The search landscape is undergoing a seismic shift. As AI agents increasingly mediate the shopping journey, the traditional Google playbook—bidding on keywords to place ads alongside blue links—is becoming obsolete. For retailers and brands, this presents both a crisis and an opportunity: how do you capture attention when consumers never visit your website through conventional search?
The answer lies in a fundamental reimagining of where awareness happens and how the marketing funnel must adapt.
The Collapse of Traditional Search Awareness
In the AEO (AI-Enhanced Optimization) era, shoppers bypass traditional search engines entirely. Instead of typing “best running shoes under $100” into Google, they ask an AI agent for recommendations. The agent synthesizes information, evaluates options, and often makes suggestions without the user ever clicking through to a retailer’s site.
This eliminates the primary awareness vehicle that brands have relied upon for two decades: search advertising. Without the ability to present ads alongside organic results, brands face a critical question: where does awareness begin?
The Two Pillars of AI-Era Awareness
In this new landscape, two sources emerge as the primary drivers of brand awareness:
1. Influencer Marketing (Micro and Macro)
Influencers—whether niche micro-influencers with 10,000 highly engaged followers or celebrities with millions—become the critical touchpoint where consumers first encounter brands. Their authentic recommendations carry weight that AI agents may surface or that consumers remember when interacting with those agents.
2. Celebrity Endorsements and Social Collaborations
High-profile partnerships and limited-edition celebrity collaborations generate the cultural momentum that breaks through the noise. These partnerships create memorable brand associations that stick with consumers even as they navigate AI-mediated shopping experiences.
The Compressed Funnel Problem
Here’s where traditional marketing frameworks break down: when consumers discover products through influencers or celebrity collaborations, they often complete the awareness, interest, and consideration stages simultaneously.
A compelling product review from a trusted influencer doesn’t just introduce the product—it builds desire and addresses objections in real-time. By the time the consumer is ready to convert, they’ve already mentally moved through what marketers traditionally treat as separate funnel stages.
This compression creates new challenges:
- How do you capture intent when the journey is non-linear?
- What conversion mechanisms match these varied entry points?
- How do you measure and optimize when traditional attribution models fail?
Conversion Pathways for the AEO/GEO Era
Different consumer entry points require different conversion strategies:
Affiliate Incentives
Discount codes from influencers or fan-exclusive offers from celebrity partnerships provide immediate conversion triggers. These work exceptionally well for impulse and short-decision purchases.
Lead Capture for Future Releases
When consumers aren’t ready to buy immediately, capturing their contact information for upcoming drops or exclusive access maintains the connection and builds anticipation.
Social Amplification
Encouraging buyers to share their purchases creates a viral echo effect, turning customers into micro-influencers themselves and feeding the awareness cycle.
Trust-Building Without Hard Sells
For high-consideration purchases, the focus shifts to nurturing relationships. Content that educates, entertains, or adds value keeps brands top-of-mind without triggering sales fatigue.
Designing Martech for Omni-Channel Entry Points
Marketing teams must fundamentally rethink their technology stack to handle these diverse pathways. The key considerations:
Control vs. Third-Party Commerce
When you control the e-commerce experience:
- Implement robust attribution tracking that can connect social touchpoints to conversions
- Build flexible discount code and affiliate systems that scale across multiple influencer partnerships
- Create personalized landing experiences based on traffic source
- Develop customer data platforms (CDPs) that unify behavior across social, owned properties, and purchase history
When buyers purchase through third-party or affiliate sites:
- Focus on brand lift and awareness metrics rather than direct ROAS
- Use pixel tracking and probabilistic attribution to understand influence
- Negotiate data-sharing agreements with affiliate platforms
- Build brand equity that drives future direct purchases
Product Consideration Length Matters
Short-decision products (consumables, accessories, impulse items):
- Optimize for immediate conversion
- Streamline checkout processes
- Emphasize scarcity and urgency
- Make discount code application frictionless
High-consideration products (vehicles, premium fashion, technology):
- Build multi-touch nurture sequences
- Create immersive brand experiences that justify premium positioning
- Develop robust CRM systems to track long buying cycles
- Enable comparison tools and configurators
- Provide expert consultation touchpoints
Building the Responsive Martech Stack
To navigate this complexity, marketing teams need technology infrastructure that can:
- Track and attribute across disconnected touchpoints: Invest in multi-touch attribution models that account for social influence, even when direct measurement is impossible.
- Personalize at scale: Use AI to dynamically adjust messaging based on entry point, audience segment, and purchase readiness.
- Enable rapid campaign iteration: Social trends move quickly. Your martech must allow you to spin up new influencer campaigns, landing pages, and conversion flows in days, not weeks.
- Unify customer identity: Whether someone engages on Instagram, your website, or through an AI agent recommendation, you need a single customer view.
- Measure brand health, not just conversions: Traditional funnel metrics become less meaningful. Focus on share of voice, sentiment, and brand recall alongside conversion data.
The Strategic Imperative
The shift from search-driven awareness to influencer and celebrity-driven awareness isn’t a minor channel adjustment—it represents a fundamental transformation in how consumers discover and evaluate products. Brands that cling to the old Google playbook will find themselves invisible in AI-mediated shopping experiences.
The winners in this new era will be those who:
- Invest strategically in influencer and celebrity partnerships as core awareness channels
- Build martech stacks flexible enough to handle non-linear customer journeys
- Design conversion mechanisms matched to different product types and consideration lengths
- Measure success through brand equity and long-term customer relationships, not just immediate ROAS
At CRSTBL Inc., we’re helping brands navigate this transition by building the marketing infrastructure for the AEO/GEO era. The question isn’t whether traditional search will decline—it’s whether your marketing operation is ready for what comes next.