When AI Fully Lands on Double 11: The Growth Shift of Alimama and Merchants
During the first wave of pre - sales "good start" of this year's Double 11, Alimama presented a report that goes beyond mere sales figures.
At 8 p.m. on October 15th, in the first hour after the pre - sales of Tmall Double 11 kicked off, 35 brands achieved sales of over 100 million yuan, and 1,802 brands doubled their sales. The number of brands with sales exceeding 100 million yuan, the number of brands with doubled sales, and the number of active users all exceeded those of the same period last year.
The reason why this opening battle has been repeatedly discussed is not that it represents a certain level of consumer enthusiasm, but that it reveals a deeper signal: the logic of major promotions is being redefined by AI.
At the Tmall Double 11 press conference on October 16th, Jialuo, the president of Tmall, defined this year as "the first Double 11 when AI is fully implemented." The overlap of the two major opportunities of AI and the consumer market has made this annual major promotion a new starting point for brand growth.
The data from the good start indeed seems to confirm this. Undoubtedly, this year, AI has officially entered the core of this game and become the key hub connecting product recommendation and search, target audience and content, as well as strategies and results.
Correspondingly, the strategy of "Fast product recommendation and search across the whole domain, winning Double 11 with AI quality" proposed by Alimama was born in such a context. It's worth noting that beyond the appearance of updated marketing strategies, this seems more like a reconstruction of business thinking.
In this new system, "product recommendation" and "search" are no longer separated but become two ends of the same growth curve; the role of AI has changed from an auxiliary tool to the underlying engine of growth.
01. The logical shift from "product recommendation" to "search" for quality wins across the whole domain
Every year during Double 11, merchants always ask the same question: Is there still new growth potential?
But this year, this question is particularly pressing. Consumers' behaviors are more unpredictable than ever. They may be recommended a product in a blogger's video and place an order through a search three days later; they may make impulsive purchases in a live - streaming room or change their decisions due to algorithmic recommendations.
The way traffic flows has changed. Users' purchase paths have become longer, more fragmented, and more random. The old approach of "piling up budgets and seizing hot moments" can hardly support a stable growth curve. Brands need a new growth method that is more replicable and accumulative.
This makes it easy to understand why Alimama proposed the marketing strategy of "Fast product recommendation and search across the whole domain, winning Double 11 with AI quality" in this context. Its emergence is a response to the shift of the entire business ecosystem towards "operational certainty."
"Fast" means being more sensitive in reaction, capable of capturing consumers' interests the moment they are sparked; "product recommendation" and "search" represent two parallel conversion lines, where interest triggering and demand confirmation occur simultaneously; and "across the whole domain" allows every content entry point and every search behavior to participate in the business cycle.
More importantly, this strategy no longer pursues peak traffic but certainty, ensuring that traffic truly reaches the "right people" and making conversion a more likely outcome.
In the traditional model, "product recommendation" and "search" are regarded as sequential steps in consumer conversion: the former creates interest, and the latter completes the transaction. Brands are used to operating them separately, creating content for product recommendation and conducting searches for conversion.
However, with the intervention of AI, the boundary between the content field and the shelf field has been broken, and the two paths have become parallel. People who are interested through product recommendation are "tracked" again when browsing the shelves, and their active searches are activated around keywords. "Product recommendation" and "search" form an efficient circular system.
This means that brands are shifting from the old "casting - net - style" advertising to "intelligent operation": algorithms actively identify potential audiences, optimize conversion paths, trigger and capture interest and search simultaneously, and maximize the possibility of conversion.
The changes this year are obvious. When a product - recommendation note on Xiaohongshu can be linked directly to the product page, the distance between content and transaction is compressed to just a few seconds; when the popularity of a celebrity's video rises, the system immediately pushes relevant product keywords to help users complete the closed - loop from "product recommendation" to "decision - making." These seemingly minor updates to the business chain are reshaping the entire business system.
