How to run ChatGPT ads: A step-by-step guide from early campaigns

What may turn into some of the necessary advert platforms of the subsequent decade is stay, and most advertisers nonetheless haven’t run a single marketing campaign on it.

OpenAI’s self-serve advert platform opened to everyone in Might 2026.

Advertisers can goal ChatGPT consumer conversations which might be related to their services or products and promote their model on the very second of curiosity, just like Google Search advertisements.

This information provides step-by-step directions for launching your first ChatGPT Adverts marketing campaign, plus what we’ve discovered spending our personal and our shoppers’ cash on the platform.

We gained’t faux to be ChatGPT Adverts consultants but as a result of the platform is just too new and always evolving for anybody to precisely declare experience.

Word: OpenAI steadily releases updates to the platform. This information is correct as of the time of writing.

Who are you able to goal with ChatGPT Adverts?

Your advertisements can solely serve to customers OpenAI believes are 18 or older, on the Free and Go tiers (together with logged-out sessions).

You’ll have a tough time reaching your target market in the event that they’re primarily people who find themselves paying for greater tiers of entry to ChatGPT.

However when you’re searching for people who find themselves utilizing the instrument cheaply or totally free, advertisements could possibly be a great match.

How a lot do ChatGPT Adverts price?

We’re seeing common CPCs within the $2-$5 vary throughout industries.

Should you set a max CPC decrease than $3, the platform will let you know that your advert might not ship. This seems to be a hard-coded threshold, not a dynamic evaluation of competitors or the power of your artistic and focusing on.

Step 1: Verify you’re eligible

Varieties of companies allowed to promote in ChatGPT

OpenAI restricts promoting in classes together with grownup content material, alcohol, tobacco, monetary companies, playing, and extra. Learn OpenAI’s ad policies to substantiate your eligibility.

A few of the insurance policies are self-contradictory.

For instance, the coverage web page says “advertisements for authorized recommendation, illustration, or authorized companies supplied to people or companies are usually not permitted,” however the changelog says that some authorized advertisements are allowed. Adverts for attorneys have been working since a minimum of May 2026.

Minimal funds for ChatGPT Adverts

You’ll be able to run advertisements with a each day funds as little as $25, a far cry from the $200,000 minimum commitments required through the pilot part.

What international locations are you able to goal?

You’ll be able to goal the USA, Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and the UK, with extra international locations possible coming quickly.

Step 2: Arrange your advert account

Accumulate this info earlier than you begin:

• Authorized enterprise identify.
• Enterprise Tax ID (e.g., EIN).
• Cost technique (credit score/debit card).
• Favicon.

Create your account at ads.openai.com.

OpenAI says that businesses mustn’t create accounts on behalf of shoppers. Advertisers can add businesses as customers to advert accounts. OpenAI doesn’t but have an equal to Google Adverts Supervisor Accounts or Meta Enterprise Managers.

A single consumer can entry a number of ChatGPT Adverts accounts, however we’re not conscious of a method for one consumer to create a number of accounts.

Step 3: Construction your campaigns

You’ll immediately acknowledge the marketing campaign construction choices when you’ve used different main advert platforms corresponding to Google or Meta Adverts.

The construction is: Marketing campaign > Advert group > Advert.

• Marketing campaign
  • Kind (Commonplace or product feed)
  • Goal (Attain, Clicks, or Conversions)
  • Places to focus on and/or exclude (nation, area, DMA, or postal code)
  • Customized audiences to focus on and/or exclude (first-party information add)
  • Price range (each day or whole)
  • Conversion occasion (optionally available)
  • Begin date
  • Finish date (optionally available)

• Advert group
  • Bid
  • Default Advert Vacation spot URL
  • Context hints (extra on this under)

• Advert
  • Vacation spot URL
  • Headline (50-character max, will be truncated)
  • Description (100-character max, will be truncated)
  • Picture (PNG or JPG, sq., a minimum of 256 x 256 px)

Bidding methods

You’ll be able to select to bid for Clicks, Attain, or Conversions.

Most advertisers will begin with “Clicks.” You set a most bid, just like Google’s Handbook CPC bidding, and also you’ll be charged per click on.

Should you’re attempting to maximise the quantity of people that see your advertisements, you’ll be able to select “Attain,” and also you’ll be charged per 1,000 impressions (CPM).

When you have arrange conversion monitoring utilizing OpenAI’s pixel, you’ll be able to select to optimize in direction of conversions. You’ll nonetheless be charged per click on, and may set a bid cap.

How the public sale works

OpenAI uses a “relevance-weighted, second-price public sale to pick amongst eligible advertisements.” 

This works equally to Google’s Advert Rank, which includes touchdown web page relevance, advert high quality, and bids to find out which advertisements win auctions.

There have additionally been reports of a number of advertisements serving at a single time.

Step 4: Select your focusing on (there are not any key phrases)

Advertisers coming from Google or Meta to ChatGPT Adverts may have some changes to make when they give thought to focusing on.

There are not any key phrases, no demographics, no in-market audiences.

Aside from geography, first-party information, and the precise wording of your advert and touchdown web page, the first lever to manage your advert focusing on is known as “context hints” and is on the advert group degree.

You’ll see a freeform field the place you’ll be able to write no matter you need.

OpenAI provides this steering:

• “Describe the conversations, matters, or key phrases the place your services or products could also be related; these hints information matching however aren’t exact-match focusing on guidelines.”

You’ll be able to go away this discipline clean, dump key phrases in it, or write a rigorously crafted immediate as you may enter right into a dialog with ChatGPT.

This characteristic is ripe for testing.

