Maggie Hackman & Erika Penrose
Digital Strategists
Clickbait or Click-WAIT-that’s-interesting:
Five Things for Brands to Takeaway from the Salsify Digital Shelf Summit
We’ve all been to an event, attended sessions, and walked away with ideas that would change the way we work. Additionally, we’ve all also written ideas off as hype, clickbait, or not relevant for our businesses at the time.
That said, after attending three days of brilliant speakers and engaging networking at the Salsify Digital Shelf Summit in New Orleans, we’ve narrowed in on our five key brand takeaways. No clickbait, but more click-wait… they’re onto something. Spoiler alert… AI was a big-time buzzword. Read below, take it in, and let us know what you think. What micro or macro trends are changing the way your team operates? Is there anything you think is overhyped?
From SEO to GEO: A Farewell to Traditional Retail Search
Today, shoppers are left to their own devices for product discovery, leaving brands to meet them where they are with relevant placements and products. Enter, AI. Agent-led shopping experiences are helping fill existing gaps, helping shoppers more easily discover new products and ideas without the hours and hours of research that’s often needed.
This fundamentally changes product discoverability. Although traditional retail SEO isn’t going anywhere, brands must consider what it looks like to optimize content for generative shopping assistants. In addition to retailer tools like Amazon Rufus and Walmart Sparky, third-party LLMs take in incredible amounts of data, directly from PDPs, to generate recommendations for shoppers. While many brands are watching Rufus and others, few are actively planning for its impact.
Are you buying in? Now is the time to future-proof your search methodology and content development process to ensure, as shopping assistants recommend products, you’re in the consideration set.
From Chaos to Cleanliness: The Importance of Data Governance
As AI further integrates into the modern commerce experience, the importance of data governance is more relevant than it’s ever been. Retailers, brands, and countless other shopper touchpoints are feeding into algorithms that decide whether your product gets seen or not. Clean, trustworthy content and data will power the engines behind LLMs that are already influencing what your customers buy.
Are you buying in? Brands are already struggling to organize their data into digestible views for varying audiences. Your data and content should be treated with rigor - following auditing processes and standardization that allow all teams to align around a single source of truth.
From Omnichannel to One Channel: The Unified Product Experience
Showing up across a variety of channels is no longer enough. Brands must think about their activations from a coordinated, unified perspective so shoppers don’t feel like they’re having distinct experiences across channels. Instead, unified commerce leads to a seamless, continuous journey. Today’s brands are struggling to deliver cohesion and coordination due to disparate creative owners across internal and agency partners.
The ideal state: Wherever your consumers are, there you are - looking, feeling, and prompting with the right message each time.
Are you buying in? When was the last time you looked at all of your content across your brand’s ecosystem to evaluate their cohesion? Do they seem like they were developed by the same group or are asset ownership seams showing?
From Afterthought to All-Star: Brand.com Is Back in the Driver’s Seat
If you’ve been following along, you’ll know we think the world of SEO is shifting. Brand.com now acts as the single source of truth for LLMs serving up product information and driving agentified shopping experiences. Brands have a tendency to copy and paste content from Retail.com to Brand.com, but that’s no longer enough. Content on Brand.com now must play a critical, unique role to drive the Shopping Agent recommendation.
Are you buying in? Is your Brand.com providing distinct content that can’t be found on Retail.com? Now’s the time to define the unique role each channel plays and the content needed to win the recommendation.
From Human-Centered to …. JK: The Unwavering Importance of the Shopper
It is no surprise that, as often as AI was mentioned at the Digital Shelf Summit, the concept of the human interaction behind each click was never far behind. From personal brand promises to a reminder of the importance of human experience, brands must never forget the shared goal: customer satisfaction. Keeping your customer empowered and in the loop is the most important thing a brand can do to build loyalty and show up brilliantly for the customer.
Are you buying in? That was a hypothetical question. This one isn’t optional, and it’s exactly why we created UpLift. UpLift, CourtAvenue’s 5-step process for content optimization, heroes the voice of the consumer and ensures digital shelf content meets shoppers where they are, with the right information at the right time to surprise, delight, and (most importantly), convert.
UpLift helps our clients infuse research into the content development process to create richer creative assets that deliver on core consumer needs.
There are few things more valuable to a strategist than sitting in a room of colleagues, learning from industry experts, and knowing you can take these learnings back to your desk to make a difference. The 2025 Salsify Digital Shelf Summit was a perfect opportunity for our team at CourtAvenue to bring to life our emphasis on continued learning, dedication to thought leadership, and constant strive for excellence on the digital shelf.
So… after reading, what’s the verdict: clickbait or click-WAIT-that’s-interesting?