How to Set Up Chat Campaigns in Gorgias

What a chat campaign actually is

A campaign is a rule that says "when a shopper meets these conditions, show them this message in the chat widget." It rides on top of Gorgias Chat and the chat widget you've already installed, so the first prerequisite is a working chat integration on your store. If Gorgias itself is new to you, what Gorgias is is the better place to start before you layer campaigns on top.

There are two flavours, and the difference decides most of what you can build. Light Campaigns are available to every Helpdesk subscriber that has at least one Chat integration — with a hard cap of three light campaigns per chat integration. They cover the basics: show a message on a given URL after a set time. Convert Campaigns are the paid tier: they require a separate Convert add-on subscription, they're unlimited, and they unlock the granular Shopify-data targeting — cart contents, order history, customer tags — that makes proactive selling actually work. Gorgias documents both in Chat Campaigns.

One honest note up front: Convert is Shopify-first. Its richest triggers depend on Shopify data, and Gorgias flags limited trigger availability on headless stores, Magento, and BigCommerce. If you're not on Shopify, confirm which triggers you actually get before you plan around them.

Step 1: Open the Convert menu and start a campaign

Everything lives in one place. Per Gorgias' Create a Convert Campaign documentation, campaigns are built from the Convert area of your account.

1. In the left sidebar, open Convert → Campaigns.
2. Click Create Custom Campaign to start from scratch, or Create Campaign From Library to browse pre-made templates (cart recovery, free-shipping nudges, product education) you can clone and edit.
3. Under Set up the basics, give the campaign a clear internal name (e.g. "Cart > $75 — free shipping nudge") and choose the language.

If your trial or account doesn't have a store connected yet, opening Convert → Campaigns may route you to this overview instead of the builder — the campaign builder unlocks once a Shopify store is connected and Convert is enabled. Get the store connected first, then the audience and message steps below become available.

Step 2: Choose your audience with triggers

This is where campaigns earn their keep. Under Choose your audience, you add one or more conditions with + Add Condition, then set a delay (how long before the message fires), a device target (mobile, desktop, or both), and toggles for how replies and incognito visitors are handled. Gorgias groups the triggers into four buckets:

• Behavior — Current URL, time spent on page, currently visited product, number of visits, time spent per visit, exit intent, and out-of-stock product pages.
• Cart — product tags added to cart, and amount added to cart (cart value).
• Customer — Shopify customer tags, number of orders placed, total spent, and products purchased.
• Other — business hours and visitor location.

The art is combining them. A cart-abandonment campaign is Cart value ≥ $75 and Current URL contains /cart and exit intent, delayed a few seconds so it doesn't fire the instant the page loads. A pre-sales PDP nudge is time spent on page ≥ 30s on a currently visited product. A loyalty upsell is number of orders placed ≥ 3 with a Shopify customer tag of "VIP".

Step 3: Write the message

Under Write your message, pick which agent the message appears to come from in the From dropdown, then compose it. The editor supports links, images, videos, emojis, product cards, discount codes, and email-capture forms — so a single campaign can show the shopper a product, hand them a code, and collect their email in one pop-up. There's also an AI Copy Assistant: describe what you want, regenerate, and apply.

Keep it short and specific to the trigger. A cart nudge that says "Still deciding? Free shipping kicks in at $75 — you're almost there" converts better than a generic "Can we help?" because it references the exact reason the shopper paused.

Step 4: Publish or schedule

Under Publish your campaign you choose Publish now, Save and publish later, or Schedule. Scheduling lets you set explicit start and end dates and pick the timing — All day, Business Hours, Outside Business Hours, or a Custom window — which is how you run a Black Friday campaign that auto-starts Thursday night and auto-stops Monday without anyone touching it.

A worked example: three campaigns by funnel stage

Here's how a Shopify store might map its funnel to three campaigns. The pattern to copy is the shape — match the trigger to intent, keep the message specific — not the exact thresholds.

Notice the gating: the PDP campaign runs on a plain Light Campaign, but the moment you want cart value or customer tags, you're in Convert add-on territory.

The honest limits — and where an AI layer picks up

Gorgias campaigns are genuinely good at what they do: they trigger the right message on the right page at the right moment, and the trigger engine is deterministic and reliable. But notice what a campaign is — and isn't. A campaign starts a conversation; it doesn't hold one. The pop-up is a scripted, one-way message. The instant the shopper replies ("Actually, does this ship to Canada?"), you're back to a normal ticket that a human has to read and answer — and per Gorgias, that reply is also the moment the campaign becomes a billable ticket (displaying the pop-up is free; a reply counts toward your ticket limit).

There's also the gating reality: the campaigns that actually drive revenue — cart value, order history, customer tags — sit behind the paid Convert add-on and, in practice, behind Shopify. And the reasoning-heavy self-service that could answer the reply automatically lives in a different Gorgias product again — Flows and the AI Agent, which are separately gated and billed per resolution.

This is the seam where an AI agent layer fits. The broader category of AI agents for customer service exists precisely to do the part a scripted campaign can't: understand the shopper's actual reply and answer it. Macha is one such layer, and it runs on top of the Gorgias you already use as a live connector — it does not replace Gorgias, your chat widget, or your campaigns. When a shopper replies to a cart campaign, Macha's AI agent can read the message and answer the WISMO, sizing, returns, or subscription question in the same Gorgias thread — looking up live order or subscription status through a custom tool that turns your store's API into something the agent can call. And the billing model is the honest contrast worth knowing: Macha charges credits per AI action, not per resolution — so you're not paying a flat fee every time the agent touches a conversation your campaign started. See the pricing breakdown for how that works.

The clean division of labour: let Gorgias campaigns open the conversation with the right proactive nudge, and layer an agent on top to answer what the shopper says back — so a cart nudge that gets a reply turns into a resolved question and a placed order, not a ticket sitting in the queue.

FAQ

Where do I set up chat campaigns in Gorgias? Open Convert → Campaigns in the left sidebar, then click Create Custom Campaign (or Create Campaign From Library for templates). You need at least one Chat integration installed on your store for campaigns to appear in the widget.

What's the difference between Light and Convert campaigns? Light Campaigns are free with any Helpdesk plan that has a Chat integration, but you're capped at three per chat integration and limited to basic triggers like URL and time on page. Convert Campaigns require the paid Convert add-on, are unlimited, and unlock Shopify-data triggers — cart value, order history, and customer tags.

Do chat campaigns require Shopify? Convert is Shopify-first. Its richest triggers depend on Shopify data, and Gorgias notes limited trigger availability on headless stores, Magento, and BigCommerce. Confirm which triggers you get on your platform before planning around them.

When does a campaign cost me a ticket? Only when a shopper replies to the pop-up. Displaying a campaign is free; the first customer response converts it into a billable ticket that counts toward your monthly limit.

Can I add AI to Gorgias campaigns without replacing Gorgias? Yes. An AI agent layer like Macha connects to Gorgias as a live connector and runs on top of your existing chat and campaigns — it doesn't replace them. When a shopper replies to a campaign, the agent can answer the follow-up question directly in Gorgias, while your campaigns stay the trigger that starts the conversation. Macha bills credits per AI action, not per resolution.

Ready to turn campaign replies into resolved questions and placed orders? Start a free trial of Macha and connect it to your Gorgias in minutes.