OpenAI is expanding advertising across ChatGPT, but marketers using the platform say its campaign tools remain limited compared with those available from Google and Meta.
The query isn’t only whether OpenAI can reproduce the controls offered by established platforms. ChatGPT matches advertisements to the context of a conversation, creating different requirements for targeting, measurement, and advertiser reporting.
The company began testing advertisements in February and has since added self-service campaign management, cost-per-click bidding, conversion tracking, and placement targeting. An OpenAI spokesperson told Business Insider that ChatGPT ads were appearing in seven countries on the time of its report.
OpenAI’s advertising business had reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue by March, in response to Business Insider. The company has also projected about $2.4 billion in advertising revenue for 2026 and roughly $100 billion by 2030, based on earlier reports from The Information and Axios.
Those forecasts are considerably higher than current estimates for the broader chatbot advertising market. EMARKETER expects US chatbot advertising revenue to stay below $1 billion in 2026.
Nate Elliott, an analyst at EMARKETER, told Business Insider that OpenAI would want a much larger user base, stronger consumer adoption, aggressive pricing, and a high volume of advertisements to fulfill its projection.
ChatGPT has about one billion monthly users, giving OpenAI a large potential audience. The company has up to now limited the variety of advertisements shown because it tests how advertising affects the product experience.
Early pilot campaigns involved major advertisers committing lots of of hundreds of dollars. OpenAI advertising chief Dave Dugan said the corporate restricted inventory in the course of the initial rollout to prioritise the user experience.
OpenAI’s restricted inventory limits campaign scale. Advertisers interviewed by Business Insider also said they receive less campaign data than they do from established platforms.
The company introduced a self-service tool in May, allowing advertisers to create and manage campaigns directly. Geographic targeting inside the US followed in July, replacing the sooner requirement to focus on the country as a whole.
OpenAI’s Ads Manager Beta allows businesses to set budgets and bids, upload advertisements, launch campaigns, and review performance. Its current tools also support conversion measurement and cost-per-click bidding.
Targeting conversations slightly than keywords
OpenAI says ChatGPT considers the context and intent of the present conversation when choosing an commercial. The system also reviews the commercial’s copy, landing page, and knowledge supplied by the advertiser.
Advertisers can submit “context hints” describing the topics, needs, or situations through which a product is perhaps relevant. These hints guide the matching system but don’t operate as exact targeting rules.
Advertisers can control budgets, bids, pacing, and inventive materials. OpenAI retains control over which eligible commercial is delivered and the conversation through which it appears.
That differs from keyword-based search advertising. Google advertisers can review the search terms that triggered their advertisements, change keyword bids, and use negative keywords to dam irrelevant queries.
OpenAI says users often research categories, compare options, and make decisions inside a conversation, allowing relevance to be assessed across several exchanges slightly than one search term.
Brands due to this fact should describe the conversational situations through which a product is relevant slightly than depend only on a fixed list of keywords. OpenAI’s system then decides whether the broader discussion matches those instructions.
Speechify, an AI text-to-speech company, has advertised through ChatGPT for the reason that early pilot programme. Chief business officer Rohan Pavuluri said the corporate’s advertisements appeared alongside comparisons of text-to-speech tools, generating new customer activity.
Pavuluri said Speechify’s advertisements appeared below text-to-speech comparisons, placing them alongside conversations about a relevant product category.
Kevin Roy, CEO of agency GreenBanana search engine optimisation, said advertisers are desirous about reaching ChatGPT users but must structure campaigns around user prompts slightly than keywords. Advertisers also receive less campaign data than they might from established platforms.
Roy said ChatGPT provides substantially fewer campaign controls than Google Ads. The difference limits how advertisers can adjust targeting, placements, bidding, and other campaign settings.
Marketing startup Launch10 recorded a lower click-through rate on ChatGPT than on Google Ads during a trial campaign, in response to CEO Greg Hockenbrocht. He had expected the platform to incorporate more automated features for generating advertising copy and testing different versions.
Hockenbrocht said performance improved during a month-long campaign, with impressions and clicks increasing because the campaign progressed. He also pointed to the introduction of location targeting as evidence that the platform was adding capabilities.
Speechify reported new business from advertisements shown under relevant product comparisons. Launch10 reported a lower click-through rate than Google Ads and said it wanted more creative-testing tools.
