×
Advertising digitally has traditionally revolved around platforms such as Google, Meta and YouTube. But the way people discover information and make purchasing decisions is changing fast with ChatGPT and others. Millions of users now turn to ChatGPT to research products, compare services, explore options and make decisions. With OpenAI opening its advertising platform to businesses, ChatGPT is becoming another channel for brands looking to reach potential customers at these decision-making moments.
I’m Tony John, founder of SpiderWorks. I started my career in software development in 1996 and have spent more than three decades working across technology, digital marketing, and online business. I founded SpiderWorks in 2005, bringing my experience in technology and the web into a digital marketing business. Today, paid advertising is an important part of the digital marketing services we provide at SpiderWorks. Our paid ads department works with businesses on campaign planning, audience targeting, ad creation, landing pages, tracking and performance analysis across platforms such as Google and Meta.
The emergence of ChatGPT Ads presents another interesting opportunity for businesses. Unlike traditional search advertising, ChatGPT brings advertising into a conversational environment where users may already be researching a product, comparing options, or looking for a solution.
In this blog, I’ll explain how to set up an advertising account with OpenAI, complete advertiser verification, add billing information, invite team members and get started with your first ChatGPT advertising campaign.
ChatGPT Ads work differently from the advertising models most businesses are familiar with. Google Ads primarily uses search queries and keywords to determine when an advertisement may be relevant, while platforms such as Meta rely heavily on audience characteristics, interests and behavior. ChatGPT, on the other hand, takes a more conversational approach.
When a user discusses a product, service or problem with ChatGPT, the advertising system can consider the context and intent of that conversation when matching relevant ads. Advertisers can also provide context hints, which describe the types of conversations, topics or situations where their products or services may be useful. These are not traditional exact-match keywords.
The key difference is that advertisers need to think beyond a single keyword. Instead of focusing only on a term such as “CRM software”, they can consider the situations where their product would be relevant. A user might be comparing CRM tools, looking for a way to manage customer data, planning a purchase or researching available options.
The ad selection process considers factors such as the ad copy, landing page, context hints and relevance to the conversation. Keywords still have a role, but they form part of a wider picture of what the user is discussing and trying to accomplish. OpenAI uses a relevance-weighted auction, so the highest bid does not automatically win.
Ads appear below ChatGPT responses in a clearly labelled sponsored area, separate from the AI-generated answer. Ads do not influence ChatGPT's response. For advertisers, this feature creates another opportunity to reach users who are already researching a product, comparing solutions or considering a purchase.
OpenAI's current setup process covers account creation, business and account information, verification, billing and payment. Team members can be invited separately after the advertiser account has been created.
If you are looking to advertise on ChatGPT, you will need to create or sign in to an OpenAI account, provide your business and tax details, complete advertiser verification and set up billing. The step-by-step process includes:
The first step is to have an OpenAI account. If you already use ChatGPT, you can sign in with your existing account. If you do not have an account, you can create one using your email address or available sign-in options such as through your Google and Apple accounts or your phone number.
Once you are signed in, you can access Ads Manager and begin setting up your advertiser account.
You will be asked to provide information about your business, including your company name, website, logo and industry. You will also need to enter account details such as your country, currency and time zone. As an Indian business, you may also be asked to provide your GST number during the setup process. Keep your company and tax details available so you can complete the form accurately.
OpenAI may use information from your website to populate your business branding, including your logo. Review the logo displayed in your account and update it if necessary.
After entering your business details, you will need to complete Advertiser Verification. If your Ads Manager account shows a verification notification, click Start Verification to begin the process. When asked to select the advertiser type, choose Business if you are advertising on behalf of your company or organization.
OpenAI will guide you through the required verification steps. Make sure the information you provide matches your business records and supporting information.
Next, you need to set up billing and payment for your advertising account. You will be asked to provide billing information such as your business name, invoice delivery email and billing address. You will also need to add a payment method, such as a credit or debit card, along with the required billing details. Your billing and payment setup needs to be completed before your campaigns can start delivering ads.
Once you have set up your ChatGPT advertiser account, you can invite teammates to help manage your advertising activities. OpenAI currently provides different access levels, including Admin, Member and Viewer:
The level of access depends on the role you assign to each person. In my experience during the setup, attempting to invite a team member with Admin access resulted in a system error, while Member access worked successfully. If you encounter a similar issue, you may want to try Member access and check whether the problem persists.
