How to Run ChatGPT Ads: Account, Campaign Setup and Conversion Tracking

To run ads on ChatGPT, you create an advertiser account in OpenAI's Ads Manager, build a campaign with three levels (campaign, ad group and ad), set up conversion tracking with the OpenAI pixel, add billing and a logo, and submit the ad for review. Your ad then appears below ChatGPT's answer in conversations where it is relevant.

The interface is simpler than Google Ads or Meta Ads, and still in beta, so some options you are used to are missing. This guide walks through every screen in order, with the settings that matter, the tracking setup, and what to check when your ad doesn't serve.

Quick steps: running your first ChatGPT ad

1. Go to ads.openai.com and create a business advertiser account.
2. In Conversions, create a web data source (pixel) and install it on your site.
3. Create a conversion event, such as lead_created or order_created, and test it.
4. Create a campaign: objective, budget, locations and platforms.
5. Create an ad group: conversion event, bid, destination URL and context hints.
6. Create the ad: title, short copy and a square image.
7. Add a logo and billing details, then publish and wait for review.

Before you start: can you advertise from your country?

There are two separate questions: where ads are shown to ChatGPT users, and where businesses can buy them themselves in Ads Manager.

• By late October 2026, ads were reported to show in about 89 countries, after OpenAI added 26 markets on 21 October.
• Self-serve buying covers fewer countries; the last published count was 63 in early October. It opened in the US first, then in Europe, India and the Middle East and North Africa at the end of August, and in Southeast Asia in September.
• If your country is not on the self-serve list yet, you can still create an account at ads.openai.com, and OpenAI says it will notify you when self-serve opens there.

Who will see your ads

• Ads appear for logged-in adult users on ChatGPT's Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro and Business users don't see them, and neither do accounts identified as under 18.
• Ads are kept away from sensitive conversations, such as mental health, personal health and politics.
• In the EEA and Switzerland, ads are not personalised; they are matched on the conversation, language and general location.
• The ad never changes ChatGPT's answer. It is a separate, labelled card below it.

That first point matters for planning. Many professionals pay for ChatGPT, so a B2B offer may reach fewer of its buyers than you expect.

Step 1: Create your advertiser account

1. Open ads.openai.com and click Create account.
2. Enter your business details: the legal business name, an internal account name, your website and your industry.
3. Choose your country, billing currency and time zone. Pick carefully: OpenAI's documentation states that currency and time zone are chosen at creation and cannot be edited later.
4. Choose the advertiser type. At the time of writing, Ads Manager is only available to businesses (registered companies, partnerships and non-profits), not to individuals.
5. Say whether you are an agency or advertising your own business, and create the account.

Ads Manager then offers to start a campaign straight away. You can skip it and set up tracking first, which I'd recommend.

Finish the setup: logo and billing

Your campaign cannot run until two things are done:

• Logo: it appears as a small icon next to your brand name on the ad. Use a JPEG, PNG or WebP of at least 256 x 256 pixels, ideally square and readable at a tiny size.
• Billing: add a payment method under Billing.

Note that the public brand name shown on ads is separate from your legal name. Changing either one later sends the account back for review and pauses delivery until it passes.

Find your way around Ads Manager

Step 2: Set up conversion tracking first

If you want ChatGPT to find people who buy or enquire, not just click, it needs to know what a conversion is. You do that with a data source (the OpenAI pixel), plus conversion events.

Create the data source (pixel)

1. Go to Conversions and create a new data source.
2. Give it a name, such as Website pixel, and choose Web. (iOS and Android are for apps.)
3. Leave automatic advanced matching on. It lets the pixel send customer details your forms collect, such as an email, in hashed form so conversions match better. Make sure your privacy policy covers it.
4. Click Create. You get a Pixel ID and a base code.

Install the base code with Google Tag Manager

The base code must load on every page, in the <head>. With Google Tag Manager:

1. Create a new tag of type Custom HTML, named for example OpenAI pixel - base.
2. Paste the base code from Ads Manager exactly as given. It loads OpenAI's script and calls oaiq("init", { pixelId: "..." }) with your Pixel ID.
3. Set the trigger to Initialization - All Pages (or All Pages).
4. Click Preview, open your site, and check that the tag fires on every page.

The base code only connects your site to Ads Manager. It does not count leads or sales by itself.

Create a conversion event

1. In Conversions, click Create conversion event.
2. Choose the standard event that matches your goal and give it a clear name.
3. Copy the event code it gives you.

The standard events are:

You can also send custom events (for example quote_requested) for reporting, but campaigns can only optimise for a standard event. Purchase values are sent as whole numbers in the smallest currency unit, so $49.90 is 4990.

