Perplexity is another AI tool that’s gaining a lot of momentum. With over 15 million users and growing, it seems to have its eyes on taking market share from Google. So far, most AI platforms don’t monetize with ad offerings, however Perplexity is the first mainstream AI that is offering and testing ad opportunities.
This is a smart move as they’re looking to create a sound business out of their tool, monetized with ads. Very similar to the path Google took as it monetized its search engine with ads and became the force it is today.
Read the quote below on the move behind Perplexities ad program
“Ad programs like this help us generate revenue to share with our publisher partners. Experience has taught us that subscriptions alone do not generate enough revenue to create a sustainable revenue-sharing program. Especially given how rapidly our publisher program is growing, advertising is the best way to ensure a steady and scalable revenue stream.” -Perplexity
With that, let’s take a look at some of the offerings Perplexity is experimenting with, and how retailers and marketers can be promoted across their offerings.
Perplexity Ads: Sponsored Follow-up questions
In November, 2024, Perplexity started experimenting with Ads in the form of Sponsored Follow-up questions. Sample screenshot below, where the ad will be clearly labeled as Sponsored.
To start, the beta advertisers include Indeed, Whole Foods Market, Universal McCann, PMG, and others.
As Perplexity tests out Sponsored Follow-up questions, they’ll likely open this beta up to more advertisers and have some type of a whitelist, sign up process, until they build out an ad platform.
Further, the ad formats and likely quantity should migrate over time. Taking a page out of Google’s book, depending on the search query, Google can have 10+ ads per page. Perplexity won’t jump to this amount, that fast, but it’s an example that if Sponsored Questions work, they may add more sponsored spots.
Perplexity Shopping
Continuing the momentum of allowing brands opportunities to be present on Peplexity, they announced a shopping platform that allows users to shop with Perplexity AI. This shopping AI tool allows users:
- Snap to shop, which allows shoppers to snap a picture to find the desired product
- One-click checkout
- Buy with Pro, which lets users buy directly on the Perplexity website with free shipping. For products that aren’t eligible for “Buy with Pro” users will be directed to the merchants website.
- AI results based on the user’s prompt of the types of products they’re looking for. This will be different from Google shopping, which is just based on one search query and keywords. Perplexity can provide product recommendations based on complex prompts and even images.
- For example, I imagine it can handle sophisticated prompts such as:
- Find this product (image upload), with free shipping, under $100. If you don’t find this under $100, give me comparable products.
- For example, I imagine it can handle sophisticated prompts such as:
Perplexity Merchant Program
To get more products on Perplexity Shopping, they just launched their Perplexity Merchant Program to make it easy for retailers to share their products with them. This is a free program to submit their products, likely in a fashion that’s very similar to Google Merchant Center.
For brands interested in promoting their products on Perplexity, fill out the lead form to stake your place in line for this opportunity.
This is a non-ad opportunity to start, but I wouldn’t be surprised if brands can pay to have premium listings. Regardless, free traffic and representation on a growing AI platform is likely worth the effort. Very similar to how Google’s shopping allows free listings (albeit a small share), Perplexity will offer free listings.
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