ChatGPT Ads shows your ad next to relevant conversations in ChatGPT. It works differently from search ads, so this guide walks through the setup and the decisions that matter on a first campaign. Still deciding whether to run it? Read ChatGPT Ads vs Google Ads first.
ChatGPT Ads is still young and in beta, and details change quickly. The facts here were checked on the date above. Before you spend money, confirm them in OpenAI's help center and ad policies.
Check that you can advertise
Two things decide this.
- Your country. Ads Manager opens country by country. Creating an account does not give you access before your country is supported.
- Your category. OpenAI limits which businesses can advertise, and some health, financial and legal categories are restricted or not allowed depending on the country. Read the ad policies first, so you don't build a campaign that can't run.
It also helps to know who sees the ads. They can appear for people on the Free and Go plans, not on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise or Edu.
Set up your account
- Go to ads.openai.com and sign in with an OpenAI account, or create one.
- Enter your website if you want Ads Manager to draft a first ad, or skip this and build the campaign yourself.
- Check your account, brand and legal names, because your advertiser name fills all three at first.
- Add billing. Campaigns can't deliver without it.
Each advertiser needs a separate account. You can invite teammates as Admin, Member or Viewer.
Understand the structure
A campaign has three levels.
| Level | What you set there |
|---|---|
| Campaign | Objective, budget, dates and targeting |
| Ad group | Bids and context hints, around one theme |
| Ad | Title, body text, image and landing page |
Keep one theme per ad group. If you sell running shoes and hiking boots, make two ad groups, so each can have its own hints and bid and you can see which one works.
Write useful context hints
Context hints describe the conversations, topics or keywords where your product may be relevant. They guide matching, but they are not exact keywords and they don't guarantee your ad appears in a specific conversation.
Write them the way people describe a need, not the way you describe your product. "Choosing shoes for a first half marathon" tells the system more than "premium running footwear".
This is the biggest change if you come from search. There are no search terms to review and no negative keywords to add, so you control relevance through hints, ad groups and your landing page.
Write the ad
An ad is a card with a title, short body text, an image and a destination URL. The API documents a minimum image size of 640 by 640 pixels.
- Answer the need in the title. Someone reading the card is in the middle of a question.
- Be plain and specific. Say what you offer and who it suits, and avoid absolute claims.
- Send people to the matching page. A shoe ad should open the shoe page, not your home page.
Ads and landing pages go through review before they run, using automated checks with some decisions passed to people.
Set your budget and bid
Budgets are set on the campaign, and bids on the ad group. You can bid per click, and OpenAI also offers conversion-optimized bidding, which relies on conversion tracking. Ad selection uses a relevance-weighted, second-price auction, so a relevant ad does not need the highest bid to win.
OpenAI's help center has suggested starting click bids of $3 to $5. Treat that as a starting point and check the current advice, because it may change.
For a first test, pick a daily budget you are comfortable losing while you learn. Run one or two ad groups rather than many, so the budget isn't spread too thin.
Track and read your results
Set up conversion tracking before you launch, or you'll only know what you spent and how many people clicked.
Reports show impressions, clicks, spend and conversions. Conversions can include people who saw your ad without clicking, and the API's default attribution is a 30-day click window and a 1-day view window, so compare with other channels carefully.
In the first weeks, look at three things:
- Cost per click, compared with your search campaigns.
- Click rate per ad group, which shows which hints and ads fit.
- Cost per conversion, once you have enough conversions to compare.
Change one thing at a time. If you edit the hints, the ad and the bid together, you won't know what helped.
Manage it next to your other ads
ChatGPT Ads has its own Ads Manager, so comparing it with search means switching between tools. Roasby connects ChatGPT Ads, Google Ads and Microsoft Ads in one place. You can ask your AI assistant how they compare, have it create a campaign that starts paused, and change budgets inside limits you set.
ChatGPT Ads does not report conversion value, so ROAS isn't available for it in Roasby.