Fire the event in Google Tag Manager

1. Create another Custom HTML tag, for example OpenAI pixel - lead, and paste the event code. For a lead it looks like oaiq("measure", "lead_created", ...).
2. Choose a trigger that only fires after a real submission.

The trigger is where most setups go wrong:

• Best: a Page View trigger on your thank-you page, for example when the Page Path equals /thank-you. It only fires when the form really went through.
• Form Submission trigger: works on simple forms, but many WordPress form plugins send the form in the background without a real submit, so GTM never sees it. If you use one, test it carefully.
• No thank-you page? Fire the tag on the plugin's success event or on a custom dataLayer event your developer adds.

In tag sequencing, set the base tag to fire before the event tag. The same thank-you page approach is explained step by step in how to track a Meta Pixel Lead event with GTM; only the code you paste is different.

Test the events

1. In Ads Manager, go to Conversions > Data source, open the menu next to your web pixel and choose Test.
2. Enter your page URL and click Start testing.
3. Submit your form (or place a test order) on the site that opens.
4. Watch the event stream. Test events are labelled Test for up to 30 minutes.

If an event appears twice, check that you haven't added the pixel both in GTM and through a plugin or theme setting.

New data sources often show warnings at first: no recent events, no campaign using the event yet, and a suggestion to add server-side tracking. The first two go away once a campaign runs and conversions arrive.

Add the Conversions API (recommended)

The pixel runs in the browser, so ad blockers, cookie banners and browser privacy features can stop some events. The Conversions API sends the same events from your server.

• Create a Conversions API key in the Conversions section.
• Send each conversion from both the pixel and the server with the same event_id, and OpenAI keeps only the first one.
• If you use server-side GTM, tag-manager vendors such as Stape publish ready-made templates for the pixel and the Conversions API.

Step 3: Create the campaign

Go to Campaigns > Create and choose Create from scratch, so you aren't working around sample settings. The left panel shows the structure: campaign > ad group > ad.

Choose the objective

The Conversions objective needs an active standard conversion event, which is why tracking comes first. OpenAI describes conversion-optimised bidding (oCPC) as an open beta, so it may not be enabled on every account yet; if it isn't, start with Clicks.

You cannot change the objective after creating the campaign. To switch, create a new campaign.

Set the budget

• Choose a daily budget or a lifetime (campaign total) budget, not both.
• The minimum depends on your billing currency. For US dollar accounts, a $25 daily minimum is widely reported; Ads Manager shows the exact minimum if you go below it.
• A daily budget is an average: on some days spend can reach up to twice the daily amount, but over a week it stays within seven times the daily budget.
• Maximize Results bidding (below) only works with a daily budget, and a daily budget can't be switched back to lifetime later.

Work out how many clicks or leads your budget can buy before you set it.

Choose locations

You can target countries, regions (such as a state or province) and, in some countries, market areas around big cities. The options vary by country, so type the place you need and see what comes up. If you leave locations empty, the campaign can show in all available locations, which you rarely want.

Keep the location tied to where you can actually deliver. A furniture store that ships only within one country should not leave the campaign open to every market.

Choose platforms

You can show ads on the ChatGPT iOS app, the Android app, and web (desktop and mobile browsers). By default there's no restriction. Testers report most paid traffic comes from phones, so leave mobile on unless you have a reason not to, and check your landing page on a small screen.

Step 4: Create the ad group

The ad group holds the settings for a group of ads that share one theme.

• Conversion event: for a Conversions campaign, choose the event this ad group optimises for, such as lead_created.
• Bidding: Maximize Results lets ChatGPT get as many results as it can from your daily budget, with no bid to set. Fixed bid lets you set a maximum price per click, per 1,000 impressions, or (for conversion bidding) a target cost per conversion. If your bid is too low to compete, Ads Manager shows a bid too low warning.
• Default destination URL: the page ads in this group will send people to.
• Landing page query parameters: your UTM tags. They apply to every ad in the group unless an ad sets its own.
• Context hints: short sentences describing what you offer, who it helps and when it's useful. They replace keywords and interest targeting.

When to use more than one ad group: whenever the theme, landing page, conversion event or bid needs to be different. A store selling standing desks might have one ad group for home office setups and another for back pain from sitting all day, each with its own hints, ad and landing page.

Context hints are the most important setting in ChatGPT Ads, and the easiest to get wrong. They are covered in detail in how to write ChatGPT Ads context hints.

UTM parameters and which level wins

You can set query parameters at the account, campaign, ad group and ad level. If the same parameter is set at several levels, the most specific one wins: ad, then ad group, then campaign, then account.

