Documentation
AI advertising
How the "AI advertising" tab surfaces the ad blocks AI engines place next to the answers on your prompts — and who is buying them
Contents
1.Why watch the ads next to AI answers
AI engines increasingly show paid ads right next to the organic answer — and those ads compete for the same attention as your brand mention. The "AI advertising" tab collects every ad block seen on your prompts: you can see who buys promotion around your topics and how often their ads surface next to the answers.
- Ads in AI answers are a separate layer from organic: even when your brand is mentioned in the answer itself, a competitor's paid block can sit above or below it on the same query
- GEO Scout captures these blocks automatically during daily monitoring runs — there's nothing extra to collect, ads land in the section alongside the regular answers
- For now, Alice AI (Yandex Search with Alice) is tracked: Yandex Direct text ads labeled "Promo" and sponsored product carousels
- The section shows the picture for the period selected top-right ("Last 30 days"), so you can watch how ad pressure on your prompts changes over time
- An empty section is fine — it just means no ads have appeared on your prompts yet. Data accumulates over time and can't be backfilled
A competitor advertising on your branded or comparison prompt is a signal the topic is already being monetized. That's a cue to strengthen your organic presence there: the more confidently the AI answers with your brand, the less weight the paid block beside it carries.
2.Metrics and advertisers: how to read the section
Up top are four cards summarizing ad pressure for the period; below is the "Advertisers" table showing exactly who buys impressions on your prompts.
- "Answers with ads" — how many answers in the sample carried at least one ad block (e.g. 19 of 50). The higher the share, the more densely your prompts are plastered with paid ads
- "Ad blocks" — the total number of blocks shown next to answers for the period: a single answer can carry several ads at once
- "Advertisers" — how many unique domains advertised on your prompts. This is your list of who's competing for attention in your niche
- "Product cards" — how many products landed in Alice's sponsored carousels (relevant for e-commerce; usually 0 for services)
- The "Advertisers" table shows, per domain: number of impressions, how many prompts it appeared on, formats (e.g. "Direct"), and the date of the last impression — sortable by clicking a header
Focus not on one-off impressions but on advertisers with a high prompt count: if a single domain buys ads across many of your topics, that's your systemic competitor for paid traffic from AI engines.
3.Ad formats and the answer card
Open any answer from the list and you see exactly how the ad block looked: its format, label, and placement relative to the organic answer.
- "Direct" — a Yandex Direct text ad labeled "Promo": headline, advertiser domain, description, and sitelinks (quick links to site sections)
- Sponsored product carousels — a strip of products with prices inside Alice's answer; feeds the "Product cards" metric
- Each block shows its "Placement" — above or below the answer: this affects how much the ad intercepts attention ahead of the organic result
- Ad blocks appear right in the answer card next to the organic sources — so you can compare who is cited for free and who paid to show up on the same prompt
Use the section as reconnaissance on the paid channel: domains that consistently buy "Promo" on your queries reveal which topics AI engines already treat as commercially valuable — and where growing your organic visibility pays off most.