Ads have been running in ChatGPT in Switzerland since 24 August. A week later, OpenAI opened its Ads Manager to Swiss companies as well. Since then, any company can sign up and get started.
So we did, with Renuo as the test client.
The pace is impressive. OpenAI reached a one billion dollar annual run rate in under 200 days, and by now more than 100,000 advertisers have run campaigns across 89 countries. Here is how it all works and what we noticed along the way.
What these ads are
A ChatGPT ad is a labelled card below the answer. OpenAI states that ads do not influence the answer and that advertisers cannot see conversations.
The card is small. The form allows 32 characters for the title and 54 for the description, plus an image. That leaves little room for explanations.
Our ads says "individuelle Software" (custom software) and "Web- und Mobile-Apps, die zu Ihrem Vorhaben passen." (web and mobile apps that fit your project). The image shows our team, the link goes to our homepage.
The preview shows ‘Renuo AG-Kampagne’ as the sender. This was simply a typing error.
Who sees them
The audience is smaller than the user numbers suggest. Ads appear only on the Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu stay ad-free, as do temporary chats and accounts of under-18s. Free users who don't want ads can turn them off and accept lower limits in return.
This has a funny side effect. If your team works on Plus, you will never see your own ad. So we check Google Analytics to see who comes from ChatGPT.
The three formats
Standard ads: Brand, logo, title, description, image and a link to the landing page. This is where most people start.
Product feeds: The ads are generated from your product catalogue. This is mainly interesting for online shops, and Shopify offers its own app for it.
Sponsored Agents: After seeing the ad, users can start a conversation with a brand's AI agent. The format is being tested in the US, so for now it remains reading material for us.
There are no keywords here
For us, this was the biggest adjustment. In Google Ads you think in search terms. Here, you describe for each ad group, in your own words, the conversionations and situations your offer fits. OpenAI calls these Context Hints. The system compares them with the conversation, the landing page and the ad copy, and then decides on its own.
Nothing is guaranteed. There is no equivalent of Google's search terms report, so you can't see which conversation led to a click. According to the same source, there is no language setting either, which means more work in a multilingual country like here.
We kept it simple. Three situations, one language:
- "Someone in Switzerland is looking for a company to build a custom web app."
- "An SME wants to replace an outdated application and asks how to go about it."
- "Someone is wondering whether standard software is enough or whether they need custom software."
We wrote everything in German, including the ad. French and English will follow once the German works. We can't say which hint performed best. With 28 clicks, a ranking would be like reading tea leaves.
Switzerland comes with one more restriction. Personalised ads are not available here for now. Your own customer list therefore don't help much, especially since they need at least 25'000 matched people. For most SMEs, that is out of reach anyway.
What it costs
There is no base fee. Ads are auctioned, and relevance counts alongside the bid. The winner pays roughly what it took to beat the next bid.
- Visibility: You pay per thousand impressions
- Clicks: You pay per click. OpenAI recommends a maximum bid of 3 to 5 dollars to start with.
- Conversions: The system looks for people likely to buy or sign up. You still pay per click or impression, never per conversion.
Our 80 francs
Our campaign started on 26 October, with clicks as the objective and a budget of CHF 80. After about a week, the money was gone. It generated 5'652 impressions, 28 clicks, 0.50% click-through rate and CHF 2.85 cost per click.
One week of curve for 79.88 francs.
Is that good? We don't know. Reliable Swiss benchmarks barely exist, and 28 clicks are not statistics.
How to measure
The basics are the same as everywhere else. The OpenAI pixel records actions on your website, the Conversions API sends the same event from your own server. If you use both, give each event the same ID so nothing is counted twice. UTM parameters make sure the visits also show up cleanly in Google Analytics.
In the Ads Manager, you set how long after a click a conversion still counts, namely 7, 14 or 30 days. People who only saw the ad count for one day. The conversion always goes to the last ChatGPT ad. By the way, GPT also sends visits without any ad. Only tracking parameters separate the paid visits from the regular ones.
How we would start
- Set up tracking first. Otherwise you miss exactly those first clicks.
- Choose one objective. Clicks while there is little data. Conversions only once the event happens reliably and often enough.
- Write Context Hints like real situations. One topic per ad group, no product lists.
- Create several variants. A few titles and images are enough to give you something to compare.
- Wait at least one day. Costs appear with a delay of seven to eight hours, conversions with up to one day.
Next time, we also wouldn't link to the homepage, but to a page that fits the conversation.
And the others?
ChatGPT ist just the beginning, but the situation is different everywhere. Google is expanding ads in AI Mode, though Switzerland isn't on the list so far. Microsoft serves ads in Copilot through regular Microsoft Advertising. Anthropic, on the other hand, has stated that Claude will remain ad-free.
We are staying on it.
Is it worth it?
After 28 clicks, we can't seriously say.
The channel is young, and OpenAI keeps changing things. A small, properly measured test costs manageably little and shows you more than any article, this one included. If you want to be found without paying for it, you'll find the counterpart in our post on Answer Engine Optimization.
If you'd like to run your own test and are looking for someone to set it up, our online marketing team is happy to help. Write to us.
