OpenAI added custom-audience targeting to ChatGPT Ads, letting advertisers upload their own e-mail and phone lists to reach specific customers, mirroring the same first-party data method used on Google and Meta.
The move was spotted early last week by Craig Graham, CEO of Grayvault Consulting, who wrote:
“The setup itself is straightforward. In the Ads Manager, under Audiences, you create an audience and upload a list. You give it a name, choose the identifier type, and upload a CSV or TXT file. The platform then matches your list against its users and, once processing is done, the audience shows as ready with an approximate count of matched users. From there, at the campaign level, you apply that audience as either an included or an excluded custom audience.”
He went on to say not to expect perfection or one-to-one matching:
“One practical note on match rates: expect to match a portion of your list, not all of it, the same as on any other platform. Only the people whose details match an account will be found. A modest match rate is normal and not a sign anything is wrong, but it does mean you should think of these audiences as directional rather than complete, which matters when you are relying on an exclusion to protect spend.”
OpenAI officially announced the new feature yesterday, a few days after it was spotted in the wild and reported on by various publications. Note that it’s geared towards larger businesses with at least 25,000 matched users, but OpenAI recommends audiences of at least 100,000 users.
