ChatGPT Ads.

Selection is based on two factors: relevance and bid. The relevance assessment takes into account the context of the current conversation, the context hints stored at ad group level, the content of the landing page and the ad's title and text. Together with the bid, this determines the placement. Comparing this with the Quality Score in Google Ads is structurally not wrong, with the difference that here there is no search query on which relevance can be pinned, but a conversation.

Advertisers receive no conversation content. They see aggregated metrics such as impressions and clicks. Chats, chat history, saved memories, name, email address, precise location and IP address are not passed on. According to OpenAI, ads do not influence the content of the answer; ad selection and answer generation run separately. Anything claimed beyond this about an interaction between paid placement and organic visibility in AI answers is speculation, including from us.

Personalised advertising is not available in the European Economic Area or Switzerland at launch. The following are explicitly not used for ad selection: previous chats, saved memories and past ad history. What remains are signals from the current session and broad framework data: topic, approximate location, device type, time of day, language. Geographically, targeting is possible by country, region and DMA; finer geographic targeting is not documented.

The reason is regulatory. In Europe, personalised advertising would be processing of personal data that requires consent under the GDPR. OpenAI has opted for a consent-first approach and is launching without personalisation rather than rolling it out without consent. According to trade press coverage, OpenAI relies on legitimate interest for contextual delivery; that is an assessment by trade media, not a primary source we have checked, and not legal advice. For Europe, OpenAI has announced that personalisation will follow later with explicit consent. Whether Switzerland will be served in the same phase is not confirmed, and there is no timetable; we name neither a quarter nor a year for it.

In practice this means: in Switzerland there is no interest targeting, no audience lists based on usage behaviour and no watered-down intermediate form of either. Anyone offering that is describing a different market. Trade media judge the situation to mean that in Europe, creative and context hints carry all of the targeting, and campaign structures built on US behavioural data cannot be transferred cleanly. That is plausible, but it is an assessment, not a measurement.

In the settings under 'Ads controls', users can see which ads they have seen and which topics were used to determine relevance, and delete this data. Descriptions of a switch for enabling personalisation come from markets where personalisation is available; in Switzerland, as of 11 October 2026, it does not exist.

There are two ways to book: through the OpenAI Ads Solutions team together with agency and technology partners, or through the self-service Ads Manager, which is open as a beta for the 31 European markets: for advertisers in approved categories whose ads pass the policy review, explicitly including small businesses. Switzerland is named in the self-service country list (OpenAI Help Center, 'Ads Manager Availability', accessed 11 October 2026). What counts is the country of the ad account, not the country of the ChatGPT login.

Swiss SMEs in regulated industries also need to be careful with the advertising policies. Based on our research, advertising for financial services is largely not permitted outside the US, health advertising only for approved advertisers in certain countries, and legal services and political advertising are excluded altogether. The relevant country lists date from before the European launch and do not mention Switzerland, which may mean exclusion or simply that it is not mentioned. Before making any commitment to a client in these industries, the current policy needs to be checked.

What DLM Digital can say about this: we have access to the OpenAI Ads Manager, set up accounts and manage running campaigns. Nobody has reliable long-term Swiss data at this point, including us. What does carry over is experience from neighbouring disciplines: auction logic and account structure from Google Ads, clean conversion tracking and an understanding of how language models pick up content from GEO work. Management starts at CHF 300 per month; the media budget paid to OpenAI is not included and is always billed separately.