How do I bulk upload campaigns into OpenAI Ads Manager

The short version

Bulk upload is a three tab spreadsheet: campaigns, ad groups, ads. Every row needs the right fields filled in, campaign and ad group names have to match exactly across tabs, and context hints need to be written as a JSON array. Most rejected files fail on one of those three things. This guide is the checklist to run before you upload, taken directly from OpenAI's own schema checklist.

When to use bulk upload instead of the guided flow

Bulk upload suits a launch of several campaigns at once, or a structural change across many ad groups, such as rewriting context hints everywhere at the same time. A single campaign with a handful of ad groups is usually faster to build in the guided workflow described in our Ads Manager guide. One hard limit either way: bulk upload does not currently support creating product feed campaigns. Feed based campaigns are always built through the guided flow in our product feed guide.

The three tabs and what belongs in each

Campaigns tab

Row limit: no more than 5,000 campaigns in one ad account.

Ad groups tab

Row limit: no more than 5,000 ad groups in one ad account.

Ads tab

Row limit: no more than 5,000 ads in one ad account. OpenAI names three accepted image hosting patterns: public Google Drive links, AWS hosted links such as S3 or CloudFront, or self hosted links on your own domain or CDN.

A worked example: three rows across three tabs

Seeing the three tabs linked together makes the naming rule concrete. Here is one campaign, one ad group and one ad, written as they would appear in each tab.

Notice the campaign name "UAE Villa Renovation" appears character for character in the ad groups tab, and the ad group name "Kitchen Renovation" appears character for character in the ads tab. That repetition, row after row, is what the validator is actually checking.

Formatting rules that cause silent failures

Before you upload: the validation pass

1. Check every required field

   Blank required fields are the most common rejection cause across all three tabs.

2. Check context hints are valid JSON

   A comma separated string without brackets and quotation marks will not parse as an array.

3. Check character limits on title and copy

   16 to 24 characters recommended for titles, 50 maximum. 32 to 48 characters recommended for copy, 100 maximum.

4. Open every landing page and image URL directly

   Confirm the landing page loads without a sign in wall and the image URL returns the image itself, not a preview page or a redirect.

5. Re-check names across tabs

   Every campaign name referenced in ad groups, and every ad group name referenced in ads, exists and matches exactly.

New object or an update to an existing one

The bulk upload file doubles as the editing tool for existing campaigns, ad groups and ads, and the same file structure decides which behaviour you get.

OpenAI's recommended starting point for any edit is Export for edit inside Ads Manager, which downloads a fresh file with current IDs and values. Starting from an old file risks overwriting a change someone else made since you last exported. Full detail on in-line versus bulk edits is in our Ads Manager guide.

When the upload comes back with errors

Ads Manager shows a specific error message identifying the row and the issue. Work through it in this order.

1. Read the exact error, not just that it failed

   OpenAI's error messages typically name the row and the specific problem, which is faster to fix than re-checking the whole file.

2. Confirm what already succeeded

   Processing can complete even when some rows failed. Check the row level results before assuming nothing was created.

3. Reconcile before you re-upload

   Confirm each ad_group_id in the file points to the object you intended, and that image links return image data rather than a preview page.

4. Never replay a succeeded row with a blank ID

   A row that already created an ad, uploaded again with the ad ID left blank, creates a second, duplicate ad rather than updating the first one.

5. Fix, validate, then re-upload only the rows that need it

   Correct the specific formatting or field issue in the template, run through the checklist above again, and upload only the rows you intend to create or change.

If an error is unclear or persists, OpenAI's support channel for this is reachable through the support widget inside Ads Manager. Have your file and the exact error details ready before you contact them.

Common mistakes

• Renaming a tab or a column header. Even a small rename, such as "Ad Groups" instead of "ad groups", can break the upload.
• Typing the campaign name slightly differently in the ad groups tab. A missing space or different capitalisation is treated as a different campaign and the link silently fails to match.
• Writing context hints as a plain sentence instead of a JSON array. It needs the brackets and quotation marks: ["hint one", "hint two"].
• Assuming a completed upload means every row worked. Check row level outcomes every time, especially on a large file.
• Re-uploading the whole file after fixing one error. This risks duplicating every row that already succeeded. Isolate and re-upload only the corrected rows.
• Trying to bulk upload a product feed campaign. It is not supported. Build it in the guided flow instead.

Bulk upload versus the guided flow

Neither method is universally better. OpenAI supports both, and the right choice depends on the size and shape of the change you are making.

What UAE teams should prepare before a bulk launch

• Dates in YYYY-MM-DD format, and a clear view of which UAE public holidays or sale periods the campaign dates should span.
• Country values in the JSON format the template expects, for example ["AE"] for UAE only, or a wider Gulf list if you are also live in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain or Oman.
• Landing pages that are already reachable by OpenAI's crawlers, OAI-AdsBot and OAI-SearchBot, which matters for sites still behind a staging password or a country level redirect.
• A named person who owns the file, since a bulk file touching many campaigns at once is exactly the kind of change that benefits from one clear owner rather than several people editing in parallel.
• Arabic text saved correctly in a UTF-8 file if any titles, copy or context hints use Arabic. A spreadsheet saved in the wrong encoding can silently turn Arabic characters into unreadable symbols, and that failure will not always show up as a validation error, only as broken text once the ad is live.

A note on version control

A bulk upload file is easy to lose track of once more than one person edits it. Our approach, which is our own practice rather than an OpenAI requirement: keep the most recent Export for edit in a shared folder with the export date in the filename, and treat any older copy as read only. Because a bulk edit replaces context hints outright rather than merging them, an out of date file re-uploaded by mistake can quietly delete hints someone else added last week. The cost of a naming convention is small next to the cost of untangling that after the fact.

For the full picture of how bulk upload fits inside the wider account and campaign structure, read our Ads Manager complete guide.

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