Generative Commerce Routing
Intent your catalog can't serve is routed to large retail assistants and marketplaces under your agreement, so the viewer completes and you earn a referral share.
Generative commerce routing covers the moments your own catalog doesn't. When a viewer wants something you don't sell, Octo routes that intent to a large retail assistant or marketplace. The viewer still completes the purchase, and you still earn an affiliate or referral share.
This capability arrives as a proposal when your network needs it, filled in from your brand context, and goes live when you confirm it. It's part of Octo, and Dynamic in-video linkouts and affiliate commerce explains how linkouts resolve and where routing takes over.
When to use it
Use it if you're a media brand, or a brand whose products sell elsewhere. Routing turns product intent in your videos into revenue even when you don't run the checkout.
| Your situation | What routing does |
|---|---|
| Media brand without a catalog | Sends product intent from your videos to the retail destinations you allow |
| Brand whose products sell through retailers | Sends viewers to where your products are sold |
| Catalog that covers part of the demand | Handles only the intent your catalog can't serve; your checkout keeps the rest |
How it works
- Octo resolves every tagged moment at serve time, as Octo Resolve describes. Routing is the outcome when no catalog you allow can serve the intent.
- Octo routes only to the destinations you allow: large retail assistants and marketplaces.
- A fallback order sets which outcome Octo tries first. For linkouts, it runs across your checkout, partner catalogs, and affiliate networks, as Affiliate Commerce covers.
- Your agreement governs the referral terms, and money never moves on a change you didn't approve.
- Routed intents and their completions are attributed through Attribution: closed-loop commerce and conversion forecasts, then reported with the referral revenue they earned.
- Octo orchestration and generative commerce come with the Commerce Media and Retail Media models in Network models in depth.
Set it up
Octo proposes routing with these steps already done. You review the result and confirm it.
- Enable routing under Monetize > Commerce. Learn how that screen works in Dynamic in-video linkouts and affiliate commerce.
- Choose the allowed destinations.
- Set the referral terms in your agreement. Learn how in Choose your monetization agreement.
Settings
| Setting | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Destinations | The retail assistants and marketplaces Octo can route to |
| Categories | Which product categories can be routed |
| Fallback order | The order Octo tries outcomes in when your catalog can't serve the intent |
Change destinations, categories, and fallback order under Monetize > Commerce. Referral terms live in your agreement.
What it reports
Routed intents are attributed like any other outcome, so they appear in Reports > Attribution. Attribution: closed-loop commerce and conversion forecasts explains how each outcome is credited.
- Routed intents: the viewer intents Octo sent to an outside destination.
- Completions: the routed intents that ended in a purchase.
- Referral revenue: the share you earned on completed purchases.
Build on it
Routing runs in Brand Control Center and needs no code. Serve your first ad covers the monetization surfaces your developers add today: in-feed ads, IAB ad units in apps, and ad creatives on partner pages.
The routing and linkout calls in the Business Account API are proposed, not live. Live API today and the Business Account API roadmap maps what you can call now to what's planned.