Case examine: A listing of key phrases vs. an inventory of full questions

We created a marketing campaign with two advert teams.

We added an inventory of key phrases to the “Key phrases” advert group just like what you may discover in a Google Adverts Search marketing campaign.

We added an inventory of full questions that individuals may ask ChatGPT to the “Conversational” advert group.

We created an advert in every advert group with the very same content material.

On this explicit take a look at, ChatGPT confirmed the advert from the “Key phrases” advert group much more typically and it had a barely greater CTR and decrease Avg. CPC than the “Conversational” advert group.

• Instance of key phrases
  • Lumber yard close to me
  • Purchase 2x4s
  • Cedar planks for decking
• Instance of an inventory of questions
  • The place is the closest lumberyard?
  • What’s the most cost-effective materials to make use of for decking?
  • How lengthy do cedar decks final?
• Instance of a conversational context trace
  • I wish to goal DIY householders within the San Antonio, Texas space who’re searching for a supply for high-quality cedar planks to make use of for decking initiatives.

First-party information

You’ll be able to goal or exclude audiences constructed out of your first-party information (buyer emails and telephone numbers), however the minimal of 25,000 matched users limits this characteristic for many SMBs.

Step 5: Create advertisements

Adverts in ChatGPT seem on the backside of a dialog with a label saying “Sponsored.”

There are two advert codecs: static and product.

Static advertisements

Right here is the anatomy of a static advert:

Product advertisements

Advertisers can submit a product feed to ChatGPT and serve advertisements utilizing product information from that feed.

Initially, these advertisements regarded an identical to static advertisements, however OpenAI announced on July 24 that it’s updating the product card format to characteristic costs and star rankings.

Right here is the anatomy of a product advert:

Here are instructions for submitting a product feed to ChatGPT.

The method is clunky and time-consuming for the time being, and we’ve run into a number of glitches. Count on OpenAI to enhance this over time.

Step 6: Arrange measurement earlier than you launch

OpenAI has a pixel that works equally to the Google Adverts and Meta Adverts pixels.

You’ll be able to set up the bottom code straight in your web site and fireplace occasions based mostly on particular actions, corresponding to button clicks and web page hundreds. You may as well set dynamic values to trace metrics corresponding to order income.

OpenAI experiences conversions in your advert account on the marketing campaign, advert group, and advert degree, and you may optimize in direction of conversions.

We strongly advocate including UTM parameters to your advert URLs to trace ChatGPT Adverts site visitors in third-party methods, together with GA4.

Some third-party platforms, such because the call-tracking software program CTM, combine straight with ChatGPT Adverts.

Along with conversions, ChatGPT experiences impressions, clicks, spend, CTR, Avg. CPC, and Avg. CPM.

Step 7: The way to optimize with restricted information

The important thing levers for optimizing ChatGPT Adverts are the advertisements themselves and the way you construction your campaigns and advert teams.

There may be little or no information out there to you about what is definitely driving your efficiency.

If you wish to take a look at how your advertisements carry out in several geographic areas, you’ll should create separate campaigns for every space as a result of reporting can solely be segmented by nation, regardless that you’ll be able to goal extra granular places.

OpenAI matches advertisements utilizing the present dialog and, for customers who’ve advertisements personalization enabled, indicators from their broader ChatGPT exercise. None of that info is shared with the advertiser.

You can’t see any dialog information and even the key phrases or dialog themes that will have triggered your advert.

Utilizing ChatGPT Adverts feels just like the early days of Google’s Efficiency Max campaigns, the place we largely needed to belief that the system was exhibiting advertisements to related individuals in related conditions.

Case examine: How engaged is ChatGPT Adverts site visitors?

Right here is information from GA4 masking round 1,500 customers who reached the identical web site through Google Adverts versus ChatGPT Adverts.

• Common engagement time per lively consumer
  • Google Adverts: 41 seconds
  • ChatGPT Adverts: 17 seconds
• Engaged periods per lively consumer
  • Google Adverts: 1.13
  • ChatGPT Adverts: 0.88
• Conversion price:
  • Google Adverts: 3.71%
  • ChatGPT Adverts: 0.21%

On this take a look at, customers coming through Google Adverts have been extra engaged and transformed at a considerably greater price than customers coming from ChatGPT Adverts.

That mentioned, we have been capable of attain individuals utilizing ChatGPT Adverts who weren’t essentially trying to find an answer on Google. Whereas benchmarking in opposition to different channels is useful, you must decide every channel by what it prices you to accumulate a buyer by means of it.

The place ChatGPT Adverts suits in your channel combine

Since you’re serving advertisements to individuals whereas they’re researching and having a dialog with the LLM, ChatGPT Adverts are extra like Google Search advertisements than Fb or Instagram advertisements.

If you’re already getting good natural site visitors to your web site from ChatGPT, that’s a sign that ChatGPT Adverts could also be nicely price testing.

That mentioned, OpenAI makes it clear that working advertisements doesn’t affect whether or not your model will likely be talked about organically, and vice versa.

Must you take a look at ChatGPT Adverts?

Most advertisers ought to take a look at ChatGPT Adverts.

The price of testing is comparatively low and can solely rise because the platform matures and extra advertisers enter.

It is best to use in-platform and third-party monitoring to know how site visitors converts.

Benchmark your ChatGPT Adverts outcomes in opposition to your Google search outcomes, whereas factoring in that that is nonetheless a brand new platform and is continually altering.

As a result of the platform is just too new to have established finest practices, be ready to speculate time and thought in testing a wide range of approaches and creatives to search out what works finest for you.