ChatGPT Ads Go Live and Target Is First In Line 🎯

Well… it’s official. Ads are now live in ChatGPT 👀. But Anthropic says Claude is staying permanently ad-free—intersting times, right 🤔?

Hi there, and welcome to another issue of The Ecom Press 🗞️!

This week, we’re unpacking what ChatGPT’s ad rollout really means (with Target among the first to jump in 🛒). Also, we’ve got news on TikTok’s brand-new creative playbook for winning campaigns 🎥, and a self-optimizing ecommerce engine that claims your store can now improve itself 🤖.

Let’s get into it 🧨.

In a rush? Here's the juice🤭:

🎯 ChatGPT ads go live and Target is first in line.

📖 TikTok publishes 40-page guide for SMB ad success.

🤖 Runner AI launches self-optimizing ecommerce store.

📚 Case study: How Anker built a high converting global DTC machine.

⚡️Worthy Mentions

🎯 ChatGPT ads go live and Target is first in line.

4 weeks ago, OpenAI announced its plan to launch ads in ChatGPT. Now, it has officially begun rolling out ads to users in the U.S. Sponsored placements are now appearing for logged-in adult users on the Free and Go tiers, while Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education plans remain ad-free. 

OpenAI maintains that ads are clearly labeled, visually separated from answers, and do not influence response quality.

Here’s the lowdown ⬇️:

🎯 How ads are selected: Ad placement is contextual. ChatGPT matches advertiser submissions to:

• The topic of the current conversation

• Past chats

• Past interactions with ads

If multiple advertisers qualify, the system ranks by relevance to the active query and displays the most applicable one first.

🧠 Ad presentation and answer independence: Sponsored listings are clearly labeled and visually separated from the organic response. OpenAI states answers remain optimized for helpfulness, not advertiser influence. Ads appear adjacent to responses rather than embedded within generated text.

🔒 Privacy and safeguards: Advertisers do not receive access to user chats, history, memories, or personal details. They receive only aggregate performance metrics such as impressions and clicks. Additional guardrails include:

• No ads shown to accounts predicted to be under 18

• No ads near sensitive categories such as health, mental health, or politics

• Protections against narrow targeting and scam advertisers

Users can dismiss ads, view why an ad appeared, delete ad data, and manage personalization controls.

🛒 Target among early partners: Target and its retail media arm Roundel are among the first advertisers participating in the pilot. Contextual retail ads can appear alongside shopping-related prompts. Target reports that traffic from ChatGPT to its digital properties has been increasing roughly 40% month over month, reinforcing its decision to test placements early. Other participants include Adobe, Omnicom Media, and The Knot.

Why it matters 🤔

Conversational AI has become a monetizable discovery surface. Early participation doesn’t just mean experimentation alone but an opportunity to shape format standards and relevance rules before scale. It’s best to think beyond keywords and focus on how product data aligns with nuanced, multi-step consumer queries inside AI-conversations.

📖 TikTok publishes 40-page guide for SMB ad success.

TikTok has published a new 40-page Creative Playbook for SMB advertisers, outlining a full framework for ideation, production, and performance optimization. The guide formalizes TikTok’s approach to creative as the primary performance driver and introduces expanded AI tools designed to speed up content development and reduce creative fatigue. 

Here’s the scoop 🍨:

🎯 Creative is the conversion lever: TikTok positions creative as the single biggest driver of ad performance. The playbook emphasizes authenticity over polish and notes that 73% of users feel deeper brand connection on TikTok versus other platforms.

🎧 Sound-on is mandatory: The guide pushes music and voiceover as essential, not optional. Advertisers are encouraged to use the Commercial Music Library and build content around audio-first storytelling.

📊 Creative Center as research engine: TikTok directs brands to its Creative Center for live trend data, top-performing ads, keyword insights, top products, and music insights. 

🤖 AI creative suite expands: Symphony Assistant helps summarize trends, extract patterns, and generate scripts. Symphony Creative Studio adds video remixing, translation and dubbing, AI avatars, and editing tools. CapCut integrates auto-captions and text-to-speech for faster production.

📹 Production standards are clarified: 9:16 vertical, 720p+, and 9–15 second formats are recommended. Hooks in the first 3–6 seconds are considered critical. Brands are encouraged to highlight 3–5 core benefits and close with a direct CTA.

📈 Optimization automation: Smart Fix flags potential ad review issues before launch. Smart Creative automatically rotates creatives and reallocates budget to reduce fatigue, with internal tests suggesting up to 9% performance uplift when using five or more assets.

Why it matters 🤨

By systematizing ad creative, TikTok signals that performance on the platform is becoming increasingly tool-assisted and data-informed. As such, relying purely on instinct or trend-chasing may struggle. To stay in the competition, you’d have to treat creative as an iterative engine supported by AI, structured hooks, and constant refresh cycles. 

