What ChatGPT ads look like today
different formats they show up in
Amazon Ads opened a way into ChatGPT yesterday. Advertisers can now run campaigns on ChatGPT through Amazon's ad platform. That means a merchant doesn't need to sign up for OpenAI, an existing Amazon Ads account is enough.
Whatever door a brand walks through now - self-serve with OpenAI, an agency or through Amazon, they end up in one of the few ad shapes.
Here's what each one looks like, grouped by the two categories they fall into.
The text ads and two ways they show up
1/ The basic version
The text ad that sits right under the answer. This shows up far more than the other 3. It shows a favicon, the advertiser's name next to it, and an "Ad" label so it's clear it's sponsored. Below that sits a title, a short line of description, and one image.
Sometimes ChatGPT adds a short line above the ad, explaining why it's relevant to what was just asked. Google's AI Mode does the same thing with its ads.
2/ The double ad with the same or different brands
In this case, two ads show up from either the same brand or two different brands side by side. If it’s from the same brand, the brand name and logo are on top with a “Sponsored” label and both cards right under it.
Source: OpenAI
The product feed ads and two ways they show up
3/ The single product ad
Instead of promoting a brand generally, this one is built for one specific product at a time. It shows the price and if the product has reviews, a star rating too.
This format only shows up (and is currently available) for brands that have uploaded a product feed, so a brand without one won't have this option yet.
4/ The product carousel
If there's more than one product from the same brand, it gets lined up in a row a shopper can swipe through. This is the bigger release of the two product formats, since a shopping question usually turns up more than one option worth comparing.
The ad that skips the website completely
5/ The business agent
This one isn't a card format like the other four. It's a different click behavior entirely - basically an AI-native ad format. Instead of opening a website, it starts a live conversation with a business agent built from the brand's product feed and content.
It can answer questions, recommend products and even collect a lead, all without the person leaving ChatGPT. Currently, it's limited to a small group of advertisers testing it, and can be seen in the OpenAI ad manager as a beta feature.
Google has a similar business agent that I shared about in a recent post - see it below.
Where you'll actually run into one
Shopping questions return a sponsored placement roughly 3 out of 4 times.
But ads don't show up evenly across every kind of question. Some categories see them constantly, and some barely - that depends on the category itself.
Which specific ad shows up comes down to the conversation itself, mostly what's being discussed right now. If personalization is turned on, it also factors in some of the person's past chats and how they've reacted to ads before.
Anyone can turn that off and see a generic version instead, straight from ChatGPT's ad settings. This matters because a brand isn't the only one with a say in whether its ad shows up. The person on the other end has some control too.
Why this is accelerating
ChatGPT's shopping results, including both regular results and paid ones, can come from brands with an uploaded and verified product feed.
I covered that part in an earlier issue if you want to go deeper.
Advertisers can also manage their campaigns directly inside ChatGPT now, instead of needing a separate tool, and the ad rollout itself reached India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa in that same update.
Then yesterday - the announcement from Amazon about running ads.
How a brand gets into the groups above and whether they even qualify for either one comes down to one thing: their product feed.
Atomz AI reads your entire Shopify catalog and fixes exactly that gap, filling in what's missing so the feed becomes eligible to run ads.
- Ankit
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