ChatGPT Ads: What the New Formats Mean for Online Shops

A new advertising channel takes shapeOpenAI has spent months turning ChatGPT into something more than a chatbot. The next step is advertising, and the...

A new advertising channel takes shape

OpenAI has spent months turning ChatGPT into something more than a chatbot. The next step is advertising, and the company has just outlined a series of changes aimed at making the channel credible for brands that sell online. The announcement matters for any ecommerce business in Catalonia or elsewhere in Spain that is weighing where to put its next euro of media spend.

The core problem OpenAI is trying to solve is not creativity but proof. Agencies have been quick to point out that ChatGPT's advertising tools lag behind Google and Meta when it comes to tracking conversions and attributing sales. Without reliable data, finance directors are reluctant to shift budget towards an unproven channel.

Visual ads arrive first

The most visible change is a new image-based ad format. OpenAI plans to test it first in the United States with a limited group of advertisers before deciding on a wider rollout. The ads will appear while users are generating images inside ChatGPT and will be clearly labelled as advertising, kept separate from whatever the model produces for the user.

This shift opens the door to sectors where a single picture carries a lot of weight during the discovery phase: fashion, home decoration, travel, food and, of course, ecommerce. For a shop selling online, a well-placed visual can do more work than a line of text, especially when the shopper is still exploring rather than searching for a specific product.

OpenAI insists that ads will not influence the model's answers and will not be woven into generated content. That distinction matters for trust, but it also means advertisers cannot rely on conversational context alone to sell.

Measurement is the real battleground

Attribution is where the platform has to prove itself. OpenAI is widening its integrations with data and attribution specialists so that conversion information can flow from a company's own systems into ChatGPT Ads. Several measurement partners are now involved across different attribution models, covering everything from last-click to more sophisticated multi-touch approaches.

The company is also moving beyond clicks and directly attributed conversions. Through geographic experiments with third-party vendors, it wants to establish incrementality: how much extra business a campaign actually generates compared with sales that would have happened anyway. This is a meaningful distinction. A platform can claim a conversion because a user interacted with an ad, but that does not prove the ad caused the purchase.

Early results shared by some partners look encouraging but remain limited to specific projects. One partner reported a lower attributed cost per acquisition than a paid search benchmark, while another found that most visitors arriving from ChatGPT Ads were new to the brand. These are signals, not a general validation of the channel's performance.

Brand safety in a conversational setting

The other piece OpenAI needs to strengthen is where ads actually appear. Advertising inside a conversation is different from advertising on a web page. The surrounding context changes constantly and depends on what the user is asking at that moment. To address this, OpenAI is running pilots with independent verification firms that will assess how brand-suitability measures perform in these environments.

For European advertisers, this connects directly to GDPR obligations and to the reputational risk of appearing next to inappropriate content. A shop's brand is an asset, and no conversion rate justifies damaging it.

What this means for your online shop

If you run an ecommerce business, the sensible approach is cautious experimentation rather than a wholesale budget shift. A few practical points:

Keep your data house in order. Clean, well-structured product feeds and consent-compliant analytics are the foundation for any attribution work, whatever the channel.
Test with a small, measurable budget. Treat ChatGPT Ads as an experiment with clear success criteria, not as a replacement for search or social.
Watch incrementality, not vanity metrics. Ask what sales would have happened anyway before crediting a new channel.
Make sure your store can convert the traffic. A new traffic source is wasted if your product pages load slowly or your checkout is cluttered.

That last point is where many projects stall. Attracting visitors is only half the job; the other half is turning them into customers. A well-built online store on PrestaShop or WooCommerce, tuned for conversion and integrated with the right analytics and payment tools, gives any new advertising channel a fair chance to perform.

At ALMC we build ecommerce platforms that are ready for whatever comes next, from Barcelona to Lleida, Tarragona and Girona. If you are planning to test new channels this year, it is worth making sure your shop is built to sell, not just to exist.

Put these ideas into practice

Talk to ALMC about a solution for your business. Explore your options or contact our team.

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