What do the terms in OpenAI Ads Manager mean?

The short version

OpenAI Ads Manager uses its own vocabulary, some borrowed from search and social advertising, some specific to a conversational platform. This glossary defines every term you are likely to meet, in the order you would meet it: account, campaign, bidding, targeting, creative, measurement and billing. Each definition is self contained, so you can jump straight to the term you need.

CampaignObjective and billing model, budget, dates, country and platform targetingObjective and billing model cannot be changed in place after creation

Ad groupTheme, context hints and the bidSeveral ad groups per campaign to test themes

AdTitle, copy, image and landing page URL with tracking parametersSeveral ads per ad group

Account terms

Ads Manager, or Ads Manager Beta. OpenAI's advertiser platform for creating, launching and managing ChatGPT ads campaigns, reached at ads.openai.com. Labelled beta because OpenAI states capabilities are still evolving.

Advertiser account. The account tied to one business entity, its country, currency and time zone, none of which can be changed once the account is created. Each advertiser needs its own account.

Account owner. Our shorthand, not an OpenAI role, for the person who creates the advertiser account. OpenAI's setup guide says to have one person create the account, then invite anyone else who needs access; the roles inside the account are Admin, Member and Viewer.

Ad account admin. A role scoped to one advertising account that manages the account and its user access. At least one effective admin must remain on every account at all times.

Ad account member. A role scoped to one advertising account that can create and update campaigns, ad groups and ads, without account administration rights.

Ad account viewer. A role scoped to one advertising account that can view performance and settings without editing rights.

Ads admin. A tenant wide role that can create eligible new advertising accounts, but does not automatically grant access to existing ones.

Account verification. OpenAI's check of your business identity, ownership and affiliations. OpenAI says the review may take up to 7 business days, and it treats account verification, account approval, ad review and ad delivery as separate checks, so completing one does not mean the others are complete.

Account Name, Brand Name and Legal Name. Three names managed in Settings, then General, alongside the logo. The Account Name identifies the account inside Ads Manager, the Brand Name is the public name shown alongside your ads in ChatGPT, and the Legal Name is the registered business name used for billing and business verification. OpenAI says a Brand Name change triggers brand review and pauses ad serving until the new name is approved, and a Legal Name change restarts business review.

Campaign terms

Campaign. The top level object that defines an objective, billing model, budget, dates, country and platform targeting.

Objective. The overall goal chosen at campaign creation: Views, Clicks or Conversions. It determines billing and cannot be changed in place after the campaign is created; OpenAI says to create a new campaign, or clone one, with the objective you want.

Views. A campaign objective billed per 1,000 impressions served (CPM), used to maximise visibility and exposure.

Clicks. A campaign objective billed per valid click (CPC), used to drive traffic to a website or product.

Conversions. A campaign objective that optimises delivery toward a selected supported conversion event, billed through either oCPC or oCPM rather than per conversion.

Campaign total budget. A ceiling for spend across the whole life of a campaign, paced against the remaining budget and, where set, an end date.

Daily budget. The average amount a campaign spends per day over a seven day period, not a same day cap. A single day can bill up to twice the amount; seven days will not exceed seven times the amount.

Budget week. The seven day period a daily budget paces against, running Sunday through Saturday in the account's own time zone.

Ad schema template. The spreadsheet template used for bulk upload, with separate tabs for campaigns, ad groups and ads.

Bulk upload. Creating or editing campaigns, ad groups and ads at scale by uploading a completed ad schema template, rather than building each one in the guided flow. Does not currently support creating product feed campaigns.

Bidding terms

Ad group. The level inside a campaign that organises ads around a shared product, service or customer need, and carries the bid strategy and context hints.

Manual: Max bid. A bid strategy where you set the ceiling yourself: a maximum CPM bid, maximum CPC bid, or Bid Cap, depending on the campaign objective.

Maximize Results. A bid strategy where Ads Manager sets and adjusts bids automatically toward your campaign goal. Selected by default for eligible new ad groups. OpenAI states it prioritises result volume and does not guarantee a specific CPA, CPC or ROAS.