So if an ad group has four ads and you add UTM parameters to only one of them, that ad uses its own parameters and the other three use the ad group's. OpenAI supports placeholders such as {campaign_id} and {ad_id}, for example:

utm_source=chatgpt&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign={campaign_id}&utm_content={ad_id}

That way every visit from ChatGPT shows up clearly in GA4, and you can compare ads.

Step 5: Create the ad

A ChatGPT ad is a single card with your brand name and logo, a title, a short description, an image and a link.

There's no video format. Some accounts have a beta format with 4 to 6 square images.

Example for the standing desk store:

• Title: Standing desks, set up in 10 min
• Description: Electric, quiet and stable at full height. Free delivery and a 100-night trial.
• Image: the desk in a real home office, no text on it.

Step 6: Review and publish

Check the summary, click Publish, and the ad goes into review. Statuses you'll see are in review, approved and rejected (with a reason).

• Editing the ad's creative later sends it back into review.
• An ad can be active but still not serve if the account, campaign or ad group has a problem. Check the review status, not just the on/off switch.
• Ads are checked against OpenAI's ad policies. Some categories are restricted or banned, and the rules for health and financial services have changed several times in 2026, so read the current policy if you work in a regulated industry.

How ChatGPT Ads differ from Google Ads and Meta Ads

In short: fewer settings and fewer controls, so the ad, the context hints and the landing page do most of the work.

Reading your results

Ads Manager reports impressions, clicks, spend, CTR, average CPC, average CPM, and, with tracking, conversions, cost per acquisition, conversion rate, and for purchases sales and ROAS. You can add or remove columns and filter by date.

Things to know:

• Impressions and clicks arrive within minutes; spend can lag by hours, and you should allow a day for conversions.
• Conversions are counted for clicks within a click window (30 days by default; 7 or 14 are also possible). View-through conversions (within one day of seeing the ad) are shown separately and are not used for CPA or bidding.
• Breakdowns are limited, and you can't see which conversations your ad showed in. Judge each ad group by its own results.
• Use GA4 with your UTM tags as a second source. Early testers found their own analytics recorded fewer visits than billed clicks, so compare both.

For an online store, compare ROAS from ChatGPT with your other channels before moving budget.

Ad not showing? Check these in order

1. Account: active, business review complete, billing added, logo uploaded, spend limit not used up.
2. Campaign: active, inside its schedule, budget left, at least one valid location.
3. Ad group: active, the conversion event is active, the bid isn't flagged as too low.
4. Ad: approved (not just switched on), and the landing page loads for OpenAI's crawler (no login wall or country block).
5. Reach: very narrow locations, very specific context hints or a niche topic can mean few eligible conversations, even when everything is approved.

Also remember that you only see ads in ChatGPT on a Free or Go account, and testers often see ads on the second or third message of a conversation, not the first.

Is it worth running ChatGPT ads?

Early results are mixed. Some online stores report a cost per sale close to their other channels, while many B2B and lead-generation advertisers report clicks but few leads, partly because many professionals use paid ChatGPT plans that show no ads. Real test numbers from early advertisers are collected in the context hints guide.

The sensible approach: if people genuinely ask ChatGPT about the problem your product solves, run a small test with one or two focused ad groups, proper conversion tracking and UTM tags, and a budget you are happy to learn with. Then compare the cost per lead or sale with Google and Meta before you scale. To set a fair target, see how to calculate target CPA and CPL.

Frequently asked questions

How do I start advertising on ChatGPT?

Create a business account at ads.openai.com, set up the OpenAI pixel and a conversion event, then create a campaign, ad group and ad. Add a logo and billing details and publish; the ad runs after it passes review.

What is the minimum budget for ChatGPT Ads?

It depends on your billing currency. For US dollar accounts, a minimum of about $25 per day is widely reported, and Ads Manager tells you the exact minimum when you set a budget below it.

Can individuals run ChatGPT ads?

Not at the time of writing. Ads Manager is open to businesses, including registered companies, partnerships and non-profits, but not to individual advertisers.

Is ChatGPT Ads available in my country?

Ads were reported to run in about 89 countries by late October 2026, and self-serve buying in a smaller group of around 63. Check ads.openai.com; if your country isn't open yet, you can create an account and be notified.

Do ChatGPT ads use keywords?

No. ChatGPT matches ads to the context of the conversation, using your ad, your landing page and optional context hints you write for each ad group.

How do I track conversions from ChatGPT ads?

Install the OpenAI pixel on every page, create a standard conversion event such as lead_created or order_created, fire it after a real conversion (for example on the thank-you page), and test it in the event stream. Add the Conversions API with the same event ID for more reliable tracking.

Can I change the campaign objective later?

No. The objective is fixed when the campaign is created. Create a new campaign to use a different objective.