ChatGPT Ads Are Coming to the Netherlands: Here's What Will Change for Your Campaigns

A new channel is being introduced that doesn’t start with a search query, but with a conversation. The ad appears only below the response, clearly labeled and technically separated from the system that generates that response. So it’s not possible to pay ChatGPT to recommend your product.

When planning, take access into account. At this stage, access is available through OpenAI Ads Solutions, agencies, and technology partners; self-service in Ads Manager will follow later. This means you’re more likely to gain access through a partner that’s already on board than by signing up on your own.

Only free users and Go subscribers

Users of the free version, as well as subscribers to Go for 8 euros per month, will see ads. Chat GPT Plus, Pro, and Business will therefore remain ad-free, as will accounts belonging to users under 18.

By the way, at the time of the Dutch launch, the ads aren't personalized yet: the selection is based mainly on the topic of the current conversation. That may change later, so keep an eye out for updates.

The structure is familiar, but the targeting isn't

You’ll recognize the structure right away: campaign, ad group, ad. At the ad group level, you provide contextual clues: descriptions of conversations, topics, or terms related to your product. These aren’t exact-match keywords, and they don’t guarantee ad impressions.

In addition, the system takes into account the context and intent of the conversation, as well as your landing page, your title, and your ad copy. The ad itself consists of your company name, your favicon, a title, a short description, an image, and a link.

A context hint is not a keyword

Suppose you’re advertising an accounting package. A phrase like “accounting software for self-employed professionals” works, but the user doesn’t have to type those words anywhere. For example, someone might ask: “I have a small business and do my bookkeeping in Excel. What software makes it easier to create invoices and file my VAT returns?”

More effective keywords are therefore specific scenarios rather than standalone terms. For example, use a term like “business owners with 5 to 30 employees who say that handling receipts and bank transactions involves a lot of manual work.” Your targeting process starts with customer research—focusing on pain points and objections—and only then moves on to a keyword list.

Google Ads is based on what someone is searching for. ChatGPT Ads is based on what someone is trying to solve in this conversation. As a result, your campaign doesn't start with a list of keywords, but with the problems your target audience is facing.

A brief overview:

Whereas we typically start with hundreds of keywords for an SEA account, here we identify ten to twenty specific customer questions per service for each client and group them by intent.

Sometimes the conversation itself is what leads to the intention to buy

On Google, the intent to purchase usually exists before the search query is entered. In ChatGPT, it sometimes develops along the way. A conversation that starts with “My knee keeps hurting when I run” might, a few questions later, lead to “What running shoes are suitable for someone like me?”

This creates advertising opportunities that never existed as search queries. That is precisely why the two channels are complementary rather than competitive: Google Ads captures explicit demand, while ChatGPT Ads captures the moment when someone is still figuring things out.

Expect 3 to 5 dollars per click

You can choose between CPM, CPC, or conversion-optimized CPC, with a maximum bid per ad group. For standard CPC campaigns, OpenAI recommends a starting bid of $3 to $5 per click. Selection is based on an auction that takes relevance into account, so you don’t automatically pay your maximum bid.

Let's break it down. With a maximum bid of $4 and 100 clicks in a month, you'll spend a maximum of $400. As of this writing, new advertisers receive $500 in ad credit when they spend $500, which means that an initial test actually ends up costing half as much.

What the Initial Figures Do and Do Not Reveal

Search Engine Land reports average CPCs of about $2 to $5 based on its own campaigns. This is early real-world data from a handful of accounts—not a benchmark. There are simply no Dutch figures available yet, as the channel is just launching this week.

Advertisers are also reporting issues: campaigns that don’t use up their budgets, hassles with tracking and measurability, irrelevant placements, and limited scale. They’re optimistic about the potential but critical of the execution. That’s reason enough to start small with a budget you can afford to lose.

This is especially true for categories where people do research before making a decision: software, business services, education, travel, electronics, and products with many comparison criteria. The longer the decision-making process, the more likely someone is to discuss it with ChatGPT.

This aligns with how OpenAI positions the channel itself: around exploring, comparing, and deciding. For B2B companies with long sales cycles, that’s exactly the phase in which you’re often invisible right now.

