ChatGPT ads · the setup · Australia
How to advertise on ChatGPT, step by step
You do it yourself in an account called Ads Manager. It takes 10 steps. Most of them are quick. Two of them decide whether the whole thing works, and I'll show you which.
The 10 steps, start to finish
- 1. Sign up at ads.openai.com. You land straight in Ads Manager after that.
- 2. Get your identity checked and put a card on the account. Nothing runs until both are done.
- 3. Pick what you're paying for. Views, clicks, or a result you choose. A click is someone tapping the ad.
- 4. Set a daily budget. OpenAI tells new advertisers to start with a daily one.
- 5. Pick your country. Then search for a location under it and see what's offered.
- 6. Choose where it shows: the app on a phone, the web on a phone, or a desktop browser.
- 7. Write your context hints. This is the first of the 2 steps that matter.
- 8. Write the ad itself: a title, the copy, and the page it sends people to.
- 9. Put a tag on the end of that link so your own numbers can see the visit.
- 10. Send it for review. Once it passes, it runs, and you start reading the numbers.
Step 7 is the hints, and they're not search words
There's no bidding on words here. You don't buy "plumber near me" like you would on Google. Instead you write context hints. OpenAI's own wording is worth reading. Advertisers can give hints "that describe the conversations, topics, or keywords where their products or services may be relevant".
Those hints guide the match, no more, and how ChatGPT decides who sees your ad says why. So write them the way your customer talks about the problem, not the way an ad person talks. A blocked drain. Water coming through the ceiling. No hot water since this morning. There's more on this in how ChatGPT decides who sees your ad.
Step 8, the other one that matters: the 3 parts of the ad
An ad is a title, some copy, and the page it points at. Keep all 3 saying the same thing. That isn't tidiness. OpenAI says the landing page, title and copy are part of how your ad gets picked in the first place.
So if the hint is about a burst pipe, the ad says burst pipe. Then the page says burst pipe, with a number to ring. A homepage about your 20 years in business does none of that work.
Step 10: the numbers you'll be reading
- How many times it showed, how many clicks, and what you spent.
- How many clicks per 100 times it showed, what a click cost you on average, and what 1,000 showings cost.
- Views and clicks refresh about every 15 minutes.
- Spend can lag 7 to 8 hours, so a zero there doesn't mean you owe nothing.
To link a click to a phone call, OpenAI gives you 2 tools plus the link tag. One is a small bit of code on your site. The other sends the result back from your own system. I walk through both in how to know which calls came from ChatGPT.
2 things you can't undo later
Your campaign's goal and how you're billed are locked once it's made. Changing your mind means building a new campaign from scratch. Think about that before you click create.
A brand new ad account can be limited to your home country at first. That lifts once your identity check is through and you've spent enough here. For an Australian business chasing Australian jobs, that costs you nothing. The rest of the traps are in 7 ways a campaign wastes money.
Or I do all of this for you
We set your ChatGPT ads up and we run them for you, for free. You only cover your own ad spend. You pay us a rev-share or a retainer, sorted once you have seen the results, and nothing else. How the ad account gets set up, and where every dollar goes, is on the ChatGPT ads page. The deal itself is right below.
3 questions people ask about the setup
How long before my ad is actually running?
That's up to 2 things outside your hands. Your identity check and billing have to be finished, and the ad has to pass review. Until both are done, nothing shows. I can't give you a time, because OpenAI doesn't publish one.
Which of the 10 steps do people get wrong?
Steps 7 and 8. The hints get written in ad language instead of the way a customer talks. Then the ad points at a homepage instead of a page about the job. OpenAI says the page, the title and the copy are all part of how your ad gets picked.
Do I need a website for this?
You need a page for the ad to point at, and it has to match what the ad says. The page is part of how your ad gets picked, so a weak one works against you before anyone has clicked. If yours can't take a call on the first screen, I'd fix that before spending on clicks.
Let ChatGPT show your business to high-intent customers
- ChatGPT has released paid ads, and this changes the marketing game absolutely.
- If you missed out on Facebook ads in 2007, where anything you posted would have popped off, don't miss out on the next big ad platform.
- Unlike Facebook, where people get interrupted mid doom-scroll, ChatGPT shows your business to people who are already researching something related.
- That makes ChatGPT a cheat code. The engine your customers ask for advice shows your business right under its answer.
- Most marketing agencies charge you thousands before you see any results.
- We work for you, for free. You just cover your own ad spend. The first month is free, so you see the results for yourself before you pay us anything.
- Then, if you want to keep getting those results month after month, we sort out a rev-share or a retainer. A rev-share is a cut of what it makes you. A retainer is a flat monthly fee. Agreed in writing before month 2 starts.
- In the free month, we don't get paid if you don't get paid. After that, it's the rev-share or the retainer you chose.
- Only 10 a month. The work up front is heavy and brings us no income at first. That is all we can take.
If the ads make you nothing, you pay us nothing and we stop there. You will have paid OpenAI for the clicks, and that is all.
Read next
Before you set a budget, read what ChatGPT ads cost, because the bid guidance comes from OpenAI itself.
30 minutes, then a straight answer
30 minutes on the phone, mostly questions about your business and your customers. You get 2 straight answers. Do people ask ChatGPT for what you do? And is it worth a run, where we only get paid a rev-share or a retainer, sorted once you have seen the results, to find out?