How to Advertise on ChatGPT, Complete Guide for UK Businesses

Advertising on ChatGPT is no longer just an idea about the future of digital marketing.

In 2026, OpenAI has turned ChatGPT into a genuine advertising platform, with its own Ads Manager, contextual targeting, conversion tracking, product feeds, automated bidding and increasingly sophisticated integrations.

For UK businesses, one particularly important development is that self-service access to ChatGPT Ads is now available. Businesses with an advertising account billed in pounds can currently start with a minimum daily campaign budget of £15.

But ChatGPT advertising is not simply Google Ads transplanted into an AI chatbot.

The fundamental difference is intent.

Google normally starts with a search query. ChatGPT often starts with a conversation.

A prospective customer might explain what they need, their budget, what they have already tried, what they dislike, who the product is for and what constraints they have — all before an advertising opportunity is selected.

That creates an interesting new marketing environment.

It also creates new challenges.

This Wix Solutions guide explains how ChatGPT Ads work in 2026, what they cost, who can use them, how businesses can set them up, how targeting differs from Google Ads, what early advertisers are actually experiencing and how businesses using Wix can prepare their websites for this new advertising channel.

What are ChatGPT Ads?

ChatGPT Ads are sponsored placements that can appear underneath a ChatGPT response.

They are visually separated from ChatGPT's answer and identified as advertising.

A standard advertisement can contain an advertiser name and favicon, headline, description, image, landing-page link and call to action.

The crucial point is that the advertisement is not part of ChatGPT's answer.

Buying an advertisement does not buy a recommendation from ChatGPT.

OpenAI states that advertisers do not influence the responses ChatGPT generates, and advertisers do not receive users' conversations, chat histories, memories, names, email addresses or precise locations.

That distinction is important.

There are effectively now two different ways a brand can try to become visible inside ChatGPT:

Paid visibility comes from ChatGPT Ads.

Organic AI visibility comes from having a website, brand, products and information that AI systems are able to discover, understand, trust, cite or recommend naturally.

Businesses increasingly need to think about both.

Who sees advertisements on ChatGPT?

ChatGPT Ads do not currently reach every ChatGPT user.

OpenAI says advertisements may be shown to eligible adults using the Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu accounts remain ad-free. Accounts identified as belonging to users under 18 are also excluded.

This has major consequences for advertisers.

A retailer selling clothing, furniture, travel or everyday consumer products may still have an enormous potential audience.

A specialist B2B company targeting senior professionals who are heavy ChatGPT users may face a different situation because some of its most valuable prospects may subscribe to an ad-free plan.

This does not mean B2B advertising cannot work on ChatGPT.

It means businesses should understand which part of their customer base is actually reachable through paid ChatGPT advertising.

Can UK businesses advertise on ChatGPT?

Yes.

As of September 2026, the United Kingdom is included in OpenAI's list of countries with self-service Ads Manager availability.

The legal entity being billed needs to be based in an eligible country.

For GBP advertising accounts, OpenAI currently lists a £15 minimum daily campaign budget.

Ads Manager is available through OpenAI's dedicated advertising platform rather than through the normal ChatGPT conversation interface.

Businesses can create an advertising account, complete their company and billing information, configure measurement and then create campaigns, ad groups and advertisements.

How ChatGPT advertising differs from Google Ads

This is probably the most important concept to understand before spending any money.

Traditional paid search revolves heavily around search queries and keywords.

ChatGPT Ads considers richer contextual signals.

OpenAI says advertising selection can consider the context and intent of the current conversation, advertiser-provided context hints, the advertisement's title and copy, the landing page and, where personalised advertising is enabled, selected signals from the user's wider ChatGPT experience.

Context hints therefore become particularly important.

They are not the equivalent of exact-match Google Ads keywords.

They are information supplied to OpenAI that helps its advertising system understand the types of conversations where a product or service could be relevant.

Imagine a business selling premium office chairs.

A weak context hint would be:

“office chair, ergonomic chair, desk chair”

A much more useful context description might be:

“People working from home who are comparing ergonomic office chairs because they experience discomfort during long working days and want an adjustable chair suitable for eight or more hours of desk work.”

The second description communicates the customer, the problem, the situation and the product.

That is much closer to the way people actually communicate with an AI assistant.

