How to track ChatGPT Ads conversions on Shopify

To track ChatGPT Ads conversions on Shopify, connect two things from OpenAI: the Measurement Pixel, which runs in the shopper's browser, and the Conversions API, which your server or an app calls with confirmed orders. Give each conversion the same event ID in both and OpenAI counts it once. On Shopify, the pixel goes in through a customer events pixel or an app, because the checkout doesn't run theme code. Zalify sends them through the Conversions API from the same setup you use for Meta, Google and TikTok: paste the Pixel ID and API key once, and orders reach ChatGPT Ads with the 10 other platforms.

What ChatGPT Ads needs from your store

ChatGPT Ads counts a conversion when an event arrives from your data source, matches a conversion set up for the campaign, and falls inside the attribution window. You create the data source, and get its Pixel ID and Conversions API key, under Conversions in OpenAI's Ads Manager.

These are the standard events a Shopify store sends, and what they map to on the OpenAI side:

Amounts go in the currency's minor unit (cents for USD), with an ISO currency code. Product events carry a contents list of the items involved.

Pixel, Conversions API, or both?

OpenAI's documentation recommends both: the pixel for browser activity, the API for confirmed backend conversions. When both send the same order, use the same value for the pixel's event_id and the API's id. OpenAI keeps the first event for each Pixel ID, event name and ID, and ignores later copies.

Three ways to set it up on Shopify

1. A Shopify custom pixel (code)

Shopify runs checkout tracking in sandboxed customer events pixels rather than in theme code. You can add a custom pixel under Settings → Customer events, load OpenAI's SDK, initialize it with your Pixel ID, and subscribe to Shopify's standard events (product_viewed, product_added_to_cart, checkout_started, checkout_completed) to call oaiq("measure", …).

This covers the browser side only. Server-side events need your own backend to receive Shopify's order webhooks and call the Conversions API, with the same event IDs as the pixel.

2. A ChatGPT Ads app from the Shopify App Store

Several apps now install the pixel and send server events for ChatGPT Ads alone. Most are new and have few reviews, so check two things before you install one: whether it sends server events through the Conversions API, and whether it uses the same event IDs as the pixel. If you already run separate apps for Meta, Google and TikTok, this adds one more.

3. Zalify Pixel: ChatGPT Ads alongside your other ad platforms

Zalify Pixel records each visit, product view, cart, checkout and order on your store once, and sends them to every ad platform you connect: ChatGPT Ads, Meta, Google Ads, GA4, TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat, Microsoft Ads, X, Reddit and LinkedIn.

1. In OpenAI's Ads Manager, open Conversions and copy your Pixel ID and Conversions API key.
2. In Zalify, go to Pixel → Ad Pixels → ChatGPT Ads Pixel and click Add Pixel.
3. Paste the Pixel ID, and the key into Conversion API: Access Token for server-side events.
4. Turn Enabled on and save.

From then on, Zalify sends product views, carts, checkouts and orders to ChatGPT Ads from its servers through the Conversions API. Orders come from Shopify's own order record, so a purchase is reported even when the shopper's browser blocks tracking, and it is sent once. Server events carry the matching data OpenAI accepts: hashed email, phone and name where the shopper gave them, IP address, user agent, location, and the oppref reference from the ad click. If you also want OpenAI's browser pixel, install it yourself and give its purchase events the Shopify checkout token as the event ID, which is the ID Zalify sends, so OpenAI counts each order once. Step-by-step screenshots are in the ChatGPT Ads Pixel setup guide.

Check that it works

• Before any ad spend: browse your store, add a product to the cart and start checkout, then look for the events under Conversions in Ads Manager. Events can take a while to show up.
• One pixel per platform: if a theme snippet or another app also loads the ChatGPT Ads pixel, remove it. Two installs without shared event IDs count the same order twice.
• Consent: OpenAI's pixel accepts a consent setting and removes its __oppref and __obref cookies when consent is declined, so connect it to your store's consent banner rather than loading it unconditionally.
• Attribution needs real clicks: conversions are attributed only after shoppers arrive from your ChatGPT ads, inside your click window.

See ChatGPT Ads orders next to your other channels

Ads Manager tells you what ChatGPT Ads claims. To compare it with Meta, Google, TikTok and email, add UTM parameters to your ChatGPT Ads landing URLs (for example utm_source=chatgpt&utm_medium=cpc). Zalify Attribution then counts those orders by channel and campaign next to the others, so you can judge ChatGPT Ads on the orders it brings rather than on its own report, and see what it does to your store's MER: total revenue over total marketing spend.

Sources

• OpenAI Ads Measurement Pixel, OpenAI developer docs
• OpenAI Ads Conversions API, OpenAI developer docs
• Web Pixels API, Shopify developer docs
• ChatGPT Ads pixel apps, Shopify App Store