Torch Designs

If you have been in marketing long enough you know that the best time to get on a new platform is before everyone else figures out it exists.

OpenAI just opened its self-serve Ads Manager to US businesses. ChatGPT is now an ad platform. You can set budgets, manage campaigns, and buy on a cost per click basis directly through OpenAI without going through a big agency or spending a quarter million dollars to get in the door.

Here is the part worth paying attention to. The platform is still in early beta. That means low competition, lower costs, and users who are actively looking for solutions rather than passively scrolling a feed. People using ChatGPT are in research and decision making mode. That is a very different kind of attention than what you get on social media.

We have seen this pattern before. The businesses that got serious about Facebook ads in 2011 and Google ads in 2002 got returns that were never available again once the platforms matured and every competitor showed up with a budget.

This is not for every business right now. The platform is still being refined and not all categories are eligible. But if you are in local services, consumer goods, travel, or education, this is worth a conversation before your competitors have it first.

https://openai.com/index/new-ways-to-buy-chatgpt-ads/

OpenAI

New ways to buy ChatGPT ads OpenAI expands ChatGPT ads with a beta self-serve Ads Manager, CPC bidding, and enhanced measurement tools—built to protect privacy and keep conversations separate from ads.

AI tools have made it genuinely easier to produce marketing content and that's mostly a good thing. But there are some real pitfalls that we're seeing businesses run into when they lean on these tools without understanding their limitations.

Hallucinations are probably the biggest one. AI will write confident, polished copy that is factually wrong. If nobody is checking it before it goes out the door you are publishing misinformation under your own brand name. That's a trust problem that's hard to walk back.

Copyright is the other one that keeps me up a little. AI image generators and content tools are trained on existing work and the legal landscape around ownership is still being sorted out. Using AI generated images or content commercially without understanding where it came from is a risk most small businesses aren't even aware they're taking.

AI can absolutely be part of a smart, efficient marketing operation. We use it ourselves. But it needs a human in the loop who knows enough to catch the mistakes and ask the right questions. That's kind of the whole job right now.

If you're trying to figure out how to use AI in your marketing without stepping on any landmines, that's a conversation we're good at having. First hour is always free.

Just like the rest of our brands, Torch Ignited’s goal is to support the businesses who are the backbone of this great nation.