Also read: 7 Outdated Google Ads Tactics to Avoid in 2026
Once you have completed these steps, your advertiser account will be ready for campaign creation. OpenAI structures campaigns into three levels: Campaign, Ad Group and the Ad. The ad group organizes ads around a specific theme or intent, while the individual ad contains the title, copy, image and landing page. Here’s how you can approach your first campaign:
Choose Your Campaign Objective: Start by deciding what you want the campaign to achieve. ChatGPT Ads currently support CPM, CPC and oCPC objectives.
CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions) focuses on visibility and is suitable when your priority is getting your brand or message in front of more people. CPC (Cost Per Click) focuses on driving clicks to your website or landing page. oCPC (Optimised Cost Per Click) uses optimisation to help generate clicks that are more likely to result in a specific conversion.
I recommend choosing the objective based on the actual business outcome you want from the campaign rather than simply choosing an option based on cost.
At this stage, give your campaign a clear and descriptive name. This may not seem particularly important when you are creating your first campaign, but a good naming system becomes useful when you have several campaigns running and need to compare their performance.
Set Your Budget and Campaign Dates: Next, set your campaign budget and decide when you want the campaign to run. OpenAI currently provides options for a campaign-total budget and a daily budget.
For a first campaign, I generally prefer starting with a controlled daily budget. This gives you the opportunity to monitor the initial results and make informed decisions before committing a larger amount to the campaign.
Choose Your Target Countries: You can then select the countries where you want your advertisements to appear. Targeting is set at the campaign level, so choose the markets that match where your business actually serves customers.
If you are an Indian business targeting customers in India, for example, you can select India where it is available in your Ads Manager account. Businesses serving international markets can select the relevant supported countries.
Create Your Ad Group: The next level is the ad group. I recommend creating separate ad groups when you want to organize ads around different products, services or customer needs.
Give each ad group a clear name that tells you what it represents. You can then set the relevant destination URL and prepare the context hints for that particular theme or intent.
For example, if I were creating a campaign for a digital marketing company, I might have separate ad groups for SEO services, Google Ads management and social media marketing rather than putting everything into one group.
Add Context Hints: Context hints are one of the more interesting parts of ChatGPT advertising because they allow you to describe the types of conversations and situations where your offering could be relevant.
Instead of thinking only about individual keywords, I recommend thinking about what a potential customer might actually be discussing with ChatGPT. For a CRM company, this could include conversations about comparing CRM platforms, managing customer information, finding sales software or choosing a CRM for a growing business.
Context hints are not traditional exact-match keywords. They help describe the type of user intent and conversation that may be relevant to your advertisement.
Create Your Ad: Once the ad group is ready, you can create the individual advertisement. This is where you add your brand name, logo, title, ad copy, image and destination URL.
From my experience with paid advertising, I would avoid sending every visitor to the homepage. If your advertisement promotes a particular service, product or offer, take the user directly to the most relevant landing page.
You can also add UTM parameters to your destination URL if you want to track the traffic generated by your ChatGPT ads in Google Analytics.
I also recommend creating more than one ad variation when possible. Testing different headlines, messages or images can help you understand which creative approach works better with your target audience.
Review and Launch: Before launching the campaign, I recommend going through each setting once more. Check the campaign objective, budget, dates, target countries, ad group, context hints, ad creative and landing page.
Also check that your landing page is working correctly and that your advertiser verification, billing and account information have been completed.
Once the campaign is submitted and approved, you can monitor its performance through Ads Manager. Metrics such as impressions, clicks, spend, CTR, average CPC and average CPM can help you understand how the campaign is performing.
I would not treat the first campaign as something you set up once and forget about. Use the initial performance data to understand which ads, messages and landing pages are working, and use those insights when making your next campaign decisions.
The arrival of advertising on ChatGPT gives businesses another way to reach potential customers while they are researching products, comparing services or looking for solutions. However, getting results from this channel requires more than simply creating an ad and setting a budget. From my experience with paid advertising, the quality of your targeting, context hints, ad creative, landing pages and ongoing performance analysis can all influence how well a campaign performs.
At SpiderWorks, we help businesses plan and manage paid advertising campaigns across platforms such as Google, Meta and now emerging AI-driven advertising channels. Our team works on campaign strategy, audience and intent targeting, ad creation, landing page optimization, tracking and performance analysis based on each business's goals.
If you are considering ChatGPT Ads as part of your digital marketing strategy, our team can help you understand where the platform fits into your existing advertising efforts and how to build campaigns around relevant customer intent.
Contact us today to speak with our advertising specialists and explore how ChatGPT Ads can become part of your paid advertising strategy.