In their practices, some merchants have found new business growth speeds through new traffic entry points; some have adjusted their rhythms to make marketing a regular activity rather than just a periodic event; and some have used new technologies and methods to break through existing boundaries and reshape the relationship between brands and users.
These different attempts together outline the profile of this transformation and are also the "four good cards" played by Alimama during this Double 11.
02. Four good cards for business breakthroughs in four industries
Currently, merchants' anxieties have become more concrete: traffic is more dispersed, the pace is more intense, and competition is fiercer.
The variables in Double 11 have never decreased, but this year's certainty comes from another aspect. AI has made growth less reliant on luck. For merchants, the four problems that have troubled them in the past - traffic acquisition, rhythm management, operational efficiency, and content innovation - are being systematically reconstructed.
Merchants who adapted to the changes early have found a new operational rhythm with the help of AI. They are the most vivid examples of this year's Double 11 and the best interpretations of Alimama's "four good cards": new traffic, new rhythm, new technology, and new methods.
- New traffic: Ulike's acceleration across the whole domain
In the medical device market, traffic competition has reached a white - hot stage. The challenge for Ulike, a hair - removal device brand, is how to continuously attract new customers in a high - unit - price market. The traditional approach of piling up budgets and seizing exposure often leads to high traffic but low conversion rates.
This year during Double 11, Ulike changed its method, shifting from pursuing "more" traffic to making it more "accurate."
With the help of Alimama's Uni Desk external advertising platform, it connected external traffic with in - Taobao conversion: on Xiaohongshu, Weibo, and WeChat, it created technology - related topics around keywords such as "Sapphire Super Ice Hair Removal" and "AI Intelligent Hair Removal," using celebrity reviews and short scenario - based videos to spark interest; within Taobao, it integrated Brand Showcase and Red Cat product - recommendation audience packages, and through AI's identification and screening of audience characteristics, formed a two - way closed - loop of "external product recommendation and internal search."
When interests are captured in real - time and search popularity is fed back immediately, Ulike's advertising rhythm has become extremely sensitive.
In the first four hours on the first day of Tmall Double 11 (October 15th), the GMV of Ulike's official flagship store exceeded 50 million yuan, and the membership penetration rate reached over 70%. For a high - unit - price category, such a conversion speed almost means a new growth curve. The brand no longer relies on volume but on algorithms to find real potential buyers.
- New rhythm: Freego's circular business method
If Ulike is pursuing "faster" growth, Freego's challenge is to achieve "longer - lasting" success.
As a representative in the health - care market, Freego faces a highly competitive and fragmented market. The product category has high frequency of use, but consumer awareness is crowded. How to maintain continuous exposure and conversion potential during short - term promotional periods is a common problem for most brands.
Alimama helped it reconstruct the timeline. Through two "Super 88 Promotions" each month for pre - promotion, Freego continuously recommended products and accumulated energy during non - promotional periods; during Double 11, it used the "Super Brand Zone" and the "Search - and - Display" intelligent recommendation mechanism to gather and convert potential traffic. AI makes time "recyclable." Algorithms adjust advertising strategies dynamically according to changes in audience interests, making the rhythm coherent rather than fragmented.
The results are immediate. In the first four hours before October 15th, Freego's consumer asset increased by over 20% year - on - year, and it ranked first in the domestic sanitary napkin category on Tmall. This means that it not only achieved growth during the peak period but also transformed from a short - term player to a long - term operator when the rhythm was redesigned.
- New technology: Akok's AI - driven growth experiment
In the instant food industry, Akok faces another kind of anxiety: although it has sufficient traffic, its brand recognition is limited.
In the past, it relied on experience to judge the target audience and used marketing topics to drive short - term conversion; this year, it embedded AI directly into the business chain. Through Alimama's "Wanxiangtai AI Unbounded," Akok can let the algorithm automatically identify audience profiles, from "refined moms" to "health - conscious eaters," and make dynamic adjustments in the bidding and advertising process. The core product, "Tomato and Meat Sauce Pasta," became even more popular during Double 11 with the help of such an algorithm.
