ChatGPT ads in the UK: what a £15 a day test actually looks like
I'm a UK sole trader running ChatGPT ads at £15 a day. Here's what it costs, what the leads are like, and what Google's AI Mode ads mean for you next.
By Ollie Hempsall · 29 October 2026
Web developer and digital marketer based in Derbyshire, specialising in helping small businesses get more from their websites.
The honest answer is, so far not much. I'm currently sitting looking at a CPC of roughly £6.50, so the amount of traffic I'm getting isn't anything to sing and dance about.
There are a few factors at play here, and I know before you say anything, budget is definitely one of them. I am unfortunately not blessed with a large marketing budget.
More factors include targeting, the industry I operate in and driving for a lead, but I get into this in more detail further down.
I run Hempsall Digital on my own. I've spent seven years in paid ads (insurance, betting and retail) and at the moment I'm actually putting my own money into ads in ChatGPT. Not a client's money. Mine.
So here's the straight deal. What it costs, what it's like in the account, why the leads aren't any good yet and why I'm still with it.
The short version
- ChatGPT ads are now live in the UK and you can run them yourself from as little as £15 a day per campaign.
- The tools are very basic. No keywords, no negative keywords and minimal targeting. The ad copy does all the work.
- My leads so far are pretty weak. I've got some ideas as to why and none of them are "the channel is broken".
- Google is next. Ads in Google's AI Mode are due in the UK in Q4 2026 and Google's own figures give it every incentive to push them vigorously.
- I'll be publishing the second month's numbers. Good or bad.
How to read this post
I've broken it all down into three types of statement really as AI advertising is rife with confident claims which have absolutely nothing to back them up.
| Label | What it means |
|---|---|
| Confirmed | OpenAI, Google or a named publication has said it, and I've linked the source |
| My test | Something I've seen in my own account with my own money |
| My view | My opinion. Weigh it accordingly |
Why I'm spending my own money on this
Clients are asking me about new ad platforms well before they're ready to actually spend any money on them. "Should we be on TikTok?" "Is Reddit worth it?" And now "Can we advertise in ChatGPT?"
I can't answer that in a press release. I can answer it with an account, a budget and a few weeks of data. That's precisely why we did the test.
My view. The best time to learn a new ad platform is when it's cheap, it's quiet and it's slightly broken. By the time it's actually got to the point of being polished the costs have generally increased and the agencies with any real experience are all booked up.
ChatGPT ads in 60 seconds
If you've never seen the platform then here's the fact sheet. Everything in that table is confirmed unless I state otherwise.
| UK launch | Ads went live in the UK on 6 June 2026, the first European market, and a self-serve Ads Manager beta started rolling out to UK businesses from 19 June (Adtrak) |
| Who sees the ads | Logged-in adults on the Free and Go plans. Paid plans don't see ads (AirOps) |
| Minimum budget | £15 a day per campaign. My test, this is exactly what my account asked for |
| How you pay | Per click (CPC), per thousand views (CPM) or an optimised CPM option (Digiday) |
| Typical click cost | My test, roughly £6.50 a click in my account. Agency estimates suggest $3 to $5 to start (about £2.20 to £3.70), so I'm paying well above what the sales pitches suggest |
| Targeting | My test, location goes down to town level, but not every town is available. No keywords, no negative keywords, no interests, no lookalikes. Context hints and your ad copy steer where you show up |
| Reporting | Totals only. You never see the conversation your ad appeared in |
If you run Google Ads the targeting row is the one that should give you a fright. Keywords are how you tell Google who you want. Negative keywords are how you tell it who you don't. ChatGPT ads have neither.
Inside my account
This is the bit that no reseller can give you.
| Metric | My numbers |
|---|---|
| Daily budget | £15 |
| Average cost per click | About £6.50 |
| Click-through rate (CTR, the share of people who saw the ad and clicked it) | 0.47% |
My test. The ad formats are very basic. You've got a short headline, a line of copy and either a link or a lead form. If you've done any Performance Max or Meta campaigns then it's absolutely like going back ten years.
My view. OpenAI have made it extremely easy to use. As an advertising professional I'd like to see a lot more control. For someone running their own ads with very little experience the lack of detail and optimisation options is precisely what makes it so easy to get to grips with.
