ChatGPT Ads (OpenAI Ads): our Canada test and the real numbers
We tested the ads in ChatGPT as soon as they reached Canada, on two B2B campaigns. The result: a conversion rate close to six times lower than on Google Ads, for the same client. The format is not the problem. What decides the outcome is that the ads reach only a free audience, one your decision-makers are absent from.
- Our B2B test converted at 0.9% in ChatGPT versus 5.95% on Google Ads, same client, same period, same conversion tracking. The gap steers the acquisition budget without ambiguity.
- The ads show only on the Free and Go tiers. A decision-maker who pays for a higher tier never sees your ad, which structurally penalizes B2B.
- The channel is no longer blind: since May 2026, a pixel and a Conversions API let you judge it on sales, not on views alone.
- Targeting works through context hints in natural language, not keywords. The precision of those hints matters more than the size of your bid.
- Judge this channel as a small-scale learning budget, not as a substitute for the campaigns that already drive your sales.
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What is an ad-exposure tier
An ad-exposure tier is the subscription level that determines whether or not a user sees ads in a service. In ChatGPT, only the Free and Go tiers display ads; the higher tiers show none. It sets, before any targeting, the population a campaign can actually reach. On a platform where decision-makers pay not to see ads, this tier decides the reach of a budget far more than the targeting itself.
Our Canada test, and what it shows
This article is for owners and marketing managers considering opening a budget on ads in ChatGPT, especially in B2B. It is not aimed at low-basket consumer campaigns, where the math differs, and it does not replace a test run on your own data.
We launched two B2B campaigns in OpenAI's self-serve manager in spring 2026, shortly after Canada opened up. To compare fairly, we measured the conversion rate with the same tracking as our Google Ads campaigns, over the same period and for the same client. The exact sectors and budgets stay confidential.
The verdict is clear: 5.95% conversion on Google Ads versus 0.9% on OpenAI Ads, a gap of more than six times. We knew the ads reached only free users, and we wanted to test anyway. The numbers confirmed the theory. What follows explains why this result was structurally predictable, and what you can still draw from the channel without risking the budget that already produces your sales.
Many companies will open a budget on this channel, compare it to their Google search campaigns, and conclude too fast that it does not work. The real risk is not losing the small stake of the test, it is judging a young visibility channel by the yardstick of a mature conversion channel, then cutting before you have understood who it speaks to. Bad measurement costs more than the spend itself.
How ads in ChatGPT work
Ads in ChatGPT are sponsored cards, clearly labelled, shown below the answer when the conversation is judged relevant. A single ad unit appears per answer, and targeting works through context hints, natural-language descriptions rather than keywords.
According to OpenAI's documentation, these context hints describe the conversations, topics or intentions where your offer is relevant. They guide the match without guaranteeing it: the system picks the ad based on relevance to the context, analyzing the hints, the headline, the copy and the landing page. There is no exact match and no guaranteed delivery in a specific conversation. Working on the precision of your hints and the quality of your landing page therefore often weighs more than raising the bid, because the match is weighted by relevance.
The detail that governs everything else: the ads are shown only to users on the Free and Go tiers, the entry plan at US$8 per month. The higher tiers, Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise, see no ads at all, and OpenAI presents this absence as a permanent benefit of the paid plans, not as a temporary restriction.
Why the audience decides everything
The ad-exposure tier is the key to reading the channel. It defines, before any targeting, who can see your ad, and that population is built from the segments that do not pay to remove ads. In B2B, this is a deep problem: your decision-makers pay in large numbers for an ad-free account, so they are structurally invisible to your campaigns. You mostly speak to individual contributors and information seekers, rarely to the people who sign contracts.
The imbalance goes beyond B2B. An audience defined by an unwillingness to pay for a subscription leans toward price-sensitive profiles. Someone who will not spend a few dollars a month on a tool they use every week is not the typical prospect for a high-purchasing-power offer. For a management team, the consequence is direct: on this channel, the audience constrains returns before targeting even comes into play, and no budget buys back an audience that is not there.
Where the channel shows signs of life is on the consumer side with strong purchase intent, on affordable offers. Retail and low-price gifts find an audience and an intent that meet there. It is the exact opposite of a considered B2B purchase, which is why our test started with a disadvantage that no campaign setting could fix. The broader context of this channel is covered in our article on ads in ChatGPT.
What you can measure, and what is missing
At launch, advertisers received only impressions and clicks, which made any cost-per-acquisition calculation impractical. That is no longer true. Since May 2026, OpenAI offers a measurement pixel and a Conversions API to track conversions on the browser side and the server side. That is what let us compare our conversion rates across the two platforms rather than stopping at the click.
What is still missing, compared to Google and Meta, comes down to three things: no reliable measurement after a mere impression, no incrementality study, no third-party measurement. To defend a budget to a management team, you therefore work with an incomplete dashboard, but you are no longer blind. The distinction between an attributed sale and a sale actually caused by the ad remains fully in play, and it holds here as elsewhere: we cover it in our article on incrementality tests.
One nuance deserves to be named, because it qualifies our own result. Visitors referred by AI platforms convert, according to Criteo, about one and a half times better than other referral channels: the conversation does a qualification job that a query does not. The traffic is rare, but when it clicks, it is often more engaged. Our B2B results do not reflect this effect, precisely because the audience we were after was not there.
