Advertising in ChatGPT: Your customer asks ChatGPT. Your ad can now be lifted to just below the answer.

The ad appears below ChatGPT's answer, labelled as an ad and set apart from the answer itself. Only adult users on the Free and Go plans see it. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu accounts have no ads, and neither do temporary chats.

There are no keywords. The system chooses an ad from the meaning of the conversation, from the ad's landing page, title and copy, and from "context hints": phrases in which you describe what you offer, who it suits and when it helps. When several ads are eligible, a relevance-weighted second-price auction decides, so relevance counts, not only the bid.

OpenAI states that ads do not influence the answer, that advertisers never see conversations and that they receive only aggregated data such as impressions and clicks. In the European Economic Area and Switzerland, ads are not personalised for now: they are chosen from the conversation at hand, the language and the general location.

In this first phase OpenAI accepts mainly consumer categories: lifestyle and household goods, local services, travel and experiences, digital products and education. Financial services, healthcare and legal services are approved case by case and, according to its policies, are generally prohibited outside the US.

For a business in Europe that means: a hotel, an online shop, a restaurant, an olive-oil producer, a language school or an app can advertise today. A clinic, an insurer, a law firm or a winery cannot, under the current rules. The rule covers the whole path: image, copy and landing page must all sit in an allowed category.

Every campaign has one of three objectives. Views, billed per 1,000 impressions (CPM). Clicks, billed per valid click (CPC). And Conversions, where the system aims at a conversion you measure, but you still pay per click or per 1,000 impressions, not per conversion.

The maximum bid is set per ad group. For click campaigns, OpenAI suggests starting at $3 to $5 per click. No averages have been published for European markets yet; anyone quoting "the CPC in Europe" in October 2026 is speaking about their own accounts.

A campaign has an objective, a budget, dates and countries, and optionally platforms. Inside it, ad groups are organised around one product or one need, each with its own context hints and its own ads.

Context hints are the most important part, and the newest. OpenAI asks for phrases that say what you offer, who it suits and when it is useful, one idea each. They are not keywords and not targeting rules: a phrase such as "show this ad only to people in Athens" does nothing.

An ad does not put you inside ChatGPT's answer; it puts you below it, labelled as an ad. For ChatGPT itself to cite or recommend you, its search crawler must be able to read your site and your content must answer clearly what customers ask.

Both stand on the same foundation: a site that can be read without obstacles, pages that say specifically what you do, correct product data. Ads give you a place from day one; organic visibility takes months to build, but you do not pay per click for it.