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Tony Castillo

Founder, WISLR.ai and Redirects.net

He speaks on attribution for the AI channel: how to follow a person from the answer that mentioned you through to the purchase they make, and what their behavior looks like on the way. The channel does not report itself, so the funnel has to be rebuilt from server logs.

Tony Castillo, founder of WISLR.ai, beside his name and the WISLR.ai lockup on a press sheet
Years in organic growth and behavior analytics
Twenty
Publishing and ecommerce brands running on WISLR.ai
Fifteen
Of one brand's total revenue now arrives via the AI channel
Twelvepercent
Ecommerce sites launched on Magento Enterprise and Shopify
Forty

Speaking topics

  • How generative surfaces choose their sources

    Original research on AI crawler behavior, re-tested as the models change.

  • What makes a brand citable

    Why some pages get quoted by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Claude, and most do not.

  • AI-led content systems that hold up

    The systems WISLR has built for producing content with AI that reads as genuine work, and what keeps it from being treated as filler by search engines and AI surfaces.

  • Upskilling a team on the AI channel

    Working sessions for marketing and leadership teams who want to know what AI channel marketing means for their brand, and what to do about it first.

  • Building an attribution funnel for the AI channel

    AI crawlers do not fire JavaScript tags, so the visits they produce land in direct or unknown. How to rebuild the funnel from server logs and read what those visitors actually do.

Bio

Introduction

Tony Castillo founded WISLR.ai, which measures how brands show up in AI search and what that traffic is worth. Fifteen brands run on it today. Before that he spent 20 years in enterprise ecommerce analytics, led a 16-person department at Corra, and built a $5MM strategy practice at The Maze Group.

Full bio

Tony Castillo is the founder of WISLR.ai and Redirects.net, and has spent 20 years in organic growth and user behavior analytics for enterprise ecommerce.

He built WISLR.ai after conventional analytics stopped explaining where traffic was coming from. AI crawlers do not fire JavaScript tags, so the visits and citations produced by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Claude were landing in direct or in unknown, and brands were reading a growing channel as a rounding error. WISLR.ai reads server logs instead. It classifies AI referrals, verifies bot traffic against the IP ranges the model vendors publish, and attributes the path from crawl through citation to visit, lead, and revenue. 15 publishing and ecommerce brands run on it today across Adobe Commerce, Shopify, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud. One of them now sees 12 percent of total revenue arrive through the AI channel.

Before starting his own practice, Tony was Director of CRO and SEO at The Maze Group, a Shopify Premier Partner, where he grew the client strategy practice from a standing start to $5MM in three years and led organic and conversion work for GNC.com, Toms.com, and MichaelKors.com. Prior to that he was Director of Optimization at Corra, a Shopify Platinum Partner later acquired by Publicis Sapient. There he recruited and led a 16-person department for five years with 90 percent retention, delivered across 24 concurrent enterprise brands, and launched 40 ecommerce sites on Magento Enterprise and Shopify. The largest of those launched without losing organic traffic or revenue, and averaged 15 percent revenue growth in the 90 days after go-live.

He authored a patent-pending algorithm for redirect mapping that uses NLP and vector search to match old URLs to new ones through a site migration. It is the engine behind Redirects.net.

Tony publishes original research on AI crawler behavior at wislr.com/articles and re-tests his findings as the models change. He speaks on how generative surfaces choose their sources, what makes a brand citable, and how to measure a channel that does not report itself.

He received a Coca-Cola Scholarship in 2000 and has served on its selection committee since 2017, mentoring two to three scholars a year through their first year of college. He holds a Bachelor of Science with Honors from Rochester Institute of Technology, where he studied Information Technology and Design. He lives in Atlanta.

Short bio

Tony Castillo is the founder of WISLR.ai, which measures how brands show up in AI search. It reads server logs to classify AI referrals and attribute the path from crawl through citation to revenue, and 15 publishing and ecommerce brands run on it across Adobe Commerce, Shopify, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud. One now sees 12 percent of total revenue arrive through the AI channel. Tony spent 20 years in organic growth and analytics for enterprise ecommerce, most recently leading a 16-person department at Corra and growing a $5MM strategy practice at The Maze Group. He holds a patent-pending algorithm for redirect mapping and publishes research at wislr.com/articles.

Headshot

Tony Castillo, founder of WISLR.ai, beside his name and the WISLR.ai lockup on a press sheet

Square colour headshot, 2760 x 2760 pixels. Free to use in event programmes, slides and press. Credit is not required.

Name for credit lines Tony Castillo, Founder, WISLR.ai

Brands

A selection of the brands Tony has worked with, across enterprise ecommerce, DTC and professional services.

  • Liquid Death
  • OLIPOP
  • Vuori
  • HexClad
  • Ridge
  • True Classic
  • Caraway
  • Graza
  • Jones Road Beauty
  • Bloom Nutrition
  • Cuts Clothing
  • Quince
  • Coterie
  • Sulwhasoo
  • Grown Alchemist
  • Corsair
  • Murray's Cheese
  • Veracity
  • Zaelab
  • The Church Law Firm