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Alon is ThredUp’s Chief Strategy Officer, and he joined us on The Retail Razor Show about a year ago. This time we sat down live in the RETHINK Retail Creator Studio in Nashville, at Shoptalk Fall, a few hours after ThredUp announced it’s selling live on Whatnot. Its first show had aired about an hour before we hit record.
Your Ad Worked. Then They Asked ChatGPT. It’s Now “Vibes to Validation.”
Your ad worked. A shopper saw it, liked the product, maybe even added it to cart.
Then they opened ChatGPT and typed: “What’s the best moisturizer for my sensitive skin?”
If you’re not in that answer, you paid for the click and your competitor got the sale.
At Shoptalk Fall, I sat in on Leslie Ann Hall’s panel on digital discovery. Leslie is Founder and CEO of Iced Media, an independent, women-owned agency that works with L’Oréal, Walmart, LVMH, and Moroccanoil. A few hours later, she sat down with me for The Retail Razor Show and gave that moment after the click a name:
vibes to validation.
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Vibes, then validation.
Vibes: an ad, a creator, or a TikTok creates the want. In beauty, where Iced Media does most of its work, the brand can become part of how people see themselves.
Validation: before paying, the shopper checks. Leslie hears the same four questions:
Is this the best product for me?
Is it worth the price?
Are there competitors I’m not aware of?
Is there something that fits my needs more specifically?
Shoppers used to see something from a favorite creator, add to cart, and buy. Now they take those questions to AI search and to Reddit.
Leslie shared that over half of Redditors do a “final check” on Reddit before they make a purchase.
She does it herself before booking a hotel or buying running shoes. I’d bet you’ve done it this month.
Where AI gets its answers.
For the beauty brands Iced Media works with, the top AI citation sources are often Reddit, more and more YouTube, PR mentions on ranking and “best of” listicle sites, and now TikTok and TikTok Shop. Leslie’s caveat: the mix changes day to day, so stay diversified.
Your website matters, but it’s one voice.
In Leslie’s words, “AI search is a mirror for what the world thinks about your brand.”
That mirror can favor challenger brands.
Traditional SEO rewarded decades of website history. Leslie says the current LLMs favor fresh content, so an indie brand can show up right next to a 100-year-old one.
How to win the validation step.
Pick your hero products. Brands come to Leslie wanting all 200 products to rank. Her answer: “they might not deserve to rank for everything.” Choose a handful you have the right to win with.
Own a specific question. Leslie says the days of “works for all hair types and all skin types” are over. Aim for “best moisturizer for sensitive, acne-prone skin.” A claim that fits everyone gives AI nothing specific to recommend you for.
Make every source tell the same story. Product page, reviews, creators, Reddit, PR, Amazon. If your paid, PR, and e-commerce teams each push something different, AI has nothing clear to repeat. And keep your site crawlable and well structured so the machines can read it too.
Bottom funnel bloat.
My favorite moment of Shoptalk came during that morning panel, when Sonia Biddle, Chief Product Officer at Depop, said brand marketing is more important now than ever.
Iced Media has a name for what happened instead: bottom funnel bloat.
Too much spend goes to conversion media that pays more and more to get existing customers to buy again, usually through promotions, while nobody looks for new ones. And that diagnosis comes from an agency with roots in performance media.
How are you pitching AI to your board?
My take.
Most brands fix a sales problem by buying more ads. More ads create more vibes. But if the validation step comes up empty, you’re paying to send shoppers to your competitor’s reviews.
AI search gives brand marketing a new scoreboard, and the score is whether you come up as the answer. Leslie says to pick a handful of hero products. If your team can’t agree on a handful, start with one: the product with the clearest proof that it beats the alternatives for a specific problem.
Do this tonight (10 minutes).
Ask ChatGPT and Perplexity for the best product in your category for your customer’s most specific problem.
Note who gets recommended.
Open the sources they cite. That list is your marketing plan for the next 30 days.
Watch or listen today and subscribe.
🎙️ My full conversation with Leslie is on The Retail Razor Show, Season 6, Episode 15: AI Search Is a Mirror for Your Brand, Optimizing for GEO.
This is one of four episodes we recorded live at Shoptalk Fall, and they’ve landed across all four Retail Razor shows recent weeks. If you’re not subscribed here yet, now’s a good time so you don’t miss out next time.
Your turn.
Leslie’s hero product advice starts at 08:30, bottom funnel bloat at 13:45, and the Reddit data at 17:32. Give it a listen (or watch) and think about your next marketing campaign and how you’re strategy fits.
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Until next time… Stay sharp. Stay human. Stay ahead!
Sincerely,
Ricardo Belmar
The Retail Razor Show
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The Retail Razor Show is part of the Retail Razor Podcast Network, alongside Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades. Find us at RetailRazor on LinkedIn, Bluesky, Threads, and Instagram. For a full transcript of this episode, visit our retailrazor.com website!