A product feed gives you a repeatable way to prepare a catalogue for ChatGPT advertising. The useful starting point is a commercial decision: which products deserve an advertising test, and what would make someone choose them?
A furniture shop might have 4,000 variants but only twelve desks that suit small home offices. Starting with that collection creates a clearer proposition than asking one campaign to represent every room, style and price point in the shop.
This guide explains how to prepare that first collection and how AthillyAds handles ecommerce catalogues.
What a product feed does in ChatGPT Ads
OpenAI accepts product feeds through file upload, hosted HTTPS URL or SFTP. They supply paid ads, not organic ChatGPT answers. Follow the current OpenAI product-feed guide for setup.
That distinction matters when setting expectations. A product-feed project is paid advertising preparation. Improving the product pages themselves can also help customers understand your offer, but neither the feed nor an ad budget buys an organic recommendation.
1. Choose products around a buying problem
Write down one situation that your products address. For the furniture shop: “I need a desk that fits a small room and still holds a monitor.” Then check whether the intended collection actually answers that brief.
Include suitable compact desks. Leave out full office suites, decorative console tables and products that only appear relevant because the supplier placed them in the same category.
Before selecting a product, answer:
- Can we supply it reliably during the test?
- Does the selling price leave enough margin to investigate paid acquisition?
- Does the page explain the feature that makes it suitable?
- Is there a useful alternative if a popular size sells out?
These are selection criteria, not predictions about which product will win. Keep the reason for inclusion beside the collection brief so another person can review it.
2. Read the source feed before rewriting anything
AthillyAds reads an existing shopping-feed URL and keeps the source information alongside the advertising copy. Start by checking the source: stable product identifiers, accurate prices, recognizable availability, working images and the correct destination for each variant.
A simple five-product spot check can reveal a systematic problem. Open the feed row, product page and cart for the same size and colour. If the feed says “oak, 120 cm” while the link selects the walnut version, better ad copy will not repair the mismatch.
Keep a short issue log with the product, the mismatch and its owner. Correct the underlying shop or feed when the error affects all channels. Reserve advertising-specific edits for the message you want to present in this channel.
3. Turn catalogue labels into useful product descriptions
Supplier titles often encode logistics more clearly than usefulness. Consider this fictional product:
| Source wording | Advertising draft |
|---|---|
| NORD DSK-80 OAK HOME/OFFICE | Compact oak-veneer desk |
| Desk, 80 × 50 cm, oak veneer, drawer | An 80 cm desk with a drawer for a compact workspace. |
The second version brings a relevant fact forward. It should still describe the actual product. If the page does not confirm solid wood, cable storage or assembly time, those details do not belong in the rewrite.
In AthillyAds, review suggested product copy against the original and decide which changes to use. Check the physical facts first: dimensions, materials, compatibility and what is included. Tone comes afterwards. A fluent description of the wrong variant is an expensive mistake.
4. Build collections you can explain
AthillyAds lets you organize a catalogue into collections, including collections described in your own words. Review the proposed membership before treating it as an advertising decision.
For example, “desks for small spaces” needs a boundary. Does it mean under 100 cm wide, folding desks, or both? A precise brief makes the membership easier to judge. Keep occasional exceptions explicit rather than quietly broadening the collection until it contains everything.
When collections need separate spending limits, give them separate campaign budgets. Do not assume that creating a second collection automatically creates a second budget. A premium standing-desk test and a compact budget-desk test may have very different commercial limits.
5. Prepare each market as its own customer experience
In AthillyAds, markets carry their own feed, country, language and currency settings. Check the whole purchase journey for each one.
A Swedish title linked to an English page with euro pricing may be technically usable but confusing. Also verify delivery areas, shipping charges, returns information and the default product variant. Translating a description does not establish that the shop can fulfil the order.
Our landing-page guide covers the destination checks in more detail.
6. Verify the handover and keep the feed current
AthillyAds publishes an advertising feed for each market. Connect its address in Ads Manager and inspect the processing result. Check a few products at the handover boundary rather than assuming that a successful source read means the advertising platform accepted every item.
The Products report fills after delivery; an empty report alone does not establish that the upload failed. Check processing and the product count during setup. OpenAI specifies a two-week expiry without refresh. Product-feed setup and reporting.
Assign someone to review source-feed failures and important catalogue changes. For a first test, record spend and orders using consistent tracking parameters, and judge the economics against margin rather than clicks alone.
AthillyAds can read catalogue readiness on the free plan; advertising is limited to five selected products in one collection. Check current plan details and platform eligibility before launch. Media spend is separate. Start with a collection you understand well enough to recognize a wrong product, a misleading claim and a useful result.