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ChatAds provides several targeting controls in your dashboard under Rules. These let you fine-tune which products get matched, which messages get processed, and what gets filtered out automatically.

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Allowed Affiliate Categories

Restrict affiliate results to only the categories relevant to your product. If you run a fitness app, you might allow only Sports, Fitness, & Outdoors and Health & Beauty — anything outside those categories gets filtered out. Not 100% perfect and decreases fill rates, but leads to a better user experience. ChatAds may auto-populate this based on your traffic patterns.

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Excluded Affiliate Categories

The inverse of allowed categories. All categories are included by default — use this to block specific ones you want to avoid. More permissive than defining allowed categories. Use allowed when you know exactly what fits. Use excluded when most things are fine but a few don’t belong.

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Skip Keywords

Keywords added here will be stripped and not used for affiliate matching. Case insensitive, up to 20 keywords, max 25 characters each. Useful when ChatAds consistently picks up low-value or irrelevant terms from your messages — for example, if your app frequently mentions a product by name that you don’t want to monetize.

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Hard Stop Keywords

If any of these keywords appear in a message, the request stops immediately and returns with no offer. You are not charged for blocked requests. Use this for compliance or security — block terms related to sensitive topics you never want associated with affiliate links.

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Brand Only Mode

When enabled, ChatAds prioritizes branded product mentions (e.g., “Lululemon yoga mat”) over generic terms (e.g., “yoga mat”). Lowers fill rates but can improve conversion rates since branded recommendations feel more specific and trustworthy. Requests filtered by this setting are billed (same as other “no offer” responses).

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Country Targeting

ChatAds currently supports US affiliate partners only. You can send non-US traffic, but offers may not be relevant for those users. For identifying country, you can either:
  • Send a country parameter (e.g., "US") to hardcode it
  • Send an ip parameter and let ChatAds detect the country automatically
Only US traffic — or requests with both country and ip missing — will be matched to affiliate partners. You are not charged for non-US traffic that gets proactively blocked.

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Language Targeting

ChatAds currently supports English content only. Non-English messages are auto-detected and blocked. You are not charged for non-English requests.

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Auto-Blocked Categories

ChatAds automatically excludes low-value, noisy categories from all results:
  • Amazon Programs (Alexa Skills, Amazon Explore, Amazon Pharmacy, Amazon Warehouse, AWS Courses, Just for Prime)
  • Apps & Games
  • Books & Kindle
  • Collectibles
  • Credit & Payment Cards
  • Digital & Physical Media (Music, Movies, Video, VHS)
  • Gift Cards
  • Grocery
  • Handmade Products
  • Scientific & Industrial
  • Software
  • Subscription Services (Subscribe & Save, Subscription Boxes)
No configuration needed — these are always filtered.

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Product Quality Filters

Set minimum thresholds for the products ChatAds returns. These filters run after affiliate resolution and drop any product that doesn’t meet your standards:
FilterWhat It Does
Min PriceExclude products below a dollar amount
Min ReviewsExclude products with fewer than N reviews
Min Star RatingExclude products rated below N stars
All three are optional and default to no filtering (ChatAds returns whatever it finds). Configure them in the Rules tab under Product Quality Filters.
Stricter filters reduce fill rate. If you set a high minimum review count, newer or niche products won’t make it through even if they’re a good match for the message.

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PII Scrubbing

ChatAds automatically strips personally identifiable information before analyzing text for affiliate matching. This includes content that looks like API keys, emails, SSNs, phone numbers, and credit card numbers. Always on — cannot be disabled.

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FAQ

Pass the country parameter with an ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code:
{
  "message": "Best running shoes",
  "country": "US"
}
You can also pass ip for automatic geo-detection. If you already know the user’s country, pass country directly — otherwise pass ip and ChatAds will detect it.
Non-US and non-English requests are blocked and not billed. The response will show the relevant status (country_not_allowed, ip_country_not_allowed, or language_not_allowed) with an empty offers array.
Skip Keywords are stripped from the message before analysis. The request continues, but these words won’t influence ad matching. Use this for words that shouldn’t affect targeting but aren’t problematic.Hard Stop Keywords block the entire request if detected (returns early without analysis). Use this for content that should never receive affiliate links. Blocked requests are not billed.Both have limits: max 20 keywords per list, max 25 characters per keyword, alphanumeric only.
Product quality filters run after the request is processed, so filtered requests are still billed. The filters control which resolved products are returned to you, not whether the request is analyzed. If you want to reduce billable requests, use country targeting, keyword blocking, or brand-only mode instead.
Currently, ChatAds only supports US affiliate partners. International expansion is on our roadmap.If you have specific country requirements, contact team@getchatads.com to discuss timeline and priorities.

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Next Steps

Configure Rules

Set up targeting in your dashboard

Improving Offer Quality

More tips for better affiliate matches