The two campaigns provide different results from the identical emerging format. Speechify benefited from placement beside a relevant product discussion, while Launch10’s experience showed that contextual matching doesn’t remove the necessity for testing, reporting, and optimisation controls.
OpenAI said it’s collecting feedback from advertisers and continuing to develop the service. The company didn’t reply to EMARKETER’s assessment of its revenue expectations.
Measurement without conversation-level visibility
OpenAI initially sold ChatGPT advertising on a cost-per-thousand-impressions basis before introducing cost-per-click buying. The company has also added conversion measurement and broader performance reporting.
OpenAI’s public documentation describes cost-per-click buying, conversion measurement, and aggregated campaign reporting, however it doesn’t describe reporting that attributes an commercial to a person prompt or stage of a conversation.
Google’s reporting tools allow advertisers to review performance by campaign, commercial, ad group, keyword, and search term. Marketers can use those results to regulate bids, remove weak terms, or exclude irrelevant searches.
OpenAI’s public materials don’t describe a prompt-level reporting system comparable with the keyword and search-term reports available through Google Ads.
Advertisers interviewed by Business Insider said they receive less campaign data than they do on established platforms. OpenAI says advertisers don’t receive the underlying conversations or users’ personal details.
A conversational advertising model may due to this fact require reporting organised around broader topics, needs, or decision stages slightly than individual keywords. OpenAI has not publicly detailed whether its reporting will develop in that direction.
The distinction can also be relevant to creative testing. Hockenbrocht said he expected more tools for generating ad copy and comparing different versions when Launch10 tested the platform.
OpenAI has added campaign performance and conversion reporting, while advertisers proceed to ask for more detailed testing and optimisation tools.
The current system can report whether an commercial generated an impression, click, or conversion. Its public documentation doesn’t explain how advertisers can discover which conversational context contributed to that result.
Privacy limits the information advertisers receive
OpenAI says conversations remain private from advertisers and that it doesn’t sell user data. Advertisers only receive information that users decide to share with them directly through an commercial.
OpenAI says its measurement tools allow businesses to evaluate campaign performance without sharing conversations or personal details with advertisers.
This limits the extent of conversational detail that may appear in advertiser reports. OpenAI must provide enough information for campaign evaluation without disclosing the underlying thread used to evaluate relevance.
OpenAI separates contextual targeting from ad personalisation. When personalisation is enabled, the system can use information from previous chats and earlier advertising interactions alongside the present conversation.
Users who disable personalisation can still receive advertisements based as regards to the present thread. Previous chats and advertising activity will not be utilized in that case.
The distinction means contextual targeting can proceed without using a person’s wider ChatGPT history. It also gives advertisers no direct access to the person exchanges behind the position.
OpenAI also allows users to clear advertising data, dismiss advertisements, and review why an commercial appeared. The company says advertisements are displayed individually from ChatGPT’s answers and don’t influence the model’s responses.
OpenAI says a paid placement doesn’t constitute an endorsement or suggestion from the corporate.
OpenAI’s policies also restrict advertisements from appearing around sensitive or unsuitable conversations. These include discussions involving personal health, emotional vulnerability, self-harm, political content, criminality, and other high-risk subjects.
The system must due to this fact assess each business relevance and whether the encompassing conversation is suitable for advertising.
A developing channel with large revenue targets
ChatGPT advertising stays a developing channel. OpenAI’s self-service campaign manager remains to be in beta, while the corporate is regularly expanding its geographic reach and campaign capabilities.
Advertisers currently have access to conversational context, bidding, conversion measurement, location targeting, and self-service campaign management. They proceed to receive fewer testing, targeting, and reporting controls than can be found through Google and Meta.
The platform remains to be being tested by early advertisers slightly than operating with the targeting, measurement, and optimisation infrastructure available through mature advertising networks. The source material doesn’t establish that advertisers are moving a substantial share of their media budgets to ChatGPT.
Its current role is due to this fact higher measured through campaign tests, advertiser feedback, and product development than through direct comparisons with the dimensions of Google or Meta.
OpenAI said it’s regularly opening Ads Manager to more businesses while continuing to test and refine the platform. The company also expects so as to add further bidding and optimisation options over time.
(Photo by Levart_Photographer)
See also: Google leads AI discovery as ChatGPT dominates LLM referrals
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