Bid Cap. On a conversion optimised campaign, the maximum you are willing to bid for a conversion. OpenAI states this shapes the auction bid and is not the price actually charged for a conversion.

Relevance weighted, second price auction. OpenAI's description of how eligible ads are ranked: relevance and bid are weighed together, and the winning advertiser's price sits inside a second price structure rather than simply being their own maximum bid.

Bid strength guidance. Guidance Ads Manager may show indicating whether a bid is likely to be competitive or may limit delivery.

Low bid warning. A warning that can appear on a live ad group, based on observed auction performance rather than the general bid strength estimate, and can disagree with it.

oCPC. Conversion optimised campaigns with click billing. Billed per valid click while delivery optimises toward a selected conversion event.

oCPM. Conversion optimised campaigns with impression billing. Billed per 1,000 impressions served while delivery optimises toward a broader set of eligible conversions, including those driven by ad views and clicks.

Targeting terms

Context hints. Natural language phrases written at ad group level describing what you offer, who it helps and when it is useful. OpenAI states they inform relevance and are not exact match keywords or delivery instructions.

Country targeting. The countries where a campaign's ads are eligible to appear. New self service accounts can initially be restricted to their home country until verification is approved and a spend threshold is reached there.

Platform targeting. An optional setting choosing where a campaign can deliver, among Android app, Android web, Desktop web, iOS app and iOS web.

Custom audience. A list of customers or prospects, built from email addresses, phone numbers, hashed versions of either, or Google Advertising IDs, used to include or exclude people from a campaign, or to adjust bids at ad group level.

Inclusion audience. A custom audience used to limit a campaign to people it contains. Requires at least 25,000 matched users; OpenAI recommends at least 100,000.

Exclusion audience. A custom audience used to prevent a campaign from reaching people it contains. Can be used below the 25,000 user threshold.

Audience bid adjustment. A multiplier, between 0.1x and 10x, that raises or lowers an ad group's maximum bid when a viewer matches a selected custom audience.

Creative terms

Ad. The creative unit shown to a user below a ChatGPT response: advertiser name, favicon, title, copy, landing page and image.

Title. The ad's headline. OpenAI recommends 16 to 24 characters, with a maximum of 50.

Copy. The ad's description, expected to add information beyond the title rather than repeat it. OpenAI recommends 32 to 48 characters, with a maximum of 100.

Landing page. The destination URL a click leads to. Must be valid, reachable, and must not block OpenAI's crawlers.

Suggested ad drafts. A feature that prefills a draft ad, image, title and description, using your existing website metadata. OpenAI states it does not generate new copy or imagery with AI.

Product feed. A structured catalogue of products, uploaded to Ads Manager, used to build product feed campaigns at scale instead of hand written ads.

Ad template. Built per ad group in a product feed campaign, currently limited to choosing the image field; titles, descriptions and prices are pulled from the feed.

Sponsored Agents. A format that lets a person chat with an AI representative of a business, opened from an ad. Currently available only to selected advertisers in a limited alpha test.

Serving, Not serving. Ad status values shown in the Ads tab. Hovering over Not serving shows the specific reason.

Measurement terms

OpenAI Pixel. A JavaScript snippet installed on a website that reports conversion events and captures the oppref click reference.

Conversions API. A server side method for sending conversion events directly from your own systems, unaffected by browser level blocking.

oppref. OpenAI's click reference, appended to a landing page URL on an ad click in the form oppref=gAAAAAb123, and stored by the Pixel in a first party cookie.

Event ID. An identifier attached to a conversion event. Sending the same conversion through both the Pixel and the Conversions API with the same event ID lets OpenAI deduplicate it into one counted conversion. OpenAI notes the field is called id in the Conversions API and event_id in the Pixel.

Standard conversion event. A predefined event type, such as a purchase or a lead submission, required for a conversion optimised campaign. Custom conversion events are not currently supported for optimisation.

