Are you dumb for ignoring ChatGPT Ads?

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Most founders I talk to are still grinding away on the same Google and Meta campaigns, watching CPCs climb every quarter.

…and suddenly - a new challenger appears.

Magically before their rumored IPO, OpenAI released ChatGPT Ads.

400 million weekly users. CPCs starting at $3/click. Most of your competitors have no idea it exists.

It’s been in beta for several months, and I’ve been doing everything I can to break it & test its limits.

But before I get to my impressions, professional opinions & thoughts on “where this is all going…” I gotta tell you where I think we’re at.

I think that this is the first salvo of the Google AdWords moment of our generation.

Remember the founders who jumped on AdWords in 2003 built enormous businesses off near-zero click costs? (Wayfair, TripAdvisor, Expedia, Zillow, Vistaprint, Zappos, LegalZoom, Glassdoor…)

Everyone who waited paid 50x more for the same traffic five years later.

You know how that story ends.

Most Business Owners Will Sleep On This

The platform is live. The audience is massive.

So why does it feel like almost nobody is moving?

Probably because they’re seeing some of the same things I’m seeing right now:

• Approval to even get on the platform takes time (12 days for my first account)
• B2B people: Interface is currently janky af, and reporting is not B2B friendly (yet)
• Marketer people: Attribution isn’t what you get on other platforms
• Ads get stuck in “Not Serving / In Review” for no clear reason - even after previously showing Approved AND serving… even though they’re getting reviewed by AI
• Ads get “Not Approved” for extremely unclear reasons
• There’s no clear “win condition” for Context hints yet - and doesn’t look like we will get guidance on topic clustering / decision stage any time soon
• They're thinking their existing channels are all good and don’t feel the heat to learn the new thing yet (but I promise you, once your revenue cuts by 30% you’ll listen - but be massively late to the party)
• Or they just... haven't heard about it yet

That last one is the most fixable. And if you're reading this right now, you're already ahead of most.

But here’s what I say:

ChatGPT Ads are only the beginning of the next generation of AI PPC - and it’s gonna be awesome.

Because I look at this one specific thing and it all makes sense for me:

Look at your own behavior.

Every (smart) business owner I know uses AI every single day.

It’s where your attention lives now.

And you’re not Googling for stuff anymore, esp. for high-consideration purchases. You ask your AI: ChatGPT or in my case, Claude <3

But you’re not searching for dog food - instead, you ask: **

What’s the best dog food for my senior labrador with a sensitive stomach?

That’s a totally different level in the funnel, a ton more context. You’re much deeper, and as marketers we can target that person better, to serve a better solution.

That means “much more qualified”

So when I see a CPC for an AI ads platform and people are comparing it to CPCs on traditional ad platforms, it’s comparing apples to genetically superior orange trees.

The only thing that matters: CPA vs. CPA.

And I’d say big picture, market economics dictate that those CPAs will ultimately converge.

And until that point, in an effort to win enormous market share & spend, it’s in OpenAI’s interest to underprice its clearly-manipulated ad inventory.

So y’all know what’s gonna happen.

OpenAI will steal spend from Google - by the billions - and turn OpenAI ads into a massive opportunity for you & me en passant.

(…and fight the lawsuit later)

So, to access the 400 million weekly active users in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, check out this video to walk you through, or just follow the text below.

And if you want me & my team to manage your spend & get you spun up, email me back with who you are, a one-liner about what you sell, how much you currently run in ads / month on other platforms & we’ll see if its a fit. Especially if you’re outside the US & want to get early access.

Step 1: Get Approved Before You Do Anything Else

The single biggest mistake you can make right now is deciding to "look into this next week."

The approval process has two stages.

First, OpenAI verifies your business. (again, that took my account 12 days.)

Then your individual ads go through their own review. That took another 5 days.

Total time before I was live: 17 days. And I applied the same day I heard about this.

Every day you wait is a day your competitors could be getting in ahead of you.

Head to ads.openai.com, hit "Get Started," and register with your work email.

While you wait for approval, sort out three things in Settings:

• Upload your advertiser name and brand logo exactly as you want them to appear
• Set up your billing profile
• Invite team members and assign access levels (Admin, Member, or View Only)

That's gone now. The minimum is just $25 a day, which means you can get data from tests without a serious budget commitment.

Step 2: Learn Context Hints — This Is Where Everything Changes

Most people are going to get the targeting completely wrong on this platform.

Here's why.

There are no keywords. No audience segments. No demographic targeting.

Like I said, it’s totally different from your traditional Google / Meta targeting.

Instead, you write what OpenAI calls context hints. These are plain-language descriptions of the conversations you want your ad to appear in. Think of it as writing a prompt directly to the algorithm.

You're telling the system: "Show my ad when a user is having THIS kind of conversation."

A bad context hint looks like this:

"Small business owners interested in finance."

Too vague. Matches everything. Burns budget on irrelevant conversations.

A strong one looks like this:

"When users compare invoicing software for freelancers or ask how to send professional invoices."

A few more examples of what actually works:

• Accounting SaaS: When users compare invoicing software for freelancers or ask how to send professional invoices.
• Coffee brand: "When users ask about the best coffee beans for home espresso or discuss brewing methods"
• Recruiting platform: "When users ask how to hire remote developers or compare freelance platforms for tech talent"

The pattern is describing the conversation your ideal customer is already having with their AI.

Not who they are. What they're asking about.

You can stack multiple context hints per ad group to cover different relevant conversations and expand your reach.

One more thing on creative: keep the tone conversational and helpful.

A headline like "Revolutionary AI-powered solution! Buy now!" will get rejected.

Something like "Track invoices and get paid faster. Free trial, no commitment." will sail through.

These ads sit directly inside an AI conversation. The tone has to match that context.

Step 3: Launch Fast, Then Watch the Numbers

Once you submit your campaign, review usually takes just a few hours.

After you're live, check that status shows active at all three levels: campaign, ad group, and individual ad.

If something isn't serving, the platform gives you a clear error message. Nine times out of ten it's a quick edit and resubmit.

Here's what the dashboard actually looks like once you're live.

You'll see your campaigns listed with their status, type, and performance data.

"Partial Serving" just means some ads in the campaign are active while others are still in review. Totally normal in the early days.

Performance data starts populating immediately: impressions, clicks, spend, CTR, and average CPC.

Export CSVs or use the built-in charts to track what's working over time.

Now, conversion tracking. This is worth setting up from day one.

Under Tools > Conversions, connect your website as a data source and install the pixel. Once it's firing correctly, you'll see a green checkmark, your event count, and a live trend line.

That's real people taking action after clicking a ChatGPT ad. First-party data, straight from the platform.

A few real limitations to keep in mind:

• Geographic targeting is country-level only for now
• Ads only reach users on the Free and Go tiers (Plus, Pro, and Enterprise users don't see ads)
• Conversion tracking is more basic compared to Google or Meta
• Ads won't show on conversations about health, mental health, or politics

None of these are dealbreakers. They're just the current state of a platform that launched weeks ago.

OpenAI is building this fast. The brands who get their setups right now will have a meaningful head start when the platform matures.

The early CPCs. The massive audience. The empty auction.

All of it points in the same direction.

The only question is whether you move while the window is still this wide open.

If you're running a DTC brand at $1M+ and want a structured playbook to make ChatGPT Ads actually perform, I built a masterclass around exactly this.

The first cohort kicks off July 7.

Grab your spot here →