Kenny Trusnik, the founder of Forest City Digital, was asked how an ecommerce startup can attract customers in the current AI landscape.
“Focus on optimizing the product data in a structured environment,” he advised, suggesting additional strategies for LLM citations and referrals.
In a recent discussion, Kenny elaborated on these tactics, as well as his agency’s core focus and guiding principles. Below is the embedded full audio, while the transcript has been condensed for brevity and clarity.
Eric Bandholz: Can you give us an overview?
Kenny Trusnik: I am the creator of Forest City Digital, a marketing firm based in Cleveland, Ohio. My professional journey began in corporate roles at Toyota and Sherwin-Williams, transitioning to a startup where I assisted content creators in monetizing their audience through ecommerce.
Forest City was established in 2020.
Drawing from my corporate experience, I aim to align our marketing efforts with our clients’ objectives, regardless of the agencies involved.
Bandholz: Which channels do you emphasize?
Trusnik: Our primary focus is on search, social media, and customer retention. Search encompasses organic visibility on Google and Bing, along with AI exposure.
For many clients, we have observed significant revenue growth through LLMs, accounting for up to 10% of online sales. Working closely with clients on Shopify’s Agentic Storefronts and for specialized brands, we enhance metadata for improved AI visibility. Ensuring that crawlers from leading AI platforms can access the site’s robots.txt file is a critical initial step for merchants.
We handle influencer programs and paid channels on social media.
On the retention side, we leverage email platforms like Klaviyo or Brevo to optimize clients’ sales funnels.
Additionally, we provide fractional ecommerce and marketing strategy consulting services.
Bandholz: Could you elaborate on Agentic Storefronts?
Trusnik: Shopify recently introduced Agentic Storefronts. This tool exposes a merchant’s product catalog to prominent LLMs such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, similar to syncing products to Google Merchant Center or Meta Commerce accounts.
Agentic Storefronts enables LLMs to access and crawl merchants’ data. All product fields on Shopify are now visible to LLM crawlers, including categories, colors, sizes, features, and materials.
The goal is for genAI platforms to recommend merchants’ products when customers search for specific features or attributes.
Structured data, such as Schema.org markup, plays a crucial role in aiding crawlers and algorithms in understanding a site, its products, and its purpose.
Bandholz: If you were launching an ecommerce venture in 2026, how would you attract customers?
Trusnik: My focus would be on optimizing the product data in a structured manner. I would opt for Agentic Storefronts on Shopify.
Securing links in prominent listicles or best-of articles would be a priority, as they are strong signals for LLMs. Given limited resources, I would concentrate on structured product data and listicle links.
With additional funding, I would invest in Meta ads to boost top-of-funnel awareness.
Content creation, including articles, videos, and social media posts, can be beneficial if it offers unique information not found elsewhere, unlike AI-generated content, which is essentially repurposed.
Furthermore, it’s essential to identify untapped market needs and develop products that address unmet consumer pain points.
Bandholz: Iterative innovation appears to resonate with most entrepreneurs. For instance, Grüns gummies took a familiar product like gummy vitamins and enhanced it with numerous ingredients, positioning it as a superfood rather than just a vitamin.
Trusnik: Yes, striking the right balance is crucial. We collaborate extensively with hemp beverage companies, a rapidly growing sector as a substitute for alcohol. While the product remains hemp-based, its novelty lies in replacing alcohol in social settings.
Bandholz: Where can listeners connect with you and learn more?
Trusnik: Visit us at ForestCityDigital.com. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn; I’m always available for ecommerce discussions.
