Advertising in ChatGPT · OpenAI Ads
Advertising in ChatGPT for business
We'll set up an OpenAI Ads campaign for your business in Spain: prompts matched to your customers' conversations, ads, lead tracking and a report.
- 800+ million
- ChatGPT's weekly audience. People use it for research, comparing options and decisions before buying.
- 25 USD per day
- The minimum daily campaign budget. No long-term contracts, mandatory deposits or account opening fees.
- 3-5 USD
- Recommended starting bid per click. Hot traffic right at the moment a person is discussing their task.
- 63 countries
- The OpenAI Ads account is open in 63 countries, including the US, the UK, the UAE and EU countries. Targeting works by country, region and city, and the level of detail depends on the country.
Advertising in ChatGPT is a card under the model's answer: logo, headline, description, image and a link to your site. Users on the free plan and the Go plan see it. Display is matched to the meaning of the conversation through contextual prompts, with no keywords. The channel is worth testing for businesses whose customers discuss their choice with ChatGPT. OpenAI's minimum is 25 USD per day per campaign, and there are no published cases for local services yet. Campaign setup takes from 1 day.
What do ads in ChatGPT look like?
A separate card under the model's answer. It is not embedded in the answer itself.
Which language school in Valencia should an adult choose?
An ad card in ChatGPT consists of a logo, headline, short description, image and a link to the site. Under OpenAI's official policy, called answer independence, ads run on a separate system and do not affect what the model writes in its answer. There is one card per dialog.
See the ad
- Free plan users
- Go plan users
They don't see the ads
- Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu subscribers
- Users under 18
- Any conversation in Temporary Chat
- Free users who chose Ads-Free mode with reduced limits
OpenAI doesn't show ads next to topics of health, mental health and politics. Medicine and financial services are allowed to advertise only after strict review. For a business this means building prompts around the choice and outcome of the service, avoiding conversations the system classifies as sensitive.
How does advertising in ChatGPT differ from Google Ads?
| Difference | Google Ads | Advertising in ChatGPT |
|---|---|---|
| Targeting | By the keywords the person typed | Contextual: the system matches the meaning of the conversation with your prompts; there are no keywords or demographics |
| Ad placements | Several ads and many links on the results page | One ad slot under the answer: one advertiser per conversation |
| The moment of contact | The person has already formed a query and is looking for a quick path to purchase | Catching the customer at the choosing stage: the person compares options right in the conversation |
| Creatives | Performance Max needs video and many graphic adaptations | Headline of 40-50 characters, description of 100-150, logo, image and link. According to Tru Commerce, production is roughly 70% cheaper than Performance Max |
| Organic and money | Ad placements are sold at auction by keywords | Answer independence: ads don't influence the answer, an organic mention can't be bought |
| Conversion | According to First Page Sage, from 0.3 to 2.3% by industry, 1.9% in education | According to Lapis's forecast based on First Page Sage data, higher than in Google Ads in 11 of 17 industries, 6.3% in education, up to 3.32 times more |
| New clients | There is no comparable data in the sources | In the Portland Leather case, per Triple Whale, 93% of visitors from ChatGPT ads were new. This is a single case |
| Impression frequency | Ads sit on the results page, which people scan looking for links | Rare impressions: fewer than 20% of users see at least one ad per day, according to Castle International. OpenAI does this on purpose |
| Small business | The top spot often goes to whoever pays more | Equal terms: no profiling, the advertiser sees no chats, memory or history, and a big brand has no data advantage |
| Organic plus ads | Castle International writes that Google and Meta don't have this effect in the same form | Double confirmation effect: the brand in the organic answer and in the ad card below it takes two positions in a single answer |
Want to see how your niche looks in ChatGPT? Tell us about your business in the brief or message us on WhatsApp. Campaign setup takes from 1 day.
Who is advertising in ChatGPT for?
Niches where the customer compares options before buying. The conversion figures here are forecasts, with sources at the bottom of the page.
Plumbers, renovation, cleaning, car services and other services that people choose by comparing providers. According to early estimates cited by Nakora, this group has the highest CTR among industries, from 0.8 to 1.5%. For renovation and construction, First Page Sage forecasts a conversion rate of about 3.7%. Geotargeting matters to these businesses, so we check the available regions in advance.
