WSI Digital Advisors

WSI Digital Advisors We work with Business Owners who are uncertain about how to increase leads and sales in today’s di

For years, I've seen merchandising teams keeping the product catalogue working through what is effectively an invisible ...
16/09/2026

For years, I've seen merchandising teams keeping the product catalogue working through what is effectively an invisible expert system.

It isn’t a platform or a dashboard. It’s the accumulated judgement of skilled people who know when a product title needs more context, when an attribute can be technically complete but still commercially misleading, or why two near-identical SKUs are not actually interchangeable.

They’re also the people checking that availability, variant logic, imagery, dimensions, pricing and product relationships all make sense before a customer sees them.

A lot of that decision-making happens in spreadsheets, PIM workarounds, trading conversations and last-minute feed fixes. Over time, that knowledge becomes something like the product catalogue’s hidden operating system.

As commerce becomes more agent-mediated, though, I'm seeing that retailers may have less opportunity to rely on people fixing incomplete or ambiguous product information by hand.

An AI shopping experience can’t draw on the distinction an experienced merchandiser carries in their head. It can only work with the data, relationships and rules it has been given.

Google’s latest work in ecommerce and agent protocols is one indication of where things are heading. For me, the interesting implication isn’t that merchandising judgement becomes less valuable. Quite the opposite.

The opportunity is to capture more of that judgement and turn it into durable, usable product data.

So perhaps the question isn’t simply whether your product catalogue is complete. It’s whether the knowledge that makes it genuinely sellable still lives mostly in the heads of the people who step in and repair it.

So, my question is ... If an AI shopping experience had to interpret your catalogue tomorrow, which product-data decisions would it get wrong because your best merchandisers currently fix them manually?

There’s something about August that changes the pace of business. The phone is a bit quieter, inboxes are less frantic, ...
15/09/2026

There’s something about August that changes the pace of business. The phone is a bit quieter, inboxes are less frantic, and quite a few people are sensibly somewhere warmer with a drink in their hand.

For us, that quieter spell is actually really useful because it gives us a chance to turn our attention inwards and look at the business itself. What’s working well, what feels clunky, and what have we been putting up with simply because we’ve been too busy to stop and fix it?

It’s amazing what you notice when the noise dies down. Sometimes it’s a process that has become far more complicated than it needs to be. Sometimes it’s something we’re spending time on that no longer gives us much back. Sometimes it’s simply the realisation that we’ve been doing something the same way for years without ever stopping to ask whether there might now be a better way.

I think we can all get a bit caught up in the idea that improving a business means adding something new. A new service, a new system, another campaign, another tool.

Quite often, though, the biggest improvements come from simplifying what’s already there. Tidying things up, dropping something that no longer serves a purpose, or making one part of the customer journey just a little easier.

Now that we’re well into September and the pace has picked up again, I’m actually quite glad we had that breathing space over the summer. It gave us a chance to notice the things that are easy to miss when everything is moving at full speed.

Because sometimes upping your game isn’t about doing more. It’s about taking a proper look at what you’re already doing and deciding what could be better.

A business can be perfectly capable, well established and commercially credible...and still fail to make the AI generate...
12/09/2026

A business can be perfectly capable, well established and commercially credible...and still fail to make the AI generated shortlist.

I saw versions of this throughout my years in multichannel retail. The formal decision often came last. Long before then, a proposition had either gradually created confidence or slowly lost it.

Agentic AI may soon bring that same dynamic to far more customer journeys.

The difference is that the filtering could happen before anyone visits your website, contacts your team or appears as an opportunity in the CRM.

No rejection or explanation. Not even a politely worded email from the procurement team.

Just an invisible decision made upstream by a bot.

Most businesses are still asking whether AI can find them. I believe the more important question is becoming whether AI considers them eligible to progress.

I explore what that means for CEOs and leadership teams in my latest article: From Answers to Action: Why AI Visibility Is Becoming a Question of Eligibility
👉 https://wsidigitaladvisors.uk/ai-visibility-is-a-question-of-eligibility/

Would an AI agent put your business on the shortlist?

Sometimes the real problem isn’t poor marketing. It’s that the goal was never made clear enough.A business might say it ...
10/09/2026

Sometimes the real problem isn’t poor marketing. It’s that the goal was never made clear enough.

A business might say it wants more leads, better visibility, stronger conversion or faster growth. Those are all reasonable ambitions, but they’re rarely precise enough to guide day-to-day decisions.

The work starts anyway. Campaigns go live, content is commissioned, website changes are made and the reporting begins.

Then the frustration creeps in.

Marketing is looking at lead volume. Sales is concerned about quality. Leadership wants to see revenue. The agency is optimising against the brief it was originally given.

Everyone may be doing their job, but they’re judging success through different lenses.

That’s when digital starts to feel messy. Not because the people involved are incapable, but because the commercial outcome was never defined clearly enough at the outset.

Before discussing channels, tactics or spend, I want to understand exactly what the business is trying to move.

How will we recognise success? Which outcome matters most? And, just as importantly, what are we not trying to achieve right now?

Without that clarity, every metric becomes debatable and every decision becomes harder than it needs to be.

Clear goals aren’t useful because they make a strategy sound tidy. They’re useful because they force better choices.

