OpenAI has persuaded more than 100,000 advertisers to test ChatGPT Ads, which launched about nine months ago and reached a $1 billion annualised revenue run rate this summer.
The harder job now is moving from “experimental” budgets to permanent spots in media plans, and early verdicts from marketers are mixed. Twilio’s CMO said his company has “dabbled,” and Intuit’s CMO said it is “experimenting.”
ChatGPT Ads Earn $0.89 per Session vs $2.45 for Google, Study Finds
Effectiveness is the main concern. A working paper by Maximilian Kaiser and Christian Schulze found ChatGPT Ads generated $0.89 in revenue per US session across 102 advertiser sites, versus $2.45 for Google search ads.
Adthena’s data on 30 enterprise brands found 52% struggled to recoup their spend and 26% matched or beat Google. OpenAI cited Evernote, whose trial-to-paid conversion was about 10% to 20% above its historical average.
Growth is limited by the size of ChatGPT’s free user base, scarce ad-relevant conversations and how many ads users will tolerate. Qualcomm’s CMO said targeting is limited unless it is “super, super broad.” Measurement is a “sore point,” though OpenAI has added a pixel and conversion bidding.
Some are seeing wins. Natural Intelligence moved ChatGPT Ads into its “growth budget,” and says feeding conversion data back to the platform has been crucial. Black Friday is seen as a key test.
