ChatGPT Is Putting Ads in Its Image Maker This Month. Should Your Business Buy One?

OpenAI announced Monday that it will start testing visual ads inside ChatGPT's image generation later this month. Somebody types in "a cozy kitchen with a farmhouse sink," and while the picture loads, a labeled ad for a faucet or a remodeling company shows up next to it. OpenAI says the ads will be clearly marked and kept separate from the image being made. It also says ChatGPT now has 1.2 billion weekly users, and the first round goes to a small group of advertisers in the U.S.

I've had three business owners ask me this week whether they should jump on it. My answer so far is no, not yet, but there's a reason to pay attention anyway.

Why a Toledo business should care

Ads started in ChatGPT back in February, and the early complaints from advertisers were pretty consistent. Not many ad formats, weak tracking, and not enough places to run them. A visual ad is OpenAI's answer to the first one. They also added hookups with tracking companies so advertisers can see what happened after someone saw an ad. Digiday points out the inventory problem is still there, though. People send around 2.5 billion prompts a day to ChatGPT, and Google handles something like 15 billion searches. That's a much smaller pond.

For you, that means two things. Your customers are using these tools to picture projects before they call anybody. Someone redoing a bathroom in Sylvania might generate three versions of it first and then go shopping. And the ad that sits next to that picture is going to belong to somebody, so it might as well be somebody local, or it might be a national chain that has the budget to grab it first.

What I'd check before spending anything

Start with whether you can even buy one. Right now it's an invite-only test with a first group of advertisers, and nothing I read says small businesses get in on day one or what it costs. Don't let a rep talk you into something that's priced like a big brand's campaign when you're running on a few hundred bucks a month.

Next, look at what you already pay for. If your Google and Facebook ads are producing calls, they're doing the job, and ChatGPT's tracking is brand new. I'd want to see a few months of results from other people before I moved real money over. Ask whoever runs your ads how they'd measure it, and if the answer is "we'll see," that's your answer too.

Then check your own pictures. If an AI tool is going to show your ad beside a generated image, your website and your photos need to hold up when someone clicks through. I've seen plenty of local sites with a great ad and a landing page that looks like it was built in 2011. Fix that first. It helps with every ad you'll ever run.

Do this one thing this week

Open ChatGPT and ask it the kind of thing your customers would ask. "Show me what a finished patio looks like" or "help me plan a catering menu for 80 people." See what it says and who it recommends. Do it twice, on different days. It takes ten minutes, and it tells you more about where your customers are heading than any article will, this one included.

If the ads turn out to work for small shops, you'll have your answer ready when the invite comes. And if they don't, you didn't burn a month's budget finding out.