How to Launch Ads in ChatGPT Ads: A Step-by-Step Guide

Back in January, we covered the announcement of ads in ChatGPT at a $60 CPM. At the time, it was still a closed program with a minimum budget of $200,000. On May 5, the company opened Ads Manager to all US advertisers with no minimum budget requirement. 

In this article, we break down how advertising in ChatGPT works, what it costs, how to sign up, and what the potential pitfalls are.

Ad Targeting Features

Ads in the AI agent appear in blocks below the response. The widget always carries a "Sponsored" label, separate from the content the model generates in response to the user's query.

Ads are shown only to users on the free plan and ChatGPT Go users — Plus, Team, and Enterprise subscribers see no ads. According to CNBC, 85% of US users are on free plans. However, fewer than 20% of them see ads on any given day — OpenAI is deliberately keeping frequency low to avoid degrading the user experience. 

The first partners in the ad platform pilot: Target, Ford, Adobe, Mrs. Meyer's, WPP Media, Omnicom, Dentsu. According to CNBC data from late March, the platform already had 600+ advertisers.

Currently, the system supports two formats:

• Sponsored Recommendations — a block below the response with a link to the website. 
• Native Content Cards — cards with product details, pricing, and action buttons.

ChatGPT targets ads through three signals:

• Conversation topic — the subject of the user's query.
• Chat history — patterns from recent conversations.
• Past ad interactions — whether the user has clicked on similar ads before.

For a media buyer, this is a fundamentally different mechanic. Google serves ads to users with clear purchase intent — "buy sneakers." ChatGPT delivers ads during the research and decision-making phase — when a person is describing a problem in an extended, conversational phrase.

Early test data from 5 companies running campaigns simultaneously on Google, Meta, and ChatGPT shows a notable difference in lead quality. Compared to Meta Ads, leads from ChatGPT demonstrate 256% higher quality, while compared to Google Ads, they underperform by 49%.

How to Launch Ads in ChatGPT

As of early June, the ad network's geography is limited to the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Campaigns can be launched via Ads Manager or the Criteo platform.

Registration via ads.openai.com was open for a period, but most publishers were simply waiting on the whitelist. Starting from the last week of May, reports began coming in that you can simply create a new account and launch ads right away.

We tested the registration process and confirmed that you can create an account using a US VPN and start running campaigns. Note that currently only a business account can be created during registration — setting up an individual account is not yet possible.

You'll also need to fill in your billing profile and add a logo. Cards from Ukrainian banks are declined by the system, so you'll need to find a payment method with foreign BINs. Upon authorization, $100 is charged for 3 days and then refunded.

Ads can currently be run under two models: reach and clicks. A CPA model is expected to launch on June 5. The step-by-step campaign creation flow is standard: budget, ad sets, and moderation.

There are no cases with concrete numbers yet — the ad platform only became more or less accessible on May 5. In February, Criteo analyzed 500 US retailers and reported conversion rates 1.5x higher than other channels. However, Criteo is OpenAI's first adtech partner and has a vested interest in boosting the platform.

On the user side, reactions are mixed. Some note that the ads fit naturally into the context of the response. Others are unhappy about ads appearing in ChatGPT at all.

In reality, the platform is too new to draw any conclusions about long-term performance. But for publishers with tier-1 offers and sufficient budget — this is definitely something new. And it's worth testing, if only out of curiosity. 

A similar situation played out with advertising on Threads — everyone wrote about the new format, but it turned out to be a story about white-label brands and reach-focused strategies, not arbitrage funnels.

Summary

For now, ChatGPT Ads is purely a brand awareness play. US-only targeting, limited capabilities, and no real case studies — it's clearly not an arbitrage format. For those running white-hat tier-1 verticals with solid LTV, it's worth getting in and testing while the auction is still empty. 

We'll be watching for geo expansion and the first real numbers. Only after proper testing can any conclusions be drawn about long-term performance. But one thing is already clear — gray-hat verticals have no place in this source.