“My audience isn’t on Facebook, there’s no point in us running ads.”
“My audience isn’t on Instagram, there’s no point in us running ads.”
“My audience isn’t on TikTok, there’s no point in us running ads.”
And there, in three sentences, you have a summary of well over a decade of working in digital marketing. But this time it’s different, you know your audience is already using ChatGPT, without question, daily. With OpenAI announcing the launch of ads on the platform, the starting line has been set, and the starter gun is loaded, but the real winners, especially in the events industry, will be the organisers who get race-fit from today!
ChatGPT isn’t search – it’s discovery
ChatGPT has 5.6bn visits per month and receives 2.5bn prompts per day, already stealing a fifth of the prompt volume from Google at just four years old. The exciting thing is that, where Google has traditionally been a search tool primarily helping you find what you are looking for, large language models such as ChatGPT help you find what you need, operating instead as a discovery tool.
For example, someone might Google “Event for Dentists” to discover your dentistry event; however, this requires them to have already decided they’re interested in attending an event, which then requires additional upper-funnel awareness marketing. The exciting new world of discovery lies in someone typing a prompt into ChatGPT along the lines of: “I am an Orthodontic Therapist with a diploma in orthodontic therapy; my dream is to own my own practice in five years’ time. Give me a detailed career plan to make this happen.” At this stage, the user has little to no idea your (hypothetical) dentistry event exists; it’s our role as digital marketers to understand how your event is showing up (organically or via paid ads) within the context of that prompt.
What ChatGPT Ads will (and won’t) look like
It’s worth noting that OpenAI has been very clear that ads will not be intrusive on the platform and will not be disguised as organic results. However, this is why “pre-race” training before the launch of ads is so important. Use of messaging combined with target audience understanding has always been, and will always be, the most powerful weapon in a marketer’s arsenal.
The biggest mistake: lift-and-shift
The worst way to kick off a ChatGPT ad strategy would be to adopt a lift-and-shift approach based on what has worked on other platforms, such as Google, this has never worked across any platform; content needs to be tailored to how that platform is used. For example, if in response to the dentistry prompt above, a user is served an ad along the lines of “Almost Sold Out — Book Ticket for Dentistry Event Now”, which (hypothetically) has been the highest performer on Google, it’s going to feel incredibly out of place. However, if you spend the next few months optimising your on- and off-site content for AI, identifying what performs best and using that to shape your ad content upon launch, you’ll be twenty steps ahead of the rest.
A worked example: turning organic wins into paid
So how do you prepare now, before ads arrive? Start by learning what ChatGPT already rewards. Try a wide range of content and watch what ChatGPT sends you. If your highest-traffic piece is a blog article about a loyal visitor who has attended your event for 10 years, first attending as a trainee and now as the owner of five dental practices, you’ve found a gem.
Next, build this into a case study and place it on a landing page that requires form completion to unlock the full content, alongside some topline information about the event. Then, serve this via a ChatGPT ad targeted at individuals looking to progress within a dentistry career. Suddenly, you have a paid ad approach that doesn’t try to disguise itself as an organic result, but instead provides genuine value while positioning your event as a platform for growth.
This approach is not new – TikTok’s number one guidance is “make TikToks not ads”; Reddit is notoriously the trickiest place to advertise, given the platform’s focus on authenticity. An authentic and tailored approach on any platform will always win.
Where the funnel is heading next
As of today, we have a pretty good idea of what the ideal events marketing funnel looks like: which platform fits where, and when to switch each stage on. This funnel will be unrecognisable in a year and, in my opinion, will allow more room for other platforms to excel at what they do best: TikTok driving mass awareness, LinkedIn locating your ideal job titles/companies, Google/Meta harvesting conversions, with ChatGPT enveloping this all with deeper research and actual value to better inform buying decisions. ChatGPT ads alone will not get you ahead, they will simply dial up the impact of your organic GEO (generative engine optimisation) strategy. Nail this, and the rest will come easy.
I am by no means saying there won’t be a place for the “buy now” (boring) type of conversion messaging on ChatGPT, but it definitely isn’t the place to start, and it misses the world of opportunity we’re about to unlock on this platform. In my opinion, it’s a real chance to add value and communicate responsibly with individuals who would genuinely benefit from attending the events we’re so passionate about.
The catch: cost, measurement, turbulence
That said, it won’t all be sunshine and rainbows for the future of ads on Chat, the costs are rumoured to be sky high due to the level of targeting opportunities, and measurement and tracking is a big unknown. Just like any new media-buy, we can expect a huge amount of turbulence in the first year with lots of change, trial and error, and hopefully some really exciting new opportunities.
TL;DR
- Start optimising your organic content for ChatGPT today
- Take the learnings
- Run them as ads
- Beat your competitors
If you want to find out more about ChatGPT Ads and how they will shape event marketing, MCM be giving a talk on “How ChatGPT Can Deliver Bums on Seats at Your Next Event” at International Confex on Day 1 at 10:00 am in the Exhibition HQ. Come say hi and bring any questions you have!
