ChatGPT Ads glossary: the terms in Ads Manager, explained
Plain definitions of every ChatGPT Ads term: context hint, Bid Cap, Maximize results, oCPC, oppref, view-through conversion, with the documented limits.
Published Sep 28, 2026 · 13 min read
How is a ChatGPT Ads account structured?
Every account has three levels: campaign, ad group and ad. OpenAI states that all campaigns in Ads Manager follow this structure.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Ads Manager Beta | OpenAI's platform for creating, launching and managing campaigns, at ads.openai.com. OpenAI calls it a beta product that will continue to evolve. See account setup. |
| Campaign | The top level. It defines the objective, budget, dates and targeting. |
| Ad group | A collection of ads organized around a shared product, service, theme or customer need. Context hints and bids are set here. |
| Ad | The creative shown in ChatGPT: a title, copy, an image and a landing page. |
| Ad unit | What the user sees below a ChatGPT response: advertiser name, favicon, title, copy, image and landing page link. |
| Campaign objective | What the campaign is priced and optimized on: Views, Clicks or Conversions. To use a different objective, you create a new campaign. |
| Context hint | A short phrase at ad-group level that describes what you offer, who it helps or when it is useful. See context hints. |
| Custom audience | Your own customer or prospect list, used to include people, exclude them or adjust bids. See custom audiences. |
| Platform targeting | An optional campaign setting that chooses where ads can deliver: Android app, Android web, Desktop web, iOS app or iOS web. |
| Location targeting | Country targeting, plus states or regions, cities, markets and postal codes where available. New product-feed campaigns support country level only. |
Three of these terms cause most of the confusion.
Context hints are not keywords. OpenAI states that hints inform relevance, that they are not exact-match keywords or targeting rules, and that they do not guarantee delivery. People do not need to use the exact words in your hint. Hints also cannot enforce geographic limits, schedules or exclusions, so there is no "negative hint". Use the targeting controls for restrictions.
Custom audiences have a size floor. Inclusion targeting and audience bid adjustments require at least 25,000 matched users. Smaller audiences can be used for exclusions only. OpenAI recommends at least 100,000 users for inclusion or bid adjustments.
Verification and review are separate. OpenAI states that account verification, account approval, ad review and ad delivery are separate checks, and completing one does not mean the others are complete. If ads are approved but silent, see why ads are not serving.
What do the bidding and billing terms mean?
Bidding terms describe what you offer in the auction. Billing terms describe what you are charged for. They are not the same thing, and in a conversion campaign they differ on purpose.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| CPM | Cost per 1,000 impressions. The Views objective is billed on impressions served. |
| CPC | Cost per click. The Clicks objective is billed per valid click. |
| oCPC | Conversion optimization with click billing. Delivery optimizes toward a conversion event, and you pay for valid clicks. |
| oCPM | Conversion optimization with impression billing, billed per 1,000 impressions served. OpenAI says it is currently in beta. |
| Max bid | The manual strategy, shown as "Manual: Max bid". You set the highest bid at ad-group level. |
| Maximize results | The automated strategy. ChatGPT Ads sets and adjusts bids to get as many results as possible from the budget. |
| Bid Cap | In a conversion campaign, the maximum amount you are willing to bid for a conversion. |
| Audience bid multiplier | A value between 0.1x and 10x that raises or lowers the ad group's maximum bid when the viewer is in a selected custom audience. |
How the auction works. OpenAI states that it uses a relevance-weighted, second-price auction to select among eligible ads. When several ads are eligible, ranking considers a combination of factors, including relevance and advertiser bids. OpenAI's pages do not publish the exact price formula, so we do not state one. The mechanics are covered in how ChatGPT Ads work.
Starting bids. For CPC campaigns, OpenAI recommends starting with a maximum bid of 3 to 5 USD per click. For conversion campaigns, OpenAI states there is no recommended bid amount at this time.
Maximize results. It is selected by default for eligible new ad groups. OpenAI states that it prioritizes result volume and does not guarantee delivery against a specific CPA, CPC or ROAS target. In the developer documentation, Maximize Results is the name for two strategies, maximize_clicks and maximize_conversions. Both require a daily campaign budget, and audience bid multipliers work only with a fixed bid.
Bid Cap is not a price. OpenAI states that with click billing, Bid Cap is not the price charged for a conversion or a guaranteed achieved cost per acquisition. You are never billed per conversion. See conversion campaigns and what ChatGPT Ads cost.
What do the budget terms mean?
