ChatGPT Ads are worth a small test this season for some Canadian retailers. You need to sell online, in a category OpenAI allows, with purchase tracking in place. OpenAI's official holiday guide covers setup. We think Google's share of search is overstated. On October 29, Alphabet lost roughly $500 billion in market value after a search miss. ChatGPT still sends far fewer visits than Google, so keep Google running and start small. The minimum budget is $25 CAD a day. Launch by mid-November for Black Friday, or by early December for Boxing Day if your tracking isn't ready.
Retailers who sell online should start with OpenAI's official holiday guide. It walks advertisers through getting ChatGPT Ads ready for the season. This post helps you decide whether a test fits your store, and adds what Canadian retailers need to know.
ChatGPT Ads launched this year, so this is their first holiday season, by OpenAI's count. Businesses based in Canada can buy them in OpenAI's self-serve Ads Manager, from $25 CAD a day.
We think it's worth a try. That view rests on our intuition and on how we, our friends, and our families are making purchase decisions. The state of Google points the same way.
Intuition only goes so far, so we want data. Running ChatGPT Ads this holiday season? When the season wraps up, send us your results and tell us what worked and what didn't.
Who should try it this season
ChatGPT Ads suit retailers that sell online and can track purchases. The steps below build a campaign around purchases on your website, so you need a store that takes orders online. Skip it or wait in these cases:
- Your business isn't based in an available country. Canada is on OpenAI's list, and the business that advertises and pays must be based in an available country.
- You sell in a closed category. OpenAI's ad policies generally prohibit health services ads outside the US. Legal services ads are US-only, and most financial categories are restricted. Read the ad policies first, since some product categories have their own rules.
- You can't track online purchases yet. The campaign optimizes toward purchases, so it needs purchase data. If tracking won't be ready by mid-November, aim for Boxing Day instead.
- No one can check results every few days. A holiday campaign needs attention through December.
Why we think it's worth a test
Google is under pressure, and its share of search is overstated. On October 29, Alphabet had its worst day on the stock market since Google went public in 2004. Its shares fell nearly 13%, wiping out roughly $500 billion in market value. Search advertising revenue grew 12% to $63.35 billion, below analysts' expectations, CNBC reported.
BNP Paribas analyst Nick Jones wrote that the results likely revived fears of ChatGPT and other rivals eroding Google search. Search wasn't the only worry: Alphabet also reported negative free cash flow of $9.07 billion for the quarter.
The usual share figure counts search engines only. StatCounter had Google at 85.04% of search in Canada in October 2026, down from 87.65% a year earlier. ChatGPT isn't on StatCounter's list, so that figure overstates Google's position. OpenAI says ChatGPT now handles about one fifth as many search-like queries as Google. That figure is self-reported, and Ahrefs estimated about 12% in February using a stricter count.
Canadians are moving too. Leger's 2026 AI Index found that 18% of Canadians say they turn to AI first when searching for information online. That group has tripled since Leger started tracking it in 2024.
Shoppers already use ChatGPT to decide
Shoppers already ask ChatGPT what to buy. OpenAI says retail and ecommerce conversations account for more than 1.7 billion prompts a week. About 43% of shopping-related conversations involve comparing and evaluating options.
The holidays push those numbers up. OpenAI says US product-search activity in ChatGPT rose 52% during the 2025 holiday season, and 94% on Black Friday. Adobe forecasts that AI traffic to US retail sites will grow 130% this holiday season. These figures are US data, and we haven't found Canadian equivalents.
Start small and keep Google running
ChatGPT sends websites far fewer visits than Google, so test it on a small budget. Ahrefs tracks 118,671 websites. In October 2026, Google sent 24.74% of their visits, and ChatGPT sent 0.36%. Similarweb found that 95% of ChatGPT users also use Google.
Visits only count clicks. Many shoppers compare options inside ChatGPT and decide there, so we think a visit count understates its influence. OpenAI's Conversions objective optimizes toward purchases after both ad clicks and eligible ad views. Google will still carry most of your holiday traffic, so keep it running. Fund ChatGPT from a separate test budget.
A test can be small. The minimum daily budget is $25 CAD per campaign, so three weeks at the minimum comes to about $525 CAD. The daily budget is an average over seven days, so a single day can spend up to $50 CAD. Set a budget you'd be comfortable spending with no sales, and judge the test on purchases.
How to set up ChatGPT Ads for the holidays
Set up tracking and your catalogue first, then launch early and check often. These steps follow OpenAI's holiday guide and help centre, with our notes added.
- Let OpenAI's crawlers in. OpenAI requires its ads crawler, OAI-AdsBot, to review your landing pages. Allow it in robots.txt and in any firewall or bot protection. If you run a product feed, also let OAI-SearchBot reach your product image links, or the feed can fail. Our three AI crawler questions help you check this with your developer.
- Install the OpenAI Pixel and the Conversions API. OpenAI recommends using both together. Send matching event IDs through each, so purchases aren't counted twice. Confirm that purchase events arrive correctly before you launch.