Conversational intent could become extremely valuable

The real attraction of ChatGPT Ads is not simply that ChatGPT has a very large audience.

It is the richness of the intent expressed in conversations.

Consider the difference between somebody searching Google for:

“best wedding dress”

and somebody telling ChatGPT:

“I am getting married in Italy next June. I need a lightweight wedding dress that works in hot weather, I don't want anything too traditional, my budget is around £1,500 and I need something flattering for a petite figure.”

The commercial intent is surrounded by substantially more context.

Theoretically, this allows advertising systems to make much more sophisticated relevance decisions.

Whether they always succeed is another question.

Early research suggests ChatGPT's advertising relevance is improving but remains imperfect. That is one reason advertisers should treat this as an emerging advertising platform rather than assuming every impression will be perfectly targeted.

What campaign objectives are available?

ChatGPT Ads currently provides three principal campaign objectives.

Objective	Primary purpose	Charging model
Reach / Views	Brand visibility and exposure	CPM
Clicks	Website traffic and engagement	CPC
Conversions	Actions such as leads, registrations or purchases	Conversion-optimised CPC or supported impression billing

For conversion campaigns, advertisers are not simply paying OpenAI whenever a sale occurs. The system optimises towards the selected conversion outcome while billing follows the supported click or impression model.

OpenAI has also introduced its Maximize Results bidding strategy, which automatically adjusts bids in an attempt to generate as many selected results as possible within the campaign budget. It does not currently guarantee a particular CPA, CPC or ROAS.

Step 1: Set up measurement before spending money

One lesson appears repeatedly in early ChatGPT Ads case studies:

Do not wait until a campaign is running before thinking about conversion measurement.

OpenAI currently supports its browser-based Pixel and server-side Conversions API.

Using both can create more resilient measurement. Where the same conversion is transmitted through both methods, matching event IDs allow OpenAI to deduplicate the events.

OpenAI can also append an oppref click reference to landing-page URLs, helping connect later website actions with an eligible advertising interaction.

We would also recommend using UTM parameters independently of OpenAI's own attribution.

For example:

utm_source=chatgpt

utm_medium=paid_ai

utm_campaign=product_campaign

utm_content=creative_name

This allows advertisers to analyse ChatGPT traffic using their existing analytics systems instead of relying entirely on one advertising platform's reporting.

OpenAI now also supports dynamic URL parameters containing campaign, ad-group and advertisement identifiers.

Using ChatGPT Ads with a Wix website

Businesses using Wix are not excluded from any of this.

Wix supports custom third-party code, analytics tools, UTM campaign tracking and more advanced integrations through Wix Studio and Velo.

The important part is implementation.

The OpenAI Pixel, consent settings and conversion events should be tested on the published website before advertising begins.

Wix allows custom code to be classified by purpose, including Marketing, Analytics, Functional or Essential. Advertising-related tracking should be configured with the business's applicable privacy and consent obligations in mind.

Wix Analytics can also recognise UTM campaign parameters, providing another way to analyse traffic generated by ChatGPT advertisements.

For businesses requiring more robust tracking, server-side conversion measurement may also be worth considering.

The goal should be to know much more than:

“We received 500 clicks.”

The useful questions are:

How many became enquiries?

How many became customers?

Which campaigns produced them?

What did acquiring those customers cost?

What revenue did they generate?

Without that information, cheap ChatGPT traffic can look successful while making very little money.

Step 2: Build campaigns around business objectives

A sensible ChatGPT Ads account structure starts with the business problem rather than a giant collection of keywords.

Campaigns should normally represent distinct objectives, markets or meaningful product groups.

Ad groups can then represent individual customer needs or situations.

For example, an online fashion boutique might separate:

“Wedding guest dresses”

“Workwear outfits”

“Holiday dresses”

“Formal eveningwear”

“Mother and daughter outfits”

These are not simply groups of keywords.

Each represents a different conversation, motivation and buying situation.

That allows each ad group to have its own context hints, creative angles and appropriate landing page.

Step 3: Learn how to write context hints

Context hints are one of the most distinctive elements of ChatGPT advertising.

OpenAI recommends describing clearly what a business offers, who it helps and when that offering may be useful. Context hints help establish relevance but they do not guarantee delivery into a particular conversation.

