How to advertise on ChatGPT in 2026: a practical guide

Last updated: 2026-09-24

Learning how to advertise on ChatGPT starts in OpenAI’s Ads Manager, where an eligible business creates an advertiser account, passes verification, and builds campaigns whose ads appear below ChatGPT responses. OpenAI began rolling out a beta self-serve Ads Manager with CPC bidding on May 5, 2026, according to its announcement on new ways to buy ChatGPT ads. In its August 18, 2026 Europe expansion post, OpenAI said “tens of thousands of marketers have now advertised on ChatGPT”. For how pricing and access changed along the way, see our pillar on how OpenAI ads in ChatGPT went from a $200,000 pilot to $25 a day. This guide walks through the setup in order, flags the settings you cannot change later, and covers the rules that differ in Europe.

Key Takeaways

• Category rules come first. Outside the US, OpenAI generally prohibits finance and health ads and prohibits legal services ads, per OpenAI’s ad policies.

• The account’s country, currency, and time zone, and each campaign’s objective, billing option, and conversion event, cannot be changed once saved, per OpenAI’s Help Center.

• Context hints are not exact-match keywords. OpenAI asks for “a clear, natural phrase focused on one idea”, and Workshop Digital’s first B2B test found keyword-style hints at a 1.2% click-through rate against 0.9% for conversational ones.

• There is no job-title, company, or industry targeting, and inclusion audiences need at least 25,000 matched users.

• Minimum daily budgets are $25 in the US and 15 EUR on euro billing accounts, per OpenAI’s Help Center, and spend data can lag 7 to 8 hours.

What do you need before starting to advertise on ChatGPT?

ChatGPT advertising is a sponsored placement below a ChatGPT response, labeled and separate from the answer, bought through OpenAI Ads Manager and shown to logged-in adults on the Free and Go plans in supported countries. Before a first campaign you need a business that can pass OpenAI’s advertiser review, a billing profile with a payment method, a landing page that meets policy, and someone who can install conversion tracking. Without all four, campaigns will not deliver.

How do you set up a ChatGPT ad campaign step by step?

The following steps mirror the flow inside OpenAI Ads Manager as documented in OpenAI’s Help Center article on creating campaigns for ChatGPT ads and the Ads developer overview.

Step 1: Create your advertiser account and pass verification

Go to ads.openai.com, sign in with an OpenAI account, and enter your business details (name, website, logo, industry) and account details (country, currency, time zone). Check the last three twice, because OpenAI’s account setup article says they cannot be changed later. Verification runs through Persona, and OpenAI reviews applications in a rolling queue that it cannot expedite. Each business should have one account owner, who then adds colleagues or an agency under Settings > Users > Invite. A correct result is the email from OpenAI confirming full platform access.

Step 2: Confirm your category is eligible in each target country

Check the product against OpenAI’s ad policies first. During the test period, OpenAI says ads are mostly limited to consumer verticals such as household goods, local services, travel, and digital products or education. In the US, approved finance and health advertisers may run case by case, and licensed legal advertisers have been permitted since the August 2026 policy update. Outside the US, finance and health ads are generally prohibited and legal services ads are prohibited. Budgeting apps and other tools that sell no financial product are generally permitted. A correct result is a clear yes for each target country before you build creative.

Step 3: Build the campaign

In Ads Manager, select Create > Create campaign. Choose an objective: Views (billed per 1,000 impressions), Clicks (billed per valid click), or Conversions (optimized toward one standard conversion event and billed on clicks or impressions). The objective, billing option, and conversion event cannot be changed after creation, per OpenAI’s conversion-optimized campaigns article. Then set a daily or campaign-total budget and the start and end dates. Ad accounts contain campaigns, campaigns contain ad groups, and ad groups contain ads, per OpenAI’s campaigns API reference. A correct result is a saved campaign with its objective, budget, and dates in place.

