A New Advertising Channel for Businesses
Digital advertising is entering a new phase. For years, Google Ads has been the first choice for businesses wanting to reach people actively searching for products and services. Social media advertising has supported this by helping brands generate awareness and reach defined audiences.
Businesses in the UK can now access the beta version of ChatGPT Ads Manager and create paid campaigns that appear within relevant ChatGPT conversations. This gives advertisers an opportunity to reach potential customers while they are researching a subject, comparing providers or deciding what to do next.
ChatGPT Ads should not automatically be viewed as a replacement for Google Ads. However, they could become an important addition to a wider paid advertising strategy, particularly for businesses that want to reach customers during the research and consideration stages of their journey.
What Are ChatGPT Ads?
ChatGPT Ads are sponsored placements displayed beneath relevant responses in ChatGPT. They are clearly labelled and kept separate from the answer generated by the platform.
An advertisement can include:
- The advertiser’s name and logo
- A headline
- Descriptive copy
- A creative image
- A link to a relevant landing page
Unlike traditional search advertising, ChatGPT Ads are not matched solely against an individual search term. OpenAI considers the wider context and intent of the current conversation, alongside the content of the advertisement and its landing page.
Advertisers can also provide “context hints” describing the topics, needs and conversations for which an advert may be relevant. These are broad thematic signals rather than exact-match keywords.
This distinction is important. Someone using Google may search for “accountant Dundee”, while a ChatGPT user might explain that they are starting a business in Dundee, need help registering for VAT and want to compare local accountants. The conversational query can reveal more about the customer’s circumstances and objectives.
How Does ChatGPT Advertising Work?
OpenAI now supports both cost per click (CPC) and cost per thousand impressions (CPM) campaigns.
A Reach campaign uses CPM bidding and is designed to generate visibility. A Clicks campaign uses CPC bidding and aims to attract visits to the advertiser’s website. Advertisers can set budgets, bids and campaign pacing through the self-service Ads Manager.
The platform uses a relevance-weighted auction to determine which eligible advertisement should appear. It assesses signals including:
- The context and intent of the conversation
- The advertiser’s context hints
- The content of the advert
- The relevance and quality of the landing page
- The likelihood of the advert producing the desired outcome
OpenAI currently reports impressions, clicks, spend, click-through rate, average CPC, average CPM and conversions. Conversion tracking can be implemented through a pixel or Conversions API, while UTM parameters can be added to landing-page URLs for analysis through existing platforms such as Google Analytics.
These features make ChatGPT Ads more measurable than a simple brand placement, although the platform is still at an early stage compared with the mature reporting and optimisation tools available through Google Ads.
Why Should Businesses Consider ChatGPT Ads?
Reach Customers During Detailed Research
Google Ads is particularly effective when someone enters a clear, commercially focused search. ChatGPT is frequently used differently.
Users may hold an extended conversation, ask follow-up questions, compare several options and refine their requirements before taking action. This creates an opportunity for an advertisement to appear once the user has provided meaningful context about what they need.
A customer might begin with a broad question about improving energy efficiency, for example, before discussing their property type, location, available budget and preference for solar panels or a heat pump. An advert shown at this point could be aligned with a much more developed requirement than the initial query alone.
Reach Emerging Search Behaviour
People are increasingly using AI assistants as discovery and decision-making tools. They may ask ChatGPT to recommend an approach, explain an unfamiliar service or help them prepare a shortlist.
Advertising only through conventional search could therefore miss some users who now begin their research within an AI platform.
Testing ChatGPT Ads allows a business to establish a presence within this changing search environment. Early adoption may also provide useful insight before competition and advertising costs increase.
Use Context Instead of Exact Keywords
Traditional search campaigns are often organised around keywords. This remains extremely useful, but it can be restrictive when customers describe the same need in many different ways.
ChatGPT’s context-based matching is designed to understand the broader subject and purpose of a conversation. A well-structured campaign can potentially cover related problems, questions and use cases without requiring an exhaustive list of keyword variations.
This does not reduce the importance of clear targeting. Context hints must still be specific enough to distinguish a genuinely relevant conversation from a broadly related subject.
Test a Potentially Less Competitive Channel
Google Ads operates within a highly established marketplace. In competitive industries, the cost of appearing for valuable search terms can be significant.
ChatGPT Ads is a much newer platform. Costs and performance will vary as adoption increases, but early testing may allow some businesses to reach suitable audiences before the channel becomes crowded.
This should be treated as an opportunity to gather data rather than an assumption that ChatGPT traffic will always be cheaper.
ChatGPT Ads Compared with Google Ads
Google Ads and ChatGPT Ads can both reach people with commercial intent, but they do so in different environments.