Let's be honest: it's not for everyone

When making an impulse purchase of five euros, nobody is going to chat with a chatbot. And as long as your Google Ads account still has room to grow, that’s almost always the better use of that euro. Treat this as a supplement, not a replacement.

Even if you don’t plan to advertise, your organic visibility in AI search engines remains just as important. For Krommenhoek Metals, our GEO approach generated nearly 500 additional visitors. We’ve previously written about how to get found on ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.

People use ChatGPT as an advisor, an explainer, and a comparison tool. You expect to see ads on Instagram and sponsored results on Google, but here the line between advice and commerce is much more delicate. As a result, user sentiment is predominantly skeptical.

That makes irrelevance on this channel more costly than a wasted click: it costs trust—and not just your brand’s. So the question isn’t how many impressions we can generate, but in which conversations we add enough value to deserve a place there. OpenAI already filters out sensitive and brand-unsafe contexts on its own; the rest is up to you to decide.

What That Means for Your Ad Copy

On Google, a direct sales headline works great: “CRM software starting at 29 euros per month.” In a conversation, a message that addresses the problem works better: “Get a handle on leads without enterprise CRM.” The first sells a product; the second ties in with what someone has just explained.

The same applies to your landing page. If someone who came from a specific conversation lands on a generic homepage, they lose the very connection that made the ad valuable. That’s a classic challenge for conversion optimization.

Start preparing, even if you're still unsure. You can work through customer questions, refine your copy, and set up tracking today. That way, you'll be testing by the time others are still reading.

So here's a place to start:

1. Write down ten to twenty real customer questions for each service or product. Your sales team and customer service team hear these every day. These are the building blocks for your context hints, and this is where most of the time goes.
2. Group them by intent, not by topic. “How much does this cost, roughly?” is a different stage than “Which provider is right for my situation?” Those two deserve different ads.
3. Write your ad copy as if you’re having a conversation. Problem, proof, next step. Don’t just reuse your standard Google Ads headline.
4. Set up your tracking. The platform has quickly added its own pixel, a Conversions API, custom audiences, and third-party measurement, and UTM parameters are preserved when a user clicks. If your tracking isn’t set up correctly, you’ll end up measuring a channel that you can’t evaluate.
5. Set aside a testing budget and allow for a learning period. Plan on a few weeks of data, and run it alongside your existing channels—don’t replace them.

We’re keeping a close eye on this and are currently preparing our first campaigns, just as we did when TikTok Shop launched in the Netherlands. We’re already doing this work for more than 100 companies: from ad strategy and Google Ads to content and SEO—all under one roof in Noordwijk.

Would you like to know if ChatGPT Ads are a good fit for your business, or do you just want to be ready when the channel launches? Get in touch. We’ll work with you to review the questions your customers are asking and use that to determine whether this channel is right for you.

Can advertisers read my conversations?

No. OpenAI states that advertisers do not have access to the conversations themselves and that names, email addresses, chat histories, and IP addresses are not shared with advertisers. What does happen is that the content of the current conversation is used to determine which ad is most relevant.

Can users turn off ads?

According to OpenAI, people decide for themselves how their data is used for advertising. Reports on the rollout in the Netherlands state that users of the free version can disable ads through their account settings. For advertisers, this means you won’t automatically reach everyone on the free plan.

Can I use ChatGPT Ads for a local business?

Geo-targeting is now available, so you can target users based on their location. The question is rather whether your target audience is using ChatGPT to discuss your service. For a plumber handling emergency jobs, that’s less likely than for a home renovation or a solar panel quote.

Do I need to adjust my SEO or GEO now that ads are being added?

Don’t adjust—just keep going. Ads are separate from the answers, so your organic visibility in AI search engines won’t be diminished. In practice, they reinforce each other: people who come across your brand in an answer are more likely to click on your ad.

How long will it take before I know if it works?

Expect it to take a few weeks before you have enough data to draw any conclusions, and even longer if your volume is low. During that period, focus on assessing whether your ads are appearing in relevant conversations. Only when that’s the case will your cost per lead be meaningful.