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Paid advertising

ChatGPT ads setup: how to launch your first campaign in Ads Manager

The ScaleLab teamPublished 14 min read

In short: ChatGPT ads are set up in Ads Manager at ads.openai.com: you create a business account, pass verification, add a card and build a campaign, ad groups and ads. The account’s country, currency and time zone, and each campaign’s objective, cannot be changed later, so decide them up front. Before you spend anything, check that your site lets the OAI-AdsBot crawler in and that the pixel or Conversions API records each enquiry exactly once.

This is the hands-on set-up guide. If you are still deciding whether the channel suits you, start with our article on ChatGPT ads and who they are for. Here we walk through the set-up using OpenAI’s help centre as of 16 September 2026. Ads Manager is in beta and changes often, so check every step against your own account.

What should you have ready before opening Ads Manager?

Since 24 August 2026 ChatGPT has shown ads in 31 European markets, Bulgaria among them, and since 31 August businesses in those markets can run ads themselves. The condition is that the legal entity advertising and paying is based in a country on OpenAI’s self-serve list. Bulgaria is on it.

The other route is through OpenAI’s ads sales team, an agency or a technology partner. For most small and mid-sized businesses the self-serve account is the more direct option.

Before you start, gather the following:

  • Business details: exact legal name, website, logo and industry. The account name and logo appear in the ad itself.
  • A decision on country, currency and time zone: none of the three can be changed once the account exists.
  • A payment card: self-serve accounts pay by card, and the card should match the business and its country.
  • Landing page: a specific page for the service or product, not the home page.
  • Tracking: access to the site code or Google Tag Manager for the pixel, and a clear definition of what counts as an enquiry or an order.
  • An allowed category: read OpenAI’s ad policies before paying anyone to prepare a campaign.

How do you create the account, and what cannot be changed later?

1. Sign up and enter business details

Sign in at ads.openai.com with an OpenAI account on your work email, or create one. Enter the business details, country, currency and time zone. One owner creates the account and then invites colleagues.

2. Business verification

Next come verification questions through Persona and a review in which OpenAI also checks whether your products are eligible. Review can take time. Do not submit a second application: it does not speed anything up.

3. Name, logo and billing

Once you get the access email, open Settings, then Account info, and check the name and logo. Ads will not serve until this is done. Then create a billing profile with an address and invoice email, add a card and, if needed, a VAT number.

4. Access for your team and your agency

An agency cannot create an account on a client’s behalf. The business creates it and invites the agency. Account roles are admin, member and viewer.

What cannot be changed later? Country, billing currency and time zone. If you get them wrong, you need a new account. If your business has already moved its site and accounts to the euro, see our checklist for prices and accounts after the euro switch, so the ad account does not open with settings that clash with your invoices.

ScaleLab tip: Before you click create, write down the exact registered company name, invoice address, currency and time zone, and check them with your accountant. Five minutes here saves a new account and a second verification.

Bear in mind that some new accounts can initially advertise only in their home country. Other countries unlock after verification is approved and the account reaches the required spend at home.

How do you build campaigns, ad groups and ads?

The campaign sets the objective, budget, dates and countries. The ad group gathers ads around one customer need. The ad appears below ChatGPT’s answer: name and logo, title, copy, image and landing page.

Pick an objective you will not change

Ads Manager offers three objectives:

  • Views (CPM): you pay per thousand impressions and aim for visibility.
  • Clicks (CPC): you pay per valid click and send people to your site.
  • Conversions: the system optimises towards a chosen standard action, such as a purchase or a lead, but you pay per click (oCPC) or per impression (oCPM), not per conversion.

The objective, billing model and conversion event cannot be changed after the campaign is created. The budget type cannot be switched back either. If something is wrong, build a new campaign.

Split ad groups by need, not by product

Create a separate ad group whenever a need calls for a different message or a different landing page.

