Your First Black Friday ChatGPT Ads Campaign: A Guide for Sri Lankan Agencies, Stores and Brands

Should your brand advertise on ChatGPT this Black Friday? It could be worth testing, but don't treat it as a guaranteed source of sales. With the channel still new and limited evidence on costs and performance, start small, track results carefully and use the campaign to learn what works. Within days of ChatGPT ads opening in Sri Lanka, one of BrandRadar’s first Sri Lankan clients went live, and the first week was telling: a click-through rate of nearly 4%, 90% new visitors, and a budget we couldn’t fully spend. Here’s what we’ve learned. 

Key Takeaways

• Black Friday is more than electronics now: Shoppers ask ChatGPT about fashion, beauty, gifts and home too, and every category has different names in its answers.
• ChatGPT ads sit below the answer: They are labelled and don't change what ChatGPT says about you.
• Set up before you spend: One product, one goal, tracking tested, and a landing page that matches the question.
• Agencies have a head start: Australia has had ChatGPT ads since April, so teams running campaigns for overseas brands can learn there first.

Why did we include Australia: If your agency also works with Australian brands, you’ll know ChatGPT ads reached Australia months before Sri Lanka: they’ve been live there since April. That makes Australian campaigns a useful place to learn first. We wanted to see what that means for Black Friday, so we ran the same shopping questions for Sri Lanka and for Sydney. You’ll find the comparison in the test below, and a section on running campaigns for Australian clients later on. 

But firstly;

What we saw in the first few weeks of running ChatGPT Ads

Within days of ads opening in Sri Lanka, one of our first clients was live, and the first week of results was interesting.

• A click-through rate of nearly 4%
• 90% of visitors were new to the website
• One in three visitors engaged, and brochure downloads started within days

But what stood out was something else.

“Ad inventory in Sri Lanka is still limited, which means ChatGPT Ads, at least for now, is more of a precision channel than a scale channel. What’s encouraging is the intent behind these clicks. We’re reaching people who are already having conversations around the very products and services our clients offer. That’s a very different advertising opportunity.”
Niresh Bandaranayake, Head of Growth, BrandRadar

We asked AI 25 Black Friday and Christmas questions across 2 markets

It’s been a few weeks since we started running ads for our clients in Sri Lanka, and we wanted to further test seasons. 

Using BrandRadar V2, we put 25 shopping questions about Sri Lanka and 25 about Sydney to ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode. They covered 5 categories: electronics, home and appliances, fashion, beauty and gifts. 

How to read this table: For each category we asked five questions. “5/5” means that type of business came up in the answers to all five questions, and “4/5” means four. We counted a mention if it appeared in at least one of the three engines (ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode) and in at least one of two runs on 5 November 2026.

3 Key Takeaways

• Electronics is the hardest shortlist to join: In Sydney, four retailers and marketplaces appeared in every electronics answer. In Sri Lanka, two did. 
• Other categories have different gatekeepers: A gifting marketplace appeared in all 5 Sri Lankan gift answers, and a general marketplace in all 5 home and appliance answers. In Sydney, one online retailer led fashion and another led beauty, while gifts were scattered across many stores.
• In Sri Lanka, the answer is also about how you pay: Pay-later providers appeared in all 5 fashion answers and 4 of 5 beauty answers. In Sydney, pay-later providers appeared only on an instalment question.

The engines don’t agree either. In Sri Lankan fashion, Gemini named the general marketplace in 4 of 5 questions, ChatGPT in 3, and Google AI Mode in only 1. In Sydney, ChatGPT never named the department store that Gemini named in 4 of 5. 

What should you know about ChatGPT ads? 

OpenAI began showing ads in ChatGPT in February and now offers them in 89 countries. ChatGPT ads are now open to Sri Lankan brands. 

More than 1.2 billion people use ChatGPT every week, and OpenAI says more than 100,000 advertisers have used ChatGPT ads. OpenAI also said ChatGPT ads passed a $1 billion annualised revenue run rate in under 200 days. 

A few facts worth knowing:

• Ads appear on the Free and Go plans, are clearly labelled, and sit below the answer.
• Paid ad placements and being named in the answer are separate jobs.
• OpenAI says ads are matched using the context and intent of the conversation, plus your landing page, your creative and the context hints you provide. The page you send people to matters as much as the ad.

Black Friday used to mean electronics

Ask most people what Black Friday is for and they say TVs, phones and laptops. Adobe's 2025 forecast put electronics first among online categories by revenue, at $57.5 billion, ahead of apparel at $47.6 billion.