My test. Clicks are expensive. At around £6.50 each, my £15 daily budget will get me two clicks, maybe three on a good day. On Google Ads at least you can see which search each of those clicks came from. Here you're paying a premium for traffic that you can't even look at.
My view. Part of the price is down to my industry. Marketing services is a very competitive, high value category so I'd expect to pay more per click than you would for a café or a plumber. The way I've targeted probably contributes to it too. I've only run my campaign in the Derbyshire towns and it was surprising how many I could actually select and how many I couldn't. A small number of small towns is a small audience and small audiences tend to cost more per click. That's just a hunch really. There aren't any published UK cost per click benchmarks for ChatGPT ads by industry at the moment so treat my £6.50 as just one account's figure rather than the actual market rate.
My test. The leads aren't great at all and the bad ones are all pretty much the same. So far every unqualified lead has been uncontactable. No reply to email, no answer on the phone. Most of them also come from personal email addresses rather than business ones. I do take work from individuals but the vast majority of my clients are businesses so a personal email address that doesn't reply is pretty much a dead end.
Why the leads might be weak
None of these are proven. They're just my working hypotheses, based on how the platform is constructed and on all the other platforms I've seen in their first year.
1. The people who buy B2B services may not see the ads
Confirmed. Only Free and Go users see the ads. My view. A lot of senior decision makers will have paid for an ad free plan (often via their employer). That would mean the ad audience would be skewed towards consumers and very small businesses. If you're selling to finance directors then many of them may well never see you in that environment.
My test. This is exactly what I'm seeing. The personal email addresses on the majority of the unqualified leads point to people using ChatGPT in their own time rather than business owners looking for a supplier.
2. You can't filter out bad questions
In Google Ads if "free website" keeps your ads getting triggered you just add it as a negative keyword and it's all sorted by lunchtime. In ChatGPT ads there's no such thing. Your ad can be showing up next to conversations that are very loosely related and you'll have no idea which ones as the reporting only gives you totals.
3. £15 a day isn't enough for the system to learn
This is a very cheap test and I know it. I'd like to go further, but as a sole trader every penny of ad spend has to do something. It's a case of balancing what we can learn against what it costs.
My view. At £15 a day and £6.50 a click we're effectively buying around 70 clicks a month. That's not a lot of data for an optimised bidding system to learn from, even with a great landing page. The algorithm is still very much in the dark and we're paying for it to be in the dark.
4. Easy forms bring easy enquiries
If you've run Meta lead ads you'll know this one. It's a one tap submit and people just submit without a second thought. Volume goes up and intent goes down. ChatGPT's in chat lead forms are no different. The classic indicator is that you've got leads you can't contact. Someone fills in the form on a whim and by the time you get round to replying they've gone.
The pattern I keep seeing. Every new ad platform comes in with the same three problems. Poor targeting, poor reporting and lead forms that are too easy to use. Meta had them. LinkedIn had them. They improved because advertisers stayed long enough to demand better.
One setting to check this week
Confirmed. OpenAI switched on "creative enhancements" by default for self-serve campaigns at the end of October 2026. Their email to advertisers stated 30th October and their help page stated 29th October so if you're running ChatGPT ads it's very likely already on in your account.
With this setting on OpenAI can rewrite your headline and description, translate your ad and alter which page people end up on, all without you having to approve each version (OpenAI Help Centre; Search Engine Land).
You can turn it off in Ads Manager under Settings.
My test. I've just started looking at the creative enhancements but we're not quite at the point where we have enough data to say whether they're of any benefit or not. That'll be in the second month numbers.
My view. For a small business an ad that takes you to a page you didn't select is a real risk. If your pricing or your service area is in any way important then at least have a look at the setting before it looks after itself.
Google is next, and it has a reason to move fast
ChatGPT is the test. Google is the real story for the majority of UK businesses.
Confirmed. Ads in Google's AI Mode (the chat-style search tab) are rolling out to more markets with the UK, Brazil and Mexico all set for Q4 2026. In the US they're already showing ads on the follow up questions (not just the first one) (Search Engine Roundtable).
Confirmed. Google Search revenue up 12% YoY in Q3 2026 (Alphabet Q3 2026 results). That's down on Q2 (17% YoY) and Q1 (19% YoY) respectively.
