OpenAI's announcement landed Tuesday night, and by Wednesday morning the first "Sponsored" cards were showing up in conversations across Turkey. The second half of a sentence we have repeated in every meeting for two years is now complete: your brand is no longer only recommended inside ChatGPT — you can advertise there too.
This is not a "new era" post. We are laying out exactly what opened, who will see it, what we did on day one, and what we will build this week for the brands we manage — limits and budget realities included.
What happened?
Two developments landed back to back. On September 16, OpenAI opened the door of its ad platform to new markets, Turkey among them: businesses registered in Turkey can now open an account and build campaigns in the self-serve panel at ads.openai.com (Ads Manager, still in beta). As of September 17, ads also began serving to users in Turkey; MediaCat and the tech press covered it the same day.
Turkey did not exactly catch this train early, but it is not late either: testing started in the US in February, Europe and India opened in August, and in mid-September it was our turn. By OpenAI's own figures, the platform reached a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate in under 200 days — so this is not an experiment. It is the founding period of a permanent advertising channel.
Who sees the ads, and what do they look like?
Ads are shown only to signed-in adult users on the free (Free) and Go plans. Plus, Pro, Business, and education plans are ad-free. Because most ChatGPT usage in Turkey sits on the free plan, the reach is wider than you would guess.
For now the format is single and plain: a card below the chat response, set apart by a "Sponsored" label — brand name, logo, headline, short description, image, and a landing page link. Product cards showing price and rating, along with a carousel, are available for e-commerce; video is not there yet. The point OpenAI underlines most: the ad system runs separately from the chat model, and buying ads does not change the answer ChatGPT gives. The answer itself is still earned visibility; the card is the paid shelf beneath it.
Why does this matter?
This screen is not new to us. Our AI Visibility (GEO) practice has one goal at its center — getting your brand named in ChatGPT's answer — and we have always said that cannot be bought with advertising. That is still true. What changed is this: two separate games are now played on the same screen. A place inside the answer is earned with content, evidence, and technical infrastructure; the card below the answer is rented with budget. In competitive categories, brands that plan both together will hold the screen from two sides.
There is also a timing question. When a new auction opens, the first months are usually the cheapest; whoever accumulates data while competition is thin learns their own cost threshold early. We lived through this in the early days of Meta and TikTok. We say it with the same appetite but more careful language, because — as we explain below — the measurement side of this channel is still young.
What did we do on day one?
We wanted to look at the panel from our own account, not from someone else's screenshot. When access opened, we opened Smartkid's own advertiser account, cleared verification, and set up our first campaigns with our own budget. Account creation, identity verification, the campaign review process, and the panel's quirks — including reporting that can lag by hours — were all tested with our own money. No setup we recommend to a client will contain a step we have not tried in our own account.
What happens this week for the brands we manage?
We begin setups this week for the brands whose advertising we manage. Here is how the process will work:
- The account is opened by the brand itself. OpenAI does not allow agencies to open accounts on a client's behalf; the brand's legal entity opens the account and then invites our team with the right permissions. What we will ask of you is roughly a 10-minute task: registration with business details, tax number, and a payment card. We take over from there. One important detail: the country, currency, and time zone selected at signup cannot be changed afterward — which is why we will do the initial setup together.
- Measurement first. Before any campaign, the OpenAI conversion pixel and, where needed, a server-side conversion connection will be installed on the site; the UTM structure will be configured so it can be compared against GA4. We do not open budget on a channel without measurement.
- A low-budget, clearly defined test. The minimum daily budget is $25 and billing runs in dollars — there is no TRY option right now. So the first stage is a "structured test": ad groups built around a single intent, a success threshold written in advance, a 2-4 week read period. Scale where it works, a clean closing report where it does not.
Who we do not recommend it to
Let's be honest: this channel is not for everyone right now. We do not recommend rushing in on day one if you cannot write off a test budget of at least $750 a month, if conversion measurement is not installed on your site, or if you sell a product people do not research before buying. Early data shows categories with long research cycles out in front — B2B software, education, finance and insurance, and the comparison-driven segments of e-commerce. OpenAI itself has not published industry performance benchmarks yet; whatever anyone is promising is a third-party estimate and should be read that way.
If you want to know how it works, what the setup steps are, and which tactics drive returns, we have collected the detailed walkthrough in a separate post: What Is ChatGPT Advertising, How Does It Work? An End-to-End Guide from Setup to Measurement.
Conclusion
A place in ChatGPT's answer is still earned; the card beneath it can now be bought. We are at the same table on both sides: our GEO work continues on the organic side, and on the paid side our account is open and our campaigns are running. Setups for the brands we manage are being completed this week, and we will share the results — good and bad — on this blog.
We manage it end to end, from setup to measurement; test first, then scale. It is planned together with AI Visibility.