Step 4: Set targeting on the campaign

Targeting lives on the campaign, not the ad group. Choose countries (plus states, cities, or postal codes where available), platforms (Android app, Android web, Desktop web, iOS app, or iOS web), and any custom audiences, per OpenAI’s Help Center. Custom audiences accept hashed email or phone lists. Inclusion audiences and bid multipliers need at least 25,000 matched users, while exclusion audiences have no minimum, per OpenAI’s campaign targeting documentation. A correct result is a campaign summary showing the countries, platforms, and any audiences attached.

Step 5: Write context hints and set bids for each ad group

Context hints sit on the ad group and describe what you offer, who it helps, and when it is useful. OpenAI’s guide to writing context hints asks for “a clear, natural phrase focused on one idea rather than a list of disconnected keywords”, with examples such as “Bookkeeping software for growing retailers that need to reconcile online and in-store sales”. Hints cannot enforce locations, schedules, or exclusions. Set the maximum bid on the same screen. OpenAI recommends starting CPC campaigns at $3 to $5 per click, per its Help Center basics article. A correct result is an ad group with a handful of specific hints, each about one product, need, or situation, and a saved max bid.

Step 6: Upload creative that fits the spec

Each ad carries an advertiser name, a favicon, a title, copy, a landing page, and an image, per OpenAI’s Help Center. Index Lab reports that OpenAI recommends a 16 to 24 character title and 32 to 48 characters of copy, and accepts up to 50 and 100. OpenAI’s guidance asks for several distinct title and copy variations per offering and a landing page that goes to the most relevant product or content page, not the homepage. A correct result is at least one ad marked Serving per ad group after review.

Step 7: Install conversion tracking before you launch

Create a Pixel ID and a Conversions API key in the Ads Manager conversions tab, add the pixel to every page that hosts a conversion, and send server-side events where you can. For B2B lead generation, the standard events include lead_created and appointment_scheduled, per OpenAI’s Conversions API documentation. Partners sending events on behalf of advertisers must include integration_source at the top level of each request. Teams on HubSpot can connect a ChatGPT Ads account inside HubSpot, OpenAI’s first CRM partner, per OpenAI’s September 16, 2026 announcement. A correct result is a test event showing up in the conversions tab.

Step 8: Launch, then judge on volume, not on the first day

Set the campaign live. OpenAI’s Help Center says impressions, clicks, and CTR refresh about every 15 minutes, while spend data may lag 7 to 8 hours. OpenAI advises reviewing performance over enough volume before making large changes to bids, budgets, or creative, and says the platform has no cross-advertiser benchmarks yet. A correct result is steady delivery inside the daily budget, which OpenAI treats as a seven-day average with daily spend capped at twice the budget.

What targeting decisions matter most on ChatGPT?

The biggest levers sit in the ad itself. OpenAI’s ads system weighs the conversation, the ad’s landing page, title, and copy, and the advertiser’s context hints, then runs a relevance-weighted, second-price auction, per its Help Center. Hints, copy, and landing pages shape selection alongside the bid.

Early B2B data cuts against the idea that chattier hints always win. Workshop Digital’s first B2B test found keyword-style hints reached a 1.2% click-through rate against 0.9% for conversational hints. The same test spent $2,319 for 739 clicks and produced 0 qualified leads. Test both styles in separate ad groups, keep each hint to one idea, and judge them on conversions, not CTR alone.

In our LinkedIn Ads work at Linkedist, B2B audiences start from job titles, companies, and industries. ChatGPT Ads offers none of those, so the buyer definition has to move into the context hints, the ad copy, and the landing page. A hint such as “project management software for construction firms running several building sites” carries the audience inside the offer.

Exclusion audiences have no minimum size, which makes excluding current customers the simplest first audience move outside the EEA and Switzerland.

How do you measure whether ChatGPT ads are working?

Two numbers deserve most of the attention in the first month. Click-through rate at the ad-group level shows whether hints and creative match the right conversations. Cost per conversion at the campaign level shows whether the landing page and offer convert the traffic.

View-through conversions use a fixed one-day window after an eligible impression and are not included in the Conversions total, per OpenAI’s Conversions API documentation. Read the two together but do not merge them, or you will double-count.

