We’ve Been Testing ChatGPT Ads, and These Are the Results We’Re Seeing So Far
- Kristina Cutura
- Jun 29
- 4 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
As OpenAI continues expanding its advertising platform, many marketers are wondering: Are ChatGPT Ads worth testing?
Over the past several months, we've been running ChatGPT Ads across multiple client accounts spanning e-commerce, hospitality, entertainment, home goods, and professional services. While the platform is still evolving, our testing has revealed both opportunities and limitations that advertisers should be aware of.
Campaign Setup Is Simple
Setting up a ChatGPT Ads campaign is easy. The setup process is straightforward and requires fewer decisions than a traditional Google Ads campaign. Once OpenAI approves the account, advertisers log in and provide landing pages, context hints, creatives, and budget parameters.
You have the option to set an overall budget or a daily budget, with a $25 daily minimum. In our early testing, one campaign burned through the majority of the budget overnight. Since then we have been opting for the daily budget in client accounts for better control.
The Platform Is Still Evolving
While campaign creation is relatively easy, the Ads Manager interface is fairly rudimentary compared to established advertising platforms. While basic campaign management and reporting tools are available, many of the advanced features you are accustomed to in Google Ads are not available, such as reporting depth, audience insights, and optimization controls that allow for in-depth monitoring of ChatGPT Ads results.
The platform is also buggy, with loading challenges, and inconsistent metrics across accounts.
However, OpenAI has been steadily rolling out updates, and new capabilities continue to appear regularly, suggesting the platform will continue to evolve.
Most recently, for example, they've started allowing advertisers to upload product feeds directly into ChatGPT Ads Manager, making it easier to import and manage product catalogs for shopping-focused campaigns without relying on external integrations.
They have also recently rolled out advertiser toolkits with helpful direction and started to offer live customer support.
Context Hints Replace Keywords
Unlike traditional search advertising, where campaigns are built around keywords, ChatGPT Ads rely on conversational context hints. These hints help OpenAI understand the conversations in which your ads may be relevant. In our testing, we have been writing context hints as natural language scenarios rather than keyword lists. The platform does not yet offer the ability to evaluate which specific context hints that you entered are performing better than others, as you can do with keywords in Google Ads.
More Creative Variations Are Better
ChatGPT conversations are more varied than traditional search queries. Users may arrive at the same product or service through dozens of different conversational paths. Due to this, it helps to provide multiple headlines, descriptions, and value propositions for the same landing page. ChatGPT ads do not have the 3 ads per ad group limit that Google Ads has, allowing advertisers to create more than three ads in a distinct ad group, and then to monitor the results of individual ChatGPT ads.
In our discussions with ChatGPT Ads support, we were advised to create as many ad variations as possible covering a range of possible scenarios. To help with this, ChatGPT Ads support has recently put together a helpful ChatGPT Ads Creative Launch and Scaling Guide.
What Results Are We Seeing from ChatGPT Ads?
Because the platform is still relatively new, performance benchmarks are limited. Across our ChatGPT Ads client accounts, we have generally observed the following results:
High impression volume for campaigns with well-developed context hints
Click-through rates often comparable to or slightly above display advertising benchmarks
Cost-per-clicks that are competitive and reasonable
Significant variation between industries as OpenAI continues refining inventory and targeting.
Early ChatGPT Ads Performance Ranges Observed Across Industries
Industry | Cost Per Mile/Thousand (CPM) Range | Click-Through Rate (CTR) Range | Cost Per Click (CPC) Range |
Ecommerce / Retail | $18 - $20 | 0.6% - 1.5% | $2.50 - $3.50 |
Travel & Hospitality | $100 - $120 | 3.0% - 3.5% | $3 - $4.00 |
Home & Property Maintenance | $20 - $45 | 0.5% - 2.0% | $2.50 - $3.50 |
Professional Services | $25 - $60 | 0.7% - 1.5% | $2.75 - $8.00 |
Note: ChatGPT Ads continue to evolve and the above ranges should be viewed as illustrative. They reflect our own agency testing and observations in specific client accounts rather than established industry standards.
The Conversion Tracking Challenge
Conversion tracking is a key challenge for showing ChatGPT Ads results. Some advertisers, including ourselves, have observed situations where prospects indicate they discovered a business through ChatGPT, yet the platform reports no attributable conversion activity.
In testing our own agency website, we noticed increased interest during active campaign periods, while several prospective clients specifically mentioned finding us through ChatGPT. Our clients have also reported significant jumps in ChatGPT organic traffic during the time period we ran ChatGPT Ads. However, those interactions were not reflected in platform-reported conversions.
OpenAI appears to be working to address this issue, and has recently rolled out new measurement capabilities and conversion tools, understanding that improved attribution and conversion tracking will be critical for broader advertiser adoption.
Is ChatGPT Ads Ready to Replace Google Ads?
Google Ads is still the dominant performance advertising platform, offering significantly more targeting options, reporting capabilities, optimization tools, and attribution features, along with far more reliable conversion measurement.
Rather than directly replacing Google Ads, ChatGPT Ads can serve as a promising complementary channel for reaching users during a different phase of the discovery journey. For brands willing to experiment with emerging platforms, ChatGPT Ads can provide valuable insights into how consumers are using AI to discover products, services, and solutions.
As OpenAI continues rolling out new capabilities, the platform is poised to become an increasingly important part of the digital advertising landscape. In the meanwhile, with measurement and reporting still evolving, advertisers looking to diversify beyond traditional search should consider testing ChatGPT Ads with a defined budget and clear expectations.
We'd be happy to chat and help you figure out if ChatGPT Ads makes sense for your business.
Check out our latest video where we discuss these insights.
