There is a brand new way to spend money on marketing this month, and the pitches are already flying. You can now pay to get your business into ChatGPT's answers. Be the one the AI recommends. Beat your competitor to it.
Before you hand anybody a dollar for it, let me save you some. I went straight to OpenAI to find out how these new ChatGPT ads actually work, and there are two things nobody selling them is telling you.
First, to be fair, the pitch is not lying about everything. This is real. OpenAI started putting ads inside ChatGPT back in February. In May they opened it up so any business can buy them, no big minimum, you just run a campaign like you would on Google. And it is moving fast. By the end of August they had already hit a billion dollars a year in revenue in under 200 days. So yes, you genuinely can pay to show up inside ChatGPT now. It is the next part that matters.
Catch one: an ad is not the recommendation
OpenAI says it in plain language: the ads do not change the actual answer. They are labeled Sponsored and they sit in a separate box. So when somebody promises to get you recommended by the AI, that is not what you are buying. You are buying a labeled ad that sits next to the answer. You are not the answer.
Catch two: your best customer may never see it
This is the one that should keep your wallet closed for now. Those ads only show to people using the free version of ChatGPT. Everybody who pays for it, the serious users who rely on it for real decisions, they never see a single ad. So picture a homeowner deep into researching a big job, weighing real money. There is a good chance they are on the paid side, invisible to your ad entirely. You could spend real money to reach the casual browser while the person with the checkbook never knows you exist.
This is not anti-advertising
Let me be clear, because this is important. I am the last person to tell you ads do not work. Paid search is one of the best tools we have. When somebody types I need this fixed today into Google and your ad is right there, that is a customer at the exact moment they are ready to buy. That is money well spent. A sponsored box at the bottom of a free chatbot answer, shown to a casual browser, is a completely different bet. Same word, ad, totally different play. Smart paid media is about putting your money where the intent is, and for now, this one is mostly intent-free.
Where I land
ChatGPT ads are not a scam. It is a real, fast-growing channel and I am watching it closely. But an ad is not a recommendation, it will not reach your best buyers yet, and it is no shortcut for the real work of becoming the answer the AI gives on its own.
The prize has not changed. It is still being the business the AI names on its own, the recommendation that shows up because you earned it, not because you rented a box at the bottom of the screen. That is the one your customers actually trust, and it is the one money cannot just buy.
If you want to run a small, clear-eyed test on ChatGPT ads and measure every dollar, go for it. Just do not bet the farm, and do not let anybody convince you that renting an ad is the same as being recommended.
Watch the full episode: youtube.com/searchanddestroyshow