CPM benchmarks are moving. Digiday reported in April 2026 that ChatGPT CPMs fell from $60 at launch to as low as $25, with Jellyfish averaging about $45. Treat those numbers as directional, since your CPM depends on category, geography, and hint competitiveness.

How is advertising on ChatGPT different in Europe and Lithuania?

ChatGPT Ads went live in 31 European markets, the EU 27 plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland, on August 24, 2026, Lithuania included, according to PPC Land. OpenAI opened self-serve Ads Manager access across those markets on August 31, 2026, per its Europe expansion post. Three rules change the setup:

• Account country and currency: Ads Manager access depends on the advertiser business or ad-account country chosen at setup, and euro billing accounts have a 15 EUR minimum daily budget, per OpenAI’s Help Center.

• No personalization: personalized ads are not yet available in the EEA or Switzerland, so custom audiences are not supported for campaigns targeting them, per OpenAI’s custom audiences documentation.

• Home-country limit: some new self-serve accounts can advertise only in their home country until verification is approved and they reach the required spend there, per OpenAI’s campaign setup article.

The category limits from Step 2 also apply, which rules out many fintech and legal offers in Europe for now. For multilingual campaigns, OpenAI’s opt-in text customization can translate ad copy into a user’s preferred language, per its September 16, 2026 announcement.

What mistakes should you avoid when advertising on ChatGPT?

• Mistake: Picking the wrong objective, billing option, or conversion event. Fix: decide before you save, since changing any of them means a new campaign.

• Mistake: Opening the account in the wrong country, currency, or time zone. Fix: use the details of the entity that will advertise and be billed.

• Mistake: Reacting to same-day spend. Fix: wait out the 7 to 8 hour spend lag before cutting or raising budgets.

• Mistake: Planning B2B targeting around job titles. Fix: put the buyer definition into hints, copy, and the landing page.

• Mistake: Uploading custom audiences for European campaigns. Fix: skip them for EEA and Swiss targeting.

• Mistake: Launching without conversion tracking. Fix: install the pixel first. OpenAI warns that incomplete tracking makes reporting and optimization less effective.

• Mistake: Ignoring the plan restriction. Fix: check your buyers’ ChatGPT plans. Ads only reach Free and Go users, and no bid tuning changes that.

When should you bring in help?

Running a first campaign in-house is a reasonable way to learn the platform. A specialist starts to make sense when the account needs Conversions API or HubSpot setup, when campaigns span several European markets, or when the plan pairs ChatGPT with LinkedIn Ads and someone must reconcile measurement across both. If you create the advertiser account yourself and invite the agency, you keep ownership of it. If that describes your setup, we at Linkedist, a B2B marketing agency in Vilnius, offer ChatGPT Ads management and can scope it with you.

FAQ

Is ChatGPT Ads available in every country? No. OpenAI counts more than 60 countries as of September 23, 2026, including the United States, the United Kingdom (ads live June 6, self-serve between 19 and 22 June 2026), Japan, South Korea, India, and 31 European markets. Creating an Ads Manager account in an unsupported country does not give access, per OpenAI’s Help Center.

How much does it cost to start? The minimum daily budget is $25 in the US and 15 EUR or 15 GBP on euro and sterling accounts, per OpenAI’s Help Center, and a single day can spend up to twice the daily budget. For budget planning, see our guide to how much ChatGPT Ads cost in 2026.

Do ads appear inside every conversation? No. Ads never run next to political content, mental and personal health conversations, or accounts identified as under 18. Since April 2026, medical, legal, and financial advice conversations are no longer blocked from ads by default, per OpenAI’s ad policy changelog. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education plans stay ad-free.

How soon can I judge whether a ChatGPT campaign works? Judge on volume, not days. Budgets run on a Sunday to Saturday week in the account’s time zone, and a campaign that uses its weekly allowance early may stop delivering until the next week even while marked active, per OpenAI’s Help Center.

Track two numbers weekly before you scale

Check ad-group click-through rate and campaign cost per conversion every week, and revisit your context hints whenever either one moves 20 percent. Change bids only once each ad group has enough clicks to compare. Next up: how OpenAI ads in ChatGPT went from a $200,000 pilot to $25 a day.