Ask Google’s AI Mode for a fragrance-free moisturiser under £20 that arrives tomorrow, and the shortlist you get back isn’t built from blog posts. It’s built from product data: price, stock status, shipping, size, brand. If those fields are missing or wrong, a startup’s product can drop out of the answer without anyone noticing.
That shifts what a generative engine optimisation (GEO) agency should be doing for an online store. Most GEO pitches lean on content, meaning articles and explainers that AI models might quote. Content still matters for research-style questions. Buying questions, though, run through a more structured pipe, and that pipe is a product feed.
We looked at four agencies with that in mind. ClickSlice comes out on top for UK ecommerce startups, largely because it already treats organic search and Google Merchant Center listings as one connected job instead of two separate retainers.
The part of GEO most pitches skip: your product feed
Google says its Shopping Graph now holds more than 60 billion product listings. Merchants feed it mainly through Merchant Center, and Google uses those product attributes to match items to what people search for. AI Mode’s shopping answers draw on that same graph.
OpenAI runs a similar system for ChatGPT. Its product feed spec asks for nine basic fields per item: a stable ID, title, factual description, product URL, brand, seller name, main image, availability and price. Two lines in OpenAI’s documentation matter for UK startups:
- Being eligible doesn’t guarantee your product will be shown.
- Standard feed uploads currently target the US market.
So for a British brand, Google’s Merchant Center is the more immediate lever right now.
Here’s how that plays out. Picture a made-up UK skincare startup with a well-researched blog on skin barriers. Its Merchant Center feed, though, has no shipping details and lists sizes inconsistently. A shopper asks an AI assistant for a moisturiser “under £20, next-day delivery.” The system can’t confirm either condition for this brand, so it recommends someone else. Like other AI agents that fail silently, it gives no warning. The brand simply never appears.
A reality check helps too. A University of Hamburg working paper covering 973 e-commerce sites found Google organic search still sent roughly 200 times more traffic than ChatGPT. AI answers are also keeping more clicks on Google’s own results page, and even Reddit is losing traffic to AI search. A sensible GEO plan for a startup protects Google visibility first, fixes product data second, and treats ChatGPT shopping as the upside it can grow into.
The four agencies at a glance
| Agency | Based | Best for | Where it helps with AI visibility |
| ClickSlice | London | UK startups on Shopify wanting SEO, Shopping and GEO in one team | Combines SEO with Google Shopping/Merchant Center; offers GEO audits |
| 1Digital Agency | Miami, US | Stores that need a rebuild or feed work alongside marketing | Feed management aimed at Shopping and AI agents; “agentic commerce” service |
| Thrive Internet Marketing Agency | Arlington, Texas | Brands wanting one agency across many channels | Dedicated GEO practice covering AI Overviews, AI Mode and ChatGPT |
| Minty Digital | London and Barcelona | Brands selling in English- and Spanish-speaking markets | SEO and digital PR to build the external mentions AI answers lean on |
How we chose: we compared each agency’s published services, public client reviews and stated focus against the needs of an early-stage UK online store. We didn’t hire or test any of them. The ranking reflects fit for this audience, not overall quality.
1. ClickSlice: SEO and Shopping under one roof
ClickSlice is a London agency led by founder Joshua George, with a team spread across the UK and Europe. It sells itself as ecommerce-first, holds a Shopify Experts listing, and runs SEO, Google Ads and Google Shopping, digital PR and a growing AI search line. That line includes GEO, answer engine optimisation (AEO), GEO audits and ChatGPT ads.
What fits the feed problem is how its own homepage frames search. It argues that brands need to appear across organic results, Shopping ads and Merchant Center listings at once, and it builds what it calls a blended strategy around that. That’s close to the joined-up approach AI shopping surfaces reward, since the same product data drives Shopping, free listings and AI Mode.
Two practical points for startups. ClickSlice doesn’t use long fixed-term contracts, which matters when cash is tight. It also advertises a money-back guarantee, so ask exactly what that covers before you sign. No agency can promise a place inside AI answers, and a good one will tell you so.
Ask them: who owns the Merchant Center feed day to day, and how GEO audit findings turn into feed and on-page fixes.