But shoppers' plans are wider. In a Finder survey of Australians planning to shop on Black Friday in October 2025, 68% planned to buy clothes and shoes, 44% electronics and gadgets, and 35% beauty, makeup and skincare. 

Sri Lanka's version is wider again. Black Friday sits inside a November sale season that starts with 11.11 and runs into December bank offers and Christmas shopping. Marketplaces, large retailers, fashion and gadget chains, supermarkets and card offers all compete for the same shopper. 

How those shoppers start their search is changing too. BCG and The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce found that digital's influence on Sri Lankan buying has risen from 32% in 2020 to 51%, and that 18% of consumers already use generative AI. 

About 1 in 3 of those users research brands and products with it. That is generative AI in general, not only ChatGPT, and one in three of the 18% is a small slice of all consumers. 

Should your store run them this Black Friday?

These are some questions you should ask. If you get 5-6 answers yes, run a small test. If it's 3-4 yes, fix the gaps. If your site is still undergoing technical structuring, focus on existing ad channels and organic reach:

1. Do you have one hero product or collection you'd happily sell more of?
2. Can you trace a sale or lead back to its source, and have you tested it?
3. Do you have the stock and delivery capacity for a rush?
4. Do you have a landing page that answers the shopper's question: price, stock, delivery, returns?
5. Have you worked out the cost per sale you can accept, after delivery, returns and discounts?
6. Is the budget one you can afford to learn with?

We asked Niresh when should a brand reconsider ad campaigns on ChatGPT:

“I’d tell a store to skip it this Black Friday if it can’t tell which sales came from where. Say a shop takes most of its orders by phone, on cash on delivery, and has no way to send confirmed orders back to the ad account: it would be paying for clicks without knowing what they produced. Fix the tracking and the landing page first, then run a small test once the rush is over.”

The setup checklist

A. Decide

First pick one hero product or collection, and one goal: new customers or sales. Work out the cost per sale you can accept, after-delivery, returns, bank-offer discounts and marketplace price pressure before you run anything. 

Don’t forget to set a learning budget you can afford to lose. Then reach out to your advertiser. We asked our AI ad specialist Ibrahim how to decide on a first test budget. 

“For the Sri Lankan market, I’d start with around $25 a day. Test different context-hint angles based on customer need, product category and buying intent, and pair each with several creatives to see which combinations reach the right people. Then give the campaign enough time to learn, and don’t make big changes too early.” 

B. Prepare the store 

Show price, stock, delivery time and returns up front, plus payment and instalment options. Check mobile speed and the number of checkout steps. Make sure to work back from Christmas delivery cut-offs.

“In Sri Lanka, your price is judged against marketplace sales and bank or pay-later offers, so I wouldn’t try to out-discount them. Work out the lowest price you can afford after delivery, returns and any offer you fund, then compete on what a marketplace can’t easily copy: genuine stock, a warranty and delivery you can promise. And put your instalment or card offer on the landing page, because our test shows those offers are already part of what shoppers read in the answers.”
Niresh Bandaranayake, Head of Growth, BrandRadar 

C. Track it 

Set up conversion tracking: Implement the OpenAI Measurement Pixel, Conversions API, or both. Test the integration and confirm that the relevant conversion events are being received before launching.

• Account for offline and manually confirmed orders: If you accept cash on delivery, bank transfers or phone-confirmed orders, work with your developer to send eligible, confirmed purchase events through the Conversions API. This requires an appropriate server-side integration and should not be assumed to happen automatically.
• Tag new versus returning customers, and name campaigns consistently. 

D. Create and launch

Now prepare 2 or 3 creative variants. Add context hints, and get approvals done before the rush, and launch in mid-November. 

“The most common mistakes are practical. People don’t give the campaign enough budget or time to gather meaningful data, they reuse social media creatives with too much text, and they launch without validating the pixel and conversion tracking. ChatGPT’s placements are small, so use minimal text, a large, bold headline, and make the product the clear visual focus.”
Ibrahim, AI Ads Specialist at BrandRadar 

Where to start by category 

If you run ads for Australian brands

If your team runs meta campaigns for clients abroad, especially in Australia, you may have a head start. ChatGPT ads have been live in Australia since April. 

