Mindgruve secured access to ChatGPT’s closed advertising beta earlier this year. The program ran from February to April 2026. The platform is now open to any advertiser through the self-serve Ads Manager, but many of the insights we uncovered in beta still hold true. Here are specific takeaways from our experience that can help you decide if it’s worth your investment:

The results lagged the hype. For now.

OpenAI was initially looking for advertisers willing to spend $1 million, but we discovered that volume was lower than we anticipated. OpenAI was upfront with us that they wouldn’t be able to spend our entire I/O based on traffic within certain categories. Still, being an early adopter let us access months of first-party data on a channel that most advertisers weren’t on yet, before best practices existed and competitors arrived.

Not every brand belongs here.

ChatGPT and other LLMs are mainly research and comparison environments. Users go to them with questions they want answered rather than with credit cards they want to spend. The strongest performance was expected from businesses with longer decision cycles. So we prioritized testing ads for clients whose websites were already converting organic traffic from ChatGPT.

CTRs held just above 1%. 

A new platform with no algorithmic optimization, no established ad format, and no creative playbook producing 1% CTRs means the intent environment, rather than the ad unit, is carrying the performance. Users arrive at ChatGPT to get answers, making it an ideal opportunity for brands to set their category’s CTR benchmark, because competitors may not have established one yet.

“Best” outperformed “how” or “what.”

“Best software.” “Best mattress.” “Best home warranty.” Users searching those types of terms converted at a higher rate than users who ask more open-ended “How?” or “What?” questions. ChatGPT broadly attracts users in research mode, but superlative queries (like “best”) are reliable indicators of a later stage in the same research process, when users are close to making a decision.

Predictions for ChatGPT ads

Most of this channel’s potential is still undeveloped. Here’s where we think this goes next:

Users will keep using ChatGPT for discovery and comparison.

The tendency to arrive with questions rather than purchase intent may deepen as AI becomes habitual for users.

ChatGPT will send quality traffic to brands on the platform.

An organic or paid presence on ChatGPT reinforces your brand as a relevant answer to user queries. The earlier that signal is established, the more consistently you appear as the platform scales and its recommendation patterns mature.

Agencies and companies will retarget this traffic to move down the funnel.

High-intent visitors may leave ChatGPT without converting because they’re still in research mode. Retargeting captures them when they’re ready to act, making the platform most effective as a mid-funnel channel whose conversions close downstream.

Users will eventually move from mid-funnel to bottom-funnel actions.

As OpenAI gains more users and time on their site increases, users may make more direct purchases based on the answers they get from OpenAI.

Ask Yourself These Questions Before You Commit

Running ads on ChatGPT is a promising opportunity. Whether it’s the best use of your budget depends on what you find here. Stress-test whether investing in it makes sense with this checklist:

Is my product and service research- or comparison-oriented?

This platform rewards categories where decisions take time. If your customer decides in a single session, ChatGPT might not be the right platform for you.

Am I getting traffic from ChatGPT or other AI platforms that’s converting?

Organic conversion is the strongest signal that paid will perform. Check your analytics for ChatGPT referrals.

Do I have a mid-funnel media strategy?

ChatGPT ads reach users who are researching and comparing. You’ll generate traffic that you can’t convert if you don’t have a strategy for engaging customers at that stage.

Can my reporting or analytics environment measure mid-funnel media?

Last-click attribution won’t capture the value of a platform where users research but convert elsewhere. Confirm that your measurement stack can track assists and engagement signals, not just direct conversions.

Is my brand missing from AI-generated answers where my competitors are showing up?

AI-generated recommendations are becoming the first stop in the purchase journey. Brands that decide now how they want to show up in AI answers get to shape the position they hold as the platform matures.

If you answered “Yes” to three or more of the above questions, ChatGPT Ads is a good match for you.

The Advantage Goes to Brands That Move Now

OpenAI’s core product is trust. If users feel like they’re being served ads and product placements rather than answers, they may stop trusting the output they see. The early signs say ChatGPT’s ad volume will scale. OpenAI’s ad pilot crossed $100 million in annualized revenue within six weeks of launch, drew more than 600 advertisers, and showed ads to fewer than 20% of eligible users on any given day. The inventory is constrained because OpenAI is protecting the user experience, not because demand is thin. Volume will follow if OpenAI loosens the cap on ad load once they’re confident it doesn’t hurt retention.

If your business would benefit from ChatGPT advertising, get in now. The brands building fluency on the platform at this stage — learning which queries positively impact their business, which categories index well, which creative structures it rewards — will create an edge as volume scales and more users adopt LLMs. The brands that wait for the case studies may inherit a position their competitors already defined for them.