The Way To Shape Your Thinking About ChatGPT Ads
Brands have started to test out ChatGPT ads; the need to get in front of nearly 1 billion monthly active users and test is too great for many marketing departments.
We are entering a new buzzword phase, and to many, it will make sense.
Enter “Problem State Marketing”
What we know about ChatGPT ads is that they allow brands to again piggyback on conversational search and show up as a solution when attempting to answer a problem posed by the user.
Paid placement (albeit still an ad) feels more natural, appearing with an answer or solution, vs just piggybacking off a competitor's brand terms feels more authentic.
In many recent conversations, there are two streams, (1) the challenge to know what works for AEO and (2) getting buy-in to invest in huge quantities of content.
Cracking The Chat To Citation To Conversion Tracking
Answer engines and AI overviews are still hard to influence in a repeatable way. Most brands are defaulting to ‘publish more content on more platforms’ and hoping to be cited.
While many are repeating their previous SEO playbook, creating tonnes of content in the hope of citations, others are taking the CFO approach, bidding on ads and showing up in paid results being the safer play. Its the play many will sign off in the hope they’re not left behind.
The Bid → Click → Convert Model Is Comparable To What C-Suite Leaders Know
The path from ‘question in chat’ to ‘brand mentioned’ to ‘site visit and sale’ is hard to see and even harder to attribute, while some are preparing for agentic commerce, others are looking to cover their rears with somewhat predictable outcomes.
Paid also has a better measurement component, bid, click, track, convert, far simpler than the challenges with chat - citation - conversion that has many flaws and is tricky to reverse engineer the prompts and iterations made for you to unlock what and where people are searching.
Let’s give you something concrete: When a user types ‘our sales reps keep losing deals at the proposal stage’, they’re in a problem state. Being the ad that offers ‘proposal coaching playbook’ at that moment is Problem State Marketing
Despite the noise from many experts, everyone prompts differently, people are learning not to use a mix of keywords to get the right answer; they are being more prescriptive, more personal, more focused on the problem to solve at hand.
Let’s Balance The Debate:
A note to the wise, ChatGPT ad inventory and formats are still early; this is a test‑and‑learn channel, not a budget black hole. You need to be smart and knowledgeable about investing here.
You’re showing up inside a conversation you don’t fully see; guardrails are critically important and tight creative matter. You won't see the prompt users use and may struggle to understand their full flow. Brand safety is key.
Over‑reliance on paid: This complements, not replaces, longer‑term work on brand, product, and organic visibility. The higher the brand trust, the more you are seen and heard, the better the chances are of being cited and actively connected in prompts.
For CMOs and business leaders, this isn’t about chasing another platform or comparing your activities with a competitor's. It’s a decision between:
(1) Continuing to over‑invest in untrackable content, hoping to be cited,
or
(2) Testing a more measurable way to show up at the exact moment a customer describes their problem.
It's not one or the other, it will be both, but which will make most sense when pitching for additional investment with your C-suite
If you are:
(i) launching in a crowded category,
(ii) competing with incumbents defending brand terms, or
(iii) under pressure to prove AI‑era tests with clear attribution (ROI from AI is here), ads in ChatGPT should likely be on your 6‑month roadmap.
