ChatGPT Ads Hits $1 Billion Run Rate, But Advertisers Are Not Sold

OpenAI has put a big number on its new ad business: a $1 billion annualized run rate, reached in less than 200 days. The company says tens of thousands of advertisers are already on the platform. That’s the headline. The fine print is that this is a run rate, not a full year of booked revenue, so it’s a snapshot of current monthly pace rather than a promise of what comes next.

The rollout is widening at the same time. OpenAI is now letting advertisers book campaigns through Ads Manager in India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. In Europe, ads have gone live across 31 countries, including Germany and Austria. They appear on the Free and Go tiers, while Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Education accounts stay ad-free.

OpenAI is also framing ads as one part of a bigger business, alongside subscriptions, enterprise products and usage-based APIs. The free tier is supposed to keep ChatGPT open to more than 1 billion weekly active users. Ads sit below answers, carry a sponsored label, and the company says they do not affect the answers themselves. Advertisers do not get access to private conversations. For now, targeting is contextual, based on the topic of the conversation, approximate location, device type and language. Personalization is supposed to come later, but only with active opt-in.

The problem is that the early results being reported outside OpenAI sound shaky. Adthena, as covered by Campaign, found one brand’s click-through rate at 0.91 percent, far below the 6.4 percent benchmark it cited for traditional Google search in the same sector. One enterprise advertiser reportedly spent only three percent of a $250,000 budget over several weeks. Other agencies have told MediaPost about click-through rates around 0.6 percent, click prices of roughly $7 and no conversions. Some also say OpenAI’s click counts don’t match Google Analytics sessions.

OpenAI, naturally, points to its own wins. It says one ecommerce advertiser saw a 3x return on ad spend over 28 days, and a technology partner says more than 80 percent of ad-driven ChatGPT traffic comes from new customers. The company says trust, relevance and overall experience have held up during the rollout, and it now has more than 50 technology and measurement partners. More markets, more formats, more bidding options and better measurement are all on the way.