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Should Your Business Run Ads on ChatGPT? Here’s the Honest Answer

Free Knowledge » Marketing Research » Should Your Business Run Ads on ChatGPT? Here’s the Honest Answer
ChatGPT ads are here!

ChatGPT ads have officially entered the advertising conversation.

OpenAI is beginning to test paid ads inside ChatGPT, which means marketers now have another shiny new platform to think about, evaluate, and possibly throw budget at before fully understanding what it can actually do. 

Exciting? Absolutely. 

Proven? Not yet. 

For businesses, especially in competitive B2B spaces, ChatGPT ads could become a major opportunity. People use ChatGPT to research, compare, plan, troubleshoot, and make decisions.

But before everyone starts shifting budget out of Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, or Amazon and tossing it into ChatGPT because “AI is the future,” let’s slow down for half a second. 

Because yes, ChatGPT ads might be powerful. 

They might also be messy, hard to track, and overhyped in the short term. 

At BPM, we love testing new platforms. We also love not setting money on fire just because something has a futuristic logo. So the real question is not whether ChatGPT ads are interesting. 

The real question is whether they are right for your business right now. 

ChatGPT Ads Are New, and That Matters 

Google Ads and Meta Ads have had decades to mature. 

They have gone through countless updates, bidding changes, attribution models, creative formats, targeting improvements, and measurement tools. Are they perfect? Absolutely not. Anyone who has managed paid media for more than 15 minutes knows they can still be frustrating. 

But they are established. There are best practices. There are benchmarks. There are known patterns. 

ChatGPT ads do not have that same history yet. 

That means early advertisers will be working with a platform that is still learning how ads fit into a conversational AI experience. There will likely be changes to placement, targeting, reporting, pricing, performance expectations, and campaign structure as OpenAI gathers data and refines the product. 

That does not mean businesses should ignore ChatGPT ads. 

It means businesses should treat them like what they are: an emerging paid media channel with potential, not a guaranteed lead machine. 

If your current paid media strategy is already working well, ChatGPT ads may be worth testing as a controlled experiment. If your existing campaigns are a mess, adding another platform will not magically fix that. It will just give you a new dashboard to be confused by. 

Tracking and Attribution Will Probably Be Messy at First 

Here is where things get fun. By fun, we mean complicated. 

Tracking has already become harder across digital marketing. Privacy regulations, browser changes, cookie limitations, app tracking restrictions, and disconnected customer journeys have made attribution messier than ever. 

Now add ChatGPT into the mix. 

A user might ask a long, detailed question. They might compare solutions. They might see an ad. They might click. They might not click. They might remember the brand and come back later through direct traffic, organic search, a referral, or a sales rep. 

So where does credit go? 

Exactly. Welcome to the attribution blender. 

ChatGPT traffic could be very high intent, but without clean tagging, CRM matching, conversion tracking, and sales pipeline visibility, you are basically staring at direct traffic and guessing with nicer words. 

That is where businesses need to be careful. 

If you test ChatGPT ads, you need a measurement plan before the campaign launches. Not after. Not once the CEO asks how many leads came from it. Before.

That means:

  • UTM parameters should be clean and consistent 
  • Landing pages should be specific 
  • Forms should capture useful source data 
  • CRM records should be reviewed 
  • Sales teams should know what to ask 
  • Reporting should connect marketing activity to actual outcomes 

Because clicks are nice. Leads are better. Closed revenue is the point. 

ChatGPT Search Behavior Is Not Google Search Behavior 

One of the biggest mistakes advertisers can make is assuming ChatGPT ads will behave like Google Search ads.

This shift is what makes ChatGPT ads fundamentally different from traditional search advertising.

They will not. 

On Google, people often search in short, direct phrases: 
“roofing company near me” 
“best CRM for small business” 
“commercial HVAC repair” 
“marketing agency Green Bay” 

ChatGPT users are more likely to ask longer, more conversational questions: 
“What should I look for when hiring a commercial roofing company?” 
“What is the best way for a manufacturing company to generate more qualified leads?” 
“How do I compare CRM platforms for a small sales team?” 
“What marketing channels should a B2B company prioritize this year?” 

That changes everything. 