A budget limits what a campaign can spend. A payment threshold decides when your card is charged. OpenAI is explicit that the two are different.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Daily budget | The average amount you want to spend per day over a seven-day period. It is not a same-day spending limit. |
| Maximum daily spend | Twice your daily budget. |
| Seven-day spending limit | Seven times your daily budget. |
| Budget week | Sunday through Saturday, in the ad account's timezone. |
| Campaign total budget | The maximum amount you are willing to spend across the campaign. Called a lifetime budget in the API. |
| Budget pacing | How Ads Manager spreads spending over time. It does not guarantee equal spending or that the full budget is spent. |
| Pacing period | For a campaign total budget: the time until the end date, up to 365 calendar days. Without an end date, a default of 60 days. |
| Payment threshold | The amount of unpaid spend at which a saved card is charged. Not a budget and not an account spend cap. |
Worked example from a published rule. With a 25 USD daily budget, spend on a single day can reach 50 USD, and spend over the seven-day period will not exceed 175 USD. This is arithmetic on OpenAI's two-times and seven-times rules, not a forecast of what you will spend.
Minimum daily budget. The minimum depends on the ad account's billing currency. OpenAI publishes a table of minimums. A selection:
| Billing currency | Minimum daily budget |
|---|---|
| USD | 25 USD |
| EUR | 15 EUR |
| GBP | 15 GBP |
| CAD | 25 CAD |
| AUD | 25 AUD |
| NZD | 25 NZD |
| ILS | 60 ILS |
| BRL | 40 BRL |
| MXN | 150 MXN |
| JPY | 2,500 JPY |
| KRW | 25,000 KRW |
There is a second floor that is easy to miss. With a daily budget and fixed bidding, the daily budget must be at least the highest effective bid across the campaign's ad groups, including audience bid adjustments.
Budget type is one-way. A campaign total budget can be changed to a daily budget, but OpenAI states that the campaign cannot then be changed back.
Payment threshold. OpenAI's example: with a 25 USD threshold, the card is charged once the account accrues 25 USD in unpaid spend. Any outstanding balance is also charged at the end of the month. You cannot change the threshold yourself, and support will not change it for you.
What do the measurement terms mean?
Measurement terms describe how a conversion on your site is sent to OpenAI and connected to an ad. Setup is covered in conversion tracking.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| OpenAI Pixel | The browser SDK, called through oaiq, that sends conversion events from web pages. |
| Conversions API | The server-to-server route for sending events from your backend. |
| Standard event | A predefined event name, such as lead_created or order_created. |
| Custom event | An event you name yourself, sent with the event name custom. |
| oppref | OpenAI's click reference, appended to the landing page URL. |
| Event ID | The identifier that lets OpenAI count one conversion once when it arrives from both the pixel and the API. |
| Advanced matching | Sending normalized, hashed customer information with a conversion event. |
| Automatic advanced matching | The pixel detects supported customer information on your site and hashes it in the browser. |
| Modeled measurement | Where available, an estimate of attribution for conversions that could not be matched. |
Standard events. OpenAI's supported events page lists twelve standard names plus custom: app_installed, app_opened, appointment_scheduled, checkout_started, contents_viewed, items_added, lead_created, order_created, page_viewed, registration_completed, subscription_created and trial_started. The two app events are available through the Conversions API only. Only a standard event can be the optimization goal of a conversion campaign. A custom event name must be between 1 and 64 characters.
oppref and its cookie. The pixel stores oppref in a first-party cookie named __oppref. OpenAI states the cookie expires 30 days after the pixel writes it, and that each new capture resets the expiry to 30 days. Cookie expiry is separate from attribution windows. If a redirect strips the parameter, the pixel has nothing to store, which is why OpenAI tells advertisers to preserve oppref through redirects.
Deduplication. For deduplication, OpenAI uses your Pixel ID, the event name and the ID. It keeps the first event it receives for a matching key and ignores later duplicates.
Automatic advanced matching. The pixel hashes the information with SHA-256 in the browser, and OpenAI states that raw customer information is not sent through this feature. See automatic advanced matching.
Measurement partner. A third-party tool with a supported integration. OpenAI's setup page currently covers Fospha, Hightouch, LiveRamp, Triple Whale and WorkMagic. See measurement partners.
Dynamic URL parameters. Landing page query parameters that use your own text or the supported macros {campaign_id}, {ad_group_id}, {ad_id} and {ad_account_id}. Static UTM parameters also work and persist on ad clicks. See URL parameters.
What do the reporting terms mean?
Reporting terms describe what Ads Manager shows and how fresh it is. The metrics are available at campaign, ad group and ad level.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Impressions | Number of times your ads were shown. |
| Clicks | Number of times users clicked on your ads. |
| CTR | Percentage of impressions that resulted in clicks. |
| Avg CPC, Avg CPM | Average cost per click, and per thousand impressions. |
| Conversions | Attributed conversion events, if measurement is set up. One total that includes click-through and eligible view-through conversions. |
| Click-through window | The reporting window after a click: 7, 14 or 30 days. |
| View-through window | The reporting window after an impression: 0 Day (disabled) or 1 day. |
| View-through conversion | A conversion within one day of an eligible impression, when no qualifying click receives the credit. |
| Order Created ROAS | A column calculated only from attributed order_created events. |
Attribution model. OpenAI states that reporting uses its existing last-touch attribution logic and is not multi-touch attribution. If both an impression and a click qualify, the click gets the credit. Changing the reporting window affects reporting only, not optimization, bidding or billing.