Each ad group takes context hints. They describe what you offer, who it helps and in which situation. They are not exact-match keywords and not targeting rules: they cannot restrict a city, a time or an audience.

Here is an example for a fictional air conditioning company in Plovdiv:

  • Good hint: “air conditioning installed in Plovdiv flats, with a site survey before the quote”.
  • Good hint: “choosing a quiet inverter air con for a bedroom when noise at night is a concern”.
  • Weak hint: “air con, price, installation, offer”. That is a word list, not a need.
  • Wrong hint: “only show this ad to people in Plovdiv”. That is an instruction, and hints do not follow instructions.

Write ads that continue the conversation

The person has already had an explanation from ChatGPT. The ad should add a clear benefit rather than repeat a slogan. OpenAI recommends several distinct title and copy variations per ad group, each with its own angle.

For the same company, two ads in one group might read: title “Air con with fitting” and copy “Survey, quote and fitting by one team.”; second title “A quiet bedroom air con” and copy “We help you size the unit for the room.” Each answers a different question people ask before requesting a quote.

Requirement What OpenAI states As of
Title 16 to 24 characters recommended, 50 maximum 16 September 2026
Copy 32 to 48 characters recommended, 100 maximum 16 September 2026
Image PNG or JPG, square, up to 1200 x 1200 pixels 16 September 2026
Minimum daily budget EUR 15 for euro-billed accounts 16 September 2026
Review crawler OAI-AdsBot must have access 16 September 2026
Conversions in reports 24 to 48 hours delay 16 September 2026

How do targeting, bidding, budgets and billing work?

Targeting in Europe

For European campaigns, plan on country targeting. OpenAI says narrower locations, such as regions, cities or postcodes, exist in some markets, but availability varies by country, and new selections in product feed campaigns are country-level only. Check which options appear for your country when you create the campaign.

Personalised ads are not yet available in the European Economic Area and Switzerland, and for campaigns aimed there OpenAI advises against custom audiences. Ads are matched to the current conversation.

Bidding

Eligible new ad groups default to the Maximize results strategy: the system sets bids to get as many clicks or conversions as possible within the budget. It does not aim for a specific CPC or CPA. If you need a ceiling, choose Manual: Max bid and set a maximum CPM or CPC. The only starting bid guidance in the help centre is in US dollars, so follow the bid strength guidance in Ads Manager rather than planning on other people’s numbers.

Budget and billing

A daily budget is an average per day across seven days. On a single day spend can reach twice the daily budget, but over the week it will not exceed seven times. A campaign total budget is the stricter control.

Billing is postpaid. Your card is charged when unpaid spend reaches the account’s payment threshold, and any remaining balance is charged at month end. You cannot change the threshold yourself. After you pause a campaign, ads may keep showing for up to 24 hours, and that spend is billable.

What must your site allow, and how do you measure results?

Crawler access

OpenAI checks landing pages with a crawler. OAI-AdsBot is required and OAI-SearchBot is recommended. Check three layers: robots.txt, bot protection in your CDN or firewall, and human checks such as CAPTCHAs. Blocked access means a rejected ad.

ScaleLab tip: Ask your developer to request the landing page with the OAI-AdsBot user agent and confirm the response is 200, not 403 or 429. Do it before uploading ads, not after the first rejection.

Pixel and Conversions API

Conversions are recorded with the OpenAI Pixel in the browser, the Conversions API from your server, or both. Use a standard event where one fits, such as order_created for a purchase or lead_created for an enquiry. Only standard events can be the goal of a conversion-optimised campaign.

Three things make the difference:

  • Consent: the pixel starts with consent set to “yes” by default. If your site needs consent for measurement, set it to “no” before initialisation and switch it on only after the visitor’s choice in the banner. How to set up the banner and GA4 is in our Consent Mode and GA4 checklist.
  • No double counting: when one enquiry is sent by both the pixel and the server, use the same event name and the same event ID.
  • The oppref parameter: OpenAI adds it to the landing page URL. Keep it through redirects, and pass it manually with the Conversions API.

