ChatGPT ads in the UK: what a £15 a day test actually looks like
I'm a UK sole trader running ChatGPT ads on £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, helping small businesses get more from their websites.
Most of what you'll read about ChatGPT ads is written by people selling ChatGPT ads management. This isn't that.
I run Hempsall Digital on my own. I've spent seven years in paid advertising, across insurance, betting and retail, and right now I'm putting real money into ads inside ChatGPT. Not a client's budget. Mine.
So here's the honest version. What it costs, what it's like inside the account, why the leads aren't good yet, and why I'm sticking with it anyway.
The short version
- ChatGPT ads are live in the UK and you can run them yourself from about £15 a day per campaign.
- The tools are basic. No keywords, no negative keywords, and very little targeting. The ad copy does most of the work.
- My leads so far are weak. I have some ideas why, and none of them are "the channel is broken".
- Google is coming next. Ads in Google's AI Mode are due in the UK in Q4 2026, and Google's own numbers give it every reason to push them hard.
- I'll publish month two's numbers. Good or bad.
How to read this post
I've split everything into three kinds of statement, because AI advertising is full of confident claims with nothing behind them.
| 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 take | My opinion. Weigh it accordingly |
Why I'm spending my own money on this
Clients ask me about new ad platforms long before they want to spend on them. "Should we be on TikTok?" "Is Reddit worth it?" And now, "Can we advertise in ChatGPT?"
I can't answer that with a press release. I can answer it with an account, a budget and a few weeks of data. That's the whole reason for the test.
My take. The best time to learn a new ad platform is when it's cheap, quiet and slightly broken. By the time it's polished, the costs have usually gone up and the agencies with real experience are already booked.
ChatGPT ads in 60 seconds
If you've never seen the platform, here's the fact sheet. Everything in this table is confirmed unless I say 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 make you wince. Keywords are how you tell Google who you want. Negative keywords (search terms you block so you don't pay for the wrong clicks) are how you tell it who you don't. ChatGPT ads have neither.
Inside my account
This is the bit 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 basic. You get a short headline, a line of copy and a link or a lead form. If you've built Performance Max or Meta campaigns, it feels like going back about ten years.
My take. OpenAI has made it very simple to use. As an advertising professional, I'd like to see a lot more control. But for someone running their own ads with limited experience, the lack of detail and optimisation options is exactly what makes it easy to pick up.
My test. Clicks are expensive. At about £6.50 each, my £15 daily budget buys two clicks, maybe three on a good day. On Google Ads you can at least see which search each of those clicks came from. Here you're paying premium prices for traffic you can't inspect.
My take. I suspect part of that price is my industry. Marketing services is a competitive, high-value category, so I'd expect to pay more per click than a café or a plumber would. The way I've targeted probably adds to it too. I kept my campaign to Derbyshire towns, and I was surprised which ones I could select and which I couldn't. A handful of small towns is a small audience, and small audiences usually cost more per click. That's a hunch, not data. I haven't seen any published UK cost-per-click benchmarks for ChatGPT ads by industry yet, so treat my £6.50 as one account's number rather than the going rate.
My test. The leads aren't good yet, and the bad ones all look the same. So far, every unqualified lead has been uncontactable. No reply to emails, no answer on the phone. Most also came from personal email addresses rather than business ones. I do take on work for individuals, but most of my clients are businesses, so a personal address that never replies is almost always a dead end.
Why the leads might be weak
None of these are proven. They're my working theories, based on how the platform is built and on years of watching other platforms behave in their first year.
1. The people who buy B2B services may not see the ads
Confirmed. Only Free and Go users see ads. My take. A lot of senior decision makers pay for ad-free plans, often through work. That would push the ad audience towards consumers and very small businesses. If you sell to finance directors, many of them may never see you here.
My test. This fits what I'm seeing. Personal email addresses on most of the unqualified leads point to people using ChatGPT in their own time, not business owners looking for a supplier.
2. You can't filter out bad questions
In Google Ads, if "free website" keeps triggering your ads, you add it as a negative keyword and the problem goes away by lunch. In ChatGPT ads, there's no equivalent. Your ad can show next to loosely related conversations and you won't know which ones, because reporting gives you totals only.
3. £15 a day isn't enough for the system to learn
This is a cheap test, and I know it. I'd like to spend more, but as a sole trader every pound of ad spend has to earn its place, so I'm balancing what I can learn against what it costs.
My take. At £15 a day and £6.50 a click, I'm buying roughly 70 clicks a month. That's very little for an optimised bidding system to learn from, even with a strong landing page. The algorithm is still guessing, and I'm paying for it to guess.
