Advertising in ChatGPT: the complete guide for Dutch businesses (2026)

Since 24 August 2026 you can see ads in ChatGPT in the Netherlands. Since 31 August you can also buy them yourself as a Dutch business. That is a big change for anyone acquiring customers online, and most companies have not spent a minute on it yet.

This article is the guide we would have wanted to read ourselves when we started: what ChatGPT Ads is exactly, how it differs from Google Ads, what it costs, who sees your ad, how to get an account, what the GDPR says and how to set up a first campaign that delivers. Everything is based on OpenAI’s documentation and our own experience with the Ads Manager, as of September 1, 2026.

1. What is ChatGPT Ads?

ChatGPT Ads is OpenAI’s advertising platform. Advertisers can show a sponsored card below the answer ChatGPT gives, when the topic of the conversation matches what the advertiser offers. Someone asks ChatGPT which accounting software suits a sole trader with ten invoices a month, gets a substantive answer, and below it sees a clearly labelled ad from a software provider.

Three principles shape how OpenAI built the platform, and they explain almost every rule that follows:

The answer stays independent. Ads run on a separate system. An advertiser cannot influence what ChatGPT says, how it ranks or which brands it mentions.
Conversations stay private. Advertisers get no access to conversations and OpenAI does not sell user data.
Users stay in control. Personalisation can be switched off, ad data can be deleted, and there is always a paid plan without ads.

That makes ChatGPT Ads a different kind of channel than most marketers are used to. Your ad sits next to an answer the user trusts. If your ad does not live up to that trust, it falls flat.

2. How we got here: the timeline

The rollout moved fast, and the order matters because the American phase tells you what to expect in the Netherlands.

9 February 2026: OpenAI starts testing ads in the United States, only for users of the free plan and ChatGPT Go. The first advertisers work directly with OpenAI, on a CPM basis.
March 2026: expansion to Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
5 May 2026: the self-serve Ads Manager opens in the US for advertisers of any size. The minimum budget disappears, CPC bidding is added, and OpenAI introduces a partner network of agencies (Dentsu, Omnicom, Publicis, WPP) and technology partners (Adobe, Criteo, Kargo, Pacvue, StackAdapt).
June 2026: OpenAI presents the platform at Cannes Lions and calls itself "clearly in the advertising business now".
24 August 2026: ChatGPT Ads goes live in 31 European countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France and the Scandinavian countries. Access initially runs through the OpenAI Ads Solutions team and partners.
31 August 2026: self-serve access to the Ads Manager opens for European advertisers. The same day, the European Commission designates ChatGPT as a Very Large Online Search Engine under the Digital Services Act, and OpenAI reports its ads business is running at an annualised revenue of around 1 billion dollars.

Six months from first test to an open platform in Europe. For comparison: Google took years to mature AdWords outside the US.

3. Who sees your ads (and who does not)

This is the first thing to know before you free up budget, because it directly determines your reach.

Yes: users of the free ChatGPT plan and of ChatGPT Go (the low-cost entry subscription). That is by far the largest part of the user base.

No:

Users of Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu.
Users under 18, or accounts the system estimates to be minors.
Conversations about sensitive topics: health, mental health, politics and comparable contexts. There ChatGPT shows no ads at all, regardless of what you advertise.
Users who switched ads off (possible on the free plan, in exchange for a lower daily message limit).

What that means for the Netherlands: ChatGPT has roughly 900 million weekly users worldwide. For the DSA, OpenAI reported an average of over 159 million monthly users in the EU. Research by the University of Twente (February 2026) shows almost two thirds of Dutch adults use generative AI. OpenAI does not publish the exact number of Dutch Free and Go users, but it is millions of people, and according to OpenAI’s head of advertising David Dugan about 20 percent of conversations carry direct commercial intent.

Realistically: the volume is smaller than Google, the intent per conversation is higher, and the competition right now is close to zero.

4. What an ad in ChatGPT looks like

There is currently one ad format: a sponsored card below the answer. The card contains:

a title
a short description
an image
a link to your landing page
the label "Sponsored", visually separated from the answer

At most one ad appears per answer. There is no carousel, no text ad above the answer and no advertising in the ChatGPT Atlas browser.

For webshops there is also the option to connect a product feed. ChatGPT can then show specific products from your range with matching questions, comparable to Shopping ads. This requires a well-maintained feed with correct prices, stock and images.

Users can see with every ad why they are seeing it, and can switch personalisation off. That too is a reason to write ads that logically follow the conversation instead of a profile.

5. Targeting: no keywords, context instead

This is where the biggest difference with everything you know sits.

In Google Ads you bid on keywords. In ChatGPT Ads that does not exist. OpenAI’s system reads the content of the active conversation and decides whether your ad is relevant. You steer that with context hints: short descriptions of the buying moments in which your ad is relevant.

An example for a heat pump supplier:

"User compares heating options for a 1970s house and asks about insulation and subsidies"
"User wants to know whether a hybrid heat pump pays off at a gas consumption of 1,500 m³"
"User looks for an installer in the Nijmegen region and asks about lead times"

OpenAI recommends five to fifteen concrete context hints per ad group. The more specific, the better the system can match you. Broad hints ("user is interested in sustainability") deliver little.

