ChatGPT Ads in Singapore: How They Work and How to Run Your First Test

This guide covers how the system works, how to set up a first campaign and what early advertisers have found. The platform has been open in Singapore for about six weeks, so expect parts of it to change.

How do ChatGPT ads work?

An ad appears as one labelled unit below ChatGPT’s reply. It shows the advertiser’s name and icon, an image, a short title, a description and a link. OpenAI is testing a second format in the US, which shows several images from one advertiser while ChatGPT creates an image.

123456

Swipe sideways to see the whole ad.

1. 1ChatGPT’s own lead-in lineWritten by ChatGPT, not the advertiser. It says how the ad relates to the chat.
2. 2Advertiser name and “Ad” labelThe label sits at the right of the card, with a menu beside it.
3. 3Title and descriptionUp to 50 characters for the title and 100 for the description.
4. 4ImageHere the agent’s own photo. At least 640 by 640 pixels.
5. 5“Learn more” linkThe whole card leads to one landing page on the advertiser’s site.
6. 6Disclosure under the adChatGPT reminds users that ads do not influence its answers.

ChatGPT screenshot, Singapore, November 2026, for the question “What is a good and reliable property agent in Singapore?” Shown as an example of the ad format; not an endorsement.

Ads show only on the Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu users see none. OpenAI also keeps ads away from accounts it identifies as under 18 and from Temporary Chat. Conversations about health, mental health or politics carry no ads.

Users control their side under Settings, Ad Controls. They can switch off ad personalisation, dismiss an ad and see why it was shown. Advertisers receive aggregated views and clicks only. They never see the chats.

• Sponsored byThe advertiser’s name and website, shown to every user who asks.
• Why you’re seeing this ad“This ad matched one or more topics in your current chat.”
• What advertisers getBroad, non-identifying statistics such as total views and clicks.
• Go ad-freeA button that points the user to an ad-free option.

ChatGPT screenshot, Singapore, November 2026, for the question “What is a good and reliable property agent in Singapore?” Shown as an example of the ad format; not an endorsement.

How does ChatGPT choose which ad to show?

OpenAI described the system in an engineering post on 21 October 2026. A language model reads the conversation, including earlier turns. It writes short summaries of what the person needs, then finds ads that match.

The same model filters those candidates for targeting, policy and budget. A separate auction picks the winner and sets the price. OpenAI’s help centre calls it a “relevance-weighted, second-price auction”. Relevance counts alongside your bid, so a high bid on a weak match can still lose.

Showing no ad is a normal result. ChatGPT also writes a short, neutral line explaining how the ad relates to the chat. In the property example above, it read “For the property-agent shortlist in Singapore, here’s one agent option.” The advertiser does not write or control that line. Later in the same chat, after a more detailed question, the ad changed to a property firm’s guide on new launch against resale condos.

The system reads your landing page, your ad title and copy, and the context hints you write. If the user allows personalisation, it also draws on their wider ChatGPT use. Your landing page therefore affects which conversations you appear in, as well as whether visitors convert.

How do you set up ChatGPT ads from Singapore?

Go to Ads Manager at ads.openai.com and sign in with an OpenAI login. Self-service needs a legal entity based in a listed country, and Singapore is on the list. Business verification can take up to seven business days.

Choose the country, currency and time zone with care at sign-up. OpenAI says they are tied to the account and may not be editable later. Singapore dollars are a supported billing currency. Use a card issued in the same country as the business, because OpenAI may reject a foreign card.

Some new accounts can advertise only in their home country at first. OpenAI lifts this after identity verification and enough spend at home. A Singapore account that also wants Malaysia or Indonesia may have to wait.

The structure will be familiar from Google Ads: campaign, ad group, ad. The campaign holds the objective, budget, dates, countries and audiences. The ad group holds the bid and the context hints.

A Conversions campaign optimises towards a conversion but still bills per click or impression. It needs the OpenAI pixel or Conversions API sending one standard event. You cannot change a campaign’s objective after you create it.

A daily budget works as an average over a Sunday-to-Saturday week. One day can spend up to twice the daily amount, and the week will not exceed seven times it. Self-serve accounts are charged by card after delivery, each time spend reaches a payment threshold.

OpenAI also runs credit offers for new advertisers. In early November 2026, ads.openai.com offered US$350 in ad credit to new advertisers who spend US$350, until 31 December. The page does not say which countries qualify, so check the terms in Ads Manager before you count on it. Under OpenAI’s Ad Credit Terms, credits expire 90 days after issue unless the offer says otherwise.

How is targeting different from Google Ads keywords?

Google Ads matches your ad to what someone types. ChatGPT matches it to what the conversation is about. You guide the match with context hints that describe needs, products and situations. OpenAI states they are not exact-match keywords. Each ad group can hold up to 2,000 of them.

Take a corporate caterer in Singapore. A hint such as “catering” is too broad to help. Better hints read like a customer’s situation: “halal buffet for a 40-person office lunch in the CBD”, or “catering for a company dinner and dance”.

The other levers are location, platform and custom audiences. Platform covers desktop, iOS and Android, on the app or the web. A customer list needs at least 25,000 matched users before you can target it. Few Singapore SMEs have that many. Exclusion lists have no minimum, so excluding existing customers is the practical use for most.

What are early advertisers finding?

OpenAI says it has no performance benchmarks yet across advertisers, industries or campaign types. The early evidence comes from advertisers and agencies sharing their own numbers. Each covers one account at one moment, so read them as signals.