UTM and GA4

Add UTM parameters to every ad URL so the traffic shows in GA4. Ads Manager also supports dynamic parameters such as {campaign_id} and {ad_id}. Clicks in Ads Manager and sessions in GA4 will not match exactly because of redirects, consent and time zones, and conversions reach the report 24 to 48 hours late. Which figures to compare is covered in our article on paid advertising metrics beyond clicks.

Product feeds for online shops

Online shops can upload a product feed under Tools, then Feeds, as a file, a hosted URL or via SFTP. Items expire after two weeks, so choose automatic updates. The campaign type is Product feed, and products are selected with filters. Check in your account whether the option is available to you.

What gets through ad review?

Review covers the title, copy, image and landing page. As of 10 September 2026 OpenAI’s policies say ads are focused mainly on consumer categories: household goods, local services, travel and entertainment, digital products and education.

Take particular care with these:

  • Finance, health and legal services: under the policies, such ads are generally not allowed outside the US.
  • Property and jobs: ads for an individual property or job listing are prohibited.
  • Mismatch: an approved ad cannot link to a page with disallowed content.
  • Imitating ChatGPT: the ad must not look like part of the interface.

If an ad shows as Not serving, hover over the status to see why, fix it and resubmit. How to prepare ads in sectors with stricter rules generally is covered in our article on advertising in regulated industries.

How should you run the first 30 days?

The plan below is our recommendation, not an OpenAI rule.

Before launch: check the tracking

Send a test enquiry through the site and confirm the event arrives in Ads Manager and in GA4 exactly once. If you are not sure the site records every enquiry, a free website and tracking audit is a sensible starting point.

Days 1 to 7: launch and leave it

Start with the Clicks objective, a daily budget and two or three ad groups by customer need, with three or four ads each. OpenAI’s help centre suggests waiting at least 24 hours before reporting a delivery issue. In the first week, only fix rejected ads.

Days 8 to 21: cut what is weak

Compare CTR by ad and ad group. Replace lagging ads with a new angle, not a reworded version of the old copy.

Days 22 to 30: decide on cost per enquiry

Compare enquiries in your own system with the Ads Manager report, allowing 48 hours for late conversions. Work out the cost per enquiry and compare it with the ceiling you set from your margin. If you have enough conversion events, try the Conversions objective in a new campaign, because the existing one cannot change its objective.

Mistakes that cost money

  • Wrong currency or time zone: they cannot be fixed and mean a new account.
  • Blocked OAI-AdsBot: ads get rejected and the cause sits on your site.
  • Pixel without consent settings: data is collected before the banner choice.
  • One ad group for everything: the system cannot tell in which conversation the ad is useful.
  • Decisions after two days: conversions are not in the report yet.

The good news is that every one of these can be caught before launch. In our paid advertising work, the site and tracking are checked before advertising gets a budget, and channels are compared by cost per enquiry in a monthly report.

Frequently asked questions

Can a Bulgarian business run ChatGPT ads on its own?

Yes. As of 16 September 2026 OpenAI lists Bulgaria among the countries with self-serve access to Ads Manager. The account goes through verification before the first campaign.

What is the minimum budget?

For euro-billed accounts the minimum daily budget is EUR 15 as of 16 September 2026. On a single day spend can be up to twice as high, because the budget is an average across the week.

Can I change the currency or time zone later?

No. Country, currency and time zone cannot be changed after the account is created. If they are wrong, you need to create a new account.

Do I need the OpenAI Pixel if I already use GA4?

With UTM parameters you will see ad traffic in GA4. For Ads Manager to report conversions, and to use the Conversions objective, you need the OpenAI Pixel, the Conversions API or both, with consent configured where it is required.

Why is my ad not showing?

Common causes are unfinished account verification, a card problem, ad review still in progress or a blocked OAI-AdsBot. Hover over the Not serving status to see the reason.

Sources

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