- Check your event quality score. Ads Manager scores the quality of your conversion data and flags problems. Fix the warnings before your big promotions. The score refreshes daily over seven days, so fixes show up gradually. OpenAI says the score doesn't predict campaign performance, so treat it as a check on your tracking.
- Upload your product catalogue. Do it early, so you have time to fix feed problems. Keep prices, promotions, and stock levels current as your offers change. Product feed ads are in beta, so check that your account has them. On Shopify, the ChatGPT Ads for Shopify app syncs your catalogue and creates campaigns from Shopify.
- Build the campaign around purchases. Choose the Conversions objective with impression billing. You never pay per conversion. Use automated bidding unless you have a reason to set targets.
- Plan for the November 9 bidding change. OpenAI told advertisers that new conversion campaigns will use Target CPA (target cost per action) in place of Max Bid from November 9, Search Engine Roundtable reported. Max Bid retires on January 1, 2027. If you set targets, build holiday campaigns on the new option.
- Write context hints and seasonal ads. Context hints tell the system who a product is for and the need it meets. "Insulated boots for someone who walks to work in winter" says more than "holiday gifts." Build separate ads around seasonal products, holiday offers, and shipping deadlines.
- Launch two to three weeks before your first big shopping day. OpenAI says that gives the system time to learn before demand peaks. Black Friday falls on November 27 this year, so a Black Friday push should launch by mid-November. If your tracking won't be ready by then, aim for Boxing Day and launch by early December.
- Check results every two to three days. Look at delivery, purchases, and cost per purchase each time. Move budget gradually toward the campaigns that beat your goals, and give each change time to work.
- Keep going after Christmas. People keep shopping into the new year, and in Canada, Boxing Day falls right in that stretch. Have Boxing Day and early January offers ready. Then use the season's results to decide where to keep spending.
Run ChatGPT beside Google on a small budget this season, and judge it on purchases. By January, you'll have your own numbers on whether your customers buy through ChatGPT. We'd like to hear them. Our ChatGPT Ads explainer covers how the format works if you want more background first.
References
Adobe. (2026, September 28). Adobe: U.S. holiday shopping season to hit record $275.1 billion online, rising 6.7% YoY [Press release]. Business Wire. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260928285775/en/
Ahrefs. (2026). AI vs search traffic analysis. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://ahrefs.com/benchmarks/ai-vs-search
CNBC. (2026, October 29). Alphabet tanks nearly 13% for worst day ever, losing $500 billion in value. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/29/alphabet-google-microsoft-msft-shares-today-earnings.html
Ji, C. (2026, October 29). Why Alphabet's stock is on track for its worst day ever after the latest results. MarketWatch. https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20261029182/why-alphabets-stock-is-on-track-for-its-worst-day-ever-after-the-latest-results
Kantrowitz, A. (2026, November 3). OpenAI: ChatGPT search is about 20% of Google's, 250 million people speak with ChatGPT, and Chat is merging with Work. Big Technology. https://www.bigtechnology.com/p/openai-chatgpt-search-is-about-20
Leger. (2026). Key trends from Leger's 2026 AI Index. https://leger360.com/ai-usage-in-canada-2026-ai-index/
OpenAI. (n.d.-a). Ad policies. https://openai.com/policies/ad-policies
OpenAI. (n.d.-b). Ads Manager availability. OpenAI Help Center. https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001245-ads-manager-availability
OpenAI. (n.d.-c). Advertiser guidance for allowing OpenAI web crawlers. OpenAI Help Center. https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001243
OpenAI. (n.d.-d). Create campaigns from product feeds. OpenAI Help Center. https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001268-create-campaigns-from-product-feeds
OpenAI. (n.d.-e). Creating campaigns for ChatGPT Ads. OpenAI Help Center. https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001210-create-campaigns-for-chatgpt-ads
OpenAI. (n.d.-f). Understanding and improving event quality. OpenAI Help Center. https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001513-understanding-and-improving-event-quality
OpenAI. (2026a). ChatGPT Ads holiday best practices 2026 [PDF]. https://go.openai.com/rs/504-SWE-347/images/ChatGPT%20Ads%20Holiday%20Best%20Practices%202026.pdf
OpenAI. (2026b). Reach holiday shoppers in ChatGPT. https://ads.openai.com/holiday
Search Engine Roundtable. (2026, November 5). OpenAI updates ChatGPT Ads bidding options for max bid or max CPC. https://www.seroundtable.com/openai-updates-chatgpt-ads-bidding-options-42470.html
Similarweb. (2026). Is AI replacing search? What the 2026 numbers actually reveal. https://aisearch.similarweb.com/blog/is-ai-replacing-search/
StatCounter. (2026). Search engine market share Canada. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/canada
Stox, P. (2026, February 11). ChatGPT has 12% of Google's search volume but Google sends 190x more traffic to websites. Ahrefs. https://ahrefs.com/blog/chatgpt-has-12-percent-of-googles-search-volume/