Advertising in ChatGPT: what you can do in the Netherlands, and who it suits

In short

• Since late August 2026, businesses in the Netherlands and 30 other European markets can buy ads in ChatGPT themselves, through Ads Manager at ads.openai.com. Ads only reach people on the free plan and ChatGPT Go, and appear below the answer, labelled as sponsored.
• The main condition: during this phase the policy mostly allows consumer categories, and in Europe personalised ads and custom audiences are not yet available. Financial, legal and health services outside the US are excluded.
• What to do now: if you sell to consumers who compare options and ask for advice before buying, run a contained test alongside Google Ads. If you sell business services, check first whether your category is allowed.

Advertising in ChatGPT has been possible in the Netherlands since late August 2026. OpenAI announced on 18 August that ChatGPT Ads would launch in 31 European markets, the Netherlands among them, and since 31 August advertisers have been able to build campaigns themselves in Ads Manager (OpenAI). You pay per thousand impressions or per click, or let the system optimise for conversions. The minimum daily budget is 15 euros.

Whether it is worth your money depends mainly on what you sell. You only reach people without a paid subscription, and the ad policy currently favours consumer categories. For an online shop, a travel company or a training provider, a test can make sense today. For many B2B service firms it is still too early.

What exactly are ChatGPT ads?

An ad in ChatGPT is a sponsored unit with a title, a short line of copy, a square image and a link, shown below ChatGPT's answer. OpenAI picks the ad using "the context and intent of your current conversation", combined with relevance and the advertiser's bid (OpenAI Help Center).

The ad is kept apart from the answer, and OpenAI states that advertising does not influence what ChatGPT says. Being mentioned in the answer itself is a different discipline altogether, covered in what GEO is and how to measure it.

Who sees the ads:

• Free and Go users only. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu stay ad-free.
• No minors. Accounts that OpenAI identifies as under 18 see no ads, and neither do Temporary Chats.
• No sensitive conversations. Ads are not shown next to topics such as personal health, mental health or politics.

Free users have been on GPT-6 Luna since October, and answers now often include charts and interactive elements (GPT-6 and Intelligent UI). Your ad sits underneath all of that. OpenAI is also testing visual ads during image generation, but that test starts in the US only (OpenAI).

How do targeting, bidding and budgets work?

There are no keywords. For each ad group you write context hints: phrases describing what you offer, who it is for and when it helps. OpenAI is explicit that these are not exact-match keywords or targeting rules, and that they do not guarantee delivery in particular conversations (OpenAI Help Center).

Beyond that, you set:

• Objective and billing. Views (CPM), Clicks (CPC) or Conversions, billed per click or per impression. The objective cannot be changed once the campaign exists.
• Location and platform. Country, plus region, city or postcode where available. Platforms are iOS and Android (app and web) and desktop web.
• Budget. A lifetime budget, or a daily budget from 15 euros. The daily figure is a seven-day average, so a single day can run up to twice the amount.

Custom audiences exist, but OpenAI advises against using them for campaigns in the EEA and Switzerland while personalised ads are unavailable there (OpenAI Help Center). In the Netherlands, then, you are buying context and location, not customer lists.

What reporting do you get?

Ads Manager shows impressions, clicks and CTR, refreshed roughly every fifteen minutes. Spend figures lag by seven to eight hours. Conversions are tracked with the OpenAI Pixel on your site or the Conversions API from your own systems. A conversion campaign optimises towards a single standard event; custom events are not yet supported for that objective (OpenAI Help Center).

OpenAI works with attribution providers such as AppsFlyer, Adjust and Triple Whale, and describes its incrementality testing with partners as early-stage. Advertisers receive only aggregated, non-identifying data. Conversations, memories, names and email addresses are not passed to advertisers, and OpenAI says it never sells user data to them.

What is not allowed?

According to the ad policies (last updated 10 September 2026), ads during the initial period are mainly limited to consumer categories such as lifestyle and household goods, local services, travel and experiences, and digital products or education. Other categories are disallowed at launch. Explicitly excluded:

• political content, alcohol and tobacco, gambling, adult content and dating apps, and recreational drugs;
• individual housing or job listings;
• financial, legal and health services outside the US.

Every ad and landing page goes through automated and human review, and your landing page must not block the OAI-AdsBot or OAI-SearchBot crawlers.

How does it compare with Google Ads?

We run campaigns in Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn and email. The view below draws on OpenAI's documentation and our experience with those channels, not on results of our own in ChatGPT.

What makes a conversation interesting is that the question carries more than a keyword does. Someone asking ChatGPT which e-bike suits a hilly 20-kilometre commute tells you far more than someone typing "e-bike" into Google. The trade-off is less control over when your ad appears, and less history to steer on.

The risks:

• A new channel. There are no Dutch benchmarks yet for cost per click or per conversion.
• Limited measurement. Attribution and incrementality are still being built, and personalisation is missing in Europe.
• Part of the audience. You do not reach paying users, who are often the heaviest business users.

Our advice: treat ChatGPT Ads as a test next to your search campaigns, not a replacement for them.

Who should try it now, and who should wait?

The first to benefit are businesses whose customers compare and ask for advice before they buy, within an allowed category:

• online shops with products that need explaining, such as bikes, home appliances or sports gear;
• travel and days out;
• local services, such as installers or cleaning companies;
• courses, training and digital products.

Better to wait if:

• you sell business services and your category is not clearly covered by the policy (ask OpenAI first);
• you work in finance, legal services, healthcare or alcohol;
• your conversion tracking in Google Ads and GA4 is not yet reliable;
• your budget is so tight that a test would starve your best campaign.

Setting up a test from the Netherlands

1. Create an account at ads.openai.com using an OpenAI account on your work email. Choose country, currency and time zone carefully: they cannot be changed later.
2. Add business and billing details. Use your registered company name as the legal name, upload your logo and set up a billing profile with a credit card. Complete verification and invite colleagues as Admin, Member or Viewer.
3. Set up measurement first. Install the OpenAI Pixel or connect the Conversions API, and add UTM parameters to every ad link so results also show up in your own analytics.
4. Create the campaign. Pick an objective and the Netherlands as country, with regions if relevant. Leave custom audiences out.
5. Build ad groups by theme, each with specific context hints, for example per product range or customer question.
6. Write several creatives. OpenAI recommends titles of 16 to 24 characters (50 at most), copy of 32 to 48 characters (100 at most) and a square PNG or JPG up to 1200 by 1200 pixels. Link to a specific page, not your homepage.
7. Ring-fence the budget. Start with a daily budget; the 15-euro minimum works out at about 450 euros a month. Do not take it from your best-performing campaign.
8. Run and assess. We would run for at least four to six weeks, then compare cost per conversion with your Google search campaigns, and look at the share of new visitors and the quality of enquiries or orders. Ads only go live once they pass review.

Wondering whether a ChatGPT test fits alongside your current campaigns? Get in touch and we will look at your category, tracking and budget together. If your team first wants to get better at using AI in marketing, have a look at the AI for marketers workshop.

Sources

• OpenAI, ChatGPT ads expands across Europe, 18 August 2026, updated 31 August 2026
• OpenAI, Building advertising for the way people use AI, 5 October 2026
• OpenAI, Ad policies, last updated 10 September 2026
• OpenAI Help Center, Ads in ChatGPT
• OpenAI Help Center, Create campaigns for ChatGPT Ads
• OpenAI Help Center, Create ad groups and add context hints
• OpenAI Help Center, Ads Manager account setup
• OpenAI Help Center, Launch your campaign and monitor performance
• OpenAI Help Center, Conversion-optimized campaigns