Introducing Sponsored Prompts — The First Agentic Ad Format for Retail Media

Marketplace AI chatbots are becoming a major product discovery surface. Shoppers are already using them to ask for gift ideas, compare products, find replacements, and narrow down options. Those aren’t casual interactions. They’re high-intent commercial moments.

But while marketplaces monetize search results, category pages, and recommendation modules, that monetization often stops the moment a shopper enters the chatbot.

That creates a growing gap: conversational product discovery is increasing, but the retail media infrastructure hasn’t kept up.

Until now, there has not been a practical way to:

• Run auctions inside a conversational surface
• Match advertiser campaigns to free-form user prompts
• And keep the answer experience useful for the shopper

Today that changes.

We’re launching Sponsored Prompts, the first agentic ad format for retail media — designed to bring auction-based monetization into conversational commerce by blending sponsored product placements into chatbot-driven discovery, without breaking the shopper experience.

Why This Matters Now

Conversational commerce is no longer experimental. Shoppers are actively using chat interfaces to discover products they used to search for manually, and marketplaces are investing in agent experiences to keep that discovery on-site.

But any discovery surface that drives engagement without generating revenue eventually becomes difficult to scale.

If marketplaces want to keep investing in AI-powered shopping experiences, they need a monetization model built for conversation — not just for search.

Sponsored Prompts extends retail media infrastructure into this new environment.

It gives retail media and marketplace teams a way to monetize chatbot interactions as they happen, while keeping results useful and relevant for shoppers.

What Sponsored Prompts Does

Sponsored Prompts turns qualifying chatbot product queries into auction-eligible inventory.

When a shopper asks a marketplace chatbot for help finding a product, Topsort evaluates that prompt against active advertiser campaigns using semantic matching instead of keyword targeting.

If there’s a relevant match, the chatbot returns a blended set of sponsored and organic product tiles.

The result is simple:

• Shoppers get useful recommendations
• Advertisers reach high-intent users
• Marketplaces monetize a surface that often operates at zero yield today

Why Marketplaces Need This

Sponsored Prompts is designed to solve a real infrastructure problem.

Until now, there hasn’t been a practical way to:

• Run auctions inside a conversational interface
• Match free-form shopper prompts to advertiser demand
• Deliver sponsored placements without degrading the quality of the answer

Sponsored Prompts closes that gap by bringing auction-based decisioning into conversational surfaces.

With it, marketplaces can:

Monetize a new discovery surface
Every eligible chatbot product query becomes a revenue opportunity.

Preserve recommendation quality
Sponsored and organic product tiles are returned together in a blended experience.

Capture intent beyond keywords
Semantic matching helps advertisers reach shoppers even when they phrase requests differently.

Use existing campaign infrastructure
Sponsored Prompts works with the sponsored listings setup marketplaces already run, so teams don’t need to build and manage a separate ad stack.

How It Works

Sponsored Prompts is configured inside the Topsort UI.

Marketplace teams can enable Conversational Prompts, launch a Sponsored Prompt campaign, define the prompts or intents they want to target with campaigns, select products to include, and set the campaign timing.

When a shopper enters a prompt in a chatbot connected to the Topsort MCP server, Topsort evaluates whether that prompt matches any active campaigns. Matching is based on semantic intent rather than exact keyword overlap.

So a campaign targeting “sports watch” can also match prompts like:

• “Help me find a watch for running”
• “I need a fitness watch under 60”
• “Can you recommend a workout watch?”

If a relevant campaign and eligible products are available, Topsort returns a blended result set of sponsored and organic product tiles, with sponsored placements appearing first.

What The Shopper Experience Looks Like

Imagine a shopper asking a marketplace chatbot:
“Can you help me find a sports watch under 60?”

The chatbot responds with a set of recommended watch products.

The first two are sponsored by advertisers with active campaigns matched to that prompt. The rest are organic recommendations from the marketplace's standard catalog.

The shopper gets a useful answer.
The advertiser gets premium visibility in a high-intent moment.
And the marketplace generates revenue from a conversation that would have otherwise gone unmonetized.

Built for Marketplaces Already Investing in AI

Sponsored Prompts is especially valuable for marketplaces that have already launched a chatbot, are piloting an AI shopping assistant, or are building agent-powered discovery experiences.

Instead of treating conversational commerce as a cost center, they can now turn it into a monetization channel — using the same auction-based infrastructure they already operate.

That means faster activation, less operational overhead, and a clearer business case for continued investment in conversational product discovery.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is Sponsored Prompts?
Sponsored Prompts is a Topsort ad format that lets marketplaces monetize chatbot conversations by surfacing sponsored product tiles alongside organic results when a user's prompt matches an active campaign.

Why Did Topsort Launch Sponsored Prompts?
Conversational product discovery is a fast-growing surface inside marketplaces, but most marketplaces have no way to monetize it. Sponsored Prompts introduces an agentic, auction-based format built specifically for that environment.

How Does Sponsored Prompts Help Marketplaces?
It adds a revenue layer to chatbot conversations that often generate zero yield today, using the same sponsored listing bid model and catalog setup that many marketplaces already have.

How Does a Sponsored Prompt Campaign Work?
An advertiser, or the marketplace on their behalf, creates a campaign inside the Topsort UI, selects the prompts to sponsor, picks eligible products, and sets start and end dates. When a matching user prompt lands in a connected chatbot, sponsored products are returned.

How Are Sponsored Results Matched to User Prompts?
The system evaluates the user's prompt semantically against the prompts included in active campaigns. Matching is based on intent and meaning, not exact keywords.

How Do Sponsored and Organic Results Appear Together?
When a match exists, Topsort returns a mix of sponsored and organic product tiles. Sponsored tiles are placed first, followed by organic recommendations.

What Does It Cost to Run Sponsored Prompts?
There is no additional platform fee. Advertiser spend is billed as usual for sponsored listings when products from a sponsored prompt campaign are shown.

Where Are Sponsored Prompt Metrics Reported?
Currently via ad hoc reporting or data room access. Dedicated UI reporting is on the roadmap.

How Do Marketplaces Get Started?
Enable Conversational Prompts in the Topsort UI and integrate the MCP server with your chatbot agent.

Availability

Sponsored Prompts is available now for all Topsort customers. Ad spend is billed as usual for sponsored listings when products from sponsored prompt campaigns are shown.

Get Started

If your marketplace has deployed a chatbot or is building an agent experience, Sponsored Prompts turns that surface into a monetization channel — without changing the experience your shoppers already trust.

Talk to your Topsort account manager or book a demo to see Sponsored Prompts in action.