Language schools, business courses and professional training. In Lapis's forecast based on First Page Sage data, this is the conversion leader: 6.3% for ChatGPT ads versus 1.9% for Google Ads, a 3.32x difference. People compare programs and terms for a long time, and the card appears right in that conversation.
Clothing, electronics, home goods. Forecast e-commerce conversion is 2.3%. For Shopify stores there is the Product-Feed Ads format with automatic catalog import. Best suited are products people choose after some thought: Tru Commerce lists skincare, supplements and tableware among them.
Consultants, accountants, architects, B2B software. Castle International lists them among the industries that will benefit from advertising in ChatGPT: people ask for advice and compare contractors. In Lapis's example for B2B SaaS, the forecast conversion is 1.7% in ChatGPT versus 1.1% in Google Ads, and at the same cost per click a lead comes out cheaper.
SureThing suggests asking yourself two questions. Does the buyer research the topic for a long time before buying? Does the solution involve a real comparison and explanation of options? If the answer to both is yes, the channel is worth testing. Lapis adds that short decisions convert best, where the buyer meets the ad at a late stage.
Ads are not shown next to conversations about personal health, mental health and politics, and political advertising is banned. Medicine and financial services are allowed only after strict review. If almost all your customers are on Plus or Pro, only an organic mention in the answer will reach them, and you should start with GEO.
Ads and GEO: why do you need both channels?
Organic results appear in the answer text, while ads sit as a card below it.
GEO is the work of getting ChatGPT to mention your business in its answer on its own. You can't pay for such a mention, you earn it with articles and facts on your site. Castle International writes that a brand with strong content easily beats, organically, a brand with a budget 10 times larger. We handle this in our AI promotion service.
The ad appears as a separate card labeled as an ad when the conversation matches your prompts. You control it yourself through prompts, ads, budget and campaign dates. The card does not affect the model's answer, which is an OpenAI rule. The card disappears when the campaign ends.
Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu subscribers don't see ads in ChatGPT. The more affluent part of the audience may well be on Plus, and then only an organic mention in the answer reaches them. Tru Commerce calls organic the only layer that Plus and Pro users see.
Ads don't interfere with the answer, so the two channels don't get in each other's way. Organic reaches all users, including subscribers, while ads reach Free and Go users in conversations where the customer is choosing right now. When a brand appears both in the answer and in the card below it, Castle International calls it two positions in one answer.
«The arrival of AI answers above organic results has caused the so-called CTR Contraction effect. Users get complete answers right on the search page, which leads to zero clicks. In these conditions classic SEO traffic inevitably shrinks, and the only way to keep organic reach is to have your brand and content cited directly inside the AI answer itself.»
What do we do when launching ads in ChatGPT?
Six steps from the account to the test evaluation.
We set up an ad account in OpenAI Ads: it is standalone and works without a contract. First we check that the legal entity is registered in an allowed country: Spain and the other EU countries have been on the list since September 2026. Currency, country and time zone are chosen up front and with care, since they can't be changed after the account is created.
We write prompts in three layers. Discussions convey the customer's whole situation, topics name the method or service, and keywords give short direct queries. Situations come from real reviews, each is written as one phrase without commas, and we add nothing the business does not do.
We write the headline and description so the key message fits the limit the account actually shows: in our work it cut the headline after 32 characters and the description after 54. We remove texts and stock photos that the account adds on its own, set a square image and turn off Creative enhancement. Every group has UTM tags.
We install the OpenAI pixel, which fires only after cookie consent, plus server-side lead delivery via Conversions API for all visitors. Both paths send the same event ID, so a lead is counted once. Before launch we test the setup with test leads, which don't affect campaign statistics.
We show the report in a separate tab of the dashboard: spend, impressions, clicks and CTR, cost per click, leads from ads and cost per lead. Next to it are campaigns, a daily breakdown and tracking status: when the last pixel and server event arrived, how many leads the site sent and how many of them came after an ad click.
We calculate the result over the whole test period. A CTR below 0.5% for a group means the prompts or text do not match the conversation. We compare the cost per lead with Google Ads. If a lead is a click on WhatsApp or the phone, we check it manually against real bookings to measure payback.
How much does launching advertising in ChatGPT cost?
These are only public reference points for the advertising budget. The minimum is set by OpenAI, and the other figures come from open sources: OpenAI does not publish official benchmarks.