4. Easy forms bring easy enquiries
If you've run Meta lead ads, you'll know this one. When submitting takes one tap, people submit without thinking. Volume goes up and intent goes down. ChatGPT's in-chat lead forms look like they follow the same pattern. Leads you can't contact are the classic sign. Someone fills in the form on a whim, and by the time you reply they've moved on.
The pattern I keep seeing. Every new ad platform starts with the same three problems. Weak targeting, thin reporting and lead forms that make enquiries too easy. Meta had them. LinkedIn had them. They improved because advertisers stayed long enough to push for better tools.
One setting to check this week
Confirmed. OpenAI switched on "creative enhancements" by default for self-serve campaigns at the end of October 2026. Its email to advertisers said 30 October and its help page said 29 October, so if you run ChatGPT ads, it's probably already on in your account.
With this setting on, OpenAI can rewrite your headline and description, translate your ad and change which page people land on, without you approving each version (OpenAI Help Center; Search Engine Land).
You can switch it off in Ads Manager under settings.
My test. I've recently started testing creative enhancements, but I don't have enough data yet to say whether they help or hurt. That's going into the month two numbers.
My take. For a small business, an ad that sends people to a page you didn't choose is a real risk. If your pricing or service area matters, at least 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 bigger story for most UK businesses.
Confirmed. Ads in Google's AI Mode (the chat-style search tab) are expanding to more markets, with the UK, Brazil and Mexico due in Q4 2026. In the US, Google is already showing ads on follow-up questions, not just the first one (Search Engine Roundtable).
Confirmed. Google Search revenue grew 12% year on year in the third quarter of 2026 (Alphabet Q3 2026 results). That's down from 17% in Q2 (Alphabet Q2 2026 results) and 19% in Q1 (Alphabet Q1 2026 results).
Confirmed. On the earnings call, Google's Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler said currency movements were the single largest reason Search growth slowed from Q2. But he also said strong growth in AI Mode queries had an impact, because of the lower monetisation Google was seeing in AI Mode (The Motley Fool transcript).
My take. Put those together. People are moving into AI Mode, AI Mode makes Google less money per search, and Google has just announced it's taking AI Mode ads international. Google hasn't said "we're about to push AI ads hard". But if I were running Google's ad business, that's exactly what I'd do next.
For UK advertisers, that means two things.
- Your Google Ads may start appearing somewhere new. Check which campaign types and match types qualify once Google publishes its UK eligibility rules.
- Whatever you learn on ChatGPT now carries over. Writing ad copy that works inside a conversation is a different skill from writing for a results page. It's worth practising while it's cheap.
Are ChatGPT ads worth it for a small business?
Not for everyone, and not yet for most. Here's how I'd decide.
| 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 month two.
- Send clicks to a landing page instead of the lead form. One extra step should filter out the casual taps.
- Add a qualifying question. Something like budget or business type, so I can sort leads before I reply.
- Ask for a business email and phone number. If someone won't give either, I'd rather know before I pay to chase them.
- Rewrite the context hints. Narrower, more specific to 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 go nowhere aren't cheap.
Quick answers
Are ChatGPT ads available in the UK?
Yes. ChatGPT ads went live in the UK on 6 June 2026, and UK businesses can now buy them through OpenAI's self-serve Ads Manager rather than through a sales rep. Ads only show to logged-in adults on ChatGPT's Free and Go plans.
How much do ChatGPT ads cost in the UK?
The minimum I've seen is £15 a day per campaign, with no minimum contract. You can pay per click, per thousand views or use optimised bidding. In my account, clicks cost about £6.50 each, so £15 a day buys two or three clicks. Costs will shift as more advertisers join.
Can you target keywords with ChatGPT ads?
No. There are no keywords or negative keywords. Location targeting goes down to town level, although not every town is available, and the system uses your ad copy and context hints to decide which conversations to show your ad in. That makes it harder to control who sees you than on Google Ads.
When are Google AI Mode ads coming to the UK?
Google has said ads in AI Mode will expand to the UK, Brazil and Mexico in Q4 2026. If you already run Google Ads, it's worth checking which of your campaigns will be eligible once Google confirms the UK rules.
Month two, in public
I'll publish the next month's numbers once month two is done, including cost per qualified lead and whether the landing page change made any difference. If the channel still isn't working by then, I'll say so.
If you're thinking about ChatGPT ads, Google's AI Mode or how your business shows up in AI answers generally, my AI visibility service covers the organic side, and I'm happy to talk through the paid side too.
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 Center, 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
