How VistaPrint helps small businesses get the word out

Results at a glance

Meeting customers before they know what they need

For decades, VistaPrint has helped small businesses bring ideas to life, from business cards and signage to a wide range of branded merchandise. But small business needs do not always start with a specific product in mind. A customer may be launching a business, preparing for an event, refreshing their brand, or looking for ways to market themselves more effectively.

That creates an opportunity to reach customers as they explore what they need and evaluate the different ways to bring their ideas to life. It was this opportunity that drew VistaPrint to the ChatGPT Ads pilot.

Starting with the customer’s goal

VistaPrint’s early campaigns leaned on product-oriented messaging. The team shifted the focus to what small business owners could do with them, like using signs to draw people to a booth or handing out branded merchandise at an event.

This became the foundation of an evolving playbook. Creative could help customers see how a product fit their needs; the team also wanted its campaign optimization to reflect what happened next. For VistaPrint, the business goal was to turn that interest into orders.

Turning interest into measurable results

VistaPrint explored that next step with two successive US campaigns for one of its popular product categories. The first used click-focused bidding. In July 2026, the team launched a conversion-optimized campaign. VistaPrint selected ‘Order Created’ as the conversion event and paid per valid click.

As the campaign learned from conversion data, the team evaluated performance and adjusted maximum bids. VistaPrint reported that cost per attributed order was approximately 90% lower in the conversion-optimized campaign than in the preceding click-focused campaign.² The conversion-optimized campaign recorded a 5.9x return on ad spend.¹

Those results gave VistaPrint the confidence to expand the approach across its remaining US campaigns and into the UK, Canada, and Australia. The experience added a practical lesson to the team’s creative learning: allow time for conversion-focused bidding to learn, then keep evaluating performance as the campaign develops.

Making a broad catalog relevant to individual needs

Product feeds added another way to connect customer needs with VistaPrint’s range. Alongside its standard campaigns, the team introduced catalog-based campaigns using product information from its feed to populate ads.

VistaPrint used its catalog results to guide spend allocation and expanded feed campaigns to other markets. Its recommendation to other ecommerce advertisers is to invest in a clean, well-structured feed alongside creative tailored to the conversational context.

Reaching new customers was central to VistaPrint’s original goal for the channel. From July through September, a majority of the US site conversions VistaPrint traced to ChatGPT Ads came from new customers.³

These results have given VistaPrint the confidence to expand its approach across campaigns and markets. For the team, the opportunity is to connect with small businesses as their ideas take shape—and help them discover the products that can bring those ideas to life.