It's the minimum budget for one campaign in OpenAI Ads, about €15 per day. There are no deposits or account opening fees. The budget is set as a daily average: on a given day the account may spend up to two daily budgets, but over 7 days it never exceeds seven. A campaign can't be launched below the minimum.
This starting bid is what OpenAI recommends. The actual cost per click, per public sources, ranges from 1.5 to 9 USD and higher, depending on niche and competition. If the price in your campaign is far above the benchmark, it is a reason to check whether the audience is too narrow and whether there is competition for impressions.
A benchmark for the price per thousand impressions from open sources. We run pay-per-click campaigns, so this figure is useful for understanding the market. With pay-per-click you won't pay for impressions that didn't lead to a click.
Average click share based on open sources. For local and personal services the estimates are higher, 0.8 to 1.5%. In the first test we aim for a range of 0.5 to 1.5% and treat a CTR below 0.5% for a group as a signal to rewrite the prompts or the copy.
We usually set pay-per-click with automatic bidding for leads. The account picks the bid itself to get more leads within the budget. The auction winner pays roughly what is needed to beat the next advertiser, so the amount charged is often lower than the maximum bid.
By default, the end date field in the ad account is empty and the campaign runs indefinitely. We set the test end date right away so the budget doesn't keep spending after the check. We decide on extending together with you, based on the test results, the cost per lead and the number of real inquiries.
What usually causes concern and what do the facts say?
Four common objections and figures from open sources.
Minimum 25 USD a day per campaign, about 15 euros. There are no deposits, account opening fees or mandatory contracts, and the campaign stops on its end date. The recommended starting bid is 3 to 5 USD per click; according to SureThing, a click more often costs 1 to 4 USD. A click usually isn't cheaper than on Google: SureThing says the savings come after the click, in lead quality.
OpenAI has not yet published general benchmarks, and we don't hide that. There is a Lapis forecast based on First Page Sage data: conversion higher than Google Ads in 11 of 17 industries. There are case studies from OpenAI partners: at WeightWatchers the acquisition cost is 15.3% lower than paid search per DV Rockerbox measurement, and at Jotform the sign-up cost is 30% lower than paid search. These are individual cases, so we run a test with an end date.
Paid subscribers make up only 3-5% of the ChatGPT audience, according to Krater.ai. The rest of the 800 million weekly users are on the Free and Go plans, and they are the ones who see ads. Plus and Pro subscribers cannot be reached with ads; an organic mention in the answer leads to them. That is why we recommend keeping GEO alongside advertising.
OpenAI has a site pixel and a server-side Conversions API, and events with the same identifier are counted once. ChatGPT adds its own click parameter oppref to the link, and we save it along with UTM tags so leads reach GA4 and the CRM. The ad account report is aggregated, with no chats or personal data. We judge by cost per lead: CTR under a detailed answer is lower than in search.
Still have questions about budget or measurement? We will review your case and suggest a test with an end date so spending stays within limits.
Why launch now?
The channel opened in Spain in autumn 2026, and the market is still taking shape.
In July 2026, at the start of the beta, the dashboard worked in 7 countries. Since late September self-serve access has been open in 63 countries, including all 27 EU states. A company from Spain creates an account directly at ads.openai.com, without a foreign legal entity or someone else’s payment profile.
The channel is new and has few advertisers compared with Google and Meta, as Spilno Agency and Castle International note. There are fewer rivals for each impression, and each conversation has only one ad slot, which can go to you when the topic matches.
MaaS by CodeSM writes that at launch a thousand impressions cost about 60 USD, and as impression inventory grew the price fell to 25 USD. By their estimate, bids over the next two quarters will set the market's first benchmarks. Whoever enters now sees these numbers on their own campaigns before everyone else.
Castle International calls this the early-advertiser advantage: whoever works out measurement, copy and prompts now will have a stock of data by the time the market matures. For you, that means tested prompts for your niche and an understanding of the real cost of a lead while competitors are still watching.
«The zero-click influence phenomenon creates a new economy of user interaction with a brand: even if a customer doesn't click through to the site from an AI answer, the recommendation itself builds initial trust and encourages a later direct or branded search. Presence in assistants' answers lays the foundation for commercial choice in modern B2B and B2C.»
Questions about advertising in ChatGPT
Which ChatGPT users will see my ad?
Ads are seen by users on the free plan and the Go plan. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu subscribers don't see them, nor do users under 18. There are no ads in Temporary Chat. A free user can turn on Ads-Free mode in exchange for reduced limits. These rules are published in the OpenAI help center.
