OpenAI is continuing its ad platform buildout in an effort to court advertisers.
Fresh off announcing a ChatGPT ad rollout in 31 countries, the AI platform is rolling out a redesigned campaign onboarding experience for advertisers launching new campaigns.
The new onboarding experience, which was detailed as part of a webinar for marketers that took place earlier this month, also included what is likely a familiar incentive for most marketers: $500 in matching ad credits for $500 in ad spend for new advertisers.
OpenAI’s pitch to advertisers comes at a pivotal time for the company. The company recently told investors its revenue grew by 18% quarter over quarter, but its losses also increased, posing challenges for the business, according to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/openais-second-quarter-sales-show-tepid-growth-compared-with-anthropic-5cb42998″ rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>the Wall Street Journal; the company is aiming to go public amid considerable interest in AI from investors.
As it looks for a path to profitability, OpenAI is looking for new ways to persuade marketers, who according to Emarketer are on track to spend more than a trillion dollars in 2026, to direct some of that spend to it. Central to the pitch is that ChatGPT is an attractive place to advertise as users flock to the platform with a variety of queries at various stages of intent.
“People are using [ChatGPT]to discover new products, explore their options, and ultimately decide what to buy,” Christin Klein, a global ad solutions team member who cohosted the webinar, said during the presentation. “What is different is that what was once a fragmented journey across different websites, reviews, [and] offline and online channels is now consolidated in ChatGPT. This creates a really unique opportunity for marketers.”
How it works: Zoheb Hajiyani, an OpenAI product team member who cohosted the webinar, said that OpenAI’s new campaign onboarding experience, redesigned to streamline campaign creation for new advertisers, can be used to construct a campaign in less than 60 seconds. According to the pitch, an advertiser can head to the website, input their website URL, and click an “Ad Preview” button, at which point OpenAI’s model will analyze the business’s objective, its product lineup, and its target customer base. The model will also suggest which user journeys on ChatGPT it may make the most sense for that advertiser’s campaign to surface.
The model then spits out an AI-generated ad, including creative and copy (that the advertiser can edit or tweak to their specifications), and will prompt the user for final details, such as where the advertiser wants to run the campaign, their bidding strategy, and billing information. Then it’s “off to the races,” Hajiyani said.
Advertisers can also build a campaign with an agent in the ChatGPT Ads Manager plug-in within ChatGPT, Hajiyani said.
“Our vision, looking forward, is to enable every business with their own intelligent performance marketer that can work alongside them inside ChatGPT and Codex—where you could simply tell your agent, ‘Hey, help me bring more customers into my restaurant. I have $500 a month to spend, and I want to spend no more than $5 per restaurant reservation,’ and that’s it. The agent could get to work.”
The new interface is set to roll out over the next few weeks, according to the company.
Fuel to the fire: OpenAI has been building out its ads business since rolling out its offering earlier this year, and Colin Fleming, its business CMO, recently told reporters that the company saw 25% growth in daily ad revenue since the beginning of August. The company is also rolling out its ad product internationally: Earlier this month, ChatGPT ads began running in dozens of markets, including Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, and the UK.
In July, the company published ad credit terms laying out eligibility for receiving credits and how they can be used, laying the groundwork for the credits it has begun to offer advertisers. As it continues to build out its ads business, OpenAI is also targeting US metros with its own ads promoting ChatGPT, growing its ad share impressions in cities like Seattle and Boston, Marketing Brew previously reported.
Marketers across industries have been testing the channel, although many of them previously told us that they’re seeking additional campaign controls and measurement options on the channel.
