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Our Journey With LLM Advertising: How To Optimize and Set Up ChatGPT Ads

We never like to recommend, or try to implement, a new form of online advertising, until we’ve tried/tested it with our own business. That way we can understand the pros and cons of running advertising on a new advertising vehicle, plus all the “inputs” we’ll need to provide to the tool to launch the campaign. That makes it easy to know what questions we need to ask of our clients related to a new ad campaign launch on a vehicle that is new to them, or what we need their approval on.

We waited to try this new vehicle until they offered pay-per-click (PPC) vs. just pay-per-impression (CPM) advertising because, quite frankly, most of clients are small-to-mid-sized businesses (SMBs) and nonprofits and they have far smaller marketing/advertising budgets than large firms and need their ads to really work for them and generate leads and sales vs. just awareness-generation!

This gray image that runs horizontally is a print screen of Results Communications & Research's ad running on ChatGPT and It is truncated but says "Looking For Expert Advice For Bein..Learn How We Help Organizations Appear in AI and Traditional Search..." and contain a small powder blue image that says "SEO."
Results Communications & Research’s ChatGPT Ad

As of the original publish date of this blog post, It’s been about 1.5 weeks since we rolled out ads for our own business, Results Communications & Research, on the ChatGPT LLM-powered (large-language-model-powered) answer engine/AI search platform. We’ve documented below — and will continue to document — our 2026 journey with this new form of online advertising. So, be sure to check back!

  • Days 1 & 2 (June 11 and June 12) – set up our ad and associated targeting for our campaign at ads.openai.com (ChatGPT is owned by OpenAI) — it was not a large lift at all! Needed to determine and document in OpenAI’s ad tool how much we were initially wanting to spend for a click (we initially put this at $3.50) and our daily budget ($25), plus in what geographies (Providence RI and Boston MA) we wanted the ads to appear. And, also provide context hints (OpenAI instructions explained this exercise this way: “describe the conversations, topics, or keywords where your products or services may be relevant; these hints guide matching, but aren’t exact-match targeting rules.” We also documented the images and content we wanted to use in our ads. We are testing two ads — one with longer and one with shorter headlines — but to keep something consistent, so we’d feel comfortable drawing conclusions about our headlines, we used the same image in both ads. We also had to share with the ad platform what page of our website we wanted ad clickers to land on (we created a brand new page on our WordPress website for such purposes — which is an online advertising best practice).
  • Day 2 (June 12) – launched our campaign by activating it in our OpenAI Ads dashboard.
  • Day 5 or 6 (June 15 or 16) – of course, being the digital marketing and analytics geeks that we are, we checked our advertising dashboard at openai.com countless times to see if the ads were being served up and generating impressions and/or clicks. Seeing zero movement on either the impressions or clicks front, we decided to expand our geography to NYC and our daily budget to $35 and what we were willing to spend for a click to $5.00, in case what we were willing to pay for a click (and the competition to have ads shown by competitors in the same geography for the same types of prompts) was causing the ads to not be shown or we needed a bigger geography to have enough opportunities for our ads to be shown to relevant “prompters” on ChatGPT.
  • Day 7 (June 17) – we saw in our advertising dashboard that our ChatGPT ads were starting to accrue impressions, and therefore, were being served up, but not to any great degree.
  • Day 8 (June 18) – we increased what we were willing to pay for a click to $7.50, and also added in the whole state of New Hampshire to our geographic targeting.
  • Day 9 (June 19) – seeing an alert in the OpenAI ads platform that we were often being outbid by competitors because of what we were willing to pay for a click, we increased our click bid to $10.00 from $7.50 – our first 2 clicks were achieved somewhere between the 18th and 19th, and at that point, our ads had a 0.66% click-thru rate (meaning less than 1% of individuals having our ad served up to them, clicked on it — not surprising for reasons outlined in the next bullet.)
  • Day 12 (June 22) – we just checked this morning and the increase in budget and what we are willing to spend for an ad click, plus the expanded geography seems to be paying off! As of this morning, our ChatGPT ads have generated 2,762 impressions (been served up that number of times), 13 clicks (a 0.47% click-thru rate), and an average cost-per-click of $6.44. We aren’t surprised by any of this. We had seen competitors running ChatGPT ads in our space when we were entering relevant prompts into ChatGPT, so we knew as a business-to-business advertiser we were more likely to have to pay more for a click than a business-to-consumer advertiser might. We also know that ChatGPT is a different animal than Google Search ads — the new form of ads discussed in this post is served up to individuals entering prompts into ChatGPT that might indicate they’d be interested in our services, but it’s not the same as someone entering “keywords” into Google and then Google serving up ads to those individuals because an advertiser provided those keywords as ones they wanted their ads to be served up for. We changed our daily budget to $50.00 today — we should have increased the daily budget a few days back in keeping with our increasing the amount we were willing to pay for a click! We also paused the shorter of our two ads since the longer ad was performing far better. To-date, we have not generated any leads — in the form of phone calls, e-mails, or appointment set-up — from these ads. We’re not discouraged by this at all, since, when it comes to a business engaging a firm for B2B services — or even reaching out to them — there can be a long lead time!
  • Day 17 (June 27) – we paused our ads today. Not because they weren’t generating impressions or clicks, but simply because we are a small marketing agency/SEO company who deliberately keeps our fees/rates very reasonable so that small businesses and nonprofits can afford to work with us. Going into this pilot, we planned to only spend about $300, but ended up letting the ads run until ChatGPT ads had spent $364.12, based on our daily budget and what we were willing to spend per click.

