In short
Yes — but not always, and not in every category. AI often already recommends you, but it does so from knowledge it has assembled about your brand from many sources you mostly don't control. A marketplace gives you presence inside someone else's template; your own site and Digital PR are the only places where you actually shape what AI knows about you. The whole shift to AI Search is a return to brand building — and that work pays back across every channel at once.
This is one of the questions I hear most often from brands that sell mainly through marketplaces: is it worth caring about GEO and AI Search at all, when the marketplace does the selling? The honest answer is that it depends — but probably more than you think. And the reason sits in something bigger than any single channel.
The buying journey is changing
Today your customer may still type a query into the marketplace search bar and browse a category, comparing offers. But more and more often they'll arrive with a recommendation already in hand — from ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity — and instead of searching a product category, they'll type the name of the specific model the assistant suggested to them.
The difference is fundamental. In the first case you compete for attention within the whole category, on the marketplace's turf. In the second you are either that one recommendation, or you're out of the game before the customer even reaches the marketplace.
Why the timing matters
That's why “we sell through marketplaces” no longer settles the question. The place where the customer forms the decision is moving upstream — to a place your product card doesn't reach.
Does AI already recommend you? Check before you worry
Most marketplace sellers work off one of two assumptions, and both are guesses. One: “we're probably not there, we're too small.” The other: “we sell, so we must be visible.” You don't have to guess. This is a twenty-minute check.
The 20-minute check
- Ask from the problem, not your name. Put your customer's real question to ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity — “best X for Y”, not your brand name. See whether you appear, and next to whom.
- Then ask about you directly. “What do you know about brand X?” Judge the answer on three things: is it true, is it current, is it complete.
- Test in each market's language. If you sell abroad, repeat the check in that language — the answers can differ sharply, because entirely different sources feed them.
- Read it as a reality check, not a measurement. Answers shift between sessions and users, so a few phrasings give you a rough picture, not hard data.
Tell three levels apart, because they're not the same: that AI mentions you, that AI recommends you, and that AI describes you the way you'd want to be described. You can sit at the first and nowhere near the third — and that's the usual situation for marketplace brands.
Where AI gets what it knows about you — and where your control ends
Back to three words: knowledge, control, optimisation. AI already has the knowledge — it gathers it from the whole internet around your brand. The real question is how much of those sources you actually control. And the answer is a gradient: from places where you have no say, to one place where you have complete freedom.
| Source | Your control | What you can actually do |
|---|---|---|
| External sources reviews, forums, rankings, translations | None / indirect | Influence them through Digital PR |
| Marketplace | Limited — someone else's template | Optimise the product card within the format |
| Your own site | Full | Build the narrative, depth and answers to intent |
The marketplace is where most sellers stop, because it's their home turf. But it locks you into a fixed format: title, character limits, bullet features, images in a required layout. You can and should optimise it — a good product card is real, concrete knowledge for AI. But you're playing cards someone else dealt. You won't tell your brand story there, build topical depth, or answer a dozen different customer intents around a single problem. You fit into what the template allows, and not a character more.
Your own site is the opposite: the one place where structure, narrative and depth are one hundred percent yours. You build a coherent picture of the brand, describe products in as much detail as they need, create content around real problems and questions, and add context and data no product card could ever hold. To an AI it's the cleanest, most authoritative source about you, because it comes straight from the brand and is internally consistent.
And then there's the fourth element that ties it together: Digital PR. Remember those external sources you can't edit yourself? You can't rewrite them — but you can influence them. That's what Digital PR is: the work of getting your brand talked about in valuable places — publications, mentions, presence in rankings and round-ups, material others cite. It isn't something you “set up” once. It's consistent work, usually team-and-budget work, because it needs content, relationships and time. But it feeds AI the one thing your own site cannot: independent confirmation that you're a brand worth knowing about.
You really control two levers: your own site (full freedom) and Digital PR (influence over external sources). The marketplace you optimise within someone else's template, and the rest happens without you. Lean your entire AI visibility on the marketplace alone, and you hand the story of your brand to people you don't control — and hope AI assembles something good out of it.
And that's exactly the return to brand building I opened with. The full set — marketplace plus your own site plus Digital PR — is nothing more than making sure there's a lot said about your brand, consistently and credibly, everywhere it can be.
Is it worth it in your case? An honest answer
Not every brand needs to jump on this today. Let me take the pressure off: there are situations where AI visibility on your own site is genuinely low priority — and I'd rather say so than sell you work that won't pay back.
A quick decision guide
Worth doing if
- You sell your own brand, not just resell others' products
- It's a considered purchase — people research, compare, ask for a recommendation
- Margin matters and you want direct sales, not only marketplace volume
- You compete on more than price — quality, specialism, story, service
You can put it off if
- It's a pure commodity, chosen almost entirely on price, with no brand story
- You have no brand of your own — one of many sellers of the same product
- Nobody really asks AI for a recommendation in your category; the purchase is purely transactional
One last thing, to keep it honest. This is brand building, not a one-quarter campaign. The results come when you do it consistently — plenty of valuable content, a coherent narrative, systematic Digital PR. Done by halves, for two months and without continuity, it won't move the needle. The good news: the same work pays back beyond AI — it works for your brand in Google, on the marketplace and in the customer's eyes. It isn't optimisation for one algorithm. It's brand building, to which AI Search has simply added a new and strong reason.
If you're not sure which side of that list you're on, start with the twenty minutes from the first section. And if you want a firmer answer — where you actually stand and whether it's worth stepping in — that's how I start: a short audit that shows where AI gets its knowledge of your brand and where you have the most to gain. That's what GEO / AI visibility is for; and if the acronyms blur together, I untangle them in SEO, GEO, AEO and LLMO.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Yes — AI often recommends products sold on marketplaces, because it draws on product cards and reviews. The catch is that it then relies on knowledge you don't fully control, and describes you however it manages to assemble the picture from available sources. You get presence, but not control over the narrative.
Ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity the way your customer would — starting from the problem, not your brand name (“best X for Y”). See whether you appear and next to whom, then ask about your brand directly and judge whether the description is true, current and complete. It takes about twenty minutes and gives a rough picture — not a proper measurement.
It's an important foundation, but not enough. A marketplace imposes a fixed structure and limits in which you can't tell your brand story or cover topical depth around the customer's problem. The full picture is built by combining the product card with your own site and Digital PR.
From many sources at once: marketplace product cards, reviews, comparison sites, forums, articles and rankings, plus content translated from other markets. You don't have direct control over most of them — you really control your own site, and you influence external sources indirectly through Digital PR.
GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) shifts the centre of gravity from your position in Google to how AI understands and describes your brand. To a large degree it takes us back to brand-building fundamentals: a lot of consistent, valuable content about you in many places. The names vary — GEO, AEO, LLMO — but the work is shared.
It's brand building, so it's measured in months of consistent work, not a single campaign. The good news is that the same work — content, a coherent narrative, Digital PR — pays back in Google, on the marketplace and in the customer's eyes at the same time, not only in AI.
