Self-serve access to the ChatGPT Ads Manager opens in India on September 4, 2026, letting businesses of any size sign up directly and bid for ad impressions with daily budgets starting at ₹725. For a marketer setting up a first campaign, the process shares some DNA with search advertising but has enough differences to warrant a deliberate first attempt rather than copying a Google Ads playbook directly.
Do this preparation first, because it will save a rebuild later:
Pick one product or service line, one clear conversion action, and one geography or segment for your first campaign, resisting the temptation to test everything at once. A narrow first test produces a cleaner read on whether the channel works for your category at all.
Start near the ₹725 daily floor rather than your typical campaign budget. This is a new inventory type with unknown competitive dynamics; the goal of the first two to three weeks is learning, not scale.
Since the ad renders as a labelled, sponsored box beneath a complete AI answer with a headline, description, and call to action, write copy that complements rather than competes with the answer above it. Overly salesy copy is likely to feel jarring in this placement and underperform copy that reads as a natural, credible next step.
Because advertiser reporting is aggregated (impressions and clicks, not individual conversation data), your own landing page and CRM tracking is the only place you'll see what happens after the click. Confirm UTM parameters and lead-source tagging are working before spending a single rupee.
Click-through rate relative to your other paid channels, cost per click at this new inventory type, and — most importantly — lead quality once those clicks reach your landing page. A channel that produces cheap clicks but low-intent leads is not a win just because the CPC looks attractive next to LinkedIn or Google.
A mistake to avoid: don't reuse your Google Search ad copy verbatim. Search ad copy is written to win a comparison against other listed results on a page; ChatGPT ad copy needs to work as a credible next step after a conversational answer, which is a different writing job even when the underlying offer is identical.