You may have started seeing sponsored items underneath some ChatGPT answers. The self-service ad platform is broadly available now, so this isn’t something only the big brands can experiment with.
Key Takeaways
- Context hints replace keywords. You describe the questions and situations where your offer makes sense, so you can show up while someone is still working through the problem instead of matching one search phrase.
- Paying for a ChatGPT ad doesn’t get you recommended in the answer. The sponsored item sits separately below ChatGPT’s regular response. Buying the placement doesn’t buy the recommendation.
- New doesn’t mean better. Give a test its own small budget and its own tracking, and judge it on qualified leads before you move money out of a channel that’s already working.
Before you move money out of Google or Meta though, it’s worth understanding that advertising inside a conversation works a little differently than what you’re used to. Ads appear only for people on the free version of ChatGPT (which some estimates put as high as 95% of everyone using it), so that’s a wide audience rather than a niche one.
The Ad Is Separate From the Answer
The basic setup is simple. ChatGPT gives its regular answer, and a separately labeled sponsored item can appear below it.
That separation matters more than it might sound. Paying for the ad does not mean ChatGPT starts recommending your business in the regular answer. You’re buying a placement, not a recommendation.
Context Hints Instead of Keywords
If you run Google Search Ads, you’re used to thinking in keywords. ChatGPT uses something called context hints instead. You describe the types of questions, topics, or situations where your offer makes sense, and those hints help the system understand which conversations may be relevant to your ad. They aren’t exact-match keywords where you say “whenever somebody types these three words, show my ad.”
Say you’re a contractor who does deck replacement. Somebody may never type “deck contractor near me.” Instead they have a whole conversation about whether an old deck can be repaired, whether composite is worth the extra money, and what a replacement should cost.
That conversation says a lot more about what they’re trying to figure out. So instead of trying to match one search phrase, you want to show up while somebody is exploring the actual problem you solve.
You Don’t Get to See the Conversation
The conversation can help determine whether your ad is relevant, but you don’t get access to what the person said in ChatGPT. The context does the matching. It doesn’t get shown to you as the advertiser.
The platform is maturing quickly too, adding automated bidding, placement choices, and better tracking. That’s useful, but it’s still very new. Nobody has years of data on what a good ChatGPT campaign looks like for a local service business, so if somebody tells you they’ve got the magic formula, be skeptical.
Agent Campaigns Skip Your Website
There’s another piece to these campaigns worth watching, though it’s still in testing with a limited group of advertisers. OpenAI is trying out an Agent campaign type that sends somebody into a conversation with a business agent instead of sending them to your website. The agent can answer questions, qualify a lead, and collect information through a form, without that person going to your site. If that sounds familiar, it’s what we talked about in our episode on the agentic web, and it’s a good example of how quickly these agents are turning up in more and more places.
It sounds cool, but note that ChatGPT builds the business profile behind that agent by crawling your website, pulling together common customer questions and general context about what you do. Advertisers add custom instructions on top of that.
So your ad can work perfectly and you can still have a problem if the information underneath it is vague or incomplete. If the agent needs to explain your services, service area, process, pricing guidance, or what makes you a good fit, that information has to exist on your site first. AI doesn’t magically fix missing business information.
Decide What You Want to Promote First
That brings it back to strategy before technology. Before you start a campaign, know what you actually want to promote.
Don’t advertise every service just because you offer it. Pick the work you actually want more of, know which customers are the best fit for it, and be clear about what you want that person to do next. ChatGPT can help you get in front of somebody. It can’t decide what direction you want your business to grow.
Action Steps This Week
Three things to work through before you spend anything:
- Think about whether your customers are likely to use ChatGPT while researching the type of service you provide, and pay attention when new customers tell you how they researched you.
- If it looks relevant, choose one specific service or offer you actually want to grow, and define the types of questions or situations where that offer would be helpful.
- If you test it, give the test its own small budget and tracking, then judge it on qualified leads and real business results before you shift money away from channels already working for you.
ChatGPT Ads are here, and conversation-based advertising is worth understanding. But this is still an early channel. Test it if your customers are there, track what happens, and make it earn more of your budget rather than assuming the newest option is automatically the best one.
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Links in this episode: How to run ChatGPT ads: A step-by-step guide from early campaigns
