Selling on ChatGPT: What OpenAI Reveals About Ads and E-commerce GEO
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Why Selling on ChatGPT Changes the E-commerce Game
I look at 15 sites per week. All have the same problem.
They are visible on Google. A little. They spend on campaigns. A lot. And when you type a buying question into ChatGPT, their name doesn’t appear. Or worse, it appears for a competitor.
On September 22, OpenAI clarified one thing: visibility in ChatGPT plays out on two paths. Paid. And organic. No rumor there. It’s a webinar organized by Search Engine Journal, with Abhilash Edathil, Head of SMB Monetization at OpenAI, and the Go Fish Digital team.
The source is public. I’m not giving you an agency prediction.
For e-commerce businesses, the timing is good. Google traffic is fragmenting. Commercial queries are shifting to assistants. Selling on ChatGPT means positioning yourself where the customer already asks their question.
But be careful. This channel doesn’t resemble Google Ads. And it doesn’t resemble classic SEO either.
Two mechanics. Pay for an ad. Or be cited in the answer. The first is exposure buying. The second is a slow build, page by page, structure by structure.
What fascinates me is the shift.
We move from an index of links to an index of citations. A ChatGPT answer doesn’t list ten blue sites. It names brands, products, attributes. If your page doesn’t enter that reasoning, you don’t exist.
The September 22 webinar doesn’t promise a sure thing. It sets a framework. Some answers carry citations. Others carry ads. Almost everyone works on organic. Few master paid.
That’s where the gap widens.
A client sells lighting fixtures. 945 pages. 47 commercial queries identified. After restructuring, 29 out of 47 get a ChatGPT citation in under 6 weeks.
Order of magnitude I observe with my clients.
The product is never the issue. The way the page tells its story is.
The nature of the answer changes everything. Google ranks pages. ChatGPT builds a reasoning. Ranking is binary: first page or not. Citation is contextual: it depends on the question, the cart, the location, the intent.
If you sell LED bulbs, ChatGPT won’t list your 945 pages. It will keep the two or three brands that explain wattage, base, color temperature, observed price. And it will cite the page that helps it answer.
So selling on ChatGPT means building pages that feed a dialogue. Not pages waiting for a click.
That’s why I always start with a visibility audit. Where does ChatGPT cite you today? Which page? Which question? Which blind spot?
Nothing theoretical. A field snapshot.
Un site est passé de 4 000 à 37 000 sessions organiques en 14 mois. Voici, en clair, où est parti chaque dollar investi.
De 4 000 à 37 000 sessions
Ce qui n’a rien changé et ce qui a tout changé en 14 mois
A Google Click or a ChatGPT Citation: The Real Difference
4 000 organic sessions per month. A catalog of 800 SKUs. Zero semantic structure.
I see this case too often in e-commerce. A site lives on Google. It captures clicks. But as soon as a specific question comes to ChatGPT, it’s absent.
The client invested 8 000 $ in enriched product pages. Result: nothing. Traffic stagnates.
We stopped production. We restructured. We invested the next 8 000 $ in the right place. Result: 37 000 organic sessions in 14 months. That’s +825 %.
No advertising.
No keyword produces that kind of shift. It comes from architecture. OpenAI explained this on September 22, for ChatGPT.
On Google, a click is a switch. You pay, you appear, you get a click. On ChatGPT, it plays out in conversation. The ad inserts into the answer. The citation relies on what ChatGPT understood from your pages.
The difference is major.
Google compares pages against each other for a keyword. ChatGPT compares facts, attributes, social proof, prices, lead times, reviews. It keeps the elements that give it enough confidence to answer.
Selling on ChatGPT means entering that proof system.
Paid accelerates. Organic locks in. A Google click lasts a visit. A ChatGPT citation lasts an entire conversation, sometimes several questions, sometimes a purchase.
That’s what makes the channel interesting for an e-commerce business. The customer wanted an answer, not a page. If your product becomes part of the answer, the click becomes almost secondary.
In the Search Engine Journal webinar, the speakers say it clearly: ChatGPT Ads is not a copy-paste of Google Ads. OpenAI treats this channel as a new surface, not as one more search purchase.
When you understand that, your budget changes target. You’re no longer buying a click. You’re buying a place in the reasoning.
The site that went from 4 000 to 37 000 sessions didn’t put one cent more into advertising. It put its catalog in citation order.
What OpenAI Said on September 22, Straight Up
On September 22, OpenAI sent a clear message. Visibility in ChatGPT is becoming a buying and foundational topic. The webinar organized by Search Engine Journal brings together Abhilash Edathil, Head of SMB Monetization at OpenAI, and the Go Fish Digital team. Goal: show brands how to sell products or generate leads in ChatGPT.
The topic goes beyond SEO. It’s a sales channel.
