ChatGPT Ads has no keywords, and OpenAI documents no age, gender or interest targeting. The conversation decides most of where an ad can appear. On top of that, advertisers get three controls: location, platform and custom audiences, plus bid adjustments for people on your lists. This guide covers what each one does, its limits, and how they combine.
Every control at a glance
| Control | Set on | What it does | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Location | Campaign | Countries, and where available regions, cities, markets and postal codes. | New product-feed campaigns target countries only. |
| Platform | Campaign | Any of five: Android app, Android web, desktop web, iOS app and iOS web. | Optional. No selection means no restriction. |
| Custom audiences | Campaign | Include or exclude people on your customer or prospect lists. | Inclusion needs 25,000 matched users. Not for campaigns targeting the EEA or Switzerland. |
| Audience bid adjustments | Ad group | Raise or lower your bid, from 0.1 to 10 times, for people on a list. | 25,000 matched users. Fixed bids only. |
| Context hints | Ad group | Describe the situations your ad fits. | Guide matching; they aren’t keywords or filters. |
Location
Location decides where your ads are eligible to appear. Four rules shape how it works:
| Rule | What it means |
|---|---|
| Targeting works by inclusion | To show ads only in the United States, include the United States. Excluding every other country doesn’t restrict delivery to the US. |
| No location means everywhere available | OpenAI’s API docs say a campaign without location targeting can target all available locations. |
| You can go below country level where it’s offered | Standard campaigns can target states or regions, cities, markets and postal codes where available. Options vary by country. OpenAI’s own example of a market is San Francisco – Oakland – San Jose. |
| Product-feed campaigns stay at country level | New ones can’t add regions or cities. To advertise part of a catalog, use feed labels and product filters instead. |
Two account rules sit on top. Some new self-serve accounts can at first advertise only in their home country. Other countries open once identity verification is approved and the account has reached the required spend. And OpenAI’s advertiser policy forbids misrepresenting your business location or service area. We’d set locations to match where you can serve customers, which also keeps you inside that rule.
Platform
Platform targeting chooses which ChatGPT apps and browsers can show your ads. You can pick one or more of five. They’re the Android app, ChatGPT in an Android browser, desktop browsers, the iOS app and ChatGPT in an iOS browser. Insights can split results by the same five platforms.
If you work through the API, note one quirk. The older web value still covers every web platform, including mobile browsers. Use the individual values when you want only some of them.
Our view: start broad. The exception is a conversion that only works on some devices. An app install is one. A long form that’s painful on a phone is another. Then use the Platform breakdown to decide whether to split or narrow. If one platform costs far more per conversion than the rest, test a campaign without it, and compare on the same dates. Don’t narrow on a few clicks, because small samples mislead.
Custom audiences
Custom audiences let you use your own customer or prospect lists. You upload a list in Ads Manager, under Tools and then Audiences, and use it in three ways:
| Use | What it does | Minimum size |
|---|---|---|
| Include | Only people in at least one included audience can see the campaign. | 25,000 matched users. OpenAI recommends at least 100,000. |
| Exclude | People in any excluded audience can’t see the campaign, such as existing customers. | None: smaller audiences can be used for exclusions. |
| Bid adjustment | Changes an ad group’s maximum bid for people on the list. | 25,000 matched users. OpenAI recommends at least 100,000. |
If a campaign both includes and excludes audiences, the people left after exclusions must still number at least 25,000. The same audience can’t be included and excluded in one campaign.
Preparing the file
| Topic | What OpenAI says |
|---|---|
| Identifiers | Email addresses, phone numbers in E.164 format with the country code, SHA-256 hashes of either, or Google Advertising IDs. One CSV can mix types. |
| Format | A UTF-8 CSV or TXT file of up to 500 MB. CSV files need a header row with column names such as email, phone_number, email_sha256, phone_number_sha256 or gaid. |
| Hashing | Hash emails after lowercasing and trimming them, and phone numbers in E.164 format. Don’t hash or strip the dashes from advertising IDs. |
| Processing | Usually 20 to 30 minutes. An audience under 25,000 matched users shows as Ready with an Exclusion only note. Uploaded files are deleted after processing, usually within 24 hours. |
| Privacy | Ads Manager never shows which individuals matched. OpenAI asks you to review its eligibility and data-use requirements before uploading. |
Our advice is to upload only lists you have the right to use for advertising.
Expect the matched audience to be smaller than your file. Invalid values, duplicates and identifiers that can’t be matched don’t count. Campaigns that target the EEA or Switzerland should avoid custom audiences while personalized ads aren’t available there.
