How to structure a scaled ChatGPT Ads campaign
A step-by-step method for planning a ChatGPT Ads campaign that covers every conversation theme and market, with a worked example you can copy.
ChatGPT Ads use a structure you'll recognise from other platforms: a campaign contains ad groups, and each ad group contains ads. The ad group is where the important settings live, including your bid, the default destination URL and the context hints that guide where its ads appear. Here's the method we use to plan a scaled campaign, with a worked example at the end.
Step 1: Start with the people, not the product
List the kinds of people who buy from you and what's going on in their lives when they need you. A furniture shop's customers might include renters in small flats, families with growing children and people furnishing a first home. Each describes their need differently, and each needs different ads.
Step 2: Map their conversations across the decision
For each kind of customer, write down what they'd talk to ChatGPT about at each stage:
- Exploring the need: describing the problem and what they want to achieve.
- Comparing options: weighing approaches, features and trade-offs.
- Close to deciding: checking fit, price, delivery or set-up.
- Ready to buy: looking for where and how.
Then group similar conversations into themes. A theme is a set of conversations that one ad could answer well, and it becomes an ad group.
Step 3: One ad group per theme
Give each theme its own ad group, and name it so the report reads like a sentence. Market, stage and theme works well: “UK · Comparing · Sofa bed vs futon”. When results arrive, you'll see at a glance which kinds of conversation are working.
Add one small catch-all ad group with broader hints, so you stay visible in conversations you didn't plan for. Keep its budget modest, and look at its results for new themes.
Step 4: Write context hints for the situation
Give each ad group a handful of short hints, each describing one situation in the words the person would use. Keep every hint in an ad group about the same conversation, and avoid overlaps between ad groups so they don't compete. Our guides to writing context hints and context hint examples by industry go deeper.
Step 5: Write ads that answer the theme
Write several ads per ad group so you can test messages. Each ad has a headline of up to 50 characters and a description of up to 100, and either may be shortened on screen, so put the point first. The ad should answer the situation in the hints: if the theme is guests in a small flat, lead with space, not with a discount.
Step 6: Repeat for each market, in its own language
Results are reported by country, so a campaign per market keeps budgets and reporting clean. Write hints and ads in each market's own language rather than translating them word for word: people describe the same need differently in Madrid and in Manchester.
Step 7: Set bids and budget to learn
Start with enough budget for every ad group to collect meaningful clicks. Around 100 clicks per ad group is a common rule of thumb, and our ChatGPT Ads cost calculator shows how many clicks a budget buys in your industry. After two to three weeks, move budget toward the themes with the lowest cost per conversion.
A worked example
Here's how the first market of a scaled campaign for a furniture shop's sofa beds might look:
| Ad group | Stage | Example context hint |
|---|---|---|
| UK · Exploring · Guests in a small flat | Exploring the need | renter in a studio flat who needs a bed for occasional guests |
| UK · Exploring · Office that doubles as a guest room | Exploring the need | spare room used as a home office that sometimes needs a bed |
| UK · Comparing · Sofa bed vs futon | Comparing options | deciding between a sofa bed and a futon for nightly use |
| UK · Comparing · Comfortable every night | Comparing options | sofa bed comfortable enough to sleep on every night |
| UK · Deciding · Delivery and assembly | Close to deciding | getting a sofa bed delivered to a top-floor flat with no lift |
| UK · Buying · Where to buy | Ready to buy | where to buy a small sofa bed online in the UK |
| UK · Catch-all | Any | furniture for small flats |
That's seven ad groups for one product in one market. Add a second product line and two more markets and you're past forty, which is why the structure has to be planned before the ads are written.
Refract builds this structure from your website: personas, the conversation map, ad groups named by market, stage and theme, and hints and ads in each language, ready for bulk upload.