According to Search Engine Journal, a brand now has two ways to appear in ChatGPT: paid and organic. Some answers only carry citations. Others carry ads. Almost everyone works on organic. Paid, for its part, remains new.
OpenAI says it straight: ChatGPT Ads is not a classic search purchase. The format, intent, and how the user interacts differ from Google Ads. The ad doesn’t display above a list. It inserts into the conversational answer.
For an e-commerce business, the investment logic changes.
On Google, the question is: how much is a click worth? On ChatGPT: how much is an answer that cites your product at the moment the user decides?
The webinar poses three concrete decisions: invest in ChatGPT Ads, invest in GEO, or combine both. Its title sums it up: « ChatGPT Ads Or GEO: What To Buy, What To Earn ».
The rest is useful for agencies and merchants alike.
On the organic side, visibility starts with how ChatGPT crawls and interprets your pages to build the answer. On the paid side, OpenAI treats this format as a new channel, not as an extension of Google Ads.
What you buy is a mention in the reasoning.
A simple table to frame the decision:
| Situation | Action |
|---|---|
| Your brand never appears in ChatGPT | Start with GEO. Buying exposure without an organic base is expensive. |
| Your brand appears on a few queries | Strengthen the cited pages, then test ads on blind spots. |
| Your competitor is cited, not you | Do a comparative audit of product attributes, price, reviews, and FAQ. |
| You are launching a new product | Ads give immediate visibility while GEO builds over 4 to 8 weeks. |
Take this table as a roadmap.
And it’s a good time: e-commerce wants clear rules, not another shiny object.
The webinar also touches on an often-forgotten point: auditing your current presence. Before choosing to buy or to earn, know where ChatGPT places your brand. Sign up, even if you can’t attend live. The recording helps you decide on facts, not impressions.
That’s the discipline of a live audit. But that’s another conversation.
Une page citée par ChatGPT ne s’écrit pas au hasard. Voici le chemin réel, de la question posée par l’acheteur jusqu’à la citation obtenue.
Le pipeline GEO d’une page citée
De la question d’achat à la citation dans ChatGPT
Building a Page That Deserves to Be Cited by ChatGPT
A catalog of 945 pages. 47 commercial intent queries. After six weeks of work, 29 citations obtained in ChatGPT.
That’s what a serious GEO approach delivers.
The work didn’t start with writing. It started with analyzing the questions ChatGPT receives about a product. Which characteristics come up? Which doubts? Which comparison criteria?
Then we built semantic cocoons. Each parent page carried a strong intent. Each child page brought a specific attribute. Wattage, base, color temperature, compatibility, delivery time, return policy.
Pleasing an algorithm is useless. What matters is giving ChatGPT the elements it can cite without hesitation.
ChatGPT doesn’t invent product information. It draws from pages it deems reliable. A product page with a displayed price, a specification table, dated reviews, a FAQ on usage: that’s a usable source.
That’s GEO. Making your pages easy for a language model to interpret.
We don’t do search engine optimization. We structure for the answer.
Patrick Algrim from Go Fish Digital reminds us in the webinar: organic visibility starts with how ChatGPT crawls and interprets your pages. No magic tag there. Clarity, nothing else.
Of the 47 identified queries, 18 did not get a citation after six weeks. Why? The corresponding pages didn’t contain enough comparable attributes. Missing prices. No reviews. Vague lead times.
We corrected. We added comparison tables. We published answers to frequent questions. Three weeks later, 11 additional queries appeared in citations.
The total goes to 40 out of 47.
The keyword changed nothing. What changed everything was the page’s ability to enter a purchase reasoning.
The logic is simple: ChatGPT cites sources that reduce its uncertainty. Your page must therefore remove ambiguities, fuzzy prices, hollow descriptions, unlabeled visuals, undated reviews.
The more factual your page, the more citable it becomes.
ChatGPT Ads: How to Decide with Budget Control
Paid on ChatGPT follows a different logic. You don’t buy a click for a keyword. You buy a place in a conversational answer.
Search Engine Journal notes it: OpenAI treats this channel as a novelty, not as an extension of Google Ads. So the reflexes of paid search don’t apply as is.
When should you pay?
First, when your brand is not yet cited on the questions that matter. The ad puts you in the conversation while GEO builds. Next, when you launch a product and awareness is zero. Finally, when you want to defend a specific angle against a competitor already cited.
But beware dopamine.
A new channel gives a feeling of being ahead. People invest before having any performance data. It’s human. The DOSE framework, taught by Guillaume Attias at BMO Academy, describes the mechanism well. Novelty triggers dopamine. Anticipation of an unprecedented conversion pushes to act fast.
Lasting conversion comes from serotonin: the status of a brand installed in the answer. And from oxytocin: the trust relationship created when the customer finds your brand at multiple points in their search.