A useful mental framework is:

Customer + problem + situation + requirement + relevant product or service

For a web-design business, instead of:

“Wix web design, website designer, Wix Studio”

consider:

“UK small-business owners who have an outdated website or are launching a new business and need a professionally designed Wix or Wix Studio website that they can continue managing after launch.”

This creates significantly more meaning.

Advertisers should also watch ambiguous phrases and acronyms carefully.

AI understands context better than traditional keyword systems, but ambiguous terminology can still lead to unintended placements.

Step 4: Create genuinely different advertisements

Uploading six versions of almost identical copy is not a serious creative test.

OpenAI recommends multiple distinct advertisements so its systems have different angles available for different situations.

A business might test different propositions around:

speed,

expertise,

price transparency,

specific product benefits,

social proof,

convenience,

specialisation,

or a particular customer problem.

The advertisement should also make sense immediately after somebody has received a potentially detailed answer from ChatGPT.

Generic advertising copy such as “Transform Your Future Today” communicates very little.

“Wix Studio Websites for UK Businesses” is considerably clearer.

Conversational advertising rewards specificity.

Step 5: Send visitors to the right landing page

Do not automatically send every ChatGPT advertisement to your homepage.

The closer the connection between the conversation, advertisement and landing page, the stronger the user journey becomes.

Think of it as:

Customer problem → relevant ad → relevant page → appropriate action

If somebody is researching formal dresses, send them to a formal-dress collection.

If somebody needs a Wix e-commerce website, send them to the e-commerce web-design service page.

If somebody is comparing local accountants, send them to the relevant service and location page.

The landing page should continue the conversation rather than force the visitor to start their research again.

Step 6: Understand how ChatGPT budgets work

Businesses should pay particular attention to OpenAI's budget pacing.

A daily budget is currently treated as an average daily amount over a seven-day period, not necessarily as a strict same-day limit.

OpenAI says daily spending can reach as much as twice the selected daily budget on an individual day, while the applicable seven-day spend is capped at seven times that daily amount, subject to adjustments where the budget changes.

For companies that require an absolute test-spend ceiling, a campaign-total budget may therefore provide a clearer limit.

This is an important detail for small businesses.

A £30 daily budget should not automatically be interpreted as meaning the account can never spend more than £30 on an individual day.

What do ChatGPT Ads actually cost?

There is not yet one dependable “average ChatGPT Ads CPC”.

Early campaign data varies enormously.

SE Ranking's June 2026 campaign generated 97,131 impressions and 1,263 clicks at an average 1.30% CTR. It attracted traffic but produced almost no sign-ups.

Synter reported another early test involving approximately 130,000 impressions with a blended CPC close to $10, although UK clicks within that test were substantially cheaper than US clicks.

A September European e-commerce case study from PromptMarketing reported 94,900 impressions, 2,287 clicks, a 2.41% CTR and €0.44 CPC. Ads Manager attributed approximately three euros of order value for every euro of advertising spend, although the publisher correctly notes that attributed order value is not the same as independently verified incremental revenue.

A B2B compliance campaign reported by StubGroup found ChatGPT traffic converting at only 0.8% compared with 6.64% for Google Search, yet its ChatGPT CPC was sufficiently cheaper that the reported cost per lead was still lower.

These cases cannot be compared as controlled experiments.

Different countries, businesses, offers, dates, audiences, objectives and attribution models are involved.

But collectively they demonstrate something important:

There is currently no universal ChatGPT Ads benchmark.

A cheap click may be excellent.

It may also be worthless.

A relatively expensive click may produce a profitable customer.

Businesses should optimise towards customer acquisition economics, not vanity metrics.

Why SE Ranking's campaign struggled despite attracting clicks

SE Ranking's experience is particularly useful because it illustrates one of ChatGPT advertising's structural challenges.

Its campaigns generated more than 97,000 impressions and over 1,200 clicks, yet produced almost no meaningful product sign-ups.

The company identified audience fit as a likely factor.

Its ideal customers include SEO specialists, agencies and professional marketers — precisely the kind of intensive AI users who may be more likely to pay for an ad-free ChatGPT subscription.

That creates an unusual advertising paradox:

the better somebody fitted part of the company's target profile, the less likely that person may have been to see an advertisement at all.

Another problem was optimisation.

The campaign initially optimised for clicks rather than conversions, meaning the system had stronger information about who clicked than about which clicks created valuable customers.

