ChatGPT Ads Are Live: How to Register, Set Up, and Launch Your First Campaign

OpenAI has officially opened advertising inside ChatGPT. On July 22, 2026, the company launched its self-serve Ads Manager at ads.openai.com, and as of late August the platform is accepting advertisers in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and several other markets, with 31 European countries onboarding through partners since August 24.

This is the biggest new ad channel since TikTok. ChatGPT reaches hundreds of millions of weekly users, and for the first time your business can appear directly underneath the answers those users are reading. If someone asks ChatGPT "why won't my garage door close" or "how much does a locksmith cost near me," an ad for your business can sit right below that answer, clearly labeled Sponsored.

Early inventory is cheap relative to attention, competition is thin, and the setup takes an afternoon. This guide walks through exactly how to register, what OpenAI requires, how campaigns are structured, and the mistakes early advertisers are already making.

What Is Happening

OpenAI began testing ads in ChatGPT earlier this year with a small group of brands. In July it opened OpenAI Ads Manager Beta, a self-serve platform where any eligible business can register, add billing, build campaigns, and go live without a sales rep.

The confirmed facts as of August 26, 2026:

Where ads appear: below the end of a ChatGPT response, matched to the topic of the conversation. Ads are labeled Sponsored and visually separated from the organic answer.
Who sees them: logged-in adult users on the Free and ChatGPT Go tiers only. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education users see no ads.
The ad format: a single "chat card" containing a title (3 to 50 characters), body copy (up to 100 characters), an image, your site favicon, and a destination URL.
Buying models: Reach campaigns (CPM), Clicks campaigns (CPC), and conversion-optimized oCPC. The default CPM is $60 and OpenAI recommends starting CPC bids at $3 to $5. The early $50,000 spend minimum has been removed, which is what makes this viable for small businesses.
How matching works: ads are matched to the current conversation topic, and, when the user has personalization enabled, to relevant past chats and prior ad interactions. There is no third-party cross-web tracking and there are no keyword bids.

Who Can Run ChatGPT Ads Right Now

Self-serve access at ads.openai.com is open to advertisers registered in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Japan, Korea, and Mexico. European markets currently run through OpenAI's sales team and agency partners, with self-serve access promised later.

Your business itself must also be eligible. OpenAI's ad policies require the business, its identity, its country, and the underlying offer to pass review. Titles, copy, images, and claims must be accurate and non-deceptive. Regulated categories such as health, financial services, alcohol, and dating may require licensing documentation, disclosures, or age controls, and get additional review.

For home services businesses (garage door, locksmith, HVAC, plumbing, landscaping, contractors), there is no category restriction. You qualify the same way you would on Google Ads: real business, real landing page, honest claims.

Why OpenAI Is Doing This

OpenAI spends enormous amounts on compute, and subscriptions alone do not cover it. Ads monetize the largest segment of its user base, the free tier, without touching paying customers. The strategic logic mirrors what Google did two decades ago: own the place where people ask questions, then sell placement next to the answers.

For advertisers the timing matters for a different reason. ChatGPT has been eating informational search traffic for two years. Many of the "how do I fix X" and "who should I hire for Y" conversations that used to happen on Google now happen in ChatGPT, where your business had no paid way in. Now it does.

What This Means for Your Business

Intent is conversational, not keyword-based. You cannot bid on "garage door repair san jose." Instead you give OpenAI "context hints," broad thematic guidance about the conversations you want to appear in. The system decides relevance. This favors clear positioning and tight creative over keyword-stuffing.

The audience skews toward non-buyers in some verticals. This is the most important early caveat. One agency's June test campaign delivered a 0.65% CTR at roughly $4.50 CAD per click but produced zero qualified B2B leads, because their buyers were mostly on ad-free paid tiers. For consumer home services this problem is much smaller: homeowners asking one-off repair questions are exactly the people on the free tier.

Early CTR benchmarks are healthy. An SE Ranking test in August reported a 1.30% CTR across 97,000 impressions. For a brand-new placement with almost no ad blindness, that is a strong signal.

Local targeting exists and it is real. You can target by country everywhere, and inside the US you can target by state, DMA, or ZIP code. You can also select platform (iOS app, Android app, or web) and upload customer lists (email/phone) as custom audiences, with a 25,000 matched-user minimum, which puts custom audiences out of reach for most small local businesses for now. ZIP targeting is the tool that matters for local.

Step-by-Step: How to Register and Launch Your First Campaign

Everything happens at ads.openai.com. Budget about 2 to 3 hours plus review time.

Phase 1: Account setup

Go to ads.openai.com and start the sign-up flow. You need an OpenAI account; if you do not have one you can create it during sign-up.
Enter your business details: legal business name, the country of your advertiser account, and your tax ID or EIN.
Complete account verification. OpenAI reviews the business identity before you can spend.
Add a billing method (card on file, billed against delivery).
Invite team members or your agency with appropriate roles.