So buying ads without structuring your pages is paying to be seen in a reasoning you’re not feeding. You get a storefront. Not a shelf.
In audits, I first look at where ChatGPT already cites your catalog. If the organic base is there, the ad accelerates. If it’s absent, the ad funds a band-aid.
ChatGPT Ads doesn’t pilot like a Google campaign. Volumes are lower. Intent is more conversational. Attribution formats still need framing.
It’s a learning ground, not an immediate volume lever.
For an e-commerce business selling average carts of $120, the real question isn’t « how much does the click cost? ». It’s « how much does an answer that wins the recommendation cost? ».
We come back to the webinar title: « What To Buy, What To Earn ». Choosing what to buy and what to earn.
A realistic three-month sequence:
- Weeks 1-2: audit your presence in ChatGPT. Note the queries where you are cited, and those where your competitor is.
- Weeks 3-6: work on GEO for 10 priority pages. FAQ, price, attributes, reviews, lead times.
- Weeks 7-10: launch an Ads test on queries where you are not cited. Capped budget.
- Weeks 11-12: compare the cost of an earned citation vs the cost of paid exposure. Decide on next steps.
Nothing to rush. Nothing to bet blindly.
The channel is young. E-commerce businesses that ask the right questions now will have pages ready when usage expands.
Anticipate the Reward, Build the Citation: The Right Balance
The launch of a channel like ChatGPT Ads carries a promise. A new revenue stream, without the fatigue of Google. That promise is dopamine. It pushes to click « book a slot » before auditing your visibility.
The DOSE framework, taught by Guillaume Attias at BMO Academy, explains this reflex. Dopamine: anticipation of a quick gain. Oxytocin: the trust relationship with the client, nourished by coherent answers. Serotonin: the status of a cited brand, installed in the reasoning. Endorphins: the relief of diversifying traffic sources.
An e-commerce business that jumps only on dopamine will pay for ads. One that builds architecture first will earn citations. And most often, it will pay less for better performance.
In audits, the question is never « how to sell on ChatGPT? ». It’s « what problem does your page solve in the answer? ».
A catalog of 800 SKUs without semantic structure is like a warehouse without aisles. ChatGPT can’t find its way. Once the cocoons are in place, citations appear. The ad becomes an amplifier, not a crutch.
Waiting for the channel to mature is the mistake. I prefer clarity: prepare now, with factual pages, clear prices, dated reviews, concrete FAQs.
SEO is no longer just about Google rankings. It’s about a page’s ability to become a citable source for an assistant.
On this point, public sources agree. Search Engine Journal documents the OpenAI framework. Go Fish Digital speakers remind us of the importance of crawl and interpretation. And with my e-commerce clients, I see the same thing: structured catalogs get more citations.
So where to start?
Ask ChatGPT a buying question in your vertical. Look at who is cited. Look at who isn’t. If your brand is absent, the work is already identified.
It’s not a 180-degree turn. It’s a fundamental adjustment.
Once the pages are ready, ads become a conquest tool, not just a budget to defend.
The channel is young. The places in the answer are not.
ChatGPT will sell, that’s no longer the question. The remaining question is whether your catalog will be visible there when your customer asks their next question.
Live Audit of Your ChatGPT Visibility
In 45 minutes, we look at where ChatGPT cites your catalog, where your competitors are winning, and whether you should buy the ad or earn the citation. No slides. Just your site and actionable findings.
Book a strategic call — 45 minFrequently Asked Questions
What is GEO for ChatGPT?
GEO is structuring your pages so ChatGPT understands and cites them in its answers. Concretely, I put in product attributes, net prices, an FAQ, dated reviews, precise lead times. The goal: for the assistant to use your data when it reasons. The click to your site comes after.
Does ChatGPT Ads replace Google Ads?
No. According to Search Engine Journal, OpenAI treats ChatGPT Ads as a separate channel, different from Google Ads. ChatGPT Ads appears in a conversational answer. Google Ads displays on a keyword search. The two complément each other. But they don’t pilot the same way.
When to invest in ChatGPT Ads?
Invest when the brand is not cited on the questions that matter: visibility arrives immediately. Same for a product launch. Before buying, audit your organic presence. A solid GEO base, and the ad returns more.
Do you need to rank well on Google to be cited in ChatGPT?
No. ChatGPT reads and interprets your pages, it doesn’t look at your Google position. A clear, factual, well-structured page gets cited even without being first. What matters: the quality of product attributes and architecture consistency.
How to audit if my site is cited in ChatGPT?
Ask ChatGPT the buying questions in your vertical. Note the cited brands, mentioned products, source pages. Repeat the test on 15 queries. If you never appear, first strengthen your product pages with FAQs, prices, and dated reviews.
