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ChatGPT Ads: what’s changing in bidding, and how to prepare before January 1

David CarleBy David Carle
November 10, 2026

The news in a nutshell

On November 5, OpenAI emailed ChatGPT Ads advertisers about new bidding strategies for campaigns on the platform.

As of today, November 9, you can set a cost target in Ads Manager: a target cost per conversion (Target CPA) or a target cost per click (Target CPC). The bidding options used until now, Max Bid and Max CPC, will be retired on January 1, 2027.

At first glance, these new features may seem minor, but they completely change the way you manage your campaigns.

OpenAI is changing the very logic of its platform: you no longer set the maximum price of a click. You tell the algorithm what you want to pay on average for a conversion or a click, and it works out how to hit that target. OpenAI describes the platform as “intelligent by default.”

Smart bidding strategies are one of the pillars of Google Ads, so it makes sense for ChatGPT to move closer to that capability and build credibility for its ad platform.

In the sections below, I explain what actually changes, what the shift to automated bidding at Google taught us, and how I recommend handling the transition without putting your campaign performance at risk.

What actually changes

Campaign typeBeforeNowWhat it changes
Conversions
purchases, leads		Max BidTarget CPAYou aim for an average cost per conversion. The algorithm adjusts each bid to get there.
ClicksMax CPCTarget CPCThe system can bid above or below your target, aiming for an average.
AutomaticMaximize resultsIntelligent biddingSame behaviour, new name.
Source: OpenAI email to advertisers, reported by Search Engine Land (November 5, 2026).

The most important nuance is in the second row. With Max CPC, if you entered $2, you never paid more than $2 per click.

With a $2 Target CPC, some clicks will now cost you $3, others $1.

The average is what’s being targeted, not the ceiling. For advertisers who like to stay in control, it’s a change in mindset that will take some getting used to.

The timeline:

DateWhat happensWhat you should do
November 9, 2026Target CPA and Target CPC become available. New campaigns use them by default.Start migrating campaigns with solid conversion volume
Until December 31Your existing campaigns keep running on Max Bid or Max CPC.Migrate the rest at your own pace, ideally before December 15
January 1, 2027Max Bid and Max CPC are retired. Remaining campaigns switch over automatically.Check the targets applied and your spend pacing as soon as you’re back from the holidays
Timeline announced by OpenAI.

Why this matters for Canadian advertisers too

ChatGPT Ads is no longer just an American story: the self-serve ad platform has been open to Canadian advertisers since July.

And the platform is growing fast. According to Reuters, as reported by Shopifreaks, the U.S. pilot passed $100 million in annualized revenue in just six weeks, with more than 600 advertisers. Yet at that point, fewer than 20% of eligible users were seeing an ad on any given day. There’s still a lot of inventory to open up, and competition hasn’t settled in yet.

That’s exactly why you should adopt the new bidding strategies as quickly as possible. Advertisers who learn the rules of a new platform early, while bids are still affordable, build a lead that’s hard to catch. We saw it with Google Ads twenty years ago, and more recently with LinkedIn Ads.

What Google Ads has already taught us

OpenAI isn’t reinventing anything. Google made exactly the same shift with its automated bidding strategies: Target CPA, Target ROAS, then the gradual retirement of enhanced manual bidding. I’ve guided close to a hundred accounts through these transitions, and the same mistakes come up almost every time.

The algorithm is only as good as your tracking. A Target CPA strategy learns from the conversions you send it. If your pixel double-counts conversions, or doesn’t see phone calls, the algorithm optimizes on bad data. It’s the first thing I check in an account, before I even touch the bids.

An overly ambitious target chokes delivery. This is the classic mistake. Your actual CPA is $80, you’re dreaming of $50, so you enter $50. The result: the algorithm barely wins any auctions, your impressions collapse and your budget goes unspent. OpenAI says so in black and white in its email.

Give the algorithm time to learn. The first few weeks after a strategy change are often unstable (the “learning period” in Google Ads). Costs go up, then come back down. People who panic and change the target every three days never let the campaign settle.

Volume matters. A campaign that generates three conversions a month doesn’t give the algorithm enough information to aim well. In that case, optimizing for a more frequent action (a click on “request a demo” rather than a signed contract) often works better at first.

How to set a realistic target

The rule is simple: start from reality, not from your goal. Your first target should reflect what the campaign already costs. Only then do you tighten it, in small steps.

Step 1: calculate your actual cost. Take the last 30 days of the campaign (or 60 days if volume is low) and divide spend by the number of conversions. For a click campaign, simply look at your average CPC.

