A New Logic for E-commerce Advertising: The Buyer’s Question Matters More Than the Keyword

When someone searches for “a bed,” a retailer can show them an ad for beds. But when they ask AI which bed would suit two tall, light sleepers, the ad needs to address a much more specific need. According to Margus Eha, CEO of Opus, this is changing three things in e-commerce marketing at once: keywords are becoming less important, product data is becoming more important, and the final form of an ad is increasingly shaped by the buyer’s query.

Conversation context matters more than the keyword

In traditional search advertising, marketers select the keywords they want to appear for. In AI-powered search, buyers can describe their needs, constraints and preferences in far greater detail. The question is no longer simply whether a product exists in the catalogue, but whether one of the retailer’s products genuinely matches the buyer’s needs.

A retailer may have exactly the right product and an advertising budget to support it, but that is of little use if the system cannot find an answer to the buyer’s actual question in the product information.

Data and a range of creative assets matter more than a finished ad

Google is currently testing ad formats in AI Mode where Gemini highlights relevant product attributes based on the buyer’s question. Conversational Discovery adapts the information shown in an ad to the query, while Highlighted Answers allows suitable sponsored products to appear among AI-generated recommendations.

As a result, a single carefully written ad may no longer be enough. The system needs accurate product data, along with a selection of relevant copy and visuals. If a buyer is looking for a lightweight waterproof jacket, information about both of those features must be available to the system. A generic claim such as “comfortable and high-quality” will not help connect the product to that specific query.

Retailers often already have the necessary information, but it is scattered across supplier files, ERP systems, PIM systems, customer-support enquiries and reviews. AI can help identify the relevant attributes within those sources. However, the retailer needs to verify that the claims are accurate, while an IT partner can help bring them into the e-commerce product data.

The ad entered by the marketer is not necessarily the ad the buyer sees

The marketer provides the system with the inputs, but in an AI-driven format, Gemini uses those inputs to create an ad tailored to a specific query. For one buyer, the dimensions of a bed may matter most; for another, its construction. The same product may therefore highlight different features for different people.

This creates a clear requirement for the technical side of e-commerce: essential information must reach the product page, the store’s internal search function and, where necessary, the Google Merchant Center product feed. An IT partner can help enhance the product data model and connect data from suppliers, PIM and ERP systems to the online store, ensuring that product attributes, prices and stock availability remain up to date across all channels.

Two steps to get started

We recommend starting with one product category that has either high sales volume or a significant advertising budget, and taking the following two steps:

• Compare buyers’ questions with your product information. Review customer-support enquiries, on-site search queries and product reviews to understand what customers want to know before making a purchase. Then check whether the answers are included in the product information.
• Make key product attributes machine-readable. An IT partner can help create missing data fields and connect data sources so that important information does not remain only in supplier files or unstructured text.

This allows the retailer and its IT partner to determine whether product information needs to be expanded, the e-commerce data model needs to be updated, or data flows between systems need to be improved. The IT partner can then implement the necessary changes so that high-quality product information also reaches search and advertising channels.

Do your products make it into the consideration set of customers using AI search? Contact us – we can help identify where information is getting lost and how to fix it.