Adform becomes an OpenAI partner for ChatGPT ads in Europe

Adform said on 10 September that OpenAI has picked it as one of the technology platform partners for ChatGPT ads in Europe. Clients of the Copenhagen company can now buy space inside the chatbot through the tool they already use for other campaigns.

ChatGPT ads reached 31 European markets on 24 August

OpenAI opened ad buying in 31 European markets on 24 August and now sells ads in more than 40 markets worldwide. Ads appear only for people on the free and Go plans. OpenAI says every ad is labelled and does not change the answer the model gives.

Targeting in Europe is thin on purpose. The system picks an ad from the topic of the conversation, a rough location and the device type. Nothing is built from what a person did on other sites. Self-serve buying opened in Europe a few weeks ago, and a managed partner such as Adform now sits on top of it. The chatbot is already a shopping counter too, because product feeds drive most of its shopping picks.

Volkswagen and Vodafone are running the first tests

Adform named Volkswagen and Vodafone as the advertisers already testing the format. Marian Hanke, senior online marketing manager at Vodafone, said the company needs to see “how it performs as part of the wider customer journey”. At Volkswagen the test sits with Petter Maag, digital media and online sales manager.

The deal matters to Adform because independent buying platforms are short of new places to advertise. The Trade Desk cut 15 percent of its staff as growth slowed. Every independent platform is hunting for space that Google and Meta do not own.

The price fell from a $60 CPM at launch to $25 in April

PPC Land tracked the cost. At the start OpenAI asked for a $60 CPM, the price of a thousand ad views, plus a minimum order of $200,000 to $250,000. By mid-April the CPM was $25 and the minimum $50,000. Bidding by click arrived on 5 May, and some buyers now have no minimum at all.

So a European test has stopped being a quarter-million-dollar decision. At a $25 CPM, a million ad views inside ChatGPT cost about $25,000, and the entry ticket has dropped by four fifths in half a year. That is the figure to put in front of a finance team before anyone books the first flight of ads.