Etsy Gives Sellers Free Onsite Ads Boost, Will Subsidized Offsite Ads Follow With OpenAI Deal?
Etsy sellers are pleasantly surprised by free onsite ads promotion, will subsidies extend to offsite ads to boost visibility in new OpenAI ChatGPT Instant Checkout integration?
The promotion does not appear to have been announced in advance as sellers report they are simply suddenly seeing this message pop up on their ad campaign insights page.
We're giving your listings a boost, for free!
As part of a limited time promotion, some of your listings will be boosted, even if you aren’t already advertising them. We hope that this will help your campaign performance.Don’t worry—we’ll cover the cost of any clicks on these listings and you’ll go back to your usual campaign when the promo ends.
Sellers discussed the free ads in a post on Reddit, with some happy for the free exposure but also confused as to how Etsy selected which items to apply the promotion to and whether or not the reporting is accurately reflecting clicks on these free ads.
Just came to see if anyone knew anything about it. I'd love to know which listings they're boosting. So far I haven't noticed a sudden increase in performance for any listings in particular.
I have the same, and I think they do show which ones are being boosted as in the list of 'Advertised' listings (under the Listings tab on Etsy Ads page), there are some that I cannot turn off and they have the following message underneath:
"This listing is being boosted by Etsy as part of a promotion and can’t be turned off"
The only thing I have noticed different the last few days is that my ad spending is not going as quickly as it usually does. I keep my budget around 20-25 daily and it's usually spent by late afternoon. But it's been taking longer to spend the last couple days.
The promotion appears to only be for Etsy's onsite advertising, which is a cost per click model.
Etsy has recently been beta testing new ad optimization tools, offering sellers the option to select different advertising strategies - with a significant increase in budget spend required.
Liz Morton
It's possible Etsy may be doing this free advertising promotion to offsite some of that cost and/or to entice sellers to try out some of the new strategies being offered.
Etsy has also recently made tweaks to both their Insider buyer loyalty program and Etsy Plus for sellers, after Chief Growth Officer Kruti Patel Goyal said at the annual seller conference that the company was looking for opportunities t0 "recognize and reward our most committed sellers" - and this free ad promotion could simply be one of those opportunities.
And while this promotion appears to only be currently providing free onsite ad exposure, it will be interesting to see if Etsy expands it to Offsite Ads as well - especially in light of the recently announced partnership with OpenAI to enable Etsy items for Instant Checkout within ChatGPT.
Liz Morton
Etsy Chief Product & Technology Officer Rafe Colburn said the new feature "builds on work [Etsy has] done throughout 2025 to harness the power of LLMs in ways that amplify human connection and aim to drive growth for our sellers."
As a marketplace of over 5 million creative entrepreneurs, it’s our job to remove barriers for shoppers so they can easily discover and be delighted by our sellers’ special items. To further these efforts, we’re partnering with OpenAI to meet shoppers where they are in their discovery journey. Starting today, ChatGPT users in the U.S. can discover, browse, and purchase items on Etsy directly through ChatGPT.
When users enter a shopping-related query (like: “Help me find a ceramic plate set”), ChatGPT may show results from Etsy. From those results, users can click into the listing to learn more and even complete their purchase from Etsy via credit card, Apple or Google Pay, and other payment methods – all without leaving ChatGPT. Through this integration, we’re creating a new way to unlock the treasure chest of our sellers’ unique, handcrafted and handpicked items to an expanded audience of buyers looking for something special.
However, having items shown in ChatGPT with Instant Checkout is not free - OpenAI simply says the functionality is provided "for a small fee" - raising questions about if participating marketplaces like Etsy, Shopify, and now Walmart will subsidized those costs themselves or pass them on to sellers in some way.
While Etsy did not mention anything about charging a fee to be included in ChatGPT Instant Checkout in their initial press release about the partnership, Julia Waldow at Modern Retail reports that an Etsy spokesperson has confirmed inclusion will only be available for those who participate in the Offsite Ads program.
Julia Waldow
ChatGPT checkout, as it stands now, is not in effect for all Etsy products. An Etsy spokesperson told Modern Retail that only sellers who participate in Etsy’s Offsite Ads program will have their listings included in Instant Checkout in ChatGPT.
Rather than charging a cost per click like onsite ads, Etsy's Offsite Ads program takes an additional percentage of sales attributed to the ads (12-15% depending on sales volume) and while sellers with less than $10,000 USD in sales in the past 365 days can opt out, the program is mandatory for those whose sales exceed that threshold.
Etsy will no doubt face questions from investors on the Q3 earnings call about how much the OpenAI partnership might potentially boost Gross Merchandise Sales for the platform, so it would not at all be surprising if they end up quietly subsidizing some of those advertising costs as well.
What do you think of Etsy's free onsite ad promotion and are you seeing your items featured in ChatGPT with Instant Checkout? Let us know in the comments below!
