How to set up ChatGPT Ads for a Shopify store

ChatGPT Ads is now open to most Shopify brands. Ads Manager is self-serve in more than 80 countries, including the US, UK, India, Australia and most of Europe, with a minimum daily budget of $25 (OpenAI). There's an official ChatGPT Ads app for Shopify that syncs your catalog and installs the conversion pixel. And bidding changes on 9 November, so new campaigns start on the new system.

This guide covers setup from start to finish, in the order you'll do it. Everything here comes from OpenAI's help centre as of 6 November 2026. The product is still in beta and changes often, so check the linked pages before you spend.

What ChatGPT Ads are

• Where they appear. One ad unit below a ChatGPT answer, with your brand name, logo, headline, description, image and link. OpenAI is also testing multi-image ads shown while ChatGPT generates an image (OpenAI).
• Who sees them. Logged-in users on the Free and Go plans, plus logged-out users. Never Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise or Edu accounts, and never accounts identified as under 18 (OpenAI).
• How they're matched. There are no keywords. OpenAI matches ads to the conversation, your landing page and ad copy, and optional "context hints" you write. Ads don't appear next to health, mental-health or political conversations (OpenAI).
• What advertisers see. Aggregated results only: impressions, clicks, spend and conversions. You never see anyone's chats (OpenAI).

For a Shopify brand, the attraction is reaching people at the moment they ask ChatGPT what to buy. Adobe expects traffic from AI assistants to US retail sites to grow 130% this holiday season (Adobe).

Step 1: Check you can advertise

• Country. Self-serve access depends on where your legal entity is based, not where your customers are. Check the availability list. If your country isn't on it, you can still create an account and you'll be told when it opens.
• Home country first. Some new self-serve accounts can only advertise in their own country at first. Other countries unlock once identity verification is approved and the account has spent enough in its home country (OpenAI). An Indian brand selling to the US may need to start with Indian campaigns.
• Category. Health, financial services and other regulated categories must meet stricter eligibility criteria, and political ads aren't allowed (OpenAI). If you sell supplements, skincare with health claims or anything age-restricted, read OpenAI's ad policies (linked from that page) before building creative. Ads that break them are rejected at review.

Step 2: Create your Ads Manager account

1. Go to ads.openai.com and sign in with your OpenAI account (setup guide).
2. Either enter your store URL to have a first ad drafted for you, or skip straight to Ads Manager.
3. Enter your advertiser details. Country, currency and time zone can't be changed later, so use your store's currency and time zone. Matching them makes it easier to compare ChatGPT's numbers with Shopify's.
4. Add a card under Billing. Campaigns can't run without it.
5. Under Settings → General, check your logo and Brand Name. The Brand Name is what shoppers see on your ads.

One warning: an ad created during sign-up can go live as soon as it passes review. If you're not ready to spend, pause the campaign straight away.

Step 3: Connect Shopify

OpenAI's ChatGPT Ads app for Shopify connects your store to Ads Manager (OpenAI). It does three jobs:

• syncs your product catalog, keeping prices and stock current, for product ads;
• creates and connects the OpenAI Pixel for Shopify, so purchases and other store events reach Ads Manager;
• lets you create simple campaigns from inside Shopify, either from all products, one product or your website.

As of 6 November 2026, the app is available to Shopify stores in the US. OpenAI says it will reach every country where ChatGPT ads run "shortly". Until then, stores elsewhere have two options:

• Product feed. Upload one in Ads Manager under Tools → Feeds. Use a hosted URL rather than a one-off CSV, because uploaded items expire after two weeks (OpenAI).
• Pixel. Install the OpenAI Pixel through a Shopify custom pixel or a pixel app, and send purchases as the order_created event.

Step 4: Set up conversion tracking properly

This step decides whether ChatGPT can optimise for sales, and whether you can trust its numbers (OpenAI).

• How it works. When someone clicks your ad, ChatGPT adds a click reference called oppref to your landing page URL. The OpenAI Pixel saves it in a first-party cookie and links it to the later purchase.
• Purchases are order_created. Ads Manager's Order Created Sales and ROAS columns only count that event.
• Use the pixel and the Conversions API together if you can. Give a purchase the same event ID in both so OpenAI counts it once. If you send purchases from the server, include the oppref value.
• Keep oppref on the URL. Redirects, pop-ups and URL rewrites that drop query strings break attribution.
• Don't block OpenAI's crawlers. Landing pages must allow OAI-AdsBot and OAI-SearchBot, or ads get rejected. Check any bot-protection or firewall app you use.
• Test it. Place a real order and check that the purchase event arrives in your data source in Ads Manager. Use the pixel's debug mode while testing (OpenAI). To test attribution, click a live ad: clicks from the Ads Manager preview carry a placeholder oppref, not a real one. Attributed conversions can take 24 to 48 hours to show. A pixel that's installed but not receiving events leaves conversion campaigns with nothing to learn from.

