You can feel the mood shift in marketing teams. Budgets are already stretched, reporting is messy, and every platform update seems to arrive mid-campaign. Then someone drops the new question in the chat: “So… what’s our plan for ChatGPT ads?”
If you’re responsible for growth, brand, or just keeping the lights on, that question lands with a thud. ChatGPT isn’t a social feed people scroll past. It’s perceived as an advisor. Put paid messages in that space and the rules change.
So, what should marketers do now, before the first dashboards and rate cards arrive?
What We Know About Chatgpt Ads So Far?
OpenAI’s public guidance is unusually specific for an early-stage ads product. The key points are: ads are planned for lower tiers, they will be labelled and separated from the answer, conversations won’t be sold to advertisers, and ads won’t appear for under-18s or around sensitive topics such as politics and mental health.
Industry reporting suggests the early market will be premium-priced. The Verge reports OpenAI has discussed CPMs around $60 per 1,000 impressions, with limited performance reporting at first (views and clicks rather than rich user-level attribution).
While, OpenAI says it is not launching ads broadly yet, but plans to start testing in the coming weeks for logged-in adults in the U.S. on the Free and Go tiers.
That combination points to a simple reality: early tests will reward brands that already have tidy fundamentals and a clear story.
Why This Channel Is Important Even Before It Scales?
The first reason is reach. An NBER working paper reports that by July 2025, ChatGPT had around 700 million weekly users and users were sending roughly 18 billion messages per week.
The second reason is behaviour. People don’t open ChatGPT to “browse”. They arrive with a job to do: compare options, make a shortlist, check a price, plan a trip, pick a tool. That’s a very different moment from a casual social impression.
And yes, referral traffic from chatbots is still small for many sites. Ahrefs’ study of 3,000 sites found 63% received at least one visit from AI chatbots, but AI accounted for only 0.17% of the average site’s traffic. That’s the point: the volume may be early, but the intent can be high.
In the digital marketing Cyprus landscape, you’ll hear the same refrain as with early SEO: you don’t wait for a channel to mature before getting your house in order.
How ChatGPT Ads Are Likely to Work?
- Placement: Ads are expected to appear below the answer, not inside it, and will be clearly labelled.
- Timing: Ads should show when there’s a relevant sponsored product or service connected to the conversation.
- User controls: OpenAI says users can dismiss ads and give feedback, and can learn why they were shown.
- Answer independence: OpenAI states ads do not influence answers.
- Privacy boundaries: OpenAI says conversations stay private from advertisers and user data isn’t sold to advertisers.
- Early reporting: Industry coverage suggests advertisers may initially get high-level metrics (impressions and clicks) rather than rich downstream attribution.
What Will Decide Whether ChatGPT Ads Work for You?
BrightLocal found that 62% of consumers would avoid using a business if they found incorrect information online. That single figure captures the real risk with conversational ads: if your offer, proof points, landing page and listings don’t line up, people won’t “give it a chance” — they’ll move on.
- Clarity: can people understand your offer in seconds?
- Proof: do you have credible reasons to trust you?
- Fit: does your product/service match the prompt’s intent?
- Follow-through: does the landing page confirm what the ad hinted at?
- Consistency: do your brand details match across the web?
This is where many brands stumble. If your pricing is buried, your delivery terms are unclear, or your reviews are thin, the chat interface won’t politely ignore that. It will amplify it. For digital marketing specialists this will feel familiar: the basics often outperform cleverness.
Strategies to Leverage Chatgpt Ads for Brands
Strategy 1: Make Your Brand “Easy to Recommend”
In a chat interface, clarity beats charisma. If a user asks for “the best option under €50 that ships quickly”, the assistant (and any sponsored placement) has to map to facts. Brands should pressure-test the basics:
- Pricing that’s visible and current
- Shipping, lead times, returns, warranties
- Stock availability or service coverage
- Plain-language product specs and comparisons
Treat this as recommendation readiness. If your own pages can’t answer the obvious follow-ups, an ad won’t rescue you.
Strategy 2: Pair Paid Tests with GEO and AI Discovery Work
Digiday’s reporting makes a useful point: marketers shouldn’t throw out what they’ve learned from showing up organically in ChatGPT. Those early experiments become the scaffolding for paid.
This is where location and “near me” intent start to matter. When people ask for services, clinics, restaurants, trades, or retailers, assistants lean on consistent business data. This AI-powered GEO discovery in 2026 blog breaks down practical steps such as structured data, consistent listings, and locally specific pages that answer operational questions (hours, areas served, response times). It’s not glamorous work, but it’s the sort that keeps recommendations accurate.
Strategy 3: Write Ad Creative Like Help, Not Hype
ChatGPT is a “what should I do?” product. Ads that read like slogans will feel out of place. Aim for:
- A clear fit (“For same-day delivery in X”, “For teams needing Y”)
- A truthful differentiator (price, warranty length, speed, compatibility)
- A low-friction next step (check availability, compare plans, speak to support)
A good internal test: would this copy work as a reply from a knowledgeable friend who isn’t trying to sell you something?
Strategy 4: Rebuild Measurement Expectations
If early reporting is limited, treat first campaigns as controlled experiments. In the middle of this work, a digital agency Cyprus partner can add value simply by keeping the testing tight and the learning documented.
Practical measurement ideas that don’t rely on perfect attribution:
- Branded search lift and direct traffic trends during test windows
- Assisted conversions (where you see later purchase behaviour)
- Holdout tests by geography or time blocks
- Post-click behaviour quality (time on page, key actions, enquiries)
Set stop conditions before you launch. If you can’t state what “good” looks like, you’ll end up spending to learn what you could have decided in advance.
A 30-Day Preparation Plan Brands Can Actually Follow
Week 1: Audit your “quotable” pages and fix gaps in pricing, availability, and policies.
Week 2: Tidy your listings, location data, and structured markup where appropriate.
Week 3: Draft ad copy variants based on intent (research vs ready-to-buy) and align landing pages to match.
Week 4: Define your pilot KPIs, reporting rhythm, and governance for claims and brand safety.
Wrapping Up
If you approach ChatGPT ads as “useful recommendations backed by verifiable detail”, you’ll be ahead of most teams. That’s where our digital marketing experts tend to focus when a new channel emerges: making the offer clear, the proof obvious, and the path to action painless.
So, don’t be intimidated. We’ve adapted to every major shift in digital marketing Cyprus so far, and this one is no different. Remember, a clear plan always gets to you the goal.
Need help ensuring your brand shows up across both traditional and AI search? We can help. Get in touch with our team.
FAQs
Will ads influence what ChatGPT answers?
OpenAI says ads do not influence answers and are shown separately and clearly labelled.
What sort of reporting should advertisers expect early on?
Coverage suggests high-level metrics such as impressions and clicks may come first, with deeper reporting developing later.
What’s the most sensible first campaign to test?
Start with one high-intent use case where you can prove value quickly, then build a landing page that answers follow-up questions without forcing extra clicks.
