ChatGPT Ads, Criteo what changes in e-commerce?
ChatGPT Ads is no longer just something to watch from a distance.
It is starting to become a testable environment, especially for commerce brands already working with product catalogs, feeds, performance campaigns, and full-funnel acquisition logic.
The integration between Criteo and OpenAI should be read exactly like that: not as the sudden birth of a fully mature new channel.
But as one of the first concrete steps toward a form of advertising that sits closer to conversational discovery than to classic keyword-based search.
For brands, the point is not to ask whether ChatGPT will replace Google Ads, Meta Ads, or Shopping campaigns.
That would be a convenient simplification, which is usually a good sign it is wrong.
The more useful question is another one: what happens when a user no longer discovers a product through a short query, but inside a conversation?
Why ChatGPT is becoming relevant for commerce
Over the last few years, online search has become more fragmented.
Part of purchase decision-making still happens on Google, marketplaces, social platforms, and comparison sites.
ut a growing share of users now turn to AI tools to explore options, compare products, clarify doubts, narrow the field, and move faster toward a decision.
In that context, ChatGPT is not just an informational touchpoint.
It can become an environment where users express more complex needs: I need a gift under £100, which product is better for this use case?, compare these options for me, find something similar but cheaper.
Those are not the same moments as a standard ad impression.
The user is not just scrolling. They are looking for a useful answer, often with intent that is already fairly defined.
That is why advertising inside an AI environment needs more care: if it feels invasive, it breaks the experience. If it is relevant, it can enter a phase that is already close to consideration and choice.
What Criteo has to do with ChatGPT Ads
Criteo entered OpenAI’s ad pilot as an ad-tech partner, making it possible for some advertisers to access inventory inside ChatGPT through an ecosystem already used for commerce and performance media campaigns.
For an ecommerce brand, this is the part that really matters.
Access to ChatGPT Ads is not just being framed as a standalone campaign. It can be read as an extension of a broader media strategy built around product catalogues, feeds, audiences, retargeting, prospecting, performance, and measurement.
In practice, the value is not only in “appearing on ChatGPT”.
It is in understanding whether a conversational environment can generate qualified traffic toward product pages, category pages, or commercial landing pages, and whether that traffic can integrate with the rest of the digital signals the brand is already using.
How the model works, in simple terms
The mechanism revolves around a fairly simple principle: when a conversation shows intent compatible with a purchase need, the system can display a sponsored placement separated from the organic answer.
The ad can include elements such as advertiser name, favicon, headline, description, image, and landing page.
At least at this stage, the promise is to keep a clear separation between the organic response and sponsored content.
For commerce brands, though, the quality of activation depends on a few very concrete elements:
- a well-structured product feed, with updated data, images, pricing, and coherent information;
- strong landing pages, because a click from ChatGPT still needs a page that can convert;
- clear messaging, designed for users who are in evaluation mode rather than just typing a keyword;
- a realistic measurement, because the channel is still young and should not be judged by the same expectations as a mature search campaign.
Put bluntly: if the feed is messy, the product pages are weak, and the value proposition is unclear, ChatGPT Ads will not magically fix the problem.
No new channel rescues an old strategy written badly.
Why it should not be treated like just another display campaign
The main risk is interpreting ChatGPT Ads as just another placement to add to the media mix.
That would be too reductive.
A traditional display campaign often catches the user in browsing environments that sit sideways to purchase intent. A search campaign captures a clearer query.
A conversational environment, by contrast, can intercept an intermediate moment: the user has not always decided what to buy yet, but is actively building the criteria they will use to decide.
That changes how creative, copy, and landing pages need to be designed.
It is not enough to say buy now.
You need to explain why that product is relevant to the expressed need, what problem it solves, which alternatives it covers, and which doubts it resolves.
In other words, the ad needs to sit much closer to a useful answer than to a banner disguised as a recommendation.
Which brands should pay attention first
Not every brand needs to rush into testing ChatGPT Ads tomorrow morning, even if the market would love to turn every novelty into urgency.
The brands most likely to benefit have a few clear characteristics.
First, ecommerce and retail businesses with structured product catalogs.
Conversational product discovery works best when the system can read and interpret clear information: categories, attributes, availability, imagery, pricing, variants, and product characteristics.
Second, brands with products that require comparison.
Electronics, beauty, home, fashion, sport, travel, food and beverage, and categories with high informational depth can gain more from a context where users ask questions, compare, and narrow down options.
Third, brands with a solid performance foundation already in place.
If search, shopping, paid social, and landing pages are already working reasonably well, then testing ChatGPT Ads can become a sensible extension.
If tracking is fragile, the catalog is dirty, and creative is generic, the priority is still fixing the basics.
What to measure in the early phase
In a pilot phase, expecting the same level of granularity and stability as mature channels is unrealistic.
Measurement has to be set up with the right expectations.