A few practical points:

• Targeting is set at the campaign level: You can select the countries where each campaign is eligible to appear. For example, you can target Australia and Sri Lanka in separate campaigns to manage budgets, messaging and performance independently. 
• Ads reach logged-in users on the Free and Go plans: not everyone who uses ChatGPT.
• Conversion-optimised campaigns are now supported in ChatGPT Ads Manager: Advertisers can optimise delivery towards a selected conversion event, such as a purchase, sign-up or lead submission. However, conversion tracking must be configured first, and only supported standard events can be used as campaign goals 
• Keep it small: one product, one audience, one goal, and a budget the client treats as a test. 

Keep a learning log. For every test, write down the hypothesis, the conversation you targeted, the creative, the landing page, the result and the next step. 6 months from now, that log is worth more than the spend.

“Running ChatGPT campaigns for Australian clients taught us to decide what a test is for before spending anything. Reporting is thin at this stage, so we agree up front which numbers we’ll judge it on, check tracking works before launch, and keep the first test to one product and one audience. That applies in Sri Lanka as much as anywhere"
Niresh Bandaranayake, Head of Growth, BrandRadar

A timeline to Christmas

If you're reading this in mid-November, here is a plan that works backwards from the dates.

• Now to 15 November: set up tracking, build the landing page, get creative approved.
• 16 to 22 November: launch one small test.
• 23 to 26 November: make one change at a time, only if you have enough data.
• 27 to 30 November (Black Friday and Cyber Monday): scale only if the data supports it.
• December: watch Christmas delivery cut-offs and bank offers.
• January: review the test and decide what to keep.

How to read your results

Judge the test on what you decided in advance: cost per sale in LKR, the share of new customers, revenue per visit, or lead quality. Don't judge it in three days. Black Friday traffic is noisy, so compare against a baseline: what that product sold without the ad.

OpenAI says measuring true incremental impact is still early. One partner-reported test found that 67% of incremental purchases came from net-new customers for a wellness brand (WorkMagic, via OpenAI). 

Frequently asked questions about ChatGPT advertising

Are ChatGPT ads available to advertisers in Sri Lanka?

Yes. Sri Lanka is currently listed as a country with self-service Ads Manager availability. However, the legal entity being advertised and billed must be based in a supported country. Account verification and campaign eligibility requirements may also apply. Check OpenAI's latest availability information before setting up a campaign.

How do ChatGPT ads appear to users?

ChatGPT ads appear separately from the platform's organic responses and are clearly labelled. An ad can include the advertiser's name, headline, description, image and landing page link. Ads may appear to eligible users on the Free and Go plans, while Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu accounts do not have ads.

Do ChatGPT ads influence organic recommendations?

No. OpenAI states that ads do not influence the answers ChatGPT generates. Paying for an ad does not guarantee that a brand will be recommended or included in an organic answer. Paid advertising and organic AI visibility are separate.

Can a Sri Lankan agency manage ChatGPT ads for an Australian business?

Potentially, subject to the account, billing, identity verification and country-targeting requirements. OpenAI lists both Sri Lanka and Australia as supported for self-service access, but some new accounts may initially be restricted to their home country. Agencies should confirm eligibility before committing to an international campaign.

How much does it cost to advertise on ChatGPT?

There is no single campaign cost that applies to every advertiser. Pricing depends on the campaign objective, bidding approach, competition and delivery. OpenAI supports views-based and click-based buying options, as well as conversion-optimised campaigns subject to eligibility. Minimum spend is 25$. 

Can ChatGPT ads generate sales and leads?

ChatGPT campaigns can be configured to pursue clicks or supported conversion events, such as purchases and lead submissions. Whether they generate commercially valuable results depends on the offer, audience, landing page, campaign setup and measurement. Brands should test the channel and assess results against their own business objectives rather than assume a particular return.

Should businesses invest in ChatGPT ads and GEO at the same time?

They can, because the two approaches serve different purposes. ChatGPT ads provide paid exposure, while GEO focuses on improving a brand's visibility and representation in organic AI-generated answers. A combined approach helps businesses address both paid and organic discovery without assuming that advertising automatically improves organic recommendations.

Plan your first campaign

AI-powered discovery is creating new ways for customers to explore products, compare businesses and make decisions. ChatGPT advertising gives brands another opportunity to reach those customers, but getting started requires the right strategy, preparation and ongoing management.

BrandRadar helps businesses and agencies plan, launch, manage and optimise ChatGPT advertising campaigns.

Ready to explore ChatGPT advertising for your brand? Get started here

Further Reading:

• https://developers.openai.com/ads/conversions-api
• https://developers.openai.com/ads/measurement-pixel