ChatGPT Ads management, from someone already running them.

There are three parts: the ad spend, a one-off set-up and our monthly management. On the ad side, at the time of writing, OpenAI sets a minimum daily budget of £15 for accounts billed in pounds. It has not published UK bid guidance; in its US Ads Manager it has suggested starting bids of around $3 to $5 a click. £15 a day is OpenAI's floor, not a managed budget: a managed test needs enough spend for our fee to make sense, and we will talk through the right figure on the call. Setting up the account, tracking and first ads is a one-off cost, quoted after the discovery call (an audit of an existing account starts from £750), so you have the figure before anything starts. Our management is part of our paid media fee, from £1,500 a month, agreed up front and separate from the spend, which stays in your own account on your own card. If we already run your Google Ads, a ChatGPT test is quoted as an addition to that fee, not a second retainer.

Yes, if it is eligible. ChatGPT ads have been live in the UK since June 2026, and UK businesses can buy them through OpenAI's self-serve Ads Manager. The business being billed has to be based in a country where self-serve is available, which a UK limited company is. Ads are shown to logged-in adults on the Free and Go plans; paid plans such as Plus and Pro are ad-free. Some categories cannot advertise at all, and rules for regulated sectors such as finance, health and legal are stricter and still changing outside the US, so we check eligibility first.

Through OpenAI's self-serve Ads Manager, which is open to UK businesses. You create an account in your business's name, add a payment card, install OpenAI's pixel where it's available, then build a campaign with a daily budget, bids, context hints and ad cards. We do all of that for you, in an account you own.

Google Ads match your ad to the words someone searches. ChatGPT ads are matched to the topic of a conversation, using context hints rather than a keyword list, and appear as a sponsored card below the answer. The ad is shorter, the targeting is broader and the reporting is less mature than Google's. For most businesses, Google Ads should stay the main channel, with ChatGPT tested alongside it.

Nobody can promise that yet. They suit services and considered purchases that people research before buying, and businesses with a clear reason to be chosen. If your Google Ads account is not working well yet, or you need every click to pay back straight away, fix that or wait. We will give you an honest view on the discovery call.

Where available, OpenAI's pixel and Conversions API report conversions back to the platform. We also connect ChatGPT traffic to GA4 and, where you have one, your CRM, so enquiries are counted the same way as every other channel. Reporting inside the platform is still incomplete, so we also watch for knock-on effects, such as more people searching for your business by name.

Not according to OpenAI. OpenAI says ads do not influence ChatGPT's answers, ads are labelled as sponsored and kept separate from the answer, and conversations are kept private from advertisers. Being mentioned in the answers themselves is a separate job, done through your website and content rather than through ads.

Once the ads are approved, impressions and clicks usually start to come through within days. For a fair read on enquiries and cost, allow around two months, and longer if you sell something people take time to decide on.

Nathan McDonald, who founded Smarter Sites and has spent 15 years running paid search and paid media. He is running live ChatGPT ad campaigns now, so your account is set up by someone learning from current campaigns, not from a press release.