Plan Your First ChatGPT Ad

ChatGPT Ads let a business place a sponsored ad next to ChatGPT's answers. This guide walks you through checking access, setting up a first campaign, and running a small, clear test.

What this helps you do

Businesses in 89 countries can now buy ads in ChatGPT, after OpenAI added 26 more countries in October 2026. You create a campaign, set a budget and a goal, and track how it performs.

One rule shapes everything: ads don't change ChatGPT's answers. OpenAI runs ads on separate systems from the chat model, and advertisers can't shape, rank, or change responses. Ads are labeled as sponsored and shown apart from the answer. So you can buy the spot next to the answer. You can't buy the answer.

That means your ad has to work like an ad. Pick something people already ask about, make one clear offer, and send the click to a page that answers their question.

Before you start

• Access. Go to ads.openai.com to see whether your business can use Ads Manager in your country. You can also buy through OpenAI's technology partners. New self-serve accounts may be limited to their home country until identity verification is approved and they reach a required spend level.
• Who sees the ads. Ads appear only to people on the Free and Go plans of ChatGPT. Plus, Pro, and Enterprise stay ad-free, and accounts for people under 18 don't get ads.
• A budget. The minimum daily budget depends on your billing currency. In US dollars it's $25 per day.
• One product and one landing page. Choose a specific page, not your homepage.
• Images. PNG or JPG, no larger than 1200 by 1200 pixels. Multi-image ads need four to six square images.

Terms to know

• Campaign: the container for your ads. It holds your goal and budget.
• Objective: the result you're paying for. OpenAI's help center lists Views (billed per 1,000 impressions), Clicks (billed per valid click), and Conversions (optimized toward an action you track). You can't change it after you create the campaign.
• Impression: one time your ad is shown.
• Landing page: the web page someone sees after clicking your ad.
• UTM parameters: tags added to the end of a link so your analytics tool knows the visit came from this ad.
• Ads Manager: OpenAI's self-serve tool for creating and tracking campaigns.

Step-by-step

1. Sign in at ads.openai.com. If your account can create campaigns, you'll see Ads Manager. OpenAI's quickstart covers account setup.
2. Fill in the test plan below before you click anything else. It keeps the first campaign small and readable.
3. Create a campaign and pick one objective. For a first test, Clicks is the easiest to read. See Creating campaigns for ChatGPT Ads.
4. Set a daily budget. OpenAI recommends a daily budget for new advertisers. It averages your spend over a seven-day window.
5. Write the ad. Keep the title short (16 to 24 characters works best, 50 max) and the description to 32 to 48 characters (100 max). Each ad links to one destination URL, and "Learn more" is the button. See Creating ads for ChatGPT Ads.
6. Check your landing page. It must load, answer the question your ad promises, and not block OpenAI's crawlers (OAI-AdsBot and OAI-SearchBot). Add UTM parameters so you can track visits.
7. Launch and leave it alone for the test window you set in the plan. Then compare the results to your success number.

Copy this

Fill this in before you build the campaign. Keep it to one page.

CHATGPT AD TEST PLAN

Product: [ONE PRODUCT OR SERVICE]
The question people already ask about it: [QUESTION, IN THEIR WORDS]
Who it's for: [CUSTOMER IN ONE LINE]

Offer (one only): [THE OFFER]
Ad title (16 to 24 characters): [TITLE]
Ad description (32 to 48 characters): [DESCRIPTION]
Image: [WHAT IT SHOWS, MATCHES THE TITLE]

Landing page URL: [SPECIFIC PAGE, NOT HOMEPAGE]
Does the page answer the question in the first screen? [YES/NO]
Price and availability on the page are current? [YES/NO]
UTM tags: utm_source=chatgpt&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=[TEST NAME]

Objective: [VIEWS / CLICKS / CONVERSIONS]
Daily budget: [AMOUNT]
Test length: [START DATE] to [END DATE]
Country: [COUNTRY]

Success looks like: [ONE NUMBER, e.g. click-through rate or cost per lead]
Stop early if: [LIMIT, e.g. spend reaches X with zero conversions]
What I'll change in test two: [ONE THING ONLY]

Things to know

• The ad won't make ChatGPT recommend you. Plan your test around the ad itself, not around showing up in answers.
• OpenAI may adjust your creative. Creative enhancements can rewrite headlines and descriptions, resize images, and translate text, sometimes in real time based on the conversation. Keep your prices, promotions, and availability current so those versions stay accurate.
• Change one thing per test. If you change the offer, the image, and the page at once, you won't know what worked.
• Ads must follow OpenAI's ad policies. Misleading or mismatched ads and pages can be rejected.
• Not every country can buy yet. Check ads.openai.com for your market before you plan spend.

If something goes wrong

• You can't create a campaign: your country or account may not have self-serve access yet. Check the Ads site or contact a technology partner.
• Your ad was rejected: compare the ad, image, and landing page against each other. The page should deliver exactly what the ad says.
• Clicks but no results: the landing page probably doesn't answer the question fast enough. Put the answer and the offer at the top.
• You picked the wrong objective: you can't edit it. Create a new campaign with the right one.

Final check

You pass if your test plan fits on one page, your landing page answers the ad's promise in the first screen, your campaign has one objective and one daily budget, and you wrote down your success number before launch.