What to do right now
Our recommendation comes down to four points, all aimed at protecting your main budget.
Choose the offer that speaks to a free audience. Put forward affordable offers, consumer products, useful content. Avoid pushing a high-purchasing-power sale there. In B2B, accept that you mostly speak to individual contributors and information seekers, not decision-makers.
Test small, with decision thresholds set in advance. Treat this channel as a learning budget, not as a substitute for the campaigns that already deliver. Give the test at least thirty days, and write your criteria before you launch, for example. You scale up if the cost per acquisition stays under one and a half times the Google Ads benchmark, you cut if it goes past double.
Set up measurement before the first dollar. A conversion pixel and a dedicated segment in your analytics tool. The channel now has the tools to be judged on sales; without them, you will judge on the click, and the click on this format almost always disappoints against search.
Judge the channel on what it can deliver today. Visibility during the research phase and a bit of qualified traffic, not a direct conversion engine. Compare its returns to your visibility campaigns, not to your brand campaigns on Google.
What to settle before opening a budget on this channel
The test spend is small, but the real cost is management time and the risk of drawing the wrong conclusion. These five questions get settled before you commit the first dollar.
- Is your typical client on a free tier, or do they pay to stop seeing ads?
- What learning budget are you willing to lose without it touching your profitable campaigns?
- Is conversion measurement in place before launch, or will you judge on the click?
- Against which benchmark do you compare returns: your brand campaigns, or your visibility campaigns?
- If the cost per acquisition goes past double your benchmark after thirty days, what do you stop, and who decides?
A good answer names a client, a tier, a cost threshold and a decision. A vague answer talks about being present on AI. A vendor who pitches you this channel without asking where your buyer is is selling a presence, not acquisition.
Deciding whether this channel has a place in your acquisition, and at what budget, is exactly the kind of question we settle in a paid audit.
The companies that lose money on this channel do not lose it in the bid, they lose it in the comparison. They pit a young visibility channel against their best search campaigns, see the gap, and cut without having learned anything. The ones that get something out of it do the opposite: they set a small budget, a visibility benchmark and a cost threshold in advance, they put measurement in place, and they read the result for what it is. Our own test confirmed the theory rather than disproving it, and it cost us a learning stake, not a share of the budget that keeps our clients alive.
The overall view of paid channels is in how to choose an advertising platform.
Steering an acquisition budget on what it produces, channel by channel, is at the heart of the Optimize the profitability of your digital campaigns goal.
Already running your campaigns and want backup to frame this channel? See our work in paid advertising.
Frequently asked questions about ads in ChatGPT
Are ads in ChatGPT available in Canada?
Yes. OpenAI began testing ads in the United States on February 9, 2026, then extended them to other markets including Canada in spring 2026. The self-serve campaign manager is available to Canadian advertisers, which let us run our own tests on it.
Who sees ads in ChatGPT?
Only users on the Free and Go tiers, the latter at US$8 per month. Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise subscribers see no ads. This is a major structural limit for B2B, whose decision-makers largely use paid accounts and therefore stay out of reach of your ads.
How do you target an ad in ChatGPT?
Not with keywords, but with context hints: natural-language descriptions of the conversations where the ad is relevant. The match is weighted by relevance, so a precise, well-framed hint earns a better placement than a vague hint paired with a higher bid. Targeting precision weighs more than the amount bid.
Can you measure conversions from ChatGPT ads?
Yes, since May 2026. OpenAI offers a conversion pixel and a server-side Conversions API, on top of click tracking. Still missing are measurement after a mere impression, incrementality studies and third-party measurement. So you can judge the channel on sales, with a dashboard that is still incomplete.
Do ads in ChatGPT work for B2B?
Poorly, for now. Your decision-makers pay for ad-free accounts and therefore do not see your ads. Our own B2B test converted nearly six times worse than on Google Ads, for the same client. The channel serves affordable consumer offers better than considered business-to-business sales.
- OpenAI, Testing ads in ChatGPT, official announcement, February 2026, accessed July 2026. Source for the February 9, 2026 launch date and the extension to other markets.
- OpenAI, Ads in ChatGPT, official documentation accessed July 2026. Source for the one-ad-per-answer format, targeting by context hints and the tiers that display ads.
- OpenAI, New ways to buy ChatGPT ads, official announcement, May 2026, accessed July 2026. Source for the self-serve manager, cost-per-click bidding and measurement via pixel and Conversions API.
- OpenAI, Introducing ChatGPT Go, official page accessed July 2026. Source for the Go tier price of US$8 per month.
- Criteo, update on its integration with OpenAI, official press release, 2026, accessed July 2026. Source for the higher conversion rate of visitors referred by AI platforms.
Gabriel almost always takes your first call and carries out your audit. He builds the strategy starting from your growth goal: where to put your budget, which market to test and how to connect each lead to a real sale in your CRM. He mainly leads engagements for three goals: Optimize the profitability of your digital campaigns, Develop a new market, and Generate demand and growth. With Geneviève, he also works on organic search (SEO), AI visibility (GEO) and conversion rate optimization (CRO). The sales a Google Ads or Meta Ads campaign brings in depend on the page that receives the click. He writes mainly about marketing strategy, paid advertising and measurement.
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