OpenAI has expanded ChatGPT Ads into South Africa, and local performance agency Woww is moving quickly to make the new placement part of paid media plans. The agency has added a managed ChatGPT Ads service to its existing Google Ads, Meta Ads and PPC offering.
A new ad environment
ChatGPT Ads don’t work like search. Instead of bidding on keywords someone types, brands sponsor placements that appear inside relevant ChatGPT conversations while people explore products, compare options and work toward a decision. For marketers, that is a very different moment: the user is already in problem-solving mode.
The scale behind the launch
OpenAI says more than 1.2 billion people use ChatGPT weekly, and more than 100,000 advertisers have already run campaigns globally. Those numbers make AI placements hard to ignore for performance teams that are always looking for the next under-priced channel.
Woww’s service covers the full campaign lifecycle:
- Campaign strategy and advertiser account setup
- Creative development and ad copywriting
- Budget planning, management and testing
- Performance reporting
“ChatGPT is becoming an important part of how people discover businesses and make purchasing decisions,” said Felix Norton, Managing Director at Woww and AI Search Expert. He said the opportunity for advertisers is “to reach customers in an entirely different environment.”
Why this matters for SA brands
Woww is positioning ChatGPT Ads as an additional channel within a broader digital strategy, not a replacement for Google or Meta. Brands can run ChatGPT Ads alongside Search, Social and other paid media, coordinate messaging, and use reporting to decide where budget should sit. Woww says it has served more than 650 clients internationally, which gives the launch serious operational weight.
Pair paid AI with organic AI visibility
The stronger play is to combine sponsored ChatGPT placements with GEO/AEO, the practice of making a brand visible in generative and answer-engine results. Woww already runs GEO/AEO work for clients, and the agency says it will pair that organic AI visibility with paid spots inside platforms like ChatGPT.
Where to start
For SA performance marketers, the practical next step is a considered test. Define the business objective a ChatGPT campaign should serve, then let account structure and creative follow that objective. Keep budgets modest while you test placements, messages and audiences, and compare performance against Google and Meta before scaling.
The risk with a new format is throwing budget at it because it is new. Woww’s framing is clear: ChatGPT Ads are an additional channel, and the teams that win will connect them to the rest of the media plan and measure them with the same rigour.
Source: ITWeb