The difference is that this growth does not rely on "hitting the right hot topic" but on continuous learning and compounding through data. AI not only helps the brand "find people" but also "find the right people," establishing an accurate match between the audience and the products.
Shifting from "experience - based operation" to "intelligent operation" and from the traffic logic to the data logic, the result of this experiment is the maturity of brand awareness. As of the first four hours before October 15th, the number of pre - ordered Akok products exceeded 100,000, a year - on - year increase of over 50%. This AI - driven growth experiment proves the power of "intelligent operation."
It enables the brand to stop relying on hot topics and instead grow through algorithmic self - learning and compounding.
- New method: Mercury Home Textiles' content exploration
The home textile industry has always emphasized conversion rates and scale, but with the waning of the traffic dividend, the "advertising - conversion" model is becoming increasingly unsustainable.
This year during Double 11, Mercury Home Textiles conducted an experiment of "subsidy + AI." The platform provided consumer vouchers, red envelopes, and huge subsidies, while Alimama redefined content distribution with an AI distribution system: the algorithm automatically identifies audience preferences, sparks interest through "super short - videos," and then completes the conversion through "Full - site Live - streaming Promotion."
The key to this combination is not the subsidy itself but that AI turns the subsidy into fuel for content. Content is no longer just for product recommendation but directly enters the transaction process. When consumers see a video, the purchase trigger almost happens at the same moment.
The results are also remarkable. In the first four hours before October 15th, the sales of Mercury Home Textiles' high - end series increased by 200% year - on - year, and the overall GMV increased by over 29%. In an era of information overload, Mercury Home Textiles' experiment proves that good content is not just an advertisement but a business model that can resonate with algorithms.
New traffic brings certain reach, new rhythm brings operational retention, new technology brings intelligent decision - making, and new methods bring content breakthroughs.
Behind these four good cards lies the same proposition: AI is not a replacement but an enhancer. It makes every investment by merchants smarter and more certain, and also shifts the growth logic of Double 11 from the traffic dividend to the intelligent dividend.
More importantly, this change is not limited to Double 11. It reveals a longer - term business trend: when growth no longer depends on blockbusters but on the system; when advertising no longer pursues short - term peaks but sustainable certainty; when brands start to co - build with algorithms instead of gambling against them, the logic of retail is being rewritten.
AI not only makes advertising more efficient but also redefines the concept of "operation." Brands are no longer passive players in the traffic flood but are learning how to coexist with data and race against time.
03. A new game requires a new hand
As AI becomes the new growth infrastructure, the Double 11 playing field is also changing.
In the past decade, it was a game about "quantity," where the winner was the one who could grab more traffic and make more noise; now, it is more like a competition about "quality."
Now, Alimama's anchor point for quality wins is AI, which helps merchants make the shift towards "quality."
Traffic is still abundant, but what is truly scarce is sustainable growth with certainty.
The key to this change lies not in the emergence of new technologies but in the reconstruction of business thinking.
Intelligent means represented by AI make this systematic operation possible: it can self - learn audience characteristics, capture interest signals in real - time, and optimize creative distribution simultaneously, allowing every touchpoint to feed back into the next decision. Marketing is no longer an isolated act but a cyclic process.
At the core of this logic is the accelerating trend of business intelligence: when the boundaries between data, content, and the audience are broken, brand competition is no longer about "who understands consumers better" but about "who can make AI understand consumers faster." The faster a brand can do this, the quicker its response; the quicker the response, the more stable the growth. AI has become the new business language, and brands are learning how to express themselves in this language.
Alimama's role is also being redefined at this juncture.
It is not just about assisting in specific operational details but using a more platform - oriented perspective to help merchants find their direction in the vast traffic flood and rebuild certainty in an uncertain cycle.
The full implementation of AI in Double 11 means that the e - commerce industry has officially entered the era of intelligent operation. Brands that dare to accelerate their entry and make continuous investments are seizing this historical opportunity first.
A new game has begun. Winning big is important, but winning in the long run is the new answer.