And better choices are usually where performance starts to improve.

How often do you see digital work being judged against goals that were never properly defined?

There’s something rather lovely about playing a round of golf on your own.Not because I’m being antisocial. I enjoy the ...
08/09/2026

There’s something rather lovely about playing a round of golf on your own.

Not because I’m being antisocial. I enjoy the company, the conversation and, depending on who I’m playing with, the occasional competition.

Every now and then, I need the quiet.

Running a business is full on. There’s always something that needs thinking about, a decision to make, a problem to solve or an idea that has decided to arrive at precisely the wrong moment.

You can’t be “on” all the time. Or at least, I don’t think you can be on all the time and still do your best thinking.

For me, golf is a way of decompressing. A few hours outside, walking, concentrating on one small white ball and trying not to send it somewhere ridiculous. My brain gets a breather without me having to tell it to stop thinking.

Oddly enough, that’s often when things start to untangle themselves.

I’ll come back with no miraculous answers, probably a few lost balls, but usually with a clearer head and a bit more energy for whatever is waiting.

We all need something that gives our brain a little space.

Mine just happens to involve 18 holes.

Confidence grows when you know how to respond when a plan doesn’t work.Nicky McKenna’s lesson is grounded in reflection....
07/09/2026

Confidence grows when you know how to respond when a plan doesn’t work.

Nicky McKenna’s lesson is grounded in reflection. Look at what happened, identify what needs to change, and carry that insight into the next decision.

“You won’t get it right every time. Every setback is a lesson in disguise.”
— Nicky McKenna

Setbacks don’t need to become defining moments. They can simply make the next attempt better informed.

What’s one lesson you’ve carried forward from a recent setback?



https://www.wsiworld.com/blog/the-people-the-lessons-the-journey-30-stories-that-shaped-wsi-30-year-history

This week Performance Marketing World talked about how the relationship between ChatGPT and Reddit has changed, and the ...
05/09/2026

This week Performance Marketing World talked about how the relationship between ChatGPT and Reddit has changed, and the impact on Reddit citation numbers.

I was pleased to be one of five marketing leaders asked for a view.

For me, the bigger point is that AI visibility can change very quickly. Building your strategy around one platform, source or tactic is becoming increasingly risky.

That is exactly why WSI’s **Adaptive SEO** approach matters. Rather than chasing whichever source AI platforms happen to favour today, it helps businesses build visibility across search, AI platforms, their own website and the wider web, then adapt as those relationships change.

Because they will.

Read the full article here
👉 https://www.performancemarketingworld.com/article/1968352/chatgpts-relationship-reddit-changed-why-reddits-ai-citations-dropped-off

Most businesses seem to be still treating visibility as a content-calendar problem: publish more, target more keywords, ...
04/09/2026

Most businesses seem to be still treating visibility as a content-calendar problem: publish more, target more keywords, wait for traffic.

But when a buyer asks an AI answer engine, “Who can help us solve this?”, the real visibility test is closer to a shortlist.

Is your business recognised?
Is it clearly understood?
Is there enough credible evidence for it to be recommended?

Good content alone does not guarantee any of that.

AI answer engines do not rely on one visible formula. A business is better positioned when its identity is clear, its expertise is consistently demonstrated, its content answers relevant questions, and credible third parties reinforce what it is known for.

If those signals are scattered, you can have a strong content library and still be absent when the shortlist is formed. We call this "the invisible shortlist".

The strategic mindset change is from a content calendar to a recognition system:

▶️ Make your offer and expertise unmistakably clear
▶️ Build consistent signals wherever buyers and AI encounter you
▶️ Create original insight worth referencing
▶️ Measure whether you are being named and understood, not only clicked

The question is no longer simply, “Are we publishing enough?”. It is: if AI were assembling a shortlist for our buyer’s problem today, would we make it onto it?

For a practical view of where you stand, why not request our free AI Visibility Review:
👉 https://wsidigitaladvisors.uk/contact-us-ai/?enquiry_type=HomePageBtn

The biggest digital problem is often not ex*****on. It’s deciding what deserves attention first.I speak to plenty of bus...
03/09/2026

The biggest digital problem is often not ex*****on. It’s deciding what deserves attention first.

I speak to plenty of businesses that are doing a great deal. Campaigns are running, content is being published, agencies are busy and reports are arriving on schedule.

Yet the results still feel patchy. Momentum is slower than expected, and there’s often a lingering sense that nobody is completely sure where the real priority lies.

That’s usually an important clue.

The problem isn’t necessarily a lack of effort. More often, too many things have been given equal importance.

When everything is treated as a priority, budget gets spread thinly and teams are pulled in several directions at once. The work with the greatest potential to move the business forward never receives enough focus to make a meaningful difference.

This is where my commercial background shapes the way I approach digital challenges. I’m not looking for the longest possible list of improvements. I’m trying to understand which issue matters most commercially, what happens if it remains unresolved and what can reasonably wait.

It’s also worth asking what should stop.

That question can be uncomfortable, but it’s often more valuable than adding another action to the plan.

The starting point isn’t more activity. It’s a clearer ranking of what matters.

Because a lot of digital underperformance isn’t really a tactics problem. It’s a decision problem.

When everything feels urgent in your business, how do you decide what genuinely deserves focus?

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