ChatGPT Ads has developed since that campaign ran, including the introduction of conversion optimisation.

This is why older ChatGPT Ads case studies should be useful evidence, but should not automatically be treated as descriptions of the platform today.

ChatGPT Ads are changing extremely quickly

This is perhaps the biggest weakness of many articles already ranking for ChatGPT advertising searches.

They become outdated remarkably quickly.

On 16 September 2026, OpenAI announced another major group of advertising developments.

These included Sponsored Agents, AI-assisted advertising creation, additional creative tools, HubSpot integration and Shopify integration.

Sponsored Agents are particularly interesting.

Instead of advertising being limited to showing a message and sending somebody to a conventional website, OpenAI is testing experiences where clicking an advertisement can begin a new conversation with an agent sponsored by the relevant business.

That could eventually change the advertising funnel considerably.

Rather than:

Ad → website → search for information → form

the customer journey could increasingly become:

Conversation → sponsored business → AI agent → personalised questions → appropriate action.

That is much closer to an AI-native advertising experience.

ChatGPT Ads and Shopify

E-commerce is becoming one of the most interesting areas of the platform.

OpenAI supports product-feed campaigns, allowing retailers to supply catalog information so products can be matched with relevant situations.

OpenAI states that advertisers using product feeds have been among the strongest performers in its advertising programme to date.

Its new Shopify integration can connect store catalogue information and commerce-event data with ChatGPT Ads Manager, simplifying catalogue synchronisation and campaign measurement. The rollout is expanding geographically.

This is an important indication of where AI advertising may be heading.

The system does not necessarily need an advertiser to manually predict every product somebody might search for.

A sufficiently rich product catalogue can potentially allow the advertising system to select the most relevant item for the conversation.

ChatGPT Ads and HubSpot

OpenAI has also integrated ChatGPT Ads with HubSpot.

Businesses can connect their advertising account, create campaigns, bring leads into HubSpot, trigger follow-up workflows and view advertising performance alongside other marketing channels.

This matters because ChatGPT Ads should not be assessed in isolation.

For many service businesses, the advertisement itself is only the beginning.

A proper measurement journey might be:

ChatGPT impression → click → enquiry → qualified lead → appointment → sale → repeat customer.

Connecting advertising data with CRM outcomes helps reveal whether a campaign is creating valuable business rather than simply interesting website traffic.

Who should consider testing ChatGPT Ads?

ChatGPT advertising looks particularly interesting when the customer naturally needs to research, compare, explain requirements or make a considered decision.

Potential examples include e-commerce, travel, education, software, home services, professional services where permitted, consumer products, local businesses and products where customers commonly compare several attributes before buying.

Businesses with detailed catalogues could become particularly interesting as product-feed capabilities mature.

ChatGPT Ads may currently be less compelling where the audience is extremely narrow, most potential customers are likely to use ad-free ChatGPT subscriptions, the sales cycle is extremely long, conversion measurement is poor or advertising policies restrict the product category.

What businesses are prohibited or restricted?

OpenAI operates advertising policies governing both advertisements and the environments where they can appear.

Sensitive and regulated categories can be restricted, prohibited or require additional review.

Current policy areas include political advertising, gambling, alcohol and drugs, dating and sexual content, certain healthcare, financial and legal services, sensitive claims and other regulated categories.

Businesses should check OpenAI's current advertising policies before creating a campaign because these rules continue to evolve.

Policy compliance applies to more than the advertising copy.

The creative, claims and destination website all need to be suitable.

The biggest mistakes businesses can make with ChatGPT Ads

The first mistake is treating ChatGPT like Google Search and simply converting an existing keyword list into context hints.

The second is optimising for clicks without measuring whether those visitors become customers.

The third is sending every advertisement to a generic homepage.

The fourth is creating several advertisements that all say effectively the same thing.

The fifth is forgetting that paid ChatGPT advertising reaches only the ad-supported portion of ChatGPT's audience.

The sixth is assuming that appearing in an advertisement will make ChatGPT recommend your company organically.

It will not.

Paid advertising and organic AI visibility are separate disciplines.

Does advertising on ChatGPT improve your organic ChatGPT ranking?

There is no evidence that purchasing ChatGPT Ads causes ChatGPT to favour an advertiser inside its ordinary answers.