2. 1Digital Agency: for stores that need rebuilding, not just ranking
Founded in Philadelphia in 2012 and now based in Miami, 1Digital Agency works on Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento and WooCommerce. Alongside SEO, PPC and development, it offers a product feed management service built for Shopping, Performance Max and AI agents. It also has an “agentic commerce” service aimed at getting stores found and bought through tools like ChatGPT Shopping.
It’s one of the few agencies here that names feeds as part of AI visibility outright, and that’s a real point in its favour. It also publishes its SEO pricing, currently $899 to $5,999 a month, which saves some awkward discovery calls.
The trade-offs for a UK startup: the team is US-based, so expect time-zone friction. Its marketing retainers have no long-term contract, but its done-for-you store plans run on a 12-month term. Be clear about which one you’re buying.
Ask them: how they’d adapt feed work for UK Merchant Center rules and pricing in pounds.
3. Thrive Internet Marketing Agency: the generalist with a GEO team
Thrive Internet Marketing Agency has operated since 2005 from Arlington, Texas, and lists more than 160 staff. Its menu is wide: SEO, PPC, social, web design, video, Amazon and Walmart marketplace work, plus a GEO practice covering AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT and Gemini.
It publishes AI-specific case results, including an 876% rise in engaged sessions from ChatGPT for a shoe company. That figure is company-reported and comes without a baseline, so ask to see the underlying numbers.
Breadth is both the appeal and the risk. A launching brand that needs a site, paid campaigns and an SEO roadmap at the same time could get all three from one supplier. A startup with a small budget, though, can watch it spread across too many channels. Agree up front which work is meant to improve organic and AI discovery, and how progress will be measured.
Ask them: whether their ecommerce team or their general SEO team would run your account.
4. Minty Digital: bilingual SEO and PR for growing reach
Minty Digital started on the Isle of Wight under Charlie Clark and has since expanded to London and Barcelona. It covers SEO, PPC, Google Shopping, content and digital PR, and offers SEO in both English and Spanish.
Its client reviews on Clutch mention digital PR and outreach work, technical SEO audits and content campaigns. That external-mention side matters for GEO: when an AI model answers a “which brand should I trust” question, independent coverage gives it something solid to cite. Clutch also lists fixed-price SEO packages starting at around $2,200 a month.
It suits a brand that has proven demand at home and wants to test Spain or Latin America without hiring two agencies. If your bottleneck is feed quality and you don’t need PR, look harder at the first two options.
Ask them: whether digital PR targets the publications AI tools actually cite in your category.
How to vet any GEO agency in one call
Start with the feed. Ask who will audit your Merchant Center data, how often it gets checked, and whether attributes like shipping, size and GTIN are filled in for every product. Plenty of “AI visibility” proposals never mention feeds, which tells you something.
Then ask how they’ll measure progress. Credible answers include tracked prompts across ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews, referral traffic from AI tools, and Shopping impressions. Be wary of a single “AI ranking” score.
Raise guarantees directly. AI answers vary by user, location and time, so anyone promising a fixed placement is overselling. Finally, settle who does the work. If your team has no developer, you need an agency that implements fixes, not one that hands over a PDF of recommendations.
FAQs
Q.1 What is GEO for an ecommerce brand?
It’s work that makes your products and brand easier for AI search tools to understand and recommend. For stores, that covers product feeds and structured data as much as written content.
Q.2 Can an agency guarantee my store appears in ChatGPT or AI Overviews?
No. Placement depends on the query, the user and constant platform changes. A good agency improves the data and signals these systems rely on and tracks the results honestly.
Q.3 Is GEO replacing SEO?
Not for startups. Google organic search still drives far more ecommerce traffic than AI chatbots, and Google’s own AI features use the same product and page data that good SEO already relies on.
Q.4 What should a new store fix first?
Clean product data in Merchant Center, consistent schema on product pages, a crawlable category structure and original product descriptions. Content and PR build on that.
Related: 7 Best LLM SEO Agencies in the USA (2026): Who Delivers Results?
| Disclaimer: This article is a guest contribution published for informational purposes only. The views and opinions expressed belong to the contributor. Agency comparisons are based on publicly available information and have not been independently verified. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research before making business decisions. |
