ChatGPT Ads has now launched in Denmark. This gives Danish businesses a new opportunity to gain visibility while users research, compare and make decisions. Here are five practical steps to help you get off to a strong start.
The way your audience finds, researches and evaluates businesses is changing. AI search has moved from being a research tool to becoming an advertising channel in its own right, and ChatGPT Ads is the first concrete example of what advertising in AI search looks like in practice.
It adds another digital channel alongside the ones your business already knows. But a new channel does not mean you need to start from scratch. The same principles that drive strong results in Google Ads and Meta Ads still apply: a clear objective, a solid data foundation and a structured approach to testing and learning. The mechanisms, however, are different.
ChatGPT Ads does not work like keyword-based advertising. Advertisers do not bid on specific keywords, there is no traditional demographic targeting, and advertisers do not have access to data from individual conversations. Instead, ads are matched with the context of a conversation based on advertiser-defined "context hints". This difference changes how you should prepare before spending your first krone on the platform.
Based on our experience with AI search and performance marketing for both B2B and B2C businesses, here are five steps we recommend taking before launching your first ChatGPT Ads campaign.
1. Prioritise: define the objective before choosing the channel
Before allocating a test budget, you should first clarify internally what you want to achieve with ChatGPT Ads. Which product, service or market do you want to grow, and which customer need are you trying to address? ChatGPT Ads is better suited to some situations than others. Making this decision explicit as the first step gives you a clear strategy and something concrete against which to assess the investment.
Getting this in place early helps you avoid an obvious pitfall: treating ChatGPT Ads as a channel you test simply for the sake of testing, rather than choosing it because it supports a specific business objective.
2. Assess your organic visibility in AI search (GEO)
Generative Engine Optimisation, or GEO, is about understanding and improving how your brand appears in AI-generated answers, much like SEO focuses on visibility in traditional search results.
Before investing in paid placements, you should map where your organic visibility is already strong and where relevant gaps exist. If your brand rarely appears when ChatGPT is asked about your category, that could indicate that you should first invest in content and structured data. Alternatively, it could be a clear opportunity to use paid advertising to close the visibility gap while your organic presence catches up.
This step also helps you identify which conversation topics are worth targeting in step three. Your chances of success are significantly higher in areas where your brand already has some relevance to build on.
3. Identify the right context: map the conversations that matter
ChatGPT Ads uses neither keywords nor traditional demographic targeting. Instead, advertisers provide so-called "context hints": contextual signals that describe the topics and situations in which an ad is considered relevant. This means targeting is less like conducting keyword research and more like mapping the real conversations your customers are likely to have.
Consider all the situations and contexts in which your message is genuinely relevant, not just the obvious ones. Start narrowly with a small number of highly relevant contexts, and only expand once you have data showing what works. Ads should therefore feel relevant to the conversation rather than like traditional banner advertising.
4. Launch with a test budget
As of mid-2026, there is no minimum spend for ChatGPT Ads, making it possible to run a structured pilot with limited financial risk. Start with a modest daily budget, choose an objective that aligns with the purpose you defined in step one, and resist the temptation to scale before you have enough data to understand what is actually working.
Costs on the platform vary significantly depending on competition. In areas with low competition, we see CPMs starting from DKK 100, while in areas where two or more advertisers are bidding, CPMs can reach DKK 400 or more. This once again underlines the importance of the organic work from step two: the more competitive the area, the more valuable organic visibility becomes as a complement to paid visibility. For CPC campaigns, a maximum bid can be set directly. We recommend starting with a maximum CPC bid of USD 3-5.
5. Measure performance after 3-6 months and use UTM parameters
Reporting in ChatGPT Ads is still relatively immature. The platform's own metrics cover impressions, clicks and costs, but not the deeper audience and attribution insights offered by more established platforms. UTM parameters and dedicated landing pages do not close that gap entirely, but they make it possible to isolate traffic from ChatGPT in your own analytics platform and gain a clearer view of what happens after the click.
Give the channel enough time before assessing its return. Three to six months of actual activity provides a much more reliable basis for deciding whether to continue investing than the first few weeks, particularly while OpenAI continues to adjust targeting, formats and reporting. Early data suggests that ChatGPT users spend significantly longer on websites than users who typically arrive via social media. This means a short attribution window may underestimate the channel's actual contribution to pipeline and customer acquisition.
Summary: a new channel, not a new discipline
ChatGPT Ads does not change the fundamental purpose of advertising. The goal is still to build visibility, reach relevant customers and create growth. What changes are the mechanics: context instead of keywords, relevance to the conversation instead of audience lists, and a measurement approach that relies more heavily on your own analytics data than on the platform's reporting.
Businesses that approach this as a structured and focused pilot, grounded in a clear understanding of their organic AI visibility, will be in a stronger position than those that rush into the channel simply because it is new.
If you would like help assessing whether ChatGPT Ads is relevant for your business, get in touch with us.