AI Marketing

ChatGPT Advertising: How It Works, What It Costs and What Lithuanian Businesses Should Do

ChatGPT advertising is now a working channel with a self-serve Ads Manager, ad formats and an auction. Lithuania is not among the supported markets, so Lithuanian businesses cannot buy ads yet. The preparation that matters most costs nothing and pays off today: visibility in artificial intelligence (AI) answers, clean product feeds, answer-ready landing pages and AI traffic measurement.

Author Darius Lukosius, Google Ads strategist Published September 5, 2026 Updated September 5, 2026 11 min read

The short version, if you're in a hurry

On January 16, OpenAI announced it was starting ad tests in the US for logged-in adult users on the free and low-cost Go plans. Subscribers on the more expensive plans do not see ads.
Ads appear below the answer, visually separated and labeled as sponsored. OpenAI says they do not influence the content of the answer itself.
Sensitive topics, including health, mental health and politics, are excluded from advertising.
A self-serve Ads Manager opened in the summer, and the initial high minimum budget requirement was dropped.
The list of markets is narrow: the US, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea and a few more. Lithuania is not on it.

1. What happened in a year

As recently as 2024, OpenAI's head called advertising a last resort. On January 16, the company announced it was starting tests, and at the same time said the low-cost Go plan was becoming available worldwide. The two decisions are linked: the number of free and low-cost users is growing, and infrastructure bills demand revenue.

From test to self-serve system took only a few months, faster than these things normally go. Today an advertiser can sign up, create a campaign, upload creative manually or by file, and see data on impressions, clicks and conversions. The mechanics are familiar to anyone who has worked with Google Ads or Meta. What is new is the context where the ad lands.

Why dates in this article are presented carefully. Different sources give different dates for the self-serve launch, and the feature list has changed every few weeks. The reliable facts, namely the January announcement, the scale of the tests and the principles, are stated precisely. Anything that changes quickly is presented without claiming day-level accuracy. Before you make a decision, check OpenAI's official page for advertisers.

2. How ads look to the user

The design is deliberately conservative. An ad is not inserted into the middle of an answer. It appears as a separate block below the answer, with its own background and a clear label. OpenAI justifies this as protecting trust: if users start suspecting that answers are bought, the whole product collapses.

The practical takeaway for advertisers is unwelcome but important. Your ad lands after the person has already received an answer. So you are not competing with other ads for attention in the first row. You are competing with the fact that the answer may be enough without you. An ad that merely repeats what has already been said serves no function.

What works better is a concrete next step the answer can't provide: price, availability, a deadline, a chance to try, a consultation. Not "we are the best," but "here is what you can do right now."

3. How targeting differs from the usual

Here is the key difference from search advertising, and it is worth understanding before the channel opens up.

Factor	Search ads	Ads in conversation
Signal	A query, often 2-4 words	The whole conversation topic and context
Clarity of intent	Inferred from the keyword	Often stated directly: budget, deadline, conditions
Moment	At the start or end of a search	Mid-deliberation, while options are still being compared
Data source	Search history, website visits	Conversation topic, earlier conversations, reactions to ads

Advertisers do not receive conversation content. Targeting happens inside the platform. That means you can't carry over the usual audience lists you built elsewhere, and reporting will be narrower than you're used to.

4. Formats and buying models

It started with a single text block. More formats came later: sponsored answer cards, product blocks and contextual placements on the side. For retailers, a format has been added that generates ads from a product catalog, much like Shopping campaigns in Google's system.

Buying is built on familiar models: payment per thousand impressions or per click, with automated bidding and goals based on results. You can target by platform, app or browser. The minimum budget requirement that existed in the pilot stage has been dropped in the self-serve version.

A few notes from what we see in other markets:

Commerce and retail are served first. Independent observations show ads appear mostly next to purchase questions, which is where the inventory is concentrated.
Side placements are not a direct-response tool. They work more as a reminder than as a source of conversions.
Creative is short. Headlines get few characters, so every word has to carry meaning.

5. Can you buy from Lithuania?

Not yet. The advertiser list covers several high-purchasing-power markets, and Lithuania is not among them. That means three things:

Campaigns aimed at Lithuanian businesses are not yet possible Even if you managed to open an account, there would be no targeting for Lithuania, and without it the channel makes no sense for the local market.
The situation is different for exporters If you actually sell in the United Kingdom, the US or Canada and have a legal entity, a payment method and customer service there, the channel is within reach. Fictitious setups don't work for this. They cause more problems than they solve.
Waiting is not a neutral action When the channel opens, everyone will start at the same time. The only difference will be who prepared their data, pages and measurement beforehand.

Want to get ready before your competitors?

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6. What to do before the channel opens

All of this work is valuable on its own, even if ads reach Lithuania a year from now.

Secure organic visibility in conversations Ads below an answer work far better when your brand is already mentioned in the answer itself. That is a separate and far more important topic, and we covered it here.
Clean up your product catalog The format that generates ads from a catalog relies on the same feed as Shopping campaigns. A clean feed now means a ready channel later.
Prepare several landing pages in an answer-ready format A person arriving from a conversation already has context and is looking for a specific next step. A page with generic marketing loses them in a few seconds.
Set up measurement that separates AI traffic Without it, you won't learn either your current organic impact or your future ad results. How to do it is covered in a separate article.
Decide how much you're willing to pay to learn In new channels, the first months are always more expensive. It's worth stating the number to yourself in advance, rather than working it out midway.

7. The risks nobody talks about

There is almost no independent measurement. Publicly cited volume figures mostly come from third-party tracking, not official reports, and can swing widely.
The channel is young. Formats, targeting logic and prices have changed every few months. A strategy built in spring may no longer hold in autumn.
The road is closed for sensitive industries. Health, mental health and politics are excluded from advertising, and some Lithuanian service businesses will fall into that.
Lithuanian is not a priority. Even once the market opens, the first formats and creative requirements will be tailored to larger languages.
The audience is free-plan users. Paying subscribers don't see ads, and they are often the more valuable segment.

None of these points is a reason to ignore the channel. They are a reason to enter with a clear budget and a clear deadline, not with hope.

8. Frequently asked questions

Can I advertise on ChatGPT in Lithuania right now?

No. The system is open to advertisers in several markets, and Lithuania is not among them. An exporting business with a legal entity and customer service in one of those markets can take part there.

Does advertising affect the content of answers?

According to OpenAI's communications, no. Ads are shown separately from the answer and are labeled, and organic results are selected independently of advertising partnerships.

Who sees the ads?

Logged-in adult users on the free and low-cost plans. Subscribers to more expensive plans do not see ads.

Does the advertiser get conversation content?

No. Targeting happens inside the platform based on the conversation topic, earlier history and reactions to ads, and conversations are not passed to the advertiser.

Is it worth waiting, or better to put money into Google Ads now?

For the Lithuanian market, the answer is clear for now: money goes where the channel works. With ChatGPT, what's worth investing is not budget but preparation: the catalog, pages, measurement and organic visibility.

How much does a click cost?

There is no single number: prices depend on the market, the industry and the format, and the data is published only in fragments. Plan around the value of your own customer, not other people's averages.

Let's start with what works today

We review your existing campaigns and your organic visibility in conversational search, then lay out a plan for both channels.

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Sources

Darius Lukosius

Google Ads strategist who has managed search and shopping campaigns in the Lithuanian and Baltic markets since 2016. The channel is changing fast, so this article will be updated once the system becomes available to Lithuanian advertisers.