Product feeds let retailers turn a structured catalogue into product advertising at scale. Ads Manager supports CSV/TXT, hosted HTTPS URLs and SFTP; feed items expire after two weeks and, during the current beta, uploaded products are eligible for ads rather than organic visibility.
This guide documents the technical Product Feeds layer in ChatGPT Ads: feed creation and import, validation, expiry, filters, ads_metadata, bid strategy, templates and reporting. For catalogue selection, CRO, revenue and management, see our ChatGPT Ads Ecommerce service.
A product-feed campaign lets a retailer upload catalogue data into Ads Manager and create ads at scale from structured product information. OpenAI positions these campaigns particularly for broad or frequently changing catalogues and says feed-based ads have been among the strongest performers in its programme to date.
That performance statement is a vendor claim, not an independent benchmark or a guaranteed ROAS. Each retailer still needs to validate orders, revenue, margin and incremental acquisition cost.
Official source: Create Campaigns from Product Feeds · OpenAI Help Center.
OpenAI is explicit: during the current beta, products in the feed are eligible for use in ads only. Uploading them does not make them appear organically in ChatGPT conversations.
That distinction matters for ecommerce and GEO. A paid product feed should not be sold as an indirect route into organic recommendations.
Official source: Create Campaigns from Product Feeds · OpenAI Help Center.
Ads Manager supports three import routes. They are not operationally equivalent: the right choice depends on catalogue velocity and the reliability required after launch.
| Method | When it fits | Operational model |
|---|---|---|
| CSV / TXT | Initial tests or occasional manual updates. | Manual upload; version control and freshness need active management. |
| Hosted HTTPS URL | Catalogue available from a stable web source. | A stronger base for recurring refreshes without repeated manual upload. |
| SFTP | Technical teams automating server-to-server delivery. | Useful where catalogue updates need scheduled, controlled processes. |
For a live catalogue, the easiest first upload matters less than being able to keep price, stock and availability current without constant manual intervention.
Official source: Create Campaigns from Product Feeds · OpenAI Help Center.
OpenAI’s current documentation says feed items expire after two weeks. It therefore recommends hosted URLs or automated SFTP uploads for keeping products active.
Two weeks is an expiry limit, not a recommended refresh cadence. A retailer with volatile price or inventory may need much more frequent updates.
Official source: Create Campaigns from Product Feeds · OpenAI Help Center.
Ads Manager processes the feed and exposes upload history and processing errors. Processing can take from minutes to hours depending on catalogue size. Before campaign build, we check coverage, errors, IDs, URLs, imagery, price, availability and consistency.
A technically accepted feed can still be commercially weak: the wrong image, a broken product page or stale pricing simply makes automation scale the error.
Official source: Create Campaigns from Product Feeds · OpenAI Help Center.
During ad-group setup, the feed is selected and product filters determine which items are eligible. Ads Manager shows the resulting product count so coverage can be checked before launch.
For eligible new ad groups, Maximize results is selected by default. OpenAI says it automatically adjusts bids to help generate as many clicks or conversions as possible within budget, depending on the campaign goal. That automates bidding; it does not guarantee a particular CPC, CPA or ROAS.
We do not automatically mirror the ecommerce taxonomy. Groups should make sense for message, margin, availability and budget decisions.
Official source: Create Campaigns from Product Feeds · OpenAI Help Center.
When the standard filters are not sufficient, OpenAI supports custom values in ads_metadata. Its examples include bidding_tier and product_line.
This lets the advertising layer carry useful commercial logic — range, priority, collection, margin or season — without misusing other catalogue fields merely to make them filterable in Ads Manager.
Official source: Create Campaigns from Product Feeds · OpenAI Help Center.
Each ad group uses an ad template as the base for products that pass its filters. The current documentation says the template only requires a selection for the image field and that one template per ad group is sufficient.
Product formats can surface structured details such as image, title, stars, price, sale price and brand. Before launch, we review the preview to confirm that title, description, image and destination remain sensible as the product changes.
Official source: Create Campaigns from Product Feeds · OpenAI Help Center.
The Products tab is a reporting view; it is not the complete uploaded catalogue and it does not represent every ads-eligible product. An item appears there once an active feed campaign has delivery data available for that product.
During setup, the correct reference is the product count shown in the ad-group creation flow. After delivery begins, OpenAI says Products reporting can take up to seven hours to appear.
Official source: Create Campaigns from Product Feeds · OpenAI Help Center.
Scaling only makes sense when the product page, checkout and measurement layer support the campaign. For purchase and value measurement we use Pixel, CAPI or both where appropriate, preserve oppref and deduplicate browser/server events with the same event ID.
The final question is not how many products the feed contains; it is which subsets create orders, revenue and defensible economics when Ads Manager is reconciled with the ecommerce system.
Official source: Conversion Measurement · OpenAI Help Center.
Formats, expiry, filters, ads_metadata, reporting and ecommerce operations.
Ads Manager currently supports CSV or TXT upload, a hosted HTTPS URL and SFTP.
Yes. OpenAI says feed items expire after two weeks and recommends hosted sources or automated SFTP uploads to keep them active.
Not during the current beta. OpenAI states that feed products are eligible for ads, not organic ChatGPT appearances simply because they were uploaded.
Yes, if a compatible feed can be generated from WooCommerce and IDs, URLs, images, pricing, availability and required fields can be kept reliable.
A field that can hold custom values for organising products when standard filters are insufficient. OpenAI gives product_line and bidding_tier as examples.
No. A feed campaign uses one ad template per ad group as the base for eligible products that pass its filters. For eligible new groups, Maximize results may also be selected by default as the bid strategy.
Because it is a reporting view. Products appear once they have delivery data available; during setup, use the product count in the ad-group creation flow to confirm filtered coverage.
No. OpenAI says feed-based ads have been among the strongest performers observed in its programme, but that is a vendor-reported result rather than a guaranteed ROAS. Maximize results also does not guarantee a specific CPC, CPA or return: every retailer still needs to validate orders, revenue and profitability.
This guide covers feed mechanics. Our ecommerce service handles which products to activate, how to group them, what product experience they need and which orders or revenue justify scale.
What you sell, which markets you work in and what you want to learn from the first pilot. If the scope is not clear yet, we will define it with you.