The first three are cases OpenAI chose to publish, measured by vendors that sell measurement for this channel. Treat them as the best results so far, which may not be typical.

Click costs vary widely. Search Engine Journal’s sample ran from under US$3 to over US$22 per click. One US agency reported clicks cheaper than its paid search, while a UK agency found them dearer. Panel data puts click-through rates between 0.6% and 1.9%, with no Southeast Asian market in the sample.

Four patterns repeat across these reports:

• Specific, useful copy beats slogans.
• Traffic quality varies, so check lead quality in your CRM as well as the click count.
• A large share of visitors are new to the brand.
• The clearest evidence comes from tracking outside Ads Manager, such as GA4 and the CRM. Ads Manager has no auction insights or impression share yet.

How should a business run its first ChatGPT ads test?

1. Write down what success looks like. Pick the cost per lead or cost per sale that would justify more spend. OpenAI gives no benchmark, so your own target is the yardstick.
2. Let OpenAI’s crawlers reach your landing page. Allow OAI-AdsBot in robots.txt and in your firewall or security plugin. OpenAI also recommends allowing OAI-SearchBot. A blocked page fails ad review.
3. Install tracking before you spend. Add the OpenAI pixel, which can go in through Google Tag Manager, or the Conversions API. Add UTM tags to each destination URL so GA4 records the traffic too.
4. Decide on creative enhancements on day one. The next section explains the setting and our recommendation.
5. Start with a Clicks campaign and a capped bid. OpenAI suggests a starting maximum of US$3 to US$5 per click. Adjust once you have a week or two of data.
6. Write context hints from real customer questions. Use the words your sales team hears. Search Console queries and WhatsApp enquiries are good raw material.
7. Write several distinct ads. OpenAI advises building “for coverage”: many title and copy variations, each with a different angle. Titles allow up to 50 characters and descriptions up to 100.
8. Link each ad to its most relevant page. Send people to the product or service page the ad describes, and keep the home page for brand ads.
9. Change one thing at a time. Conversions take 24 to 48 hours to appear in reporting. Give each change about a week before judging it.

If you want a second pair of eyes on the plan and the results, this is the kind of channel test our advisory sessions work through with a team.

Should you leave creative enhancements switched on?

From 30 October 2026, OpenAI switched on “creative enhancements” by default for new and existing self-serve campaigns. Accounts managed by OpenAI’s sales team are not affected. The system may rewrite your headlines and descriptions to fit the conversation. It may also translate them, resize images and send clicks to a different page on your site.

These versions can run without your review, and Ads Manager does not preview every one. OpenAI adds that changes in results over time do not, on their own, show the effect of the enhancements. Search Engine Journal noted the help page does not say how tracking parameters carry over when the destination changes.

Our recommendation is to switch them off at the start if you work in a regulated field or sell on precise claims. Do the same if exact wording matters to your brand. Later, run one campaign with enhancements on and compare it with one that has them off. The opt-out is under Manage settings in Ads Manager, and a campaign setting overrides the account default.

What should a Singapore business check before spending?

• Your category. Outside the US, OpenAI bars many health categories and all legal services. It also bars finance products such as personal loans, buy-now-pay-later and crypto. Insurance and deposits are open only to approved advertisers. Check OpenAI’s policy table before you build anything.
• Customer lists and the PDPA. Uploading emails or phone numbers discloses personal data to an organisation outside Singapore. The PDPA’s transfer rules apply, so check your consent and privacy notices first.
• The pixel’s form data. By default, the OpenAI pixel hashes details people type into your website forms and sends them with conversion events. Make sure your privacy notice covers this.
• GST on invoices. You can add your GST registration number under Billing settings in Ads Manager. OpenAI’s help centre does not yet say how it treats Singapore GST, so check your first invoice with your accountant.

Do ChatGPT ads help you show up in ChatGPT’s answers?

No. OpenAI states that advertisers cannot shape, rank or alter ChatGPT’s responses. Google says the same of its ads in AI Mode, which began scaling in Singapore on 28 October 2026.

A real search shows the split. We asked ChatGPT to shortlist property agents for a private condo purchase. The answer named four agents and explained each pick from public profiles: reviews, transaction counts and CEA registration numbers. The ad below the answer came from a different firm.

Both still depend on your website. OpenAI’s ad system reads your landing page to judge relevance, and creative enhancements draw on it. ChatGPT search reads the same pages when it writes organic answers. A clear, specific site helps on both counts. In the property example, the agents’ listing profiles on other sites mattered as much as their own websites.

An ad buys a slot below the answer. Being cited inside the answer takes AEO and GEO work. Our guide to AEO and GEO explains how that works, and our AI SEO, AEO and GEO service does it for you.

What is likely to change in ChatGPT ads?

Expect much of this guide to shift. OpenAI says it will keep changing delivery, inventory, ad formats and how advertisers buy and measure during the beta. The timeline below shows how much moved in September and October 2026 alone.

Some features are still US-only tests. Sponsored Agents let a person chat with a business’s own agent after clicking its ad. The visual ads shown during image generation are also US-only. OpenAI has not said when either will reach Singapore.

The matching system is a trained model, and OpenAI keeps tuning it. Results will drift as it does, so a setting that works this month may need revisiting next month. Keep your first tests small and write down every setting you change. Review the results monthly against the target you set at the start.

Common questions

Your website and your tracking decide most of what this channel can do for you. Get those right first, then test with a budget you can afford to learn from.