Can a business from Spain open an OpenAI Ads account?
Yes. Since late September 2026 the self-serve account has been open to advertisers from 63 countries, including all 27 EU member states. A company registered in Spain creates an account directly at ads.openai.com, with no foreign legal entity or third-party payment profile needed. Geo detail by region and city depends on the country, and we check it when creating the account.
How much money is needed to start advertising in ChatGPT?
The minimum budget for one campaign is 25 USD a day, about 15 euros a day. There are no deposits, account opening fees or long-term contracts. All of that money goes to impressions and clicks in OpenAI. We discuss the price of our setup after the brief, once the niche, country and campaign scale are clear.
What cost-per-click bid should I set in the first campaign?
OpenAI recommends starting with a maximum bid of 3 to 5 USD per click. The actual price per open sources is 1.5 to 9 USD and higher, depending on niche and competition. The auction winner pays roughly what it takes to beat the next advertiser, so often less than the maximum bid is charged.
Does advertising influence what ChatGPT writes in its answer?
No. This is the answer independence principle from OpenAI's help center: ads run on a separate system, and an advertiser cannot change, rank or rewrite the model's answers. The card sits below the answer and is labeled as an ad. So a mention in the answer itself is earned through GEO, while the paid card remains a separate channel that you manage.
Why is the CTR of ads in ChatGPT lower than in Google Search?
The card sits below a full answer that the person reads, while a search ad sits at the top of the page, where people look for links. The average CTR in ChatGPT is about 0.7% according to open data, and the Google Search median per WordStream is 6.64%. Graphite reports that the global CTR of ads in ChatGPT has grown 112% since launch. It is better to judge the campaign by cost per lead.
How do you track leads from ads in ChatGPT?
We install the OpenAI pixel, which fires after cookie consent, plus server-side delivery via Conversions API for all visitors. Both paths send the same event ID, so a lead is counted once. We also store the oppref click parameter and UTM tags so visits from mobile browsers don't get lost in direct traffic in analytics and CRM.
How long after launch do the first numbers appear?
Impressions and clicks show up in the account after about 15 minutes, spend updates with a delay of up to 7-8 hours, and conversions settle within 24-48 hours. That's why a day's result isn't judged right after it ends. We draw conclusions about a campaign no sooner than 2-3 days in, and we calculate the test result over the whole period.
Which conversations won't show ads?
OpenAI does not place ads next to conversations about personal health, mental health and politics, and political advertising is currently banned. Medicine, financial services and insurance are regulated categories: access only after strict review, and in some markets such ads are closed. So we build prompts around choosing the service and its outcome.
Why do the text limits in the ad account differ from the figures in reviews?
Reviews cite 40 to 50 characters for the headline and 100 to 150 for the description. In the account we worked with, the headline was cut off after 32 characters and the description after 54, even though the API documentation allows more. So we write texts so the key message fits the short limit, and we check the preview before launch.
What is Creative enhancement and why turn it off?
It's an account feature where AI rewrites and translates ad texts on its own and shows them without your approval. It's on by default. We turn it off: the model may promise a service the business doesn't offer or distort the terms. We also remove the texts and stock photos the account adds to the ad by itself.
Why does advertising in ChatGPT need an organic mention?
Castle International writes that a brand present both in the organic answer and in the ad card beneath it takes two positions in one answer. The ad reinforces a recommendation the person already trusts. Without an organic mention, the ad has to work noticeably harder, and results are usually worse. We handle the organic side in the AI promotion service.
How reliable are the conversion figures from the reviews?
OpenAI states directly that the platform has no general benchmarks by advertiser or industry yet. The figure of 11 of 17 industries is a Lapis forecast based on First Page Sage data. The results of WeightWatchers, Jotform and Portland Leather are individual cases selected by OpenAI and partners. We use them as a guide, but decide based on the numbers from your own test.
Can ads be shown in just one city?
Country targeting is available in all markets. The ad account does not offer regions and cities everywhere: in the US you can narrow delivery to a state, metro area or ZIP code, and in other countries the options depend on the market. For Spain, we check available regions when creating the account and do not promise a specific city until we have verified it.
Shall we test advertising in ChatGPT for your business?
Tell us what you do and where your customers are. We'll check whether the OpenAI Ads account supports your country and propose a test plan with an end date.