ChatGPT ads hit a $1B run rate in months. Here's what the latest data says about who's scaling, who quit, and what working campaigns do differently.
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Last updated: October 2026 (Q4 2026 edition)
ChatGPT ads are worth testing in 2026, but only if you treat them as their own channel. Six months after launch, the platform has passed a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate, click-through rates have doubled, and fewer than half of eligible users have even seen an ad yet. The advertisers getting results aren't the ones who copied their Google or Meta campaigns over. They're the ones writing new creative for the channel, testing constantly, and adjusting week to week.
That's the short version of the biggest study of ChatGPT ads published so far: The State of ChatGPT Ads by Graphite and Similarweb, released September 28, 2026. Below, we break down what the data says, what it means for advertisers, and what we're seeing in the ChatGPT ad campaigns we manage for Visibella clients.
We update this post every quarter as new data comes out.
• ChatGPT ads reached a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate within about 200 days of launching in March 2026, with tens of thousands of advertisers.
• Only 43% of ad-eligible US users have seen an ad so far, so the channel is still early.
• Click-through rates have roughly doubled since launch. US CTR sits around 0.73%, while Brazil, Mexico, Japan, and South Korea run between 1.21% and 1.91%.
• B2B SaaS is the largest advertiser category, at about 20% of US impressions.
• Top advertisers write 98% new copy for ChatGPT instead of reusing Google or Meta ads.
• The top-10 advertiser list keeps changing week to week. Winning here means iterating, not setting and forgetting.
ChatGPT ads are already a billion-dollar channel. OpenAI launched ads in March 2026, and according to Graphite, the platform hit a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate within its first 200 days. Tens of thousands of advertisers have tried it.
The audience is far from saturated, though. As of September 2026, only 43% of ad-eligible US users had seen a ChatGPT ad. Ads currently show on the Free and Go tiers, and they only appear when a conversation has clear commercial intent. Most people who could see an ad haven't yet.
Performance is improving as the platform matures. Graphite reports CTR is up 112% since launch. In the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, CTR ran between 0.6% and 0.75% through mid-September, with the US at 0.73%, according to Search Engine Journal's coverage of the report. Brazil, Mexico, Japan, and South Korea ran higher, between 1.21% and 1.91%.
That's well below a typical Google search ad CTR, and the study is clear that Google still carries far more ad volume. The right way to think about ChatGPT ads today is as an incremental channel, an addition to search budgets rather than a replacement.
B2B SaaS leads the pack. Business software made up about 20% of US impressions, with brands like Monday.com, HubSpot, Zapier, and Asana among the most active advertisers. Professional services and developer tools follow.
Retail and ecommerce have been largely absent so far, which Graphite links to product feed compatibility issues. That gap may close quickly, since OpenAI has just added bulk product campaigns to ChatGPT Ads.
Some advertisers tested ChatGPT ads early, then pulled back. That has led some marketers to conclude the channel doesn't work yet. The data tells a different story: the advertisers who stayed are growing, and they're the ones testing and iterating the most.
Graphite and Similarweb tracked weekly impressions for the 100 largest US advertisers from March 30 to August 17, 2026. Spending fell into three patterns: growing (Resume.io, Expedia, ZoomInfo), fluctuating (Monday.com, Jotform, BestMoney), and burst, a heavy early push followed by a sharp drop (Shopify, HubSpot, Cursor).
A burst doesn't necessarily mean the channel failed. It can mean a brand ran a launch campaign, hit a budget cap, or tested one creative set and stopped before learning what worked. The volatility shows up at the top too. Only Jotform and Resume.io stayed in the top 10 advertisers by worldwide impression share for all 20 weeks from May through mid-September.
The takeaway for advertisers: one flat test isn't a verdict. Campaigns that keep refreshing creative and landing pages are the ones still scaling.
The ChatGPT ads that work are built for the conversation they appear in. They use new copy, they send people to a specific page, and they're relevant enough that the ad feels like part of the answer instead of an interruption.