Google Ads provides access to a large and established network covering Search, Shopping, Display, YouTube and other Google properties. It offers mature targeting, extensive historical data, sophisticated bidding options and detailed conversion optimisation.
ChatGPT Ads currently provides a narrower but potentially valuable opportunity: placing a relevant sponsored message alongside a detailed, decision-oriented conversation.
Google may capture someone searching directly for “web design agency Scotland”. ChatGPT could reach someone who has spent several messages discussing why their website is underperforming, what a redesign should include and how much a professional project might cost.
The Google user may be closer to an immediate click. The ChatGPT user may offer richer context and be more informed by the time the advert appears. Both can be valuable, but they represent different routes towards a decision.
Should ChatGPT Ads Be Used Alongside Google Ads?
For most businesses, the strongest initial approach will be to use ChatGPT Ads alongside Google Ads.
Google campaigns can continue capturing established search demand, while ChatGPT Ads can be tested as an additional source of traffic and enquiries. This reduces risk and allows results to be compared using the same landing pages, conversion definitions and customer-quality measures.
A sensible test could involve:
- Allocating a controlled portion of the paid advertising budget
- Creating tightly focused ad groups
- Writing context hints around genuine customer needs
- Directing users to a highly relevant landing page
- Applying consistent conversion tracking
- Comparing lead quality as well as cost per lead
- Reviewing assisted conversions and the wider customer journey
This approach provides real performance data without abandoning a channel that may already generate dependable results.
Could ChatGPT Ads Replace Google Ads?
In some circumstances, a business may eventually choose to prioritise ChatGPT Ads over Google Ads. However, replacing Google Ads completely would currently be premature for most advertisers.
A greater shift towards ChatGPT may be worth considering when:
- The target audience regularly uses AI to research the service
- Customers need education before making an enquiry
- Google Ads costs are becoming commercially unsustainable
- Conventional keyword campaigns generate low-quality leads
- The service benefits from detailed contextual matching
- ChatGPT Ads consistently produce better conversion rates or customer value
Google Ads is likely to remain important for local searches, urgent requirements, shopping activity and established high-intent keywords. ChatGPT Ads may be particularly effective for more considered purchases where customers need to understand options, compare approaches or solve a complex problem.
The decision should be based on performance data rather than enthusiasm for a new platform.
Your Landing Page Still Matters
A relevant advert cannot compensate for a weak website.
OpenAI considers the destination page when assessing relevance and may crawl it to check safety, policy compliance and alignment with the advertisement. Advertisers must allow OpenAI’s OAI-AdsBot to access submitted landing pages.
The page should clearly explain:
- What the business provides
- Who the service is intended for
- Where it is available
- Why the business is credible
- What the customer should do next
- Any important costs, conditions or eligibility requirements
The message within the advert should continue naturally onto the page. Sending every visitor to a generic homepage makes it harder to maintain relevance and may reduce the likelihood of conversion.
This is where advertising, website design, copywriting, SEO and conversion optimisation need to work together.
Privacy, Trust and Brand Safety
OpenAI states that advertisers cannot access users conversations, chat histories, memories or personal information. Advertisers receive aggregated performance data rather than the contents of individual chats.
Ads are kept separate from ChatGPT’s organic answers and do not influence what the system says. Users can also understand why an advert was shown, dismiss it or control whether ads are personalised.
OpenAI restricts placements beside sensitive or regulated conversations, including personal health, mental health and political content. Businesses in regulated sectors should examine the current advertising policies carefully before planning a campaign.
These safeguards are central to the platform. An advert appearing within a conversational environment must feel useful and relevant without implying that ChatGPT has independently recommended or endorsed the advertiser.
The Right Strategy Is Testing, Not Guessing
ChatGPT Ads represents a significant development in paid digital marketing. It provides access to customers who are using conversational AI to understand problems, investigate services and make decisions.
That does not mean every business should immediately move its budget away from Google. Google Ads remains an established, measurable and highly effective channel. For most advertisers, the immediate opportunity is to run a controlled ChatGPT Ads campaign alongside existing search activity and compare the results.
Performance should be judged through meaningful commercial outcomes, including qualified enquiries, appointments, sales, acquisition costs and customer value. Clicks and impressions alone do not show whether a campaign is helping the business grow.
As search behaviour continues to change, businesses should be prepared to reach customers across both traditional search engines and conversational AI platforms.
Interphase Design can help your business plan, build and measure paid PPC advertising campaigns across Google and emerging AI channels. Contact us on 01382 221777 or complete our contact form to discuss the right strategy for your business.
