it's still gonna be a really strong amount.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

That's from whatever it is, it's crazy, and that's within like a short period of time. And it's only that that was even a number that came out right before I think they even announced a partnership.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Yeah, so it's crazy. It's just gonna keep growing. Yeah. And now I just saw now you could actually shop directly with Intrag. Yeah, now it's in initial betas right now. Yeah, I think that'd be what's first, right? Yeah, so it's crazy.

AI Key Features On Product Pages

SPEAKER_00 28:26

I'm excited for that. I'm super excited for that because it's it just makes me let's maybe a little lazier, you know. But you know, obviously now and I have to work on actually helping people get there. So let's let's just let's just knock out two more things over here. Let's say how can you optimize for AEO? So, what is ChatGPT looking at? So obviously you could ask it, but very simply put, they're not just looking at Walmart.com, right? Let's say Jen A, Jen GEO, they're just gonna be looking at you know what's on site, the data that exists over there and figuring it out. Versus this is going to look at the broader picture, right? Sparky is not looking at a blog post about your brand. They're looking at here's what you put into your listing. ChatGPT is looking at who is this brand. They don't want to refer crap because that's just gonna look bad on them. People they need to build that trust with that customer. So they're going to look at simple things, obviously, on the on-site. They're gonna look at, you know, your your your copy, they're gonna look at your reviews, their your ship speed, your price compared to your competitors. But they're also gonna look at, hey, do you have any blog posts about your product? And this is why you're still gonna see some top brands over there and why it's still important, right? Blog posts, blog posts, blog posts. Like you've heard this a million times for SEO. Again, it's not a whole brand new thing, it's just the same, just a little bit different. So obviously, if you're able to build that bigger brand presence and have more views and understanding of your brand broader on the internet as a whole, it will impact your ability to search and result in an AEO. And some other pieces are just again the the using the, I would say not necessarily the title in this case, but more we found like description of key features is a place where we see the ability to really speak a little bit more to the customer. And let's say, like we spoke about the four, like the four keyword, it becomes ever more so important because in the title you're limited. You have let's say 90 to 120 characters, the description of key features, like go to town over there, right? Go really again, don't be ambiguous, don't be too much fluff, but give it the this exact details. Make sure that you're very refined and just understanding, you know, your product, you know what people are searching for, you know, when someone's searching for sunscreen, you need to make sure the SPF is very clear, you need to make sure you have the right hair type for hairspray, you need to make sure you have the right lip shit as a shade for like your lips. Obviously, we're sticking to a very simple category over here, but again, this applies in every single way to every single product. You want to make sure that obviously stay within the legal component. But if you're selling something that's BPA free, make sure it's very clearly BPA free. If you're selling something that has a specific certification indicated, if it's meant for a certain demographic indicated in your in your description and key features, it'll just help you rank better because, yeah, think about it. Even if someone's not necessarily searching for that specific piece, even if someone someone's putting that in their question to ChatGPT, Chat GPT has so much history on all its users, right? And knows that you are a you know, your knows your background that has all that data on you just based on your other questions, and it's gonna use that to influence it's gonna put that into a search. So if you have, hey, this is actually perfect fit for this person because this person likes more premium products, and we also know that they're based here, and you know, let's say the shipping speed first, obviously, this is only going to continue continue to evolve and get better with time. That's uh just some key ways for how how to optimize for AEO. Let's wrap this up with one of my favorite parts of this is how do you actually measure success, right? There's you know, obviously we have Sellcore and a shameless plug over here. We have done incredible work when it comes to tracking organic ranked and sponsored ranked on site, share voice, there's um you know other tools as well, you know, that exist. But how do you actually see my AEO and my GEO results? Now, simply there's not necessarily a data point that's gonna just track, there's not a single keyword that's going to be the same within Gen AI or within G R Ao. It's not the same question. Everyone has that personalized piece to it, so it's not as simple. But my suggestion for Sparky, it's not let's say obviously, if you're signed out, it'd be easier. Just go to Walmart, give it a very what is the best, and then put in your main keyword there and just see if your product's showing up, test that every few weeks as you make your optimizations. For AEO, go into a temporary chat, right? You don't want it to have all that personalized data. If all day you talk about your brand, your brand, your brand, it knows that you have an affinity and this connection towards your brand. So obviously they're gonna show your brand when you're searching for it, or hopefully they do, you know. But if you are going into your temporary chat, it's like an incognito browser, it's just gonna start from scratch and ask it the same query and ask it a few times, ask it every week, ask it every day as you make your optimizations. Ask it, why is my product not showing up over here? Put in the Walmart link. It'll be like, oh, it's actually because of X, Y, and Z. How could you optimize? Like, that's that's one of my favorite parts about the AI is you can just ask it and it'll give you that information. Obviously, again, use the better models to get even more information, but I'll give you tips because it's constantly evolving. Your listings are evolving, Walmart's evolving, everything is just continuing to change. So make sure to stay cutting edge, get ahead of it while still focusing on the fundamentals today.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

Yeah, thank you for everybody for tuning in. I'm excited about all the changes that are coming here. I know it seems like a lot, but as things progress and as we actually start seeing meaningful impact to search results and to how Walmart operates, we'll continue to keep informed so you understand where the main area is to keep the focus on so you don't get too distracted with everything that's going on. So we'll keep everybody posted on that. And as we learn and we'll learn together. And yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

This might this might all be obsolete in like two weeks. We have no idea. So make sure to make sure to listen to this now. Check the timestamp when you're listening to this, and make sure if we have a new episode, you're checking that one out as well. Thanks so much. Thank you, everybody.