Confirmed. On the earnings call Google's CBO Philipp Schindler identified FX movements as the main thing that had caused Search growth to decelerate from Q2. He did however note that the strong growth in AI Mode queries had also had an impact, given the lower monetisation that Google was seeing in AI Mode (The Motley Fool transcript).
My view. Put those together. People are moving into AI Mode, AI Mode is less profitable per search for Google and Google have just announced they're taking AI Mode ads international. Google haven't said "we're about to go all in on AI ads" but if I were running the Google Ad business that would be the very next thing I'd do.
For UK advertisers that means two things.
- Your Google Ads may start appearing in a new location. Check which campaign types and match types are eligible once Google publishes its UK eligibility rules.
- Whatever you learn on ChatGPT at this point is going to carry over. Writing ad copy that works in a conversation is a different skill to writing for a results page. It's worth practising whilst it's still cheap.
Are ChatGPT ads worth it for a small business?
Not for everyone and not yet for most. Here's how I'd go about it.
| Try it now if | Wait if |
|---|---|
| You can afford £450 or so a month as a learning budget, not a lead budget | You need every pound of ad spend to produce enquiries this month |
| You sell to consumers or very small businesses | You sell mainly to senior B2B buyers |
| You already have a landing page that qualifies people properly | Your only option would be the in-chat lead form |
| You're comfortable with totals-only reporting | You need to see exactly which searches triggered each click |
| Your Google and Meta basics are already working | Your Google Ads account hasn't been looked at in months |
That last row matters most. If your Google Ads account is leaking money, fix that first. It's a far better return than any new platform. If you're not sure, that's the kind of thing I check in a paid advertising audit.
What I'm changing next month
Here's the plan for the second month.
- Send the clicks to the landing page rather than the lead form. That one extra step will filter out the light taps.
- Add a qualifying question. Something like budget or business type, so that I can sort the leads prior to replying.
- Ask for a corporate email and phone number. If they're not going to give you either then I'd rather know that upfront before I spend the time and money chasing them.
- Rewrite the context hints. Narrower, more targeted at the people I actually want.
- Decide on creative enhancements based on what it changes in the first two weeks.
- Track cost per qualified lead not cost per lead. Cheap leads that don't convert at all aren't cheap.
Quick answers
Are ChatGPT ads available in the UK?
Yes. The ChatGPT ads launched in the UK on 6th June 2026 and UK businesses can now purchase them via OpenAI's self-serve Ads Manager (rather than through a sales rep). The ads will only appear to logged-in adults on the Free and Go plans.
How much do ChatGPT ads cost in the UK?
The lowest I've seen is £15 a day per campaign with no minimum contract. You can pay per click, per 1000 views or go with optimised bidding. In my account clicks are around £6.50 so £15 a day will get you two or three clicks. The cost will obviously vary as more advertisers come on board.
Can you target keywords with ChatGPT ads?
Nope, there are no keywords or negative keywords. It's location targeting down to the town level (not every town is available) and it's using your ad copy and the context clues to work out which of the conversations it will show your ad in. That makes it much harder to have any control over who sees you than it is on Google Ads.
When are Google AI Mode ads coming to the UK?
Google have announced that Ads in AI Mode will be rolling out to the UK, Brazil and Mexico in Q4 2026. If you're already running Google Ads then it's worth having a look at which of your campaigns will be eligible once Google have confirmed the UK rules.
Second month, in public
I'll publish the numbers for next month once the second month is up (including cost per qualified lead and whether the landing page change actually made any difference). If it's still not working by then I'll be quite clear that it's not.
If you're thinking about ChatGPT ads, Google's AI Mode or how your business appears in AI generated answers in general then my AI visibility service looks at the organic side and I'm more than happy to go through the paid side as well.
Sources
- Adtrak, ChatGPT ads in the UK: what's actually live
- AirOps, ChatGPT Ads Manager guide
- Digiday, OpenAI expands Ads Manager to the UK, adds CPC
- OpenAI Help Centre, Creative enhancements for ChatGPT Ads
- Search Engine Land, ChatGPT Ads to enable creative enhancements on October 30
- Search Engine Roundtable, Google expands ads in AI Mode
- Alphabet, Q3 2026 results
- Alphabet, Q2 2026 results
- Alphabet, Q1 2026 results
- The Motley Fool, Alphabet Q3 2026 earnings call transcript