Instead of targeting basic keyword intent, advertisers need to think about conversation intent. What problem is the user trying to solve? What stage of the decision-making process are they in? What kind of answer are they looking for?

This is less about stuffing keywords into an ad group and more about understanding how people explain their problems when they are not trying to sound like a search engine. 

For smart marketers, that is interesting. 

For lazy marketers, that is a problem. 

ChatGPT ads will reward advertisers who understand audience pain points, buying journeys, and natural language. The brands that only know how to chase exact-match keywords may have a harder time adapting. 

B2B Targeting Could Be Tricky 

For B2B companies, one of the biggest questions is audience quality. 

Right now, ads are shown to Free and Go users, while higher-tier plans like Business and Enterprise are not seeing ads. That matters. 

If you are a B2C brand, e-commerce company, app, software tool, education brand, or consumer service, there may be strong opportunities. Free users can still be valuable buyers, researchers, students, professionals, homeowners, parents, entrepreneurs, and decision influencers. 

But if you are trying to reach enterprise decision-makers inside large organizations, things may get harder. 

Many enterprise users are likely using paid ChatGPT plans or internal AI tools. If those users are not seeing ads, then ChatGPT ads may not reach the exact audience some B2B advertisers care about most. 

That does not mean B2B brands should walk away. 

It means they need to be realistic. 

ChatGPT may still reach researchers, managers, small business owners, startup founders, consultants, and individual professionals who influence buying decisions. But if your strategy depends on getting in front of C-suite enterprise buyers at Fortune 500 companies, ChatGPT ads may not be the silver bullet. 

At least not yet. 

So, Should You Run Ads on ChatGPT? 

The answer depends on your business, your audience, your budget, and your tolerance for testing.

You should consider ChatGPT ads if:

  • You already have your core paid media channels under control 
  • You have budget available for testing 
  • You understand that early results may be inconsistent 
  • You have strong landing pages and conversion tracking 
  • Your audience is likely using ChatGPT for research or decision support 
  • You are comfortable learning before the platform is fully mature 

You may want to wait if: 

  • Your current campaigns are underperforming and need attention first 
  • You do not have clean analytics or CRM tracking 
  • Your sales cycle is complex and attribution is already unclear 
  • You rely heavily on enterprise targeting 
  • You expect immediate, perfectly measurable ROI from day one 

The businesses that will benefit most early on are the ones that treat ChatGPT ads like a strategic test, not a shortcut. 

How BPM Would Approach ChatGPT Ads 

At BPM, we would not tell most clients to blindly move a major chunk of budget into ChatGPT ads right away. 

That would be reckless. Fun, maybe. But reckless. 

Instead, we would look at the full marketing picture:

  • What are your current paid media channels doing? 
  • Where is there room to test? 
  • How clean is your tracking? 
  • Do your landing pages match user intent? 
  • Can your CRM help connect leads back to campaigns? 
  • What would success actually look like? 

Then we would build a test plan. 

That might mean a limited campaign focused on a specific audience segment, product, service, or content offer. It might mean using ChatGPT ads to support research-stage users rather than expecting immediate sales calls. It might mean pairing ChatGPT traffic with a strong email follow-up, retargeting strategy, or sales enablement process. 

The key is not just running the ad. 

The key is building the system around the ad. 

Because a new platform does not fix weak messaging, bad tracking, slow follow-up, or a landing page that makes people question their life choices. 

The Bottom Line on ChatGPT Advertising 

ChatGPT ads could become a serious player in digital marketing. 

The intent is there. The usage is there. The opportunity is there. 

But the platform is still new, and early advertisers need to approach it with clear expectations. It does not have the years of optimization history that Google and Meta have. Attribution will likely be imperfect. Search behavior will be more conversational. B2B targeting may be limited in certain cases. And without proper tracking, the results could be harder to prove than most businesses would like. 

So should you run ads on ChatGPT? 

Maybe. 

But only if you have a strategy, a measurement plan, and someone who knows how to separate real opportunity from shiny-object nonsense. 

That is where BPM comes in. 

We help businesses evaluate new advertising platforms, build smarter paid media strategies, and connect campaign activity to actual business results. Whether ChatGPT ads are the right move today or something to keep watching for tomorrow, we can help you make the call without guessing. 

Ready to figure out where ChatGPT ads fit into your marketing strategy? 

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