OpenAI explicitly separates advertisements from model responses.

Independent research has also found little overlap between paid advertising placements and brands being cited organically within answers.

Businesses therefore should not think of ChatGPT Ads as a shortcut to Generative Engine Optimisation, AI Search Optimisation or traditional SEO.

A complete AI visibility strategy can include both:

Paid AI visibility: ChatGPT Ads, targeting, creative, feeds, landing pages and conversion optimisation.

Organic AI visibility: strong website architecture, useful content, technical SEO, structured information, brand authority, external mentions and content that AI search systems can discover and understand.

For many companies, the combination will be considerably more powerful than concentrating on either one alone.

Should a small UK business advertise on ChatGPT now?

For the right business, it is worth considering as a controlled experiment.

We would not recommend automatically transferring a large portion of an established Google Ads or Meta Ads budget into ChatGPT simply because AI advertising is new.

Instead, define a test.

Choose one product or service with a clear customer problem.

Create strong conversion measurement.

Build several genuinely different creatives.

Use specific context hints.

Send visitors to a tightly relevant landing page.

Set a controlled budget.

Then measure actual commercial outcomes.

The objective is not to prove that ChatGPT Ads “work”.

The objective is to discover whether ChatGPT Ads work profitably for your particular business.

Those are very different questions.

The future of advertising may be conversational

Search advertising has traditionally been about matching an advertiser to a query.

Social advertising has largely been about matching an advertiser to an audience.

Conversational advertising introduces something different:

matching a business with a problem being actively discussed.

That could become extremely powerful.

A customer no longer has to reduce a complicated problem to three or four keywords.

They can explain the entire situation.

As AI systems become better at understanding that situation, product feeds become richer, measurement improves and sponsored agents become more sophisticated, the boundary between advertising, customer service, product discovery and sales assistance may become increasingly blurred.

ChatGPT Ads is still an emerging platform.

That means limitations, uneven performance and rapid product changes should be expected.

It also means businesses willing to test carefully now have an opportunity to learn how conversational advertising works before it becomes a routine part of digital marketing.

For Wix businesses in particular, the opportunity is not simply to “run another advertising campaign”.

It is to connect strong website design, conversion-focused landing pages, analytics, e-commerce data, SEO and AI visibility into one increasingly connected customer journey.

And that is likely to be the much bigger story behind ChatGPT advertising.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can businesses advertise on ChatGPT?

Yes. OpenAI now operates ChatGPT Ads and a self-service Ads Manager in supported countries, including the United Kingdom.

How much does ChatGPT advertising cost in the UK?

OpenAI currently lists a £15 minimum daily budget for advertising accounts billed in GBP. Actual CPC and CPM vary according to campaign, market, targeting, relevance and competition.

Are ChatGPT Ads the same as Google Ads?

No. Google Ads relies heavily on searches and keywords, while ChatGPT advertising can consider conversational context and intent alongside context hints, the advertisement and its landing page.

Can advertisers read the ChatGPT conversations where their advertisements appeared?

No. OpenAI states that advertisers do not receive people's ChatGPT conversations or chat histories.

Do ChatGPT Plus users see advertisements?

Currently, no. OpenAI says Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu accounts remain ad-free.

Does paying for ChatGPT Ads make ChatGPT recommend my company?

No. Advertisements are separate from ChatGPT's answers and purchasing advertising does not purchase organic recommendations.

Can a Wix website be used with ChatGPT Ads?

Yes. Wix businesses can use campaign landing pages, UTM tracking, analytics and third-party/custom integrations. Conversion measurement should be configured and tested before a significant advertising campaign begins.

Are ChatGPT Ads worth testing?

They can be, particularly when customers naturally research or compare products and services conversationally. Early case studies show everything from poor conversion quality to low-cost profitable acquisition, so individual testing and proper attribution are essential.

About Wix Solutions

Wix Solutions helps businesses create, improve and grow professional Wix and Wix Studio websites, with services spanning web design, e-commerce, SEO, integrations, automation and digital marketing.

As search and customer discovery increasingly move across Google, social platforms and AI systems such as ChatGPT, businesses need websites designed not simply to look good, but to support measurable growth across an increasingly complex digital environment.

This article reflects information available in September 2026. ChatGPT Ads remains a rapidly developing advertising platform, so features, availability, pricing and policies may change.