The first KPIs worth watching are mostly:
- impressions and reach inside the ChatGPT environment;
- clicks to site;
- post-click traffic quality;
- behaviour on product pages or commercial landing pages;
- possible impact on micro-conversions, add to cart, leads, or assisted sales;
- qualitative signals around the types of queries and contexts in which the ad appears.
The point is not only what ROAS did the campaign generate?
The point is to understand whether ChatGPT can become a credible touchpoint in the path of discovery and evaluation.
That answer will come from testing, not from enthusiastic slides. Strange but true: data is still useful.
What to prepare before testing ChatGPT Ads
For a brand that wants to evaluate this opportunity, the most important work happens before activation.
The product feed needs to be complete and coherent.
The destination pages need to genuinely answer the user’s intent.
Creative needs to be recognisable without becoming intrusive.
Brand naming, favicon, descriptions, and visual assets need to be clean and deliberate, because in a conversational interface even small details can influence trust and clicks.
There is also an SEO and GEO angle here, and it is often underestimated.
If users are beginning to use AI assistants to explore products and compare alternatives, brand presence does not depend only on advertising. I
t also depends on the quality of the public information available: product pages, editorial content, FAQs, reviews, structured data, category pages, and signals of authority.
In that sense, ChatGPT Ads does not live separately from the organic strategy.
Paid, SEO, content, and feed quality need to work together.
The alternative is an ad that sends traffic into an ecosystem that cannot support the user’s decision.
Will ChatGPT Ads replace Google Ads?
No. And that is probably the healthiest answer.
ChatGPT Ads does not replace Google Ads, at least not in the short term. It occupies a different territory: conversational discovery, guided comparison, and assisted decision-making.
Google remains central for explicit demand, mature commercial queries, and many well-established performance dynamics.
ChatGPT can become a new entry point, especially when the user does not yet know exactly what product to search for, or wants help choosing.
The real opportunity is not to move budget blindly from one channel to another.
It is to understand where ChatGPT can add value in the funnel: new discovery, qualified consideration, testing on high-intent audiences, insight into user needs, and traffic toward already-optimised commercial assets.
What changes for performance strategy
For brands, the most concrete change is that AI advertising forces a rethink of the relationship between content, catalogue, and media.
Until recently, many paid strategies could live with a fairly clean separation: campaigns on one side, landing pages on another, content somewhere else.
With conversational discovery, that separation becomes less useful.
The ad needs to match the user’s question. The landing page needs to complete the answer.
Organic content needs to reinforce trust and authority. The feed needs to make products understandable to the platform. Measurement needs to connect everything without pretending certainty too early.
In other words, ChatGPT Ads can become interesting for brands that already have an integrated strategy.
For anyone just looking for “a new channel to test”, it risks becoming yet another confused experiment to archive after three weeks.
How a brand should move now
The first step is not necessarily launching a campaign.
It is assessing whether the brand is actually ready.
A quick audit should answer a few questions:
- Is the product catalogue structured and up to date?
- Do the landing pages explain value, differences, and benefits clearly?
- Is the creative suitable for a more informative and less interruptive context?
- Does the tracking setup allow you to read post-click behaviour properly?
- Is there useful content that covers pre-purchase doubts, comparisons, and questions?
- Is the brand active in markets compatible with the current rollout?
If those answers are positive, ChatGPT Ads can enter a controlled testing phase, with defined budget, objectives, and expectations.
If the answers are weak, the priority is still infrastructure: feed, content, landing pages, tracking, and assets.
The real point: owning the new discovery layer
Advertising inside ChatGPT is not yet a mature channel.
But it is a strong signal of where the market is heading: from keyword search to answer-based search, from fragmented browsing to assisted comparison, from linear funnels to more conversational journeys.
For ecommerce brands, that means preparing to be found, understood, and chosen beyond traditional contexts. Being present is not enough.
You need to be present with clean information, coherent assets, useful pages, and a media strategy capable of separating hype from actual opportunity.
ChatGPT Ads, through partners like Criteo and emerging activation models, can become one of the first real places to test this shift.
It should not be treated like a shortcut.
It should be treated like a laboratory: measurable, gradual, integrated, and above all useful.
Because in digital marketing, the advantage almost never goes to the brand that arrives first and stops there.
It goes to the brand that gets there early, with a strategy solid enough to learn faster than everyone else.
Want to understand whether ChatGPT Ads belongs in your media mix?
At RichClicks, we help brands evaluate new opportunities across performance marketing, AI advertising, and conversational discovery with a practical approach.
Funnel analysis, asset quality, product feed structure, tracking, content, and test potential.
If you want to understand whether ChatGPT Ads, Criteo, and the new forms of AI advertising can make sense for your ecommerce business, we can help you build a test plan that is sustainable, measurable, and aligned with your commercial goals.
Giovanni Coppola
