25/06/2026
We're testing ChatGPT Ads... here's what we know so far.
Over the last few days, we've had the opportunity to get hands-on with the new OpenAI Ads Manager Beta, and naturally, we couldn't wait to start exploring it.
Rather than simply reading about ChatGPT Ads, we've gone through the process of setting up an account, creating a campaign and getting our first advert live. It's still very early days, but I thought I'd share a few things we've learned so far.
At the moment, targeting is fairly simple. We can target the United Kingdom, but there aren't currently any options for more local targeting such as counties, towns or postcode radius. Likewise, there are no demographic targeting options such as age or gender available at this stage.
Campaigns currently start with a minimum daily budget of £15, and you set a maximum CPC bid for your ad group.
The really interesting part, and what I think makes ChatGPT Ads different to anything we've seen before, is something called Context Hints.
Instead of telling the platform exactly who you want to target, you're telling the AI the types of conversations where your advert would be genuinely useful.
For our own campaign, we've told ChatGPT we're looking to appear in conversations where businesses are trying to generate more leads through paid advertising. That includes people comparing Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, Google Ads, Performance Max and other digital marketing channels, along with conversations around reducing cost per lead, improving advertising performance, generating enquiries, choosing between Google and Meta, scaling a business and finding a digital marketing agency.
In other words, we're not targeting keywords in the traditional sense. We're describing the conversations we'd like our business to be part of.
Once that's done, the advert itself is refreshingly simple. You upload a single image, write a headline and a short description, and if ChatGPT believes your advert is relevant to the conversation, it'll appear as a clearly labelled Sponsored result underneath the AI's response.
It's a fascinating concept, and I genuinely think this is where ChatGPT Ads could become something very different to Google or Meta. Whether it works in practice is something we'll only discover over time, but that's exactly why we're testing it.
We'll keep monitoring the campaign, share what we learn, and most importantly, be honest about what works and what doesn't.
If you've got any questions about ChatGPT Ads, or there's something you'd like us to test while we're in the beta, let me know in the comments. We'd be more than happy to share what we find.