Also available:

Geo-targeting: by country, region and in some markets at city level. For Dutch campaigns you target the Netherlands and possibly Belgium.
Custom audiences: your own customer lists (first-party data), uploaded hashed, for retargeting or exclusion. Data broker data is not allowed.
Device and language.

What is not possible: targeting on demographics, interests, behaviour on other sites or earlier conversations. Earlier chats and ChatGPT’s memory are explicitly not used for ads.

The practical consequence: copying your Google Ads campaign does not work. You have to translate your product back into the questions people ask at the moment they need it.

6. Bidding models and costs

OpenAI offers three ways to bid:

CPC (cost per click): you pay per click on the card. The default model for most advertisers.
CPM (cost per thousand impressions): the original model from the test phase, now mainly for brand campaigns.
oCPC (conversion-optimised): you pay per click, but the system optimises delivery for conversions. Requires a working pixel or Conversions API and has to be enabled per account.

The auction is relevance-weighted: your bid counts, but the expected relevance of your ad for the conversation weighs heavily. A well-matching ad with a lower bid beats a poorly matching one with a high bid. In practice you often pay less than your maximum bid.

What does a click cost? In the US, OpenAI recommends a starting bid of 3 to 5 dollars per click. Early American advertisers report effective CPCs below that, down to around 2 dollars, and above it in expensive B2B categories. For the Netherlands there are no benchmarks as of September 1, 2026; the first campaigns will set them. Our expectation based on the low competition: below the American figures in the first months, rising as more advertisers enter.

Minimum budget: there is no minimum monthly spend. You set a daily budget per campaign. For a pilot that delivers reliable data within six weeks, we work with 100 to 300 euros per day.

An important note on returns: a click in ChatGPT is not a click from a search result. The user is in the middle of a conversation and often does not click right away, but searches later themselves. Work with an attribution window of at least 30 days and also measure the rise in branded search traffic.

7. Access: how to get an account as a Dutch business

Since 31 August 2026 you can create an account on the OpenAI Ads Manager as a business registered in the Netherlands. The procedure:

Go to ads.openai.com and register an advertiser account.
Choose the country and currency of your entity. Note: this is fixed afterwards and cannot be changed.
Enter the exact company name as registered with the Chamber of Commerce (KVK), the KVK number and the registered address. OpenAI verifies this.
Add a payment card in the name of the same entity, issued in the same country.
Complete the brand review: OpenAI assesses your brand, website and favicon (at least 128 by 128 pixels) before any ads can run.
Place the OpenAI pixel on your website or set up the Conversions API.
Create your campaign, ad groups and ads. Ads are reviewed, usually within minutes.

Three things that often go wrong:

There is no agency account. Unlike Google Ads there is no MCC or manager account. Every account sits on one legal entity. An agency cannot create an account on behalf of a client. The client registers themselves and invites the agency as a user via Settings > Users > Invite. Whoever you hire, this ten-minute step is yours to do.

Verification details must match exactly. A trade name instead of the statutory name, or a card in the name of the director instead of the company, leads to rejection.

Brand review is a real review. A website without clear business information, without a privacy statement or with a landing page that does not match your brand does not get through.

OpenAI offers two measurement methods:

The OpenAI pixel: a JavaScript snippet that registers page views and conversions (purchase, lead, sign-up).
The Conversions API: server-side measurement, more reliable with ad blockers and cookie refusals.

For Dutch advertisers the GDPR side matters, and OpenAI explicitly built for it in the European rollout:

Contextual ads (based on the current conversation, country, device, language) run under legitimate interest, without separate consent.
Personalised ads (based on ad history and derived interests) require explicit user opt-in.
The pixel has a consent function. A setting in the code lets you block measurement until the visitor consents via your cookie banner, and release it afterwards. So connect the pixel to your consent management platform, exactly as you do with Google tags.
Customer data is hashed in the browser (SHA-256) before it goes to OpenAI.
A data processing agreement (OpenAI’s Ad Tools DPA) is part of the advertising terms. For conversion data you as advertiser are the controller and OpenAI the processor.
Prohibited data categories may not be uploaded in custom audiences: sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, financial difficulties, political views, health and biometric data.

Checklist before you go live:

Update your privacy statement with ChatGPT/OpenAI as a measurement party.
Put the pixel behind your cookie consent.
Record the DPA in your administration.
Only use your own customer data for audiences.
Working with an agency: a written agreement in which the agency acts on your behalf (OpenAI requires this).

9. Which industries cannot advertise (yet)

OpenAI opens the platform in phases per category.

Open at the European start: consumer products and services, lifestyle and home, local services, travel and experiences, digital products, education, software and business services.

Only after manual review: financial services, healthcare and medicines, legal services.

Excluded: adult content, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, political ads, weapons.

In addition, ChatGPT shows no ads in conversations about sensitive topics, even if your category is approved. A physiotherapist can advertise once the category is approved, but will not appear in a conversation about back pain.