A ChatGPT ad shows up in the middle of someone working through a problem. That's a very different moment from an Instagram ad between stories, where the user is already in browse mode and expects ads.
Our view at Visibella is that this raises the bar. An ad that's slightly off-topic in a feed gets scrolled past. An ad that's off-topic in a conversation feels like a disruption, and it hurts trust in the brand. OpenAI's own system reflects this: ads are matched using the context and intent of the conversation, the landing page, the creative, and context hints from the advertiser.
According to Graphite, ads in the first few turns of a conversation get the highest CTR and impression share. Many conversations keep going well past that point, though, so there's still a long tail of audience later in the chat. Ads that appear deeper in a conversation have even more context to match, which makes relevance more important, not less.
[Editor note: this section is what makes the post ours. Fill it with real numbers from client accounts before publishing. Two or three specifics beat a long list. Anonymize clients if needed, e.g. "a regional winery" or "a real estate investor."]
We run ChatGPT ad campaigns for Visibella clients across [industries]. Here's what our own accounts show so far:
• CTR: [our average CTR vs. the 0.73% US benchmark]
• What moved performance: [e.g. switching from homepage to a feature or service page, or rewriting headlines as actions]
• Creative volume: [how many variations we launch with and how often we refresh]
• Cost: [CPC or CPM range, if you're comfortable sharing]
• A result worth highlighting: [one short client story with a before/after number]
One pattern we see across accounts: [one sentence of first-hand insight that the Graphite study doesn't cover].
If you're deciding whether to try ChatGPT ads, the data points to a clear approach: start now, start small, and plan to iterate.
Start now, because the channel is still early. With fewer than half of eligible users having seen an ad, the brands learning the channel today will have months of data before their competitors arrive.
Start small, because this is still a test budget. Budget ChatGPT ads as an addition to your search spend, not a replacement, and judge results against your own category rather than an overall average.
Plan to iterate, because nothing here is set-and-forget. Write new copy for the channel, send clicks to your most relevant existing pages, add creative as volume grows, and expect to re-test as the auction changes.
ChatGPT ads also connect to something bigger: how your brand shows up in AI search overall. Paid placements get you in front of people inside ChatGPT today. AEO (answer engine optimization) gets your brand named in the answers themselves. The strongest strategy uses both.
Visibella builds and manages ChatGPT ad campaigns alongside AEO. If you want help testing the channel the right way, see our ChatGPT ads services.
For most businesses, ChatGPT ads are worth testing with a small, dedicated budget. CTR has doubled since launch and the audience is still largely untapped, but the channel isn't mature enough to replace Google Search. Results depend heavily on writing native creative and matching each ad to a specific landing page.
US ChatGPT ads averaged about 0.73% CTR through mid-September 2026. English-speaking markets ranged from 0.6% to 0.75%, while Brazil, Mexico, Japan, and South Korea ran between 1.21% and 1.91%.
As of September 2026, 43% of ad-eligible US ChatGPT users had seen an ad. Ads currently appear for users on the Free and Go tiers.
B2B SaaS is the largest category, at about 20% of US impressions. Professional services and developer tools come next. Retail and ecommerce have been less active so far.
You can, but the data suggests you shouldn't. Top ChatGPT advertisers write 98% new copy built around the specific use cases people discuss in their conversations.
No. ChatGPT ads buy a placement next to the answer, while AEO earns your brand a mention inside the answer itself. They work best together.
• The State of ChatGPT Ads, Graphite and Similarweb, September 28, 2026
• Report: ChatGPT Ads are growing fast, but advertisers are still figuring them out, Search Engine Land, September 29, 2026
• ChatGPT Ad CTR Topped 1% In 4 Markets, Not In The U.S., Search Engine Journal, September 2026
• OpenAI expands ChatGPT Ads with bulk product campaigns and deeper reporting, Search Engine Land, September 30, 2026
