ChatGPT ads, while nobody in Australia is looking
Every few years a channel opens where the auction is cheap because most advertisers have not turned up yet. Facebook in 2013. Shopping before that. Right now it is advertising inside AI assistants, and I can count the Australian businesses running it on one hand.
Why early actually matters here
An ad auction is priced by how many people are bidding. When a channel is new, the same money buys far more attention than it will in two years, and the accounts that learn the format early carry that head start with them.
The honest part: the inventory is young, the reporting is thinner than Google's, and anybody promising you a reliable return on it is guessing. That is exactly why it belongs in a ring-fenced test budget, not a rebuild of your whole plan.
Who it suits, and who it does not
- Businesses people research before they buy. Legal, health, finance, education, software, high-value trades, travel. If your customer's first move is to ask somebody what their options are, an assistant is now part of that conversation.
- Businesses with a clear answer to "why you". The assistant will paraphrase you. If there is nothing distinctive to paraphrase, the money is better spent elsewhere.
- Not for impulse buys or pure price plays. If that is you, I will say so and not take the budget.
How I run a test
- Ring-fence itA small budget beside your existing campaigns, never instead of them. Its own tracking, so it can never borrow credit from search.
- Write the decision down firstA fixed window, usually six weeks, and the number that would make it worth a bigger share. Agreed before it starts, so nobody moves the goalposts after.
- Fix the unpaid half at the same timeWhether the assistants can find and quote you at all. That is the AI search visibility work, and running the two together is the point.
- Give you a straight answerAt the end of the window: keep, grow or stop, with the numbers behind it.
ChatGPT ads, straight answers
Are ads in ChatGPT actually available in Australia?
Advertising inside AI assistants is rolling out and the format is still changing, so what runs today may not be exactly what runs in six months. That is a reason to test with a contained budget and pay attention, not a reason to sit it out.
Is this a gimmick?
Maybe, for your business. It depends on whether your customers research before buying. The point of a test is to find out with a few thousand dollars rather than with an opinion, and to stop if the answer is no.
Should I do this before fixing my Google Ads?
No. If your existing accounts are leaking, fix those first. New channels are the interesting part of my job, not the urgent part.
How is it measured?
Same as everything else. What it cost, what it produced, and whether that trade beat putting the same money into a channel you already have. If it cannot be measured properly, it stays small.
Usually done alongside
Want a read on your chatgpt ads?
Send access or a screenshot of the last ninety days. You get an honest assessment of what is working and what is quietly wasting money, whether or not it turns into work.
8am to 5pm AEST, Monday to Friday. I answer the phone myself, and if I am in the middle of something I ring back the same day.
- 01Send
Read access to the account, or screenshots of the last ninety days.
- 02I read it
And write back in plain language: what is working, what is wasting money, what I would do first.
- 03You decide
No pitch deck, no follow-up sequence. If the account is fine, I tell you that and we are done.