Guide
How to advertise on ChatGPT
What you're actually buying
Clearly labelled ad placements shown as people explore options and make decisions in ChatGPT. OpenAI keeps them distinct from the answers themselves, with user controls over data. That's the official design: labelled, separate, opt-out-able. Early advertisers on the platform include Best Buy, Lowe's and VistaPrint.
The context is the pitch: people tell ChatGPT far more about what they're deciding than they type into a search box, so placement lands mid-decision. Whether that beats your current cost-per-lead on Google or Meta is an empirical question your own test answers.
The setup, step by step
- Sign up at ads.openai.com. The sign-up takes you into Ads Manager, where you create your advertising account. Help Center guides cover account setup if you hit friction.
- Create your campaign. Set the campaign, budget and goal. Start small: the first campaign's job is calibration, not scale.
- Add your ad details. Bulk upload or create them in the tool. Write the ad like an answer, because it appears beside answers: plain claim, specific offer, one action.
- Launch and learn. Measure results, edit campaigns, optimise. Judge on cost per lead in your own analytics, never on impressions.
Before you spend: the two prerequisites
Ads pay per visit, so the funnel has to hold water first.
- A landing page that answers. The visitor arrives mid-decision. A page that opens with your actual offer, price signals and proof converts; a brochure page burns the click.
- Conversion tracking that fires. If GA4 (or whatever you run) can't attribute a lead to the campaign, you can't tell working spend from wasted spend. Test the event before the campaign, not after.
What ads can't buy you
The organic recommendation. When ChatGPT names businesses inside the answer, those names are earned through what the model can read and verify, and OpenAI doesn't sell positions in them at any price. An ad beside an answer that organically recommends your competitor is a weak position, which is why we treat AEO and paid as one strategy with two levers. The status history of the ad product itself, including the April 2026 Australian rollout, is in can you buy ChatGPT ads yet?
The short answers
Can any Australian business advertise on ChatGPT?
The rollout reached Australian advertisers in April 2026 through OpenAI's self-serve Ads Manager at ads.openai.com: create an account, set up a campaign, launch. As with any young ad platform, availability and formats keep evolving, so confirm current eligibility inside Ads Manager itself rather than trusting third-party summaries.
What do ChatGPT ads cost?
You set your own campaign budget in Ads Manager. We deliberately don't quote CPM figures or minimums here: numbers circulating in coverage change and often can't be verified against the platform. Treat any published price as a snapshot, set a small test budget, and let your own cost-per-lead decide.
Do paid ads change what ChatGPT organically recommends?
No. OpenAI keeps ads clearly labelled and separate from ChatGPT's answers, and the organic recommendations are not for sale. Buying ads doesn't earn you the organic spot, and winning the organic spot doesn't require ads. They're two channels, and the strongest position is holding both.
Should I run ChatGPT ads or invest in AEO first?
If your landing pages and conversion tracking already work, a small paid test and AEO run well in parallel. If they don't, fix that first: ads pay per visit, and an unmeasurable funnel wastes every dollar. AEO compounds and can't be outbid; ads switch on instantly and switch off the moment you stop paying. Different jobs.
Want the campaign run for you, with the AEO side built at the same time? That's the paid AI advertising service, and every engagement starts with the free AEO audit. ChatGPT-only focus lives at chatgpt-ads.com.au.