In a grey category? Submit the application and expect a few weeks of lead time. We assess up front whether an application stands a chance.

10. ChatGPT Ads versus Google Ads

	Google Ads	ChatGPT Ads
Targeting	Keywords, audiences, behaviour	Conversation context via context hints
Ads per page	Up to four on top plus Shopping	One card per answer
Intent signal	A search query of a few words	A full conversation with situation and doubts
Competition	Mature, high CPCs in many industries	New, few advertisers
Reach	Almost everyone	Only Free and Go users, 18+
Agency structure	MCC, shared billing	One account per entity, no MCC
Formats	Text, Shopping, Display, Video, PMax	Sponsored card, product feed
Measurement	Mature ecosystem	Pixel and Conversions API, in development
Reporting	Extensive	Basic, own measurement recommended
Proven benchmarks	Yes	Not yet for the Netherlands

The conclusion is not that ChatGPT Ads replaces Google Ads. It is an addition at a place in the customer journey where Google is less and less present: the orientation conversation that used to consist of ten separate searches.

11. Setting up a first campaign: step by step

This is how we run a pilot.

Week 1: foundation

Register the account, verification, brand review, place pixel and Conversions API, test the consent connection.
Set the goal: leads, sales or brand visibility. That determines the bidding model.
Choose landing pages that continue the conversation. A user who just spent ten minutes talking to ChatGPT about heat pumps does not want a homepage but a page that answers the question.

Week 2: structure and ads

Two to four ad groups, each around one buying moment, with five to fifteen context hints.
Two to three ad variants per group. Write the title as an answer to the question, not as a slogan. "Hybrid heat pump including installation from € 4,950" works better than "The smartest choice for your home".
Images that show the product, no stock photos of smiling people.
Start with CPC at the recommended bid. Switch to oCPC once 30 to 50 conversions have been measured.

Week 3 to 6: optimise

Weekly: CPC, CTR, cost per conversion per ad group. An effective CPC far above the recommended bid points to a low relevance score: rewrite context hints and ads before raising the bid.
Expand what works, pause what does not.
Final report with a comparison against your Google Ads benchmark on the same conversion.

Budget: 100 to 300 euros per day, six weeks. That is enough to collect hundreds of clicks per ad group and make a substantiated decision about scaling.

12. What we do not know yet

Fair is fair: the platform is a week old in the Netherlands.

Dutch benchmarks do not exist. All figures you read online now come from the US, from providers with their own interests, or from small own tests. Treat them as direction.
Reporting in the Ads Manager is basic. Early advertisers reported gaps. So measure yourself via UTMs, GA4 and the Conversions API.
Inventory volume in the Netherlands is still unclear. With niche campaigns the number of impressions can be low. That is not a fault of your campaign but a trait of a young channel.
The rules are moving. ChatGPT has fallen under the heaviest DSA obligations since 31 August 2026, including a public ad register OpenAI has to set up within four months. The Irish privacy regulator (OpenAI’s lead supervisor in the EU) is watching. Expect changes in personalisation and measurement.
The format is limited. One card, no video, no text ad above the answer. That can change fast.

13. Why start now

Three reasons, in order of importance.

The auction is empty. Few Dutch advertisers have an account, let alone a campaign. Every week of delay is a week in which your clicks get more expensive and competitors build data you can no longer catch up on.

You learn the channel while the channel takes shape. Whoever tests for six weeks in 2026 knows exactly which buying moments, copy and bids work in 2027. Whoever starts in 2027 starts from zero in an auction that is full by then.

It is a learning channel, not a scaling channel. For most companies ChatGPT Ads stays a small part of the media mix this year. That is no reason to wait, but a reason to start small and carefully now instead of big and rushed later.

14. Frequently asked questions

Can I already advertise in ChatGPT from the Netherlands?

Yes. Since 31 August 2026 you can create an account yourself as a Dutch business via the OpenAI Ads Manager.

Does everyone see my ad?

No. Only users of the free plan and ChatGPT Go, 18 and older, outside sensitive conversations.

Can I target keywords?

No. You describe buying moments with context hints; the system matches on the content of the conversation.

What does a click cost in the Netherlands?

Unknown at this point. OpenAI recommends 3 to 5 dollars as a starting bid in the US. The first Dutch campaigns will set the benchmark.

Does an ad influence the answer?

No. Ads run separately from the language model and are clearly labelled.

Can my agency create the account?

No. The account sits on your own entity. You register, the agency is invited as a manager.

Is ChatGPT Ads GDPR-proof?

Contextual ads run under legitimate interest, personalisation requires opt-in, and the pixel can sit behind your cookie consent. What you have to arrange: privacy statement, consent connection, data processing agreement and only your own customer data.

Does it work for B2B?

Software comparisons and "which supplier" questions are among the most common commercial conversations in ChatGPT. B2B is one of the most promising categories, with the note that CPCs in expensive niches are higher.

How do I combine this with AI visibility (GEO)?

Paid you sit below the answer, organic you sit inside the answer. Both require the same base: a website that concretely answers your customers’ questions. Whoever builds their content for that wins on both fronts.