Shop Campaigns now pays AI shopping agents to show your products. Follow one order to see who gets what

What changed on October 27

Shop Campaigns is Shopify's pay-per-acquisition ad program. You set an average customer acquisition cost, and you pay when a campaign brings you a customer. Some merchants switch on "external platforms," which lets the campaign run beyond the Shop app, on places like Facebook, Instagram and Google.

On October 27, Shopify added a new kind of external platform: AI shopping agents. Developers who build shopping assistants on Shopify's Catalog API can join a beta called Promoted Placements. When they do, and a shopper's question turns up one of your products, the agent's developer can earn a commission on the sale. If you're running Shop Campaigns with external platforms on, the developer's commission is higher on your products, and that extra comes from your campaign.

No merchant had to opt in to anything new. The changelog says merchants running Shop Campaigns with external platforms turned on "now include the Catalog API as one of those platforms." So if that setting is on in your Shop channel, this is already part of your campaign.

Access for developers is limited for now. Shopify onboards them from a waitlist in batches, and they have to accept program terms and switch on commission for each catalog they use. So the volume today is likely small. That's the useful part: you get to look at the mechanics while the stakes are low, rather than after agent traffic becomes a line item you can't explain.

The easiest way to see what that means is to follow one order.

One order, followed from the question to the payout

Here's an illustrative example. A shopper in Ohio asks a shopping assistant for a waterproof dog coat for a large breed, under $80. The assistant was built by an independent developer who's enrolled in Promoted Placements.

The search. The assistant searches Shopify's catalog. Your coat comes back, and because you run Shop Campaigns with external platforms on, it comes back with a placement attached: a commission rate the developer will earn if the shopper buys. Shopify's docs say a server-side setting decides whether promoted products are blended into the ranked results; they don't say how much a placement moves you up.

The label. The developer is required to mark your coat as promoted and tell the shopper the developer may earn a commission, before the shopper acts on it. Shopify doesn't prescribe the wording.

The click. Because your product carries campaign-funded commission, the link doesn't go to your store. It goes to your product in Shop, on shop.com or in the Shop app.

The purchase. The shopper buys the coat, and a matching rain hat, in Shop. Every eligible item in that order earns the developer a commission, not just the one they clicked.

The money. Shopify pays the developer its 0.3% base rate, plus the commission funded by your campaign. You're charged through Shop Campaigns as for any campaign acquisition. If the shopper returns the coat, the developer's commission is reversed.

Where your own store drops out of the picture

The detail most merchants will notice is the click. A shopper who comes through a promoted placement with campaign commission completes the purchase in Shop, not on your storefront. The checkout you spent a year tuning isn't where this sale happens. Your upsells, your post-purchase page and your own email capture don't run.

There's a reason built into the rules. The developer earns the higher rate only when the purchase completes in Shop. If the buyer ends up on your store instead and buys there, the developer gets only the base rate. So the system is designed to keep that shopper in Shop.

That isn't necessarily bad. Shop Campaigns already sends people to Shop, and some shoppers prefer a checkout they've used before. Ask a narrower question instead: what does a customer who first bought from you in Shop need from you afterwards? A clear order confirmation, a returns route that works, and a reason to come back to your own site the second time. But it's worth deciding whether you're comfortable with a new source of customers whose first purchase with you happens somewhere else.

How you'll see it in your numbers

Shopify's docs list the tracking parameters on these links. All catalog traffic carries utm_source=shopify and utm_medium=catalog. Links to Shop carry a campaign parameter that marks Shop Campaigns commission.

That gives you a way to separate agent traffic from everything else in your analytics. Set up a saved report or segment for that medium now, before the beta grows, so you have a baseline. When you review Shop Campaigns, look at the acquisition cost and order value for this slice separately from social and search placements. If it brings customers who buy once and never again, you'll want to know that before you raise your budget.

What to check in your Shop Campaigns settings

Open the Shop channel, then Advertising, and look at each active campaign. Is external platforms switched on? If it is, AI agents are now one of those platforms.

Look at your customer acquisition cost too. Shopify's help page says a higher acquisition cost makes your offer more compelling and ranks the campaign higher among offers shown to customers. It turns that setting into the commission an agent's developer sees. In effect, your acquisition cost is now partly a bid for agents' attention, as well as people's.

Keep in mind the limits Shopify lists. The extra commission applies only to active campaigns in the US, in US dollars. The program is a Developer Preview with invite-only access, and Shopify says field names, rates and behavior might change before general availability.

What to do before you leave it on

Decide whether you want this channel at all. If you do, set up the report, check your acquisition cost, and make sure your product data reads well to an agent, because the agent is describing your product before the shopper sees it. We wrote about what AI agents see in your compare-at prices and about opening Shopify's Agentic settings before a new channel enrolls you. If you'd rather not take part yet, remember that only campaigns with external platforms turned on are included. Switching that setting off is the lever you have today, at the cost of the social and search placements it also covers.

If you'd like help reading this channel in your numbers, or deciding how much of your store should be agent-ready, that's the work our ecommerce team does. Talk to us and we'll go through your campaign with you.

Related work: Spin Market.