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🤖 Runner AI launches self-optimizing ecommerce store.

Runner AI has launched a self-optimizing ecommerce engine built to continuously improve conversion rates after a store goes live. The platform combines conversational store creation with an AI-native backend that runs ongoing experiments across the customer journey, aiming to replace manual CRO and reduce dependency on third-party apps.

Here are the deets ⬇️: 

🧪 Always-on conversion testing: Runner AI treats the storefront as a live experiment, running 24/7 tests on layout and page structure, copy and merchandising blocks, and user flows including checkout. It claims the system can spot friction points and ship changes without merchant intervention.

🎯 Dynamic experiences by intent: Beyond standard A/B tests, Runner AI says it can adapt the journey based on, campaign and ad context, traffic source, and visitor profile. This is framed as personalization tied directly to conversion outcomes.

💬 Prompts to full-stack store: Merchants can launch a storefront and backend “by chat,” with Runner AI generating and operating store design, checkout logic, and inventory systems. The focus is removing technical lift after launch, not just during setup.

🧩 App-free feature activation: Instead of adding plugins, merchants can request capabilities through chat such as reviews, pop-ups, upsells, and SEO improvements. Runner AI says these become native features, reducing ongoing “app tax” complexity.

Why it matters 🤨

If this works, we can stop seeing “store optimization” as a quarterly project but as part of infrastructure. The challenge then boils down to who has the best experimentation loop running every day. Ultimately, the key question is control. When an engine can change layouts and flows automatically, governance, brand consistency, and learning visibility become as important as the change itself.

🛎️ The Ecom Press Insider

Ecom Fact: Consumer spending for Valentine’s Day is projected to reach a record $29.1 billion, surpassing last year’s $27.5 billion, according to the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics. Shoppers are expected to spend an average of $199.78 per person, up from $188.81 last year and above the previous record set in 2020, signaling stronger planned budgets for seasonal gifting. (Reported by: National Retail Federation)

💡 Takeaway: With average budgets nearing $200, this is a strong window to introduce tiered bundles and premium variations rather than defaulting to discounts. Structure your offers around clear price anchors and curated gift sets that comfortably capture higher cart values while aligning with shoppers’ planned spend.

📚 Case study: How Anker built a high converting global DTC machine.

When global electronics brand Anker decided to accelerate its direct-to-consumer strategy, it needed localized, high-converting storefronts across markets 🌍, not just traffic.

🚧 The challenge: Anker operates in over 140 countries and manages multiple product categories and sub-brands. Its existing custom ecommerce setup made it difficult to:

• Personalize storefronts for different regions

• Tailor checkout and payment options by market

• Properly analyze cross-market customer behavior

As the brand expanded into audio, smart home, and video categories, it needed a platform flexible enough to scale globally while maintaining localized experiences.

🛠️ The solution: In 2020, Anker migrated 16 ecommerce sites for four brands in just three months, using a team of only seven people. Since then, it has launched more than 50 global stores on Shopify Plus. Key moves included:

• Multi-currency and multi-site customization

• Checkout optimization using Shopify Payments

• Integration of fast payment methods like Shop Pay, PayPal, Amazon Pay, and Google Pay

• Enhancements like Buy Now Pay Later and trust-building elements

The focus was to reduce checkout friction and adapt to regional buying behaviors.

📈 The results?

• 112% YoY website revenue growth (H1 2023)

• 70% YoY revenue growth sustained for three consecutive years

• Over 90% payment success rate

• Ecommerce performance outpacing third-party marketplaces

• 7+ billion yuan (≈$961M) in revenue in the first half of 2023

💡 Takeaway: Anker’s growth shows that conversion gains often come from localized checkout logic, flexible payment options, and structured multi-store architecture, not just more traffic. For brands expanding internationally, infrastructure and payment optimization can be stronger growth levers than acquisition alone.

⚡️Worthy Mentions

• Anthropic commits to keeping Claude AI permanently ad-free.

• FedEx plans massive ecommerce sorting hub in Memphis.

• Amazon announces record $200 billion AI spending plan in 2026.

• Musk combines SpaceX and xAI into world's most valuable private firm.

• Meta develops new AI called Kai for group conversations.

Wrapping up…

Another week, another update on ecommerce restructuring itself. ChatGPT has moved from testing to live ads. TikTok is formalizing what high-performing creative should look like. And Runner AI is betting that optimization shouldn’t be manual anymore 🔧.

Put it together and the direction is clear that growth is becoming more automated, more conversational, and more structured behind the scenes.

We’ll keep tracking what matters so you don’t have to 😉.

Catch you next week with more fresh drops. Until then, don’t forget to hit subscribe so you’re always one step ahead 📬✨.