Give it to the agency you already have, or bring in a specialist?
Your incumbent knows your business, and adding a workstream there is genuinely lower friction. Whether they can do this work is a question with a specific, testable answer. Here are the questions.
No lock-in · you own every account and all your data · we tell you when we're not a fit
The short answer
Extending your current agency is the lower-friction option and often the right one: they already hold context a specialist spends the first two weeks rebuilding, it's one relationship and one invoice, and if they're genuinely learning the surface your incentives align for years. It stops being the right call when "agentic commerce" is a relabelled line item. The test is specific — ask what they would change in your product data, how they'd reconcile your Shopify and Amazon catalogues, and how they'd measure whether an assistant recommends your SKU over a competitor's. If the answer is "we'll add schema and publish more content," that's SEO with new vocabulary. The foundation overlaps genuinely, but the work doesn't, and the difference shows up in your catalog rather than your content calendar.
The case for your current agency
What generalist agency genuinely gets you.
Stated in its own best terms, because a comparison that can't do that isn't worth reading.
Real advantages
- They already know your brand, catalog, margins, seasonality and calendar. That context is worth more than most specialists admit.
- One relationship, one invoice, no vendor coordination tax, no fighting over whose change broke what.
- If they're honestly building the capability, their long-term incentives are better aligned than a project vendor's.
- Cheaper than adding a vendor, assuming they can actually deliver it.
- Classic SEO foundations still carry most of the weight — being rankable and extractable is a real prerequisite, and that's their home turf.
Where it stops working
- The category is young enough that "we do GEO now" is frequently a retainer line item rather than a capability. The buyer's guide lists the tells.
- Generalists rarely carry product-data discipline. Catalog and feed work is a different muscle from content and links.
- Google-shaped thinking doesn't cover Amazon Rufus or agent checkout, and most full-service shops have no marketplace practice at all.
- Reporting defaults to rankings and impressions, which is the wrong scoreboard for a surface where there's often no click at all.
- Protocol fluency varies wildly. If they can't distinguish ACP, UCP, AP2 and MCP, they're guessing — the decoder is here.
Side by side
The trade, dimension by dimension.
Where the other column is genuinely stronger, it says so.
The honest fork
Which one you should actually pick.
Most comparison pages conclude that you should buy from the author. Here's the real split.
Don't hire us
Pick your current agency when…
- They can answer the live-prompt question specifically: three real prompts where they moved a brand into an AI recommendation, and how they'd measure your revenue from it.
- They have genuine catalog and feed experience — a PIM migration, a marketplace integration, structured product data at depth — not just content and links.
- The relationship is working, the reporting is honest, and you don't want a second vendor in your week.
- Your actual need is mostly classic SEO with AI-readiness on top. That's a real situation, it's more common than specialists like to admit, and they may well be the right team for it.
- They're willing to be measured on a scoreboard you choose rather than the one they already produce.
Talk to us
Bring us in when…
- They can't tell you specifically what they'd change in your product data.
- You sell on Amazon as well as Shopify and nobody currently owns the seam between them.
- The reporting is impressions and rankings, and you've stopped being able to tell whether it's working.
- You want a specialist to build the foundation and hand it to them to maintain — a good outcome we're happy to scope for.
- They've quoted for agentic commerce and the scope reads like the SEO retainer with new headings.
Cost
How the money actually compares.
This doesn't have to be a switch
The most common good outcome here isn't replacing your agency. It's a fixed-scope engagement that builds the catalog, schema and cross-surface foundation, documents it, and hands it to your existing team to run — while they keep doing the content, creative and paid work they're already good at. We scope that deliberately, and it's usually cheaper than either team doing all of it.
Or we work behind them
If you'd rather keep one relationship, your agency can deliver this under their own brand with us behind it. That's what Agency Partners is for, and it means you don't have to choose between your incumbent's context and a specialist's depth.
How to compare the quotes
Ask both for fixed scope with acceptance criteria, and ask both what they'd report monthly. A quote you can't evaluate is the actual red flag, whoever it's from. Ours is published with floors so you have something to compare against before you're in a sales conversation — and how to split budget between SEO and GEO covers the allocation question underneath this one.
Questions we get a lot.
Is Commerce GEO just SEO with a new name?
The foundation overlaps honestly — you still have to rank and be extractable, and roughly speaking most AI citation starts with conventional ranking. What's genuinely new is catalog and feed quality, coverage across Amazon and answer engines rather than Google alone, off-site corroboration, and product-level measurement of whether you get recommended. An agency that can't name those specifics is repackaging.
What should I ask my current agency before deciding?
Four things: what specifically would you change in our product data; how would you reconcile our Shopify and Amazon catalogues; show me three live prompts where you moved a brand into an AI recommendation; and what would you report to me monthly. Specific answers mean capability. Reaching for guarantees, impressions or a proprietary black box means they're learning on your budget.
Can you work alongside our existing agency?
Yes, and it's a common arrangement. We take the catalog, schema and cross-surface foundation; they keep content, creative and paid. Everything is built under your logins and documented, so there's no dependency to unwind later. If you'd rather it all came through them, Agency Partners is the white-label route.
They've quoted much less than you. Why?
Sometimes because the scope is smaller than it looks — switching on free Shopify features and adding schema is real work but it's the plumbing, and it shouldn't cost much. Sometimes because they're learning on your budget, which can be a fair trade if you both name it. Compare acceptance criteria rather than totals: what will exist at the end, and what will be reported monthly.
Still deciding
The other options you're probably weighing.
Hiring in-house
In-house is the better end state. It is rarely the better next 90 days. Here is the actual trade — including the cases where you should stop reading and post the job.
CompareDIY with apps
A fair question, and the honest answer disqualifies most of what agencies sell. Turning the features on is free and genuinely doable. Being the product an assistant recommends is not the same job.
CompareA GEO platform
AI-visibility software is useful, cheaper than a retainer, and more neutral than any agency's own reporting — ours included. It also stops exactly where the work starts. Here's the line.
CompareAlready decided on an agency and just vetting them? How to tell a real agentic-commerce agency from repackaged SEO →
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