Phase 2: Campaign build

Create a campaign and choose the objective. Reach buys on CPM (default $60), Clicks buys on CPC (start at $3 to $5), oCPC bills per click while optimizing toward a conversion you track.
Set your daily or lifetime budget and your maximum bid.
Create an ad group and set targeting: geography (state/DMA/ZIP in the US), platform, and any custom audience.
Write your context hints. Think themes, not keywords: "emergency garage door repair," "home security and lock replacement," "HVAC maintenance for homeowners."
Build the ad: title (3 to 50 characters), body (up to 100 characters), image, and landing page URL. Upload multiple creative variations; delivery is uneven early and variations help the system learn.

Phase 3: Review and launch

Submit for policy review. OpenAI's crawler, OAI-AdsBot, must be able to reach your landing page. If your robots.txt or firewall blocks it, your ads will not be approved. Check this before submitting.
If you run oCPC, install the OAIQ pixel on your site (it sets a first-party cookie and can hash form data for matching) or use the Conversions API for server-side tracking.
Launch. Active campaigns typically begin delivering within 24 hours.
Expect reporting lag: results can take up to 7 hours to appear in Ads Manager, and attributed conversions can take 24 to 48 hours.
Let the campaign run at least a week before judging it. Then cut weak creatives, tighten geography, and scale what converts.

Objective comparison

Factor	Reach (CPM)	Clicks (CPC)	oCPC (Conversions)
You pay for	1,000 impressions	Each click	Each click, optimized to convert
Typical starting cost	$60 CPM default	$3 to $5 bids	Bid cap per conversion
Requires pixel	No	No	Yes (OAIQ or API)
Best for	Brand awareness	Traffic and leads	Booked jobs, form fills
Small local business fit	Weak	Good starting point	Best once tracking works

What You Should NOT Do

Do not block OAI-AdsBot. Aggressive robots.txt rules or bot-blocking plugins will silently kill your ad approval. This is the number one technical failure mode.
Do not treat context hints like Google keywords. Stuffing them with keyword lists confuses matching. Use a handful of clear themes.
Do not launch one ad. Uneven delivery is a known early-platform issue. Run 3 to 5 creative variations per ad group.
Do not send traffic to a slow or thin landing page. The page gets policy-reviewed, and a bad page wastes $4 clicks.
Do not judge performance same-day. Between the 7-hour reporting delay and 24 to 48 hour conversion attribution, day-one dashboards lie.
Do not overspend on CPM as a small business. At a $60 default CPM, Reach campaigns are priced for brands. Start with Clicks.
Do not make claims you cannot support. Ad policies are enforced at review, and regulated-category claims trigger extra scrutiny.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the ChatGPT ads platform at ads.chatgpt.com?

No. The official self-serve platform is OpenAI Ads Manager at ads.openai.com. Be careful with lookalike domains; new ad platforms always attract phishing sites.

How much do ChatGPT ads cost?

There is no longer a spend minimum. CPC campaigns are recommended to start at $3 to $5 per click bids, and CPM campaigns default to $60 per 1,000 impressions. You control daily budget, so you can test with a few hundred dollars.

Can I target my city or service area?

In the US, yes: targeting supports state, DMA, and ZIP code levels. Outside the US, targeting is country-level for now.

Who actually sees ChatGPT ads?

Logged-in adults on the Free and ChatGPT Go tiers. Users on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education plans never see ads, and neither do minors.

Can I bid on keywords like Google Ads?

No. There are no keyword auctions. Ads are matched to conversation topics using your context hints, the user's current conversation, and (with personalization on) their chat history and past ad interactions.

How do I track leads from ChatGPT ads?

Install the OAIQ JavaScript pixel on your site or use OpenAI's Conversions API. Conversions attribute within 24 to 48 hours. Without tracking, you can still run Reach and Clicks campaigns.

Are ChatGPT ads worth it for home services businesses?

Early evidence says the audience fits consumer services well, since homeowners on the free tier ask exactly the repair and hiring questions that precede a service call. Test with a Clicks campaign, ZIP targeting, and a fast landing page before scaling.

Policy Pitfalls and How to Stay Approved

Detect problems early: check your campaign status daily during the first week, confirm OAI-AdsBot can fetch your landing page (test it like you would Googlebot), and watch for disapproval notices tied to claims or regulated-category language.

Harden your account for the long term: keep your business details and tax information consistent with your registered entity, keep landing pages honest and consistent with ad copy, and document any licenses your trade requires. Platforms in beta tighten enforcement as they scale. The advertisers who build clean accounts now will keep them when the first enforcement wave hits, the same pattern we have watched play out on Google Business Profile suspensions for years.

Want to be the business ChatGPT shows first? We specialize in early-channel ad launches for home services businesses.

Most agencies will wait a year before touching a new platform. We build on new channels while inventory is cheap and competitors are absent, and we tie every campaign to tracked calls and booked jobs, not vanity impressions.

What we offer:

ChatGPT Ads account registration and verification setup
Campaign, targeting, and context-hint strategy built for your service area
OAIQ pixel and conversion tracking installation
Landing page review so your ads pass OpenAI policy review the first time

Every week you wait, the auction gets more crowded and clicks get more expensive.