How Successful Was Our ChatGTP Ads Campaign?

Because businesses often take some time before purchasing business services, and therefore, like to research a number of companies before they decide to reach out to the one organization or the few organizations whom they are most interested in, we have yet to receive any inquiries from our ads, but still hope to get some inquiries from those who have clicked on the ads. At least we’ve generated some “awareness” among appropriate parties. We’ve also found in our many years of running online ads for our own business, that often, fellow marketing agencies/competitors click on our ads to see what we are offering and what we are all about. We did ensure our landing page for our ad clickers adhered to best practices, such as demonstrating why we are experts, including “social proof,” therefore, a review or testimonial, and much more!

Ultimately our ChatGPT ads yielded:

  • 11,321 impressions (this number of sets of eyeballs viewed our ads as part of entering an appropriate prompt into ChatGPT)
  • 46 clicks
  • 0.41% CTR (we aren’t concerned or scared off by this low click-thru rate — we’ve seen similar with Reddit and nextdoor.com ads
  • Average cost-per-click (CPC) of $7.92 – not horrible for a B2B (business-to-business) lead

As we recommended at the top of this blog post, keep coming back to learn more about our ChatGPT advertising journey! We’re all in this together when it comes to understanding this particular form of new advertising and how effective it will be in generating leads and sales, not just awareness, and if ROI makes sense for advertisers like our clients who need their ad $$ to work for them pretty quickly.

walking

Walking Central Park: A 25-Year and Ongoing Odyssey

While I likely visited Central Park long before, my first recollection of spending any significant amount of time in the Park was when my now husband, but then boyfriend, Jay, and I made a trip to the Manhattan borough of NYC to celebrate my 40th birthday. Despite it being November, and likely a bit chilly out — it was cold enough to skate at Rockefeller Center (we had so much fun) and in Central Park (where we got to watch the skaters) too. On that trip, we visited the Central Park Zoo. I believe it was on that particular visit, or the next one, that we visited the Carousel at Central Park and a nearby gift shop in the Park as well.

Most of the visits we’ve made to NYC have been in the spring, specifically so we could spend lots of time in the Park. As Tom Hanks’ character says in the movie “You’ve Got Mail,” “it’d be a shame to miss New York in the spring,” which I’ve mentally revised to “it’d be a shame to miss Central Park in the spring.”

Central Park runs from West To East from Central Park West To Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and from North To South from 110th Street to 59th Street. So, I thought the easiest way to document our visits would be by the number of the Manhattan Street that runs perpendicular to a certain part of Central Park. Each section has its own identity and unique features/attractions, and no section has yet to disappoint. As The World Monuments Fund calls out in this website page about why Central Park was built, “Central Park was created as a sanctuary from the pace and pressures of city life—a democratic space designed to enhance the enjoyment and wellbeing of all. Construction of the Park began in 1858, and only a few months later, the first section, the Lake, opened to the public.” So many tourists and NYC residents take advantage of the Park, the people-watching alone is enough of a reason to visit!

Ultimately, we’d love to visit all the sections of the treasure we all have in Central Park. But, when we do visit NYC, we like to stumble across things, and not have a large to-do list, or schedule we have to adhere to, so who knows if it will happen, and if it does, it will likely be more organically vs. planned out.

The Section of Central Park We Know Best And Have Visited Most: 71st To 82nd Streets

While I had made some trips to various NYC boroughs prior to meeting my husband, 8 of the 10 trips we’ve made together included staying at hotels on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and the two hotels in-question are both in easy walking distance of iconic Central Park. So, the areas or features of the Park we know best and have visited most are:

  • Strawberry Fields
  • Bow Bridge
  • Ladies Pavilion – of course, I love this because I love anything with a vintage, decorative look and I love the color too!
  • Tavern On The Green Restaurant — we’ve never had the pleasure of eating at this well-known and beloved restaurant in Central Park West and 67th Street, but we’ve had fun walking by! Plus, enjoyed watching horse-drawn carriage activity in this area of the Park!