Automatic advanced matching (AAM). A Pixel feature that detects supported customer information already present in website forms, then normalises and hashes it in the browser before sending it, without sending raw customer information.

Modelled measurement. Where available, OpenAI's use of aggregated patterns from observed conversions to estimate attribution for advertiser reported conversions that could not otherwise be matched to a click.

Attribution window. The period after an ad interaction during which a conversion can still be credited to it. Ads Manager supports 7, 14 or 30 day click through windows and a 0 or 1 day view through window.

View through conversion. A conversion counted when someone converts within the view through window after seeing an ad, without a qualifying click also receiving credit for the same conversion.

Event quality. A daily refreshed assessment of how useful the conversion information from a data source is for measurement, shown as a score with specific warnings.

Data source. A connection created in the Conversions section of Ads Manager that generates a Pixel ID and Conversions API key together.

Billing terms

Postpay. OpenAI's billing model, charging an advertiser after ads have already been delivered, rather than in advance.

Payment threshold. The amount of unpaid spend that can accrue on a self service card billed account before the saved payment method is charged. Not a spending cap.

Billing profile. Business name, address and invoice delivery email, required before a campaign can deliver.

Authorisation hold. A temporary hold your bank may show when a card is added. OpenAI says it is not a completed charge and is released automatically after verification, though it may remain visible for 8 days or longer depending on the bank.

Account limits. An account wide daily spending limit, available under Billing, then Account limits, only for eligible postpaid invoice accounts, not self service card billed advertisers.

Budget pacing. How Ads Manager spreads a campaign's spend over time, differently for daily budgets, which average over seven days, and campaign total budgets, which pace against the remaining amount and schedule.

Terms that get confused with each other

A quick reference for the objective and billing terms that get mixed up most:

UAE and Gulf specifics

Two terms are worth translating into UAE numbers the moment you meet them. The minimum daily budget, which sits at AED 65 for a dirham billed account against SAR 50 in Saudi Arabia and QAR 60 in Qatar, and the suggested starting CPC bid, which OpenAI publishes as 3 to 5 US dollars, roughly AED 11 to 18 at the fixed peg of 3.6725, a conversion we make, not OpenAI. Beyond currency, nothing in this glossary changes for a UAE account: the same terms, roles and mechanics apply whether the advertiser account bills in AED, SAR or QAR. For the fuller explanation behind any term here, follow the links throughout to our cost guide, bidding strategies guide and conversion tracking guide.

Quick answers

What is a context hint in ChatGPT ads?

A natural language phrase, written at ad group level, that describes what you offer, who it helps and when it is useful. OpenAI states context hints are not exact match keywords and do not guarantee delivery.

What does oppref mean?

OpenAI's click reference. It is appended to a landing page URL after an ad click, in the form oppref=gAAAAAb123, and the OpenAI Pixel stores it so a later conversion can be tied back to that click.

What is the difference between oCPC and oCPM?

Both are conversion optimised billing options. oCPC bills per valid click while optimising toward a conversion event that follows a click. oCPM bills per 1,000 impressions served while optimising toward a broader set of eligible conversions, including those driven by ad views and clicks.

What is Maximize Results in ChatGPT ads?

A bid strategy where Ads Manager sets and adjusts bids automatically toward your selected campaign goal. It is selected by default for eligible new ad groups and does not guarantee a specific cost outcome.

What is a payment threshold in ChatGPT ads billing?

The amount of unpaid spend that can accrue on a self service card billed account before the saved payment method is charged. It is a charge trigger, not a spending cap.

What does Not serving mean on a ChatGPT ad?

A status shown when an ad is not currently delivering. Hovering over it in Ads Manager shows the reason, commonly a policy mismatch, an incomplete account setup, or a landing page blocking OpenAI's crawlers.

What is a data source in ChatGPT ads?

A connection created in the Conversions section of Ads Manager that generates a Pixel ID and a Conversions API key, used to send conversion events back to the platform.

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