Reporting freshness. These are OpenAI's approximate figures:
| Data | Typical delay |
|---|---|
| Impressions, clicks, CTR | Refresh about every 15 minutes |
| Spend | Delayed about 7 to 8 hours |
| Attributed conversions | 24 to 48 hours |
A spend of zero next to live impressions therefore does not mean nothing has been charged. More detail is in reporting and privacy.
What do the format, feed and crawler terms mean?
These terms cover what the ad is built from and how OpenAI reads your site.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Product feed | A file of your catalog, uploaded so product ads can be built from it. See the product feed guide. |
| Product set | The products an ad group may use, selected from the campaign's feed with filters. |
| Ad template | The base used to build an ad for each eligible product. One per ad group is enough. |
| Bulk upload | Creating or editing many campaigns, ad groups and ads from a schema template. See bulk upload. |
| Sponsored Agents | A format that lets people chat with an AI representative of a business in ChatGPT. |
| OAI-AdsBot | The crawler that validates landing pages submitted as ads. Advertisers must allow it. |
| OAI-SearchBot | The crawler behind ChatGPT's search features. OpenAI recommends allowing it too. |
Feed items expire. OpenAI states that feed items expire after 2 weeks, which is why it recommends a hosted URL or automated SFTP uploads rather than one-off files. Products from a feed are eligible for ads only during this beta, not for organic ChatGPT conversations.
Bulk upload limits. The schema checklist allows no more than 5,000 campaigns, 5,000 ad groups and 5,000 ads per file. Ad titles have a 50-character maximum, with 16 to 24 recommended. Ad copy has a 100-character maximum, with 32 to 48 recommended. Bulk upload does not currently support creating product-feed campaigns. For copy guidance, see writing ChatGPT ads.
Sponsored Agents. OpenAI states the format is available only to selected advertisers in a limited alpha test, and that it is not accepting early access requests at this time.
Crawlers. OpenAI states that OAI-AdsBot only visits pages submitted as ads and that the data it collects is not used to train generative AI foundation models. How OAI-SearchBot affects visibility is covered in how to appear in ChatGPT answers.
Which user-side terms should advertisers know?
Advertisers also meet terms that describe the person seeing the ad. They set the boundaries of what a campaign can reach.
Free and Go. The two ChatGPT plans on which ads may appear. OpenAI states that Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu accounts will not have ads, and that ads are not shown to accounts identified as belonging to users under 18.
Ads personalization. A user setting. When it is on, select signals from the user's broader ChatGPT experience can inform ad selection. When it is off, ads rely on the current chat thread. OpenAI states that personalized ads are not initially available in the European Economic Area or Switzerland.
Brand safety. OpenAI's policy of placing ads only near chats that are safe and appropriate. Ads are not eligible to appear near sensitive or regulated topics, including personal health, mental health or politics. Temporary Chats do not show ads. The advertiser side of this is in ad policies.
Ads principles. OpenAI lists five: mission alignment, answer independence, conversation privacy, choice and control, and long-term value. Ad testing started in the United States on February 9, 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Is a context hint the same as a keyword?
No. OpenAI states that context hints are not exact-match keywords or targeting rules and do not guarantee delivery. A hint is a natural phrase about your offering. The comparison with keyword platforms is in ChatGPT Ads vs search ads.
Are "content hints" a separate feature?
No. OpenAI's documentation uses one term, context hints. We treat "content hints" as a misspelling of it.
What is the difference between Views and Reach?
They name the same impression-based buying. Ads Manager's objective list uses Views (CPM), while some OpenAI pages refer to a maximum CPM bid for Reach campaigns.
Does a conversion campaign charge per conversion?
No. OpenAI states that billing depends on the option you choose: valid clicks with click billing, impressions served with impression billing.
Can I change the view-through window to longer than one day?
No. The documented choices are 0 Day, which disables view-through reporting, or 1 day.
Can a custom event be the goal of a conversion campaign?
No. The Conversion optimization objective supports one standard conversion event per campaign, and the event cannot be changed after the campaign is created.
Do I have to allow OpenAI's crawlers?
OAI-AdsBot, yes. OpenAI states that you must allow it, and recommends allowing OAI-SearchBot as well. For product feeds, OAI-SearchBot also needs to reach the product image URLs.
If a term here is part of a decision you are about to make, our services page explains how we manage these settings for clients.
Want it done for you? Our ChatGPT Ads management services