Since 1 September 2026, businesses in Slovakia have been able to create an advertising account and buy ChatGPT Ads directly through OpenAI’s self-service Ads Manager. That is a meaningful step beyond the earlier partner-led access: a smaller company can now explore the channel in the same interface where it creates a campaign, sets a budget and checks results.
OpenAI had announced an expansion of ads across European markets in August, with initial advertiser access through its Ads Solutions team and agency or technology partners. The September launch opened the self-service route to Slovak businesses.
What makes the channel interesting is the moment in which an ad can appear. A person may still be defining a problem, comparing options and working toward a decision in a conversation. At the same time, the platform is in beta and there are no broad performance benchmarks. An early campaign makes more sense as a focused test than as a reason to move a large share of an existing budget.
What changed on 1 September 2026?
In its 31 August announcement, OpenAI said ChatGPT Ads had reached a $1 billion annualised revenue run rate in fewer than 200 days. It also reported tens of thousands of advertisers and more than one billion weekly ChatGPT users. The company expanded direct buying through Ads Manager across Europe, India, the Middle East and North Africa.
Slovakia appears in the current Ads Manager availability list as a self-service market. A business can begin at ads.openai.com. Account setup calls for an OpenAI account, business details, a website, logo and billing information. Business verification and checks against advertising policies can still take time, so opening an account does not mean a campaign will run immediately.
For a smaller Slovak company, the practical change is that it no longer needs to rely on a large partner for access. It can create a campaign, set a budget and bid, upload creative assets, manage billing and review the basic results in one place.
How do ads in ChatGPT work?
According to OpenAI’s overview of ads in ChatGPT, an ad appears below the answer. It can include the advertiser’s name and favicon, a headline, description, destination page and image. The placement is labelled and visually separated from the answer.
OpenAI says advertisers cannot pay to change the model’s answer or its ranking. Buying an ad does not put a brand into the organic answer or turn a recommendation into a paid one. The answer and ad systems are intended to remain separate.
Ads can appear to adult users on the Free and Go plans. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu remain ad-free. OpenAI’s ads FAQ also describes restrictions for accounts identified as under 18, temporary chats and sensitive subjects such as health and politics.
In the European Economic Area and Switzerland, personalised ads were unavailable at launch. Relevance therefore depended mainly on the current conversation, broad location, language and campaign settings. OpenAI says it does not share conversations with advertisers or sell them user data. Advertisers receive aggregate reporting rather than access to a person’s chats or history.
These are not traditional keywords
The more interesting change for marketers is how relevance is assessed. With search advertising, a campaign often starts with a query. Social advertising commonly begins with an audience, interest or behaviour. ChatGPT Ads also consider what the person is trying to resolve in the conversation.
The system considers conversational intent alongside the landing page, headline, ad description, campaign settings and context hints. These hints describe situations in which an offer may help. They are not exact-match keywords and do not guarantee an impression for a particular phrase. A useful hint is closer to “soft running shoes for someone preparing for their first 5K” than simply “running shoes”.
That also changes how the ad should be written. OpenAI’s creative guidance favours clear, specific and useful language. The headline should state the value, while the description adds detail. The destination should continue that thought and lead to the relevant product, service or collection rather than defaulting to a generic home page.
A strong campaign starts with a real customer situation: when is the offer genuinely useful? It follows the same principle as a good customer journey: give someone the right information at the point where they need it.
What does it cost, and what can you measure?
The Ads Manager supports three main campaign goals: CPM for reach, billed per thousand impressions; CPC for traffic, billed per valid click; and optimised CPC (oCPC) for a selected conversion, while billing still follows clicks rather than conversions.
A campaign can have a total or average daily budget. On a given day, spend can fluctuate up to twice the daily amount; over seven days it should not exceed seven times the average daily budget. Local currencies and minimum budgets may vary by account, so check the settings while creating a campaign. OpenAI’s campaign guidance explains the available controls.
Campaign settings include a country and a platform: web, iOS or Android. At ad-group level, you can set context hints and a maximum bid. OpenAI’s general starting suggestion for CPC campaigns is a $3–5 maximum bid per click. That is neither a performance benchmark nor a delivery guarantee.
Reporting can include impressions, clicks, spend, click-through rate, average CPC, average CPM and conversions. UTM parameters help distinguish the traffic in your own analytics. For conversion tracking, OpenAI offers a Pixel and Conversions API. The Pixel can use a click identifier, oppref, to associate a later order, lead or registration with an ad. As with other ad platforms, the setup needs the right user notices, consent and data protection checks.
Online shops can also create campaigns from product feeds. A feed can supply an image, name, price, sale price, rating and brand. OpenAI has described feed ads as a strong format in its early programme, but has not published a general benchmark. During beta, feed products are for paid ads and do not automatically enter organic answers.
Custom audiences can be built from contact details or advertising identifiers. Inclusion and bid adjustment require at least 25,000 matched users, with OpenAI recommending 100,000. Smaller lists can be used for exclusion. For many local Slovak businesses, their own audience list may therefore be less useful as a first test than a clear offer and relevant conversational context.
What should a Slovak business do first?
There is no need to ignore ChatGPT Ads or treat them as an immediate replacement for established channels. With limited cross-industry benchmarks, a smaller pilot built around one clear hypothesis is the more useful approach. Before spending, work through five questions:
- Decision moment: At which question or situation is your offer actually helpful, rather than merely related to the topic?
- Offer: Can the ad explain who the product is for, what it solves and why a person should continue?
- Landing page: Does it follow the ad’s promise, language and level of detail?
- Measurement: Are your UTM structure, conversion events, analytics and necessary consent in place?
- Test: Is the budget large enough to produce a useful signal, but small enough to learn without an expensive mistake?
If you run an online shop, review the quality of the product feed and the complete path from ad to checkout. For a service business, separate distinct customer needs into focused ad groups and prepare genuinely different messages. Either way, a new channel cannot make an unclear offer or weak landing page effective.
The biggest opportunity is to bring ad creative closer to the customer’s real question. A brand needs to identify the situation, offer a useful answer and continue the same logic on its website. That makes the first ChatGPT Ads test a joined-up exercise in offer, content, design, measurement and performance marketing.
Want to test a new channel thoughtfully?
Start by connecting the offer, creative and landing page
We can help you create clear content and visuals that carry the same message from a conversational ad to the decision on your website.
