Checked 8 September 2026
There are no keywords.
There are context hints.
This is the single biggest difference from Google Ads, and the one that breaks the most experienced media buyers. You do not bid on what someone types. You describe the conversation you want to appear inside.
How the match happens
Ads are matched contextually, against the topic of the conversation in progress, plus past chat history and previous ad interactions where the user has left personalisation on.
Your job at ad group level is to supply context hints: a description of the situations your product belongs in. Not a keyword list. Not a phrase match.
OpenAI has been explicit that ads never influence the answer. The answer is optimised for what is most helpful, and ads sit beside it, labelled as sponsored and visually separated.
High intent, low control
This is the phrase agencies keep using and it is accurate.
Someone describing a problem to ChatGPT in 3 paragraphs is much deeper into a decision than someone typing 2 words into a search box. That is the intent half.
The control half is that you cannot see the exact prompt, cannot add negative keywords the way you would on Google, and cannot pin yourself to one query. You steer, you do not aim.
How to write a hint
Describe the moment, not the product. Write the sentence your customer would say to a friend before they knew your category existed.
Then write 2 more for adjacent moments. Thin hints starve for volume; a hint that covers 3 related situations tends to deliver.
Stop doing this
Porting your Google keyword list across. It produces hints that describe your category rather than your customer’s problem, and those match badly.
Start doing this
Read your own support tickets. The phrasing customers use when something has gone wrong is almost exactly the phrasing they use with ChatGPT.
Measurement
Install the measurement pixel and the conversions API before you spend. Without them you are optimising a channel you cannot see.
Translation
Keyword to
context hint
The same intent, rewritten as a situation rather than a search string.
| If your Google keyword was | Your context hint is closer to |
|---|---|
| project management software | Conversations about missed deadlines, unclear ownership and messy handovers between teams |
| running shoes | Conversations about knee pain after running, choosing a first marathon shoe, or replacing worn trainers |
| accounting software small business | Conversations about VAT deadlines, chasing unpaid invoices, and first-time self-assessment |
| crm for startups | Conversations about losing track of leads in a spreadsheet and handing a pipeline to a first sales hire |
Next
Once the hint is right, the constraint moves to the creative. And the creative is very small.