How to advertise on ChatGPT in 2026

For years, ChatGPT had no ads. That has changed. OpenAI now lets businesses advertise inside ChatGPT through its Ads Manager, and the platform is officially available in Australia. For the first time, you can put your brand in front of people at the exact moment they are reasoning through a decision with AI. This guide walks through how it works and how to launch your first campaign, step by step.

Can you actually advertise on ChatGPT now?

Yes. OpenAI has launched advertising in ChatGPT, managed through the OpenAI Ads Manager, which is currently a beta product and will keep evolving. Ads appear below relevant ChatGPT conversations, are clearly labelled, and stay separate from ChatGPT's own answers. OpenAI describes a measured approach designed to protect the trust people place in ChatGPT.

Crucially for local businesses, the Ads Manager is officially available in Australia, alongside Canada, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. Because the channel is new and most competitors are still watching, it is a genuine early-mover opportunity (ads.openai.com).

How do ads in ChatGPT work?

An ad in ChatGPT is made up of your advertiser name, a favicon or logo, a title, a short piece of copy, a landing page and an image. It shows below a relevant conversation, not inside the answer itself, and is clearly identified as an ad.

Two things make this different from search advertising. First, who sees it: OpenAI does not show ads to people on ChatGPT Plus, Pro or any Business plan, or to anyone it predicts is under 18, so your audience is signed-out and free-tier users aged 18 and over. Second, how it is matched: ChatGPT Ads are contextual. OpenAI selects ads based on how relevant they are to the context and intent of the conversation, rather than on keywords you bid against.

What you need before you start

A little preparation saves a lot of back and forth, because some settings cannot be changed once your account exists. Have these ready:

• An OpenAI account, ideally on a work email, to sign in to the Ads Manager.
• Your business details, website, industry and a clean logo for verification and for the ad unit.
• The correct country, currency and time zone, because these are locked in at account creation and cannot be changed later.
• A billing profile and a payment method, plus a landing page that matches what your ad promises.

How to advertise on ChatGPT, step by step

Here is the full path from a blank account to live ads, following OpenAI's own setup and quickstart guidance.

1. 1

   Create your OpenAI Ads Manager account

   Go to ads.openai.com and sign in with an OpenAI account, or create one. This is the platform for building, launching and managing your ChatGPT Ads.

2. 2

   Verify your business and complete account info

   Enter your business details and complete identity and business verification, which OpenAI handles through Persona. In Settings, set your account name and logo exactly as they should appear in the ad, since ads will not serve until this is complete.

3. 3

   Set up billing and payment

   Create a billing profile with your business name, invoice email and billing address, then add a payment method. Note that your country, currency and time zone are locked in at account creation.

4. 4

   Create a campaign and choose an objective

   Start a campaign and choose an objective: Reach, which optimises for impressions and bills per 1,000 (CPM), or Clicks, which optimises for clicks and bills per valid click (CPC). Set your budget and dates.

5. 5

   Build ad groups with context hints

   Inside the campaign, create ad groups around a theme or intent and add context hints that describe the conversations and topics where your product is relevant. These are not exact-match keywords and do not guarantee delivery, so make them specific and genuine.

6. 6

   Create your ads

   Build each ad with a title, a short piece of copy, an image and a landing page. Your advertiser name and logo are pulled from your account settings. Write to earn the click honestly rather than overpromise.

7. 7

   Submit for review

   Submit your campaigns for OpenAI review against its ad policies. Review runs as a rolling queue, so allow time and make sure billing and verification are complete so nothing blocks serving.

8. 8

   Launch and monitor

   Once approved, confirm your ads are serving (hover a "Not serving" status to see why), then monitor delivery and metrics and refine bids, context hints and creative against real performance.

How targeting and context hints work

This is where ChatGPT Ads reward thought. You do not pick keywords or audience lists. Instead, at the ad-group level you set context hints: short descriptions of the conversations, topics and moments where your product or service is genuinely relevant. OpenAI uses these, along with your landing page, ad title and copy, to judge relevance.

Two rules matter. Context hints are not exact-match keywords, and they do not guarantee delivery. So the craft is in describing real buying moments precisely, then refining as you see which conversations convert. Behind the scenes, OpenAI runs a relevance-weighted, second-price auction to choose the best ad for each eligible conversation, which means relevance, not just budget, decides whether you show.

How much does it cost to advertise on ChatGPT?

You control the spend. There are two buying models: pay per 1,000 impressions (CPM) if your objective is Reach, or pay per valid click (CPC) if your objective is Clicks. For click campaigns, OpenAI recommends starting with a maximum bid of around 3 to 5 US dollars per click, and the Ads Manager gives bid-strength guidance as you go.

There is no published minimum spend. That does not mean you should start with loose change: a brand-new channel needs enough budget to gather data and find the conversations where you perform. We would rather scope a focused starting budget and prove the channel than spread too little across too much. To sketch the numbers, try our free ChatGPT Ads cost calculator, which turns a budget into estimated clicks and leads.

ChatGPT Ads vs Google Ads: which should you run?

Both, most likely. Google Ads reach people while they search and browse, targeted by keywords and audiences. ChatGPT Ads reach people while they reason through a decision with AI, targeted by the context of the conversation. They capture different moments, so the strongest play for most Australian businesses is to run them together rather than choose. For a full breakdown, see our guide on ChatGPT Ads vs Google Ads, or our Google Ads campaign management and paid advertising services.

Tips to get results, and stay compliant

• Write context hints like a human, not a keyword list. Describe the real decision your customer is making, and keep refining them.
• Match the landing page to the moment. Relevance is judged partly on your landing page, so send clicks somewhere that answers the conversation.
• Set up conversion tracking before you launch. Measure what spend produces instead of guessing, and tie it into the rest of your analytics.
• Read the ad policies first. Some categories are restricted, and ads are reviewed before they serve, so check eligibility before you build.

Getting help with ChatGPT Ads

You can absolutely run ChatGPT Ads yourself with the steps above. If you would rather move fast and skip the learning curve on a brand-new platform, our ChatGPT Ads management service handles the channel end to end: account and verification setup, campaign architecture, context-hint strategy, creative, conversion tracking and ongoing optimisation. We are an Australian AI-focused agency, so paid placement in ChatGPT sits alongside our work getting brands cited organically in AI answers.

Worth keeping separate from the other ChatGPT question in paid search: using the tool to improve your existing campaigns. That is covered in how to use ChatGPT for Google Ads.