Performance Marketing
A jornada de compra deixou de ser linear: quem controla cada etapa hoje?
BranddiIP Team ·
The traditional shopping journey, one that followed a predictable path of discovery, consideration and conversion, no longer exists.
Today, the consumer's first contact with your brand happens within an AI-generated response. Or in a marketplace dominated by sellers that you never authorized. Or in an ad paid for by a competitor using your brand name.
According to an analysis of 1.96 million LLM sessions ALM Corp, 0.13% of digital traffic comes from tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude.
It seems small, but the problem lies elsewhere. These platforms retain users within them. They result in 41% of sessions leading directly to product pages with the intention to purchase already formed.
Translating: you invest in paid media, SEO and branding, but you run the risk of losing qualified traffic to unfair competitors, pirate sellers and algorithms that alone decide which version of your story will be told.
If you don't govern the journey at each stage, you are delivering conversion and authority on a platter!
Where Do brands lose control of the purchasing journey?
Loss of control happens at critical moments that determine whether the brand will be chosen or whether third parties will capture the conversion.
See where your governance is at risk:
Discovery mediated by LLMs and AI search engines
In the discovery phase, consumers ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity about products. They then receive responses that may include information outdated, malicious competitors or even counterfeit content.
Data from Adobe show that 39% of American consumers have used generative AI for online shopping. They are delegating research and comparison to systems that you do not feed directly.
This first contact defines perceptions that are difficult to reverse. If the AI presents your competitor as the best option, the consumer advances in the journey with a negative bias before even knowing its official version.
Consideration influenced by third parties and unofficial content
In consideration, reviews and public mentions gain more algorithmic relevance than your brand's official assets. LLMs absorb this information without an authority filter and create narratives made up of scattered fragments that do not always reflect their real positioning.
Practices such as brand bidding hijack qualified traffic. They redirect customers to competitors or unauthorized resellers.
Opportunistic sellers, unfair affiliates and direct competitors use your brand's keywords to trap consumers ready to buy. When someone searches for your brand name, they will find third-party advertisements before your official link.
Conversion captured by marketplaces and Buy Box
In conversion, marketplaces capture the sale through the Buy Box, sponsored offers and algorithmic recommendations. According to a study by Amazon Sellers Lawyer, the Buy Box represents more than 80% of sales on the platform. you are dealing with intermediaries who may offer parallel, unwarranted or even counterfeit products.
Post-purchase reinforced or diverted by new queries to AI
In post-click, consumers return to AI to validate purchases, compare experiences or seek support. If they encounter conflicting or negative information amplified algorithmically, the trust built over years can crumble in minutes.
Digital impostors take advantage of these moments. They create fake websites, cloned profiles and fraudulent offers that divert traffic and damage reputation.
A negative post-purchase experience gains exponential reach when shared on social networks or forums. LLMs learn from these mentions.
The cycle closes with AI recommending competitors to future buyers based on amplified negative sentiments.
How do LLMs and algorithms decide what to show the consumer?
See the main factors that determine how LLMs and search engines present information to consumers:
Volume of mentions and contextual relevance trump official authority
LLMs do not prioritize official sources for pattern. They aggregate information based on volume of mentions, contextual relevance and language patterns found on the internet.
This means that unofficial content, third-party reviews, forum posts and even pirated data can have the same weight as brand communications.
Demandsphere research shows that companies that ignore visibility in AI responses feed territory for competitors Search Engine Land.
Algorithmic logic favors consistency and standards, not necessarily veracity or authority. You can have the best product on the market. But if your narrative is dispersed across fragmented channels, the AI synthesizes a distorted version based on what it finds.
Absorption of falsified and distorted content without verification
Fake brand scams appear as reliable answers in LLMs. They gained contextual relevance through black hat SEO, cloned domains and massive link building campaigns.
Opportunistic sellers on marketplaces use similar techniques to appear in the Buy Box, even violating MAP and authorized distribution policies.
AI does not distinguish between legitimate and fraudulent sources if both present convincing linguistic patterns.
Impact on attribution and measurement of results
Traditional models based on last click fail when the decision was made within an AI interface that never generated a trackable click.
Attribution bias causes brands to invest in inefficient channels. At the same time, they cut budgets for activities that really boost visibility in AI environments.
Brand awareness campaigns, educational content and presence on channels that don't generate direct conversion seem ineffective on dashboards.
But they are exactly what feeds LLMs with correct information about your brand. Without these assets, AI has no official sources to consult.
How to regain governance of the purchasing journey?
Regaining control requires coordinated actions. That transform a fragmented presence into integrated governance.
Check out the strategies to regain authority at each stage of the journey:
Protect the brand across all channels
The first action is toprotect the brand across all channels simultaneously, and this includes:
- Continuous monitoring of mentions in LLMs;
- Detection of brand impersonation on social networks;
- Surveillance on unauthorized sellers on marketplaces.
Shield Marketing combine AI and human expertise. They identify traffic deviations, misuse of the brand in paid advertisements and unfair practices in marketplaces.
Quick actions, such as extrajudicial notifications and blocking of fraudulent content, protect conversions and reputation.
Standardize narrative and positioning
For LLM tools to learn how to represent your brand correctly, ideally there should be a standard in positioning and information about products across all channels official.
You need to create content that feeds AI systems with accurate information, such as:
- Detailed FAQs;
- Standardized technical specifications;
- Product pages optimized for algorithmic consumption.
The digital branding strengthens the official source. The stronger your official presence, the less room there will be for distortions created by third parties.
Identify misuse and act proactively
Early detection of threats is what separates brands that react from brands that prevent. Continuously monitoring misuse is the best way to identify problems before they escalate and cause irreversible damage.
But doing this manually is impossible. Analyzing traffic data, advertising campaigns and mentions in real time requires dedicated technology that works 24/7.
Solutions specialized in brand protection, such as Branddi, combine artificial intelligence with human expertiseto automatically scan search engines, marketplaces and social networks around the world.
Our system identifies misuse in paid ads, detects unauthorized sellers on platforms such as Amazon and Mercado Livre, and locates profiles fake and fraudulent content.
The platform analyzes elements such as titles, descriptions, prices, reviews and even language patterns. Identifies brand bidding, cloned domains, fake websites and unfair competition practices.
Did you like to understand how the purchasing journey has become fragmented? The more dispersed your digital presence is, the greater the space for third parties to shape perceptions, divert traffic and capture conversions that should be yours.
Request a free Branddi diagnostic now and discover where your brand is losing control of the purchasing journey.