Alongside Google Ads, Facebook and Instagram ads or TikTok Ads, a new player has appeared in the world of online advertising: ads can now appear in ChatGPT.
From a marketing perspective, this is a much more interesting development than simply getting yet another ad surface. After all, we use ChatGPT fundamentally differently than a social media platform or even a traditional search engine. Here we ask questions, try to solve problems, compare products, gather information, look for ideas and in many cases prepare a purchasing decision.
ChatGPT Ads can thus connect to the customer journey at a completely new point.
But how do ChatGPT ads work, how does the system choose which ad to show, and what could all this mean for businesses?
What are ChatGPT ads?
ChatGPT Ads make it possible for advertiser content to appear for certain ChatGPT users. The ads appear below the answer generated by ChatGPT, separated from the answer itself.
An ad can include, among other things, the advertiser's name, the brand icon, a headline, a description, a landing page and a creative image.
An important distinction is that the ad does not influence the answer ChatGPT gives. In other words, the advertiser does not pay for ChatGPT to recommend their business in the generated answer. The ad appears as a separate unit below the answer.
This is a particularly important distinction for marketers: ChatGPT Ads and generative search engine optimization, i.e. GEO, are two separate areas.
Why could ChatGPT Ads be particularly interesting?
Think of a simple situation.
Someone is not aimlessly scrolling through a social media feed, but is asking a specific question: 'Which CRM system would be suitable for a 10-person sales team?', 'Which running shoes should I choose for a half marathon?', 'Which laptop would be suitable for video editing?', or 'What marketing automation system does an online store need?'.
Behind these questions there can already be serious interest, a problem or even purchase intent.
The ChatGPT Ads system can take multiple signals into account when selecting ads, including the context and intent of the current conversation, the ad's landing page, title and copy, as well as the contextual information provided by the advertiser.
This can create a completely different advertising situation than simply trying to interrupt someone's scrolling with an attention-grabbing creative.
This is not classic keyword advertising
If you have worked with Google Ads campaigns, the question probably comes to mind immediately: so do we bid on keywords here too?
Not quite.
Advertisers can provide so-called context hints, with which they can signal in which conversations, topics or keywords their product or service may be relevant.
However, these are not traditional exact-match keywords, and specifying a given term does not guarantee that the ad will appear in every conversation on that topic.
This is exciting because ad management may increasingly shift from pure keyword-based thinking toward understanding user intent and context.
How does ChatGPT Ads pricing work?
The current system supports two main buying models: CPM and CPC.
For Reach campaigns the advertiser pays per thousand impressions, while for Clicks campaigns billing is per valid click.
The advertiser can set a maximum CPM or CPC bid at the ad group level, and the system uses a relevance-weighted second-price auction to choose among eligible ads.
In other words, the auction logic already familiar from online advertising is present here too, but context and relevance play a prominent role.
What can be measured with ChatGPT ads?
With a new advertising channel, one of the most important questions is of course how measurable it is.
The Ads Manager Beta can currently report, among other things, impressions, clicks, spend, CTR, average CPC, average CPM and conversions. Traditional UTM parameters can also be added to landing page URLs, so traffic coming from ChatGPT can be separated in existing analytics systems.
This matters because a new channel on its own is not yet a marketing strategy. The question is always what quality of traffic, leads and ultimately business results it can bring.
What is the Ads Manager Beta?
The Ads Manager Beta is the advertiser platform for creating, launching and managing ChatGPT Ads campaigns.
The interface lets you create and manage campaigns, track performance, and handle user permissions, billing information and other account settings. Campaign data can be examined in tables and charts, and exported in CSV format.
It is important to note, however, that this is currently a Beta system, so features and country-by-country availability may change as the service develops and expands.
ChatGPT Ads vs. Google Ads — what is the difference?
At first glance it is easy to draw a parallel between the two, since in both cases you may encounter a user who is actively looking for information.
There is, however, an important difference.
With Google Search, you typically have to infer user intent from a short search term.
An AI conversation, by contrast, can contain much more context. The user can say exactly what they are looking for, what problem they have, what criteria matter to them, what they have tried before, or what alternatives they are considering.
From a marketing perspective, this can be an extremely valuable environment, because the context often reveals more about purchase intent than a single keyword.
GEO and ChatGPT Ads: two separate opportunities
With the rise of AI, a business can become visible on generative surfaces in two completely different ways.
One is GEO, or Generative Engine Optimization. Its goal is for a business's content to represent a credible, well-interpretable source for generative search engines and AI systems.
The other is paid placement, such as ChatGPT Ads.
The two should not be confused. One tries to build organic visibility, the other is a paid advertising opportunity. In the long run, however, it is easy to imagine that both will have a place in a modern marketing strategy.
Just as today we use SEO and Google Ads campaigns side by side, in the future GEO and AI-based advertising channels may complement each other.
What could all this mean for the future of marketing?
For a long time, online marketing was about capturing attention. You had to stop the scroll. You had to win the click. You had to appear for the right keyword.
Generative AI, however, creates a new situation: more and more users move from information all the way to a decision through a conversation.
This means that brands need to be present not only where people browse, but also where they ask questions.
ChatGPT Ads is one of the first truly visible signs of this transformation.
Is it worth engaging with ChatGPT ads already?
Yes, at least at a strategic level, definitely.
This does not mean that from tomorrow every Meta and Google Ads campaign should be stopped and the entire marketing budget should be shifted to AI ads. Quite the opposite.
ChatGPT Ads is still a developing, beta-phase advertising environment whose opportunities and availability may change continuously.
As a marketer or business owner, however, it is worth watching it, testing it when it becomes available to you, measuring the results, and understanding how users behave in this new environment.
Because it may well be that in a few years it will be completely natural to talk about advertising campaigns on AI platforms alongside Meta Ads, Google Ads, TikTok Ads and LinkedIn Ads.
Summary: another advertising platform or something bigger?
At first glance, ChatGPT Ads may simply look like yet another PPC channel. Its real significance, however, may be greater.
Advertising is entering a digital environment where the user is actively asking, solving a problem, comparing, gathering information and even preparing a purchasing decision.
This can fundamentally change how we think about relevance, targeting and user intent.
At Sales Innovo, we continuously follow the changes in AI, marketing automation and digital advertising, so that your business does not start adapting only when the new trend has already become a basic expectation.
The question is no longer just whether people search for you on Google. It is also: will you be there when your next customer asks the AI?