Audience bid adjustments
A bid adjustment multiplies an ad group’s maximum bid when the viewer is in a chosen audience, from 0.1 to 10 times. If someone is in more than one adjusted audience, the highest multiplier applies. Adjustments don’t decide who can see the campaign; they change how hard you bid for people who already can.
Adjustments work only with fixed bids, not with Maximize clicks or Maximize conversions. With a daily budget and fixed bids, the daily budget must be at least your highest effective bid, adjustments included. As an illustration, a $3 maximum click bid with a 2x adjustment is a $6 effective bid. The daily budget can’t then be below $6.
How the controls combine
Location, platform, audiences and exclusions all apply at once, so together they can leave a small eligible audience. A large customer list can shrink a lot after matching and exclusions. Targeting also only decides who’s eligible. The conversation, your landing page, your ad and your context hints still decide whether your ad is relevant at that moment.
That’s where context hints come in. They’re short descriptions of the situations your offer fits, set per ad group, and OpenAI says they aren’t exact-match keywords. Our context hints guide shows how to write them.
Choosing between the controls
Most campaigns need fewer controls than the table suggests. This is where we’d start.
| Your goal | Use | Skip |
|---|---|---|
| Serve one market | Location, by inclusion | Platform, until you have data |
| Avoid existing customers | An exclusion audience | Inclusion, which needs 25,000 matched users |
| Pay more for your best customers | A bid adjustment, with a fixed bid | Maximize Results, which doesn’t allow it |
| Reach people in a specific situation | Context hints | Any attempt to use hints as filters |
Two examples
The examples are illustrative.
A local service
A plumber serves one city. They include that city by market or postal codes and leave platforms open. They write hints for emergency and maintenance situations in separate ad groups. They don’t upload a list, because a small customer list falls below the 25,000 minimum for inclusion. They could still exclude existing customers.
An online store
A store with a catalog targets its home country, because product-feed campaigns stay at country level. It uses feed labels and product filters to separate products. It excludes recent purchasers with an audience, and, if it has a large list, adds a bid adjustment for its best customers.
Targeting and the rest of your setup
Targeting works alongside the other levers. Hints describe when your ad fits, as our context hints guide explains. Bids and budgets decide how much you spend. Our bidding guide covers which strategies allow audience adjustments, and the cost guide covers budgets. Platform breakdowns in Insights then tell you whether a narrower setting is worth testing.
Mistakes in targeting
Three mistakes recur.
Excluding countries to target one
Exclusion doesn’t restrict delivery to the country you want. Include it explicitly.
Using a small list for inclusion
A list under 25,000 matched users can only exclude. Check the matched count.
Targeting too many things at once
Each control narrows the audience. Together they can leave too few people to deliver. Start broad and narrow with data.
Questions
Can I target by age, gender or interests?
No. OpenAI’s targeting controls are locations, platforms and custom audiences. Accounts identified as under 18 never see ads. More on that in who sees ChatGPT ads.
Can I target a city or a zip code?
Yes, in standard campaigns, where OpenAI offers that location. Search for it during campaign setup to check what’s available in your country. New product-feed campaigns can only target countries, so for a catalog you narrow with product filters instead. If you serve one city, include it explicitly and leave other settings open to begin with.
How big does a customer list need to be?
At least 25,000 matched users to include an audience or adjust bids for it, and OpenAI recommends 100,000 for either use. Any size works for exclusions, so a small customer list can still keep existing buyers out of a campaign. Check the matched count in Ads Manager, not the number of rows in your file.
Do bid adjustments work with Maximize Results?
No. OpenAI says audience bid multipliers work only with fixed bids, and Maximize Results sets bids for you. If you want to bid more for your best customers, use a fixed bid. Remember that the daily budget must then be at least your highest effective bid, adjustments included.
What does matched users mean?
It’s the number of people OpenAI could match from your file, not the number of rows you uploaded. Invalid values, duplicates and identifiers it can’t match don’t count. So a file of 30,000 rows may match fewer than 25,000 people and then work only for exclusions.
Can I change targeting after launch?
Yes. You can edit locations, platforms and audiences on a campaign. Audience members can be added, removed or replaced without rebuilding it. Change one thing at a time, so you can tell what moved delivery.
Can I use custom audiences in Europe?
Not for campaigns targeting the EEA or Switzerland, while personalized ads aren’t available there. OpenAI’s advice is to avoid custom audiences for those campaigns. The UK isn’t in the EEA, so that rule doesn’t cover UK-only campaigns. Check OpenAI’s page for current wording before you plan around it.
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