Mario Protano, director of performance marketing at footwear brand Clarks, joins Dom Nicastro on CMO Circle to talk through how a 200-year-old brand is adapting its marketing stack for an AI-first customer journey. Protano discusses uploading Clarks' product feed to ChatGPT, why brand mentions are replacing clicks as a measure of AI visibility, the consolidation of Clarks' US and UK affiliate programs onto AWIN, and the shift toward multi-touch attribution.
Host
Guest
Dom Nicastro
Mario Protano
Inside Our Conversation
Table of Contents
- A 200-Year-Old Brand Bets on AI Discovery
- Optimization Has Outgrown the Keyword
- Affiliate Strategy Moves Beyond Coupon Sites
- Attribution Catches Up to a Messier Journey
The Gist
- The feed is the new SEO foundation. Clarks uploaded its full product catalog to ChatGPT through an OpenAI beta program, betting that detailed, consistent product data will determine whether AI surfaces its shoes at all.
- Consistency beats keywords. A shoe listed as "navy" in the feed but "blue" on the website is enough to break AI matching — a level of data discipline traditional SEO never demanded.
- Clicks are no longer the metric that matters. With no established KPIs for AI discovery yet, Clarks is tracking brand mentions instead, since AI-native journeys often end without a click back to the site.
- Affiliate strategy is shifting away from coupon sites. Clarks consolidated its US and UK affiliate programs onto AWIN, redirecting focus toward content publishers, influencers and creators who build long-term authority.
- Attribution is catching up to the AI-era journey. Clarks is moving from last-click attribution to multi-touch modeling to understand where AI actually enters the path to purchase.
A 200-Year-Old Brand Bets on AI Discovery
Clarks just marked its 200th anniversary — "it was Clarks, yes, two brothers. The last name was Clarks," Protano said of the UK-founded footwear brand's origins — and its performance marketing team is now treating generative AI as a discovery channel on par with search and social.
The most concrete move: Protano's team put Clarks' entire product catalog into ChatGPT through an OpenAI beta program. "We actually just uploaded our product feed to OpenAI, ChatGPT," he said, describing it as an extension of work Clarks already does to feed Google's product listings — just with a different, less forgiving audience.
That audience is unforgiving about data quality. Protano cited a small but telling example: a shoe labeled "navy" in the feed but "blue" on the website. "AI doesn't like that. It just doesn't match," he said, adding that "you also need to be as consistent as possible" across every place product data lives.
Optimization Has Outgrown the Keyword
Protano described the shift from SEO to answer-engine optimization, or AEO, as a move away from ranking for a phrase and toward becoming a recognized authority on a topic. "We can't just do like we used to do with SEO and optimize for one or two keyword or a keyword phrase anymore," he said. AEO, in his framing, "is becoming the authority in terms of how to improve upon AI" — which means earning coverage from trusted third parties, not just tuning a website.
That authority-building is also reshaping how Clarks measures success. Traditional click-through data doesn't capture what's happening inside an AI conversation, so Protano's team is watching for brand mentions instead. "We look for brand mentions again, because. .. they might not click," he said, noting there's no standardized KPI yet for AI-driven marketing performance.
Affiliate Strategy Moves Beyond Coupon Sites
Clarks recently consolidated its separate US and UK affiliate programs onto a single platform, AWIN, after Protano evaluated the incumbent agency against a simple bar: was it acting as a strategic partner or just driving short-term volume? He pointed to AWIN's existing relationship with Clarks' UK division as validation. "They're great for many, many reasons. They are that strategic partner. We've had a lot of success with them, and we continue to use them moving forward," Protano said the UK team told him.
The bigger change is strategic: Clarks is intentionally shifting affiliate spend away from coupon and loyalty sites toward content publishers, influencers and creators who build credibility over time. On agency partnerships broadly, Protano was blunt about expertise claims: "I haven't found one agency that's an expert at everything, although they will tell you that."
Attribution Catches Up to a Messier Journey
Clarks currently relies on last-click attribution, crediting whatever channel a customer touched right before purchase. Protano said that model is increasingly disconnected from how people actually shop. "That doesn't really work because of the journey," he said. "So we want to get into multi-touch attribution."
The goal is visibility into where AI actually enters that journey — and how much marketing budget it deserves as a result.
What Matters Here?
Product data discipline is now a marketing function, not just an IT one. Brands that treat feed accuracy and consistency as a technical afterthought risk becoming invisible in AI-driven discovery, regardless of how strong their broader content strategy is.
