We’re starting to get better look at what advertising inside ChatGPT actually looks like.
Adthena, which has been tracking the (very successful) pilot and was among the first to spot ads in the platform, analyzed more than 40,000 ChatGPT ads and released 10 key findings in a slick infographic.
The topline: the ads are short and simple. The average headline is just five words, while body copy averages 19 words.
Not exactly groundbreaking—but it’s one of the first real datasets we’ve seen that speaks to the pilot.
Why This Matters:
At a glance, this looks a lot like search advertising—just cleaner and more stripped down.
That’s not surprising. This is still a pilot, and more advanced formats or creative options aren’t likely to show up until a broader rollout.
Still, there are some early signals worth paying attention to.
Adthena found that “context mirroring” is a defining feature of high-performing ads—meaning the best ads closely echo the user’s query. That tracks with how people interact with ChatGPT: intent is explicit and often highly specific.
They also found that familiar conversion drivers still work. The dollar sign and the word “free” both showed strong performance. Again, nothing revolutionary—but useful directional guidance this early.
There’s also a clear aesthetic emerging: clean, direct, and confident.
Experts React:
Adthena CMO Ashley Fletcher framed it as a bit of a throwback:
“In some ways its like stepping back in time to Google AdWords early days 15+ years ago and working with Ad Copy – but there is masses of opportunity here to fine tune copy if you’re currently in the trial or about to launch your first OpenAI ad campaign.”
Here’s the full visual:
Our Take:
The bigger story isn’t the copy length, rather, it’s where all of this is heading.
There are early rumblings of more interactive ad formats, including units users can engage with and query directly. That could be enabled through integrations with companies like Smartly, which was just announced this week.
If that materializes, it would mark a real shift from static search-style ads to something more dynamic and conversational, and that lives up to the experiences you would expect from AI chat and ChatGPT, specifically.
For now, though, this feels like day one. Some simple formats, familiar, SEO-like tactics, and a lot of room to evolve.