On our most recent visit in spring 2026, we once again walked from the East Side of the Park to the West Side — ultimately going from around West 79th Street to 5th Avenue, on the other side of the Park. We had never before visited Belvedere Castle or seen Delacorte Theater (which we viewed this time around from the aforementioned Castle). The Castle is so beautiful and has a gift shop and a landing where street artists perform, and the views from that area are fabulous. We also got to take the path to and from the Park to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the MET) which is located at 1000 Fifth Street and East 82nd Street. This was our second time to make our way from one side of Central Park to the other on one of our trips to NYC, and it’s a very manageable walk for most, I would think. It was a sunny, warm (high 70’s/low 80s) day the day we visited, so we saw lots of sunbathers on the steps of the MET. And, speaking of sunbathing or relaxing, when we made our way back we walked thru the area known as the “Great Lawn,” and I have never seen so many people laughing, smiling, and socializing in one place in one park. It was mesmerizing!

We also visited both a pizza place for a traditional large NYC pizza slice and a delicious gluten-free bakery on Lexington Avenue after exiting the East side of the Park near the aforementioned Museum.

A favorite memory of this section of the Park pertains to a spring 2013 NYC trip we made with my twin’s family. What did we do as soon as we checked in at the hotel with my twin sister’s family? Grab cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery on Columbus Avenue and bring them with us to Central Park! We also visited the “Friends’ Fountain”(Cherry Hill Fountain) and beautiful Bethesda Terrace. And, one morning grabbed egg frittatas from a nearby farm-to-table place to eat them at the Park, and on this trip, and many others, we got to listen to some great musicians playing music in the Park.

This image shows a section of Central Park West -- in the roughly 81st to 77th street area of the park on the Upper West Side of NYC and it shows people standing on big rocks or sitting on them with a beautiful river/water view below and a view of tall Manhattan buildings in the background.

What Other Sections Of Central Park Have We Visited?

70th Street To 59th Street

On our most recent visit in spring 2026, we walked the interior of Central Park West from 79th Street to 59th Street (Columbus Circle and where the Park ends) to attend a new food truck festival called Smorgasburg (because it’s a food extravaganza with roots in Williamsburg, Brooklyn). But, since I already pointed out favorite points of interest in the West 81st to West 71st stretch, I’m focusing this paragraph on the stretch from West 70th to West 59th.

We’ve also visited and rode on the beautiful Central Park Carousel at East 65th Street and visited the Zoo (close by at at East 64th) there as mentioned in the beginning of this blog post related to my husband and my first or second visit to NYC). Both were so much fun!

What Sections Of Central Park Do We Still Want To Get To Know?

Well, based on using an orange highlighter to mark on a free Central Park Conservancy map the areas we have visited, it looks like we’ve covered a lot of the lower, western part of the park, and some of the lower eastern park. That means, Jay and I need to spend some time on our next NYC trip visiting:

  • The Upper Western and Eastern Parts Of The Park From 82nd Street to 110th Street
  • The Eastern Part Of The Park From About 66th Street to 78th Street

But, as I shared above, we like our time in NYC to allow for a lot of spontaneity, so we’ll see what our next NYC trip brings! But regardless, I know, for certain, we will be visiting one or several section of this fabulous Park!

Acceptance of Circumstances, AEO, AI Search, Being Found On Bing, Being Found on Google, blog, content marketing, differentiation, GEO, good will creation, keeping up with trends, lead generation, pull marketing, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, staying current, target audiences, Target Marketing, Understanding Your Environment, User experience, website

The ABCs & Ds Of Being Found In Answer-Engine-Prompt And Traditional-Search-Engine Results

We will continue to conduct our own informal research — assessing how and when our own website pages and posts appear in both AI/Answer Engine Prompt results and traditional search engine results — but based on what we are seeing as of the date of this blog post, the items outlined in the image and bulleted section below seem to be common features or characteristics of website content that is being served up most frequently in any kind of AI or search engine.

And, it’s also very much in keeping with what we observed and commented on almost two years ago related to commonalties among content that was being served in traditional and AI search engine results.

How To Be Found Online? Do The Following Related To Your Website Content

  • Always keep your target audience in mind — what content/information would be helpful to them vs. content/information you want to share. Don’t be self-serving!
  • Keep your content clean and easily consumable by using bulleted or numbered lists
  • Don’t be afraid to take a different approach to what other experts are saying on a particular topic
  • We’ve talked about this in a number of blog posts, including this post about the types of links every website should have — always include internal links and external links to relevant content
This light gray vertical image says in a dark powder blue "the ABCs & Ds Of Appearing In Answer-Engine-Prompt and Traditional-Search Results and Has Bulleted Sharing the Same Bulleted Content That Is Served In the Post Itself

Need Help Figuring Out How To Write Content For Your Target Audiences Or How To Structure That Content?

Reach out today for a free marketing consultation regarding your organization’s particular challenges related to being found online.