Step 5: Build your first campaign

Choose an objective

Objective	You pay for	Use it when
Views	Every 1,000 impressions	You want reach for a launch or a new brand
Clicks	Each valid click	You're starting out and conversion tracking isn't proven yet
Conversions	Clicks or impressions (your choice), never per conversion	Purchases are reaching Ads Manager and you want sales

Conversion campaigns optimise for one standard event, such as a purchase, and can't switch events later. Billing on impressions lets the system count purchases after someone sees an ad as well as after a click. Billing on clicks counts only purchases after a click (OpenAI).

Use your product feed

For most Shopify brands, start with a product feed campaign. OpenAI says feed ads "have been among the strongest-performing ads" on the platform. They show product images, prices, sale prices and ratings, and OpenAI chooses whether to show a single product or a carousel. Use product filters, or custom labels in your feed, to split your range into ad groups such as best-sellers or a gift guide.

Write context hints, not keywords

Each ad group takes context hints: plain-language descriptions of when your products are useful. OpenAI's own example is "cushioned everyday running shoes for beginners training for their first 5K", which works much better than "running shoes" (OpenAI). Write them the way a customer would describe their problem to ChatGPT.

Write several ads per ad group

OpenAI recommends several title and description variations per product, each taking a different angle, so the system can find more conversations where you fit. Link each ad to a product or collection page rather than your homepage (OpenAI).

Step 6: Set budget and bids

• Budget. The minimum daily budget is $25, £15 or €15, or ₹725 in India. A daily budget is an average over a Sunday-to-Saturday week, so a single day can spend up to twice the amount (OpenAI).
• Bids from 9 November 2026. New conversion campaigns use Target CPA, an average cost per sale to aim for. New click campaigns can use Target CPC. The old Max Bid and Max CPC options retire on 1 January 2027 (OpenAI).
• No target needed. Intelligent bidding (formerly Maximize results) works toward as many clicks or conversions as your budget allows, without a target. It's the default for new product-feed ad groups (OpenAI) and the simplest place to start.
• Starting point. For click campaigns, OpenAI suggests starting at $3 to $5 per click (OpenAI). For Target CPA, start from what a sale costs you today on Meta or Google. A target well below that will limit delivery.

Step 7: Tag your links

Ads Manager can add query parameters to every landing page URL, with macros for {campaign_id}, {ad_group_id}, {ad_id} and {ad_account_id} (OpenAI). Set them at campaign level so every ad inherits them:

utm_source=chatgpt&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign={campaign_id}&utm_content={ad_id}

Without tags, Shopify and GA4 usually can't tell an ad click from someone following a normal ChatGPT answer, and paid visits end up in "referral" or "direct". Our free UTM builder builds and checks these links.

Step 8: Read the results correctly

• Pick your windows. Ads Manager reports purchases within 7, 14 or 30 days of a click, plus optionally 1 day after a view. It credits the last ad touch and doesn't use multi-touch attribution.
• Purchases are dated to the ad, not the sale. By default a purchase is credited to the day of the click or view that earned it, so last week's numbers keep rising for up to 30 days. To see sales by the day they happened, add the Conversions (by conv. time) column.
• Expect delays. Clicks update about every 15 minutes, spend 7 to 8 hours later, and purchases take 24 to 48 hours to appear.
• Expect it to differ from Shopify. OpenAI may include modelled conversions, and its window and attribution rules differ from Shopify's and GA4's. That isn't an error, but it means ChatGPT's ROAS shouldn't be compared directly with Meta's or Google's.

Give a new campaign two to three weeks and enough sales before changing bids, budgets or creative.

Measuring ChatGPT Ads alongside your other channels

ChatGPT Ads Manager only reports on ChatGPT. To decide where your next dollar goes, you need ChatGPT, Meta and Google measured the same way, against your real Shopify orders.

Prism, our attribution app for Shopify, does this:

• it recognises the oppref click reference, so ChatGPT ad clicks show as their own ChatGPT Ads channel, separate from organic ChatGPT visits;
• it shows ChatGPT ad spend, revenue and ROAS next to Meta, Google, TikTok and Microsoft under one set of attribution models;
• add two pr_ parameters to the Step 7 template and it breaks results down to campaign and ad.

Plans start at $29 a month with a 14-day free trial (pricing).

Quick answers

How much does it cost to advertise on ChatGPT?

There's no fixed price. The minimum daily budget is $25 (₹725 in India), and OpenAI suggests $3 to $5 per click to start. You pay per click or per 1,000 impressions, never per conversion.

Can Shopify stores outside the US use ChatGPT Ads?

Yes, if your business is in a supported country. The official Shopify app is US-only for now, so elsewhere you upload a product feed and install the OpenAI Pixel yourself.

Does ChatGPT Ads use keywords?

No. You add context hints that describe when your product is useful, and OpenAI matches ads to the conversation. Hints guide matching but don't guarantee placement.

Do ads change ChatGPT's answers?

No. OpenAI says ads run on separate systems, are clearly labelled, and advertisers can't influence answers.

Why don't ChatGPT's sales match Shopify?

Different attribution windows and modelled conversions, and ChatGPT dates a sale to the click by default. Compare the same dates and time zone, and use a tool that matches ad clicks to real Shopify orders.