Understanding how your brand appears in AI-driven answers is essential, but the real value lies in knowing what to do about it.
In today’s fast-moving omnichannel retail environment, data without action leads to irrelevance. Marketers need to connect emerging behaviors like zero-click searches and AI-assisted shopping to the strategies driving in-store displays, retail media, ecommerce content, and more.
That’s where AI traffic intelligence becomes an engine for activation.
Shopper Journeys Are Now Omni-Moment
Gone are the days of linear shopping journeys. Instead, decision-making is happening in scattered, overlapping bursts, which are sparked by social influence, AI suggestions, influencer content, retail search, and yes, old-school word-of-mouth.
According to recent studies:
- 79% of consumers use AI-powered search tools for product research before making a purchase.
- Over half of product discovery journeys don’t include a brand website at all.
- A growing share of ecommerce conversion is driven by content surfaced through voice assistants, AI chats, and curated AI product rankings.
These moments matter, but they often happen before the consumer ever sees a shelf or search ad. That’s why understanding AI influence upstream, is so essential to omnichannel performance downstream.
DigiTraffic: Turning Passive Awareness into Actionable Strategy
DigiTraffic from Behaviorally closes the gap between AI-driven visibility and shopper marketing execution. Here’s how it helps insights teams move from data to decisions.:
1. Real-Time Competitor Intelligence
Stay ahead of the competition by understanding how other brands are being positioned, not just across retailers, but across prompts, platforms, and content contexts. With DigiTraffic, you can:
- Surface competitor mentions across platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI.
- Compare language and positioning shifts over time.
- Uncover how sentiment and product claims evolve in AI summaries.
This intelligence can drive changes in:
- Brand messaging
- Ecommerce copy and PDP content
- Influencer and media briefing strategies
2. Content Optimization Through Source Analysis
AI doesn’t generate its answers in a vacuum;, it relies on external sources, such as product reviews, retail descriptions, media mentions, and user generated content. DigiTraffic identifies:
- The most commonly cited sources that influence AI brand mentions.
- Gaps in your brand’s visibility across those source types.
- Opportunities to place content or build partnerships that increase authority.
This enables content and shopper teams to focus efforts where they will directly impact discoverability — especially in early-stage research moments.
3. Activation in the Aisle and Beyond
AI insights don’t just impact search. They also inform:
- Packaging claims: Aligning on-pack messaging with the language shoppers are hearing in AI-generated answers.
- Retail media: Timing spend to coincide with spikes in category search or brand mentions.
- Sales enablement: Equipping retail partners and field teams with real-time competitive context and talking points.
In the near future, DigiTraffic will allow you to localize insights by market and language and thereby tailor your activations to where your shoppers are, both digitally and physically.
From Generative to Actionable
The rise of generative AI isn’t just changing how people get answers, it’s redefining what it means to be a brand of choice. To win in this new environment, shopper marketing teams need:
- Early visibility into how decisions are influenced.
- Insight into how AI platforms are shaping perception.
- The tools to respond in real-time, across channels.
DigiTraffic bridges insight and execution, helping you turn AI visibility into shopper conversion.
Contact us today to explore DigiTraffic and turn insight into activation!
THE AUTHOR
Nisha Yadav is the Senior Vice President, Omni Shopper Lead at Behaviorally. She has over 15 years of experience as a marketing strategist offering insight-led, brand, product, and customer strategy to storied brands. Before joining Behaviorally, Nisha led Global Brand Research at MetLife and her career includes progressive roles leading marketing insights and strategy teams on the agency and client-side alike.
