COHN and Conveyor Media explore how ChatGPT advertising works, where OpenAI Ads fit into a digital media strategy, and what marketers should consider before testing this emerging advertising platform.
ChatGPT ads are sponsored placements that appear below ChatGPT’s AI-generated responses, matched to the context of a user’s conversation rather than a typed search query. At COHN, we build brands, campaigns, and creative ideas designed to move people. Getting those ideas in front of the right people, in the right places, is where our media partners at Conveyor Media come in.
Conveyor is a Denver-based boutique media agency specializing in media planning and buying, combining research, strategy, and a deep understanding of consumer behavior to help brands make smarter media investments. COHN works closely with Conveyor to connect the strategy and creative we develop with thoughtful, results-driven media plans.
At the helm are Andee Conner Foutch and Katie Gschwend, Conveyor’s co-founders and partners. Together, they spend a lot of time thinking about where brands should show up, where the opportunities are shifting, and which shiny new platforms are actually worth an advertiser’s attention.
Which brings us to ChatGPT.
When OpenAI first began testing advertising in ChatGPT in early 2026, access was limited to a small group of advertisers. Now, the doors are opening much wider, with self-serve advertising rolling out to businesses of all sizes. In other words, ChatGPT advertising is moving beyond the Cokes and Pepsis of the world and becoming a channel more brands can realistically begin considering.
For marketers like us, that raises some fascinating questions!
Where does ChatGPT fit alongside search, social, and programmatic media? What makes advertising inside a conversation different from advertising alongside a search result or social feed? And, perhaps most importantly, is this something brands should be investing in now?
So we went straight to our media experts. We asked Andee and Katie how they’re looking at this emerging advertising channel, where they see the greatest potential, and what brands should be thinking about as AI becomes the newest frontier in digital media buying.
What Our Media Buying Partners Say About ChatGPT Ads
How are you currently thinking about ChatGPT as an advertising platform, and where could it fit within a broader digital media strategy?
We see ChatGPT as an emerging channel that has similarities to paid search, but with the potential to reach consumers earlier in the discovery and consideration process. People aren’t necessarily coming to ChatGPT with a simple query, they’re often explaining what they’re trying to accomplish, asking questions, comparing alternatives and working through a decision.
We wouldn’t look at ChatGPT as a replacement for paid search, social, native or programmatic media. We’d look at it as an incremental channel within the broader digital mix, particularly for brands where research and consideration play an important role in the customer journey. Like any new platform, the real question will be whether it can deliver incremental value alongside channels that are already performing.
What makes advertising within ChatGPT potentially different from more established channels like paid search, social media or display?
The biggest difference is the depth of context and intent potentially available within a conversation.
Paid search generally gives us a keyword or search phrase, while social, display and native advertising can use a combination of audience signals, behaviors and contextual relevance. ChatGPT adds another dimension because a conversation can provide a much more detailed picture of what someone is trying to accomplish.
For example, there’s a difference between someone searching “best SUVs” and someone having a conversation about finding a reliable three-row SUV within a certain budget, comparing features, fuel economy and safety ratings, and weighing several models. The conversation can provide much richer context around the consumer’s needs and where they are in the decision process.
The ad creative itself is relatively familiar and resembles native advertising, with a brand, headline, description, image and link. Advertisers can have multiple creative variations ready to serve, allowing the platform to select the ad that’s most relevant to the context of a particular conversation. An auto brand, for example, might have different creative emphasizing safety, fuel economy, price or cargo space depending on what matters most within that conversation.
What kinds of brands, products or marketing objectives do you think could be the strongest fit for ChatGPT advertising?
Initially, we think the strongest opportunities will be brands that naturally intersect with research, planning, comparison and decision-making.
Travel, education, technology, automotive, home improvement, healthcare services and many consumer products are good examples. These are categories where consumers often have questions, evaluate alternatives and gather information before making a decision.
That makes ChatGPT particularly interesting for consideration and lower-funnel objectives, although we also see potential for brand discovery. A consumer may know what they need without necessarily knowing which brand can provide it, creating an opportunity for advertisers to introduce themselves at a relevant point in that process.
Over time, we’ll also be interested to see which categories don’t perform particularly well. A platform with strong conversational intent may be naturally better suited to some consumer journeys than others, which is another reason testing will be important.
Where do you see the biggest opportunities for advertisers at this stage?
One of the biggest opportunities is simply learning early.
Whenever a new advertising platform emerges, there’s a period when advertisers can test and learn before the marketplace becomes as mature and competitive as established channels. We don’t know yet exactly where ChatGPT will ultimately fit relative to paid search, social and other digital channels, and that’s part of what makes testing it interesting.
We’d want to understand which types of creative generate engagement, what consumers do after reaching the advertiser’s site and, ultimately, whether the channel produces incremental business results.
There’s also an interesting creative opportunity. Rather than simply repurposing the same ad across every placement, brands can develop multiple messages around different consumer needs. If the platform can effectively match those messages to the context of a conversation, that could create a particularly relevant advertising experience.
For brands that are a natural fit, an initial test can provide valuable benchmarks while the platform and its advertising capabilities continue to evolve.
What questions or considerations should brands be working through before allocating budget to ChatGPT ads?
The first question should be the same one we’d ask about any emerging platform: What role do we expect this channel to play, and what are we trying to learn?
Brands should think about where ChatGPT might intersect with their customer’s decision journey, what types of conversations indicate meaningful intent and whether their product or service naturally lends itself to research, comparison or problem-solving.
Brand safety is another consideration. Unlike a traditional webpage, the environment surrounding an ad is a live conversation, which creates a different type of adjacency to consider. OpenAI has safeguards designed to prevent ads from appearing alongside sensitive or brand-unsafe conversations, but advertisers should still understand those controls and determine whether they align with their own brand-safety standards.
Measurement will also be important. ChatGPT Ads currently provides standard digital metrics including impressions, clicks, CTR, CPC, CPM and conversions, with reporting available down to the individual ad level. Advertisers can also implement conversion tracking and use UTMs to evaluate traffic within their existing analytics platforms. One limitation at this stage is that reporting doesn’t expose the individual conversations or queries that generated ad engagement, so brands will need to think carefully about how they evaluate performance and what they expect to learn from an initial test.
Ultimately, we’d approach ChatGPT the way we approach most emerging channels: test deliberately rather than chase the shiny new thing. Start with a defined budget and objective, develop enough creative variation to take advantage of the platform’s contextual capabilities, establish clear benchmarks, compare the results against established channels and expand investment if the data supports it.
Let’s talk about where ChatGPT ads might fit into your media mix. Contact COHN to start the conversation.
