OpenAI is building custom audience targeting into ChatGPT Ads Manager. According to an email OpenAI sent to advertisers on July 9, the capability arrives alongside a new account overview tab, prefilled ad drafts, expanded market targeting, and a refreshed ad card format.
The additions move ChatGPT Ads Manager from a basic buying interface toward the audience and account management layer that defines established platforms. The changes layer onto a channel that already runs on cost-per-click pricing, which The Keyword broke down in its explainer on how ChatGPT ads work and what they cost.
Custom Audiences
Custom Audiences gives advertisers a way to use their own customer and prospect lists when running campaigns through Ads Manager.
According to the company's updated support documentation, advertisers can upload lists containing email addresses or phone numbers, then use those audiences to control who sees an ad or how much they are willing to bid for specific users.
The update expands the audience targeting options already available in ChatGPT Ads and brings the platform closer to features advertisers have long used on platforms such as Google Ads and Meta Ads.
Advertisers Can Include or Exclude Customer Lists
The new feature lets advertisers upload their own customer data to create custom audiences. Those audiences can then be used at the campaign level in two ways.
The first option is inclusion, which limits campaign delivery to people who appear in one or more selected custom audiences. This could be used to target existing customers, loyalty members, or qualified prospects.
The second option is exclusion, which prevents ads from reaching people in selected audiences. For example, advertisers can avoid showing acquisition campaigns to existing customers or recent buyers.
OpenAI says advertisers can use inclusion, exclusion, or both together in the same campaign. If both settings are used, the audience remaining after exclusions must still contain at least 25,000 matched users before the campaign is eligible to run. The same custom audience cannot be added as both an included and excluded audience within a single campaign.
The company's help document explains how advertisers can create a custom audience in Ads Manager.
Account Overview Tab
A new overview tab consolidates account health, recommended optimization tasks, and a larger, more flexible trend chart for key metrics. An advertiser managing several campaigns can use the tab to spot a drop in delivery and act on suggested fixes without digging through individual ad groups.
Suggested Ad Drafts
When a campaign could benefit from broader creative coverage, advertisers may see an option under "Add new ad" that prefills an image, title, and description from the website's existing metadata. The feature does not generate copy or imagery with AI; it pulls what a site already publishes for the advertiser to review and edit. The Keyword earlier covered that ChatGPT Ads now shows a ‘generate ads for you’ option that drafts an ad from an advertiser’s website and campaign settings.
Market and Format Changes
Campaigns can now target users in Japan and South Korea, extending ChatGPT Ads beyond the earlier English-language markets the platform reached when it extended its self-serve Ads Manager to the U.K. OpenAI is also rolling out a more compact static ad card format across web and mobile, a change that began in late June and continues the platform's move beyond a single ad format.
Matt Shenton believes the update shows how established ad platforms use first-party customer data to improve targeting and bidding.
"It's interesting how quickly this feature has been added, but it doesn't come as a huge surprise. Ad platforms thrive on certain types of data inputs, since it allows them to 1) broaden coverage/inventory and 2) deepen how aggressively they bid on high-value users.
That's allowed advertisers a level of scale for quite some time, with higher CPCs/CPAs being an acceptable tradeoff (in the case of higher value users).
The thing I'm still trying to reconcile: how much of a targeting advantage do they already have from the highly contextual prompt data they have access to?
Getting the most out of that data is no doubt a process of test and learn. Either way, layering first-party data on top of that contextual signal only sharpens it further."
Recap
What did OpenAI add to ChatGPT Ads Manager?
OpenAI added custom audiences, a new account overview tab, suggested ad drafts, and targeting for Japan and South Korea, plus a refreshed static ad card format, communicated through an email to advertisers.
How do custom audiences work in ChatGPT Ads?
Advertisers upload lists of 25,000 or more users to include or suppress across campaigns, and can set bid multipliers for each audience at the ad group level.
What changes now that ChatGPT Ads targets Japan and South Korea?
Advertisers doing business in those markets can direct campaigns at users there, widening the platform's reach beyond its earlier English-language markets.
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