plastic shopping bags having upper and lower seams , at least one side gusset , an open bag mouth and upper bag handles has attached promotional ad strips . the strips include a central removable portion and a pair of remainder portions at either end of the strip that are sealed into the upper and lower seams . the ad strips are registered to the upper and lower bag seams so that whole numbers of the coupons , messages or promotions will fall within the removable portion of the strip . perforations join the removable portion of the strip to the remainder portions . an apparatus for registering the ad strips to plastic shopping bags includes markers on the bags and on the ad strips , sensors to detect the markers , a controller to match the speed of the ad strips to that of the bag blanks , a sealer , bag cutter and either a stacker or a winder .