Step 2: use that number as your first target. Not 20% less. The actual number, or even 10% above it if the campaign is short on volume. The goal for the first few weeks is to keep delivery stable while the algorithm learns.

Step 3: tighten gradually. Once results are stable, lower the target by 10% to 15% at a time, and wait two to three weeks between each adjustment.

Let’s take a B2B software company generating demo requests on ChatGPT Ads. Last month, it spent $2,700 for 30 requests, an actual cost of $90 per request. Its long-term goal: $70.

PeriodTarget CPAWhat to watch
Weeks 1 to 3$90Delivery stays stable and the budget is spent
Weeks 4 to 6$80Request volume doesn’t drop by more than 15% to 20%
Weeks 7 to 9$70Lead quality holds up (share of demos actually completed)
Illustrative example: starting actual cost of $90 per demo request, goal of $70.

If at any step volume collapses or part of the budget goes unspent, move back up a notch and wait. It’s less exciting than aiming for $70 on day one, but it’s how you actually get there.

To set your starting goal, the reverse budgeting method from my article How much should you invest in Google Ads in 2026? applies to ChatGPT Ads as is.

My checklist before January 1

Here’s what should be done for every ChatGPT Ads account before the end of the year, as far as these new bidding strategies are concerned.

Conversion tracking

  • Confirm that the pixel or Conversions API is sending the event selected for the campaign
  • Fix Event Quality Score (EQS) warnings in Ads Manager
  • Compare ChatGPT Ads conversions with your CRM or GA4: a gap of more than 20% deserves a closer look

Targets

  • Calculate the actual CPA or CPC for the last 30 days, campaign by campaign
  • Write these numbers down: they’ll be your benchmark after the migration

Migration

  • Migrate one campaign at a time, starting with the one that has the most conversions
  • Avoid migrating during a high-demand period (Black Friday, the holidays) if your industry is sensitive to it
  • Give each campaign at least two weeks before judging the results

Monitoring

  • Check every week that the budget is being spent: unspent budget is the first sign of a target that’s too tight
  • Migrate all remaining campaigns before December 15, so you don’t get caught by the automatic switch on January 1

Migrate now, or wait?

It depends on your conversion volume. Here’s how I’d decide.

Migrate now if your campaign generates conversions regularly and your tracking is reliable. You have everything to gain by making the transition calmly in November, rather than having it forced on you on January 1, just as everyone is getting back from vacation.

Wait a little if your campaign has very few conversions, or if you’ve just launched it. In that case, use the next few weeks to strengthen your tracking and build up data. Migrate in early December, with a stronger history.

Switch to intelligent bidding without a target if you don’t yet have a clear idea of your acceptable cost. Let the algorithm spend your budget for a few weeks, see what cost comes out of it, then set a target based on that number.

One last, more philosophical point. With this change, OpenAI takes away a direct lever of control, as Google did before it. That’s not necessarily bad news: automated bidding often outperforms manual bidding, as long as you feed it good data. But it shifts the work. The value no longer lies in tweaking bids. It lies in the quality of your tracking, choosing the right conversion and the relevance of your ads. So that’s where I now spend most of my time.

Frequently asked questions

Will my campaigns stop running on November 9? No. Existing campaigns keep running on Max Bid or Max CPC until December 31. Only new campaigns use Target CPA or Target CPC by default.

What happens if I do nothing? On January 1, 2027, OpenAI will automatically switch your campaigns to Target CPA or Target CPC. The risk is not controlling the target that’s applied, and discovering the problem after a few days of spending.

Will I pay more per click? For some clicks, yes. With Target CPC, the system can go over your target on a given auction and make up for it elsewhere. It’s the average over the period that should land close to your target.

Does Target CPA work without a pixel? No. It needs reliable conversion data, sent by OpenAI’s pixel or Conversions API. Without it, the algorithm has nothing to work with.

Is it the same as Target CPA in Google Ads? The principle is the same: you aim for an average, and the algorithm adjusts each bid. However, ChatGPT Ads has much less history and data than Google. So I expect longer learning periods, especially for small budgets.

The bottom line

The move to Target CPA and Target CPC doesn’t just change a menu in Ads Manager. It hands more decisions over to OpenAI’s algorithm, and makes the quality of your tracking more important than ever.

If you remember only one thing: don’t wait until January 1. Start from your actual cost, migrate one campaign at a time and give it time to learn.

Sources