ChatGPT ad targeting is garbage

https://successfulsoftware.net/2026/09/02/chatgpt-ad-targeting-is-garbage/

20•hermitcrab•54m ago

Comments

Insanity•34m ago

Ads are part of the enshitification of ChatGPT. In the short-term it might offer them some kind of lifeline and I'm sure in their next investor call they'll highlight their revenue from Ads.

But if their competitors (including open-weight models) can offer similar quality and ease of use, Ads is just another reason _not_ to use them.

lnsru•26m ago

I saw them today in the app and yeah… first idea - enshitification. Ads were cringe. But google works the same way - cringe ads. I use google in 3-4 different languages and it’s completely lost.

ryandvm•35s ago

Ads are responsible for the enshitification of everything. Literally everything.

- Why is online news just partisan rage-baiting? Ads - Why is real journalism dying? Ads - Why are your web search results less helpful? Ads - Why are recipes 2,000 words long? Ads - Why is social media engineered for scroll-maxxing? - Why is your car/TV/refrigerator spamming you? - Why are pharmaceuticals so expensive? - Why is your population voting for assholes?

Future generations are going to look back at how we live with advertising the same way we look back on leaded gasoline and asbestos.

martokus•33m ago

Can confirm. I've spend over $1000 as a test and I see even worse results. Absolute garbage compared even to cheap garbage paid social traffic.

giancarlostoro•18m ago

If I were Mark Zuckerberg I would be salivating waiting for a call from Sam Altman.

efficax•14m ago

facebook ad targeting is also garbage. They have my entire history since 2004 and they still sometimes: think I'm a woman, think I need things for a newborn, think I'm in the market for "short men clothing" (I'm 6'0"), and so on. Sometimes I get ads for farm equipment (I am a lifelong city dweller).

billyp-rva•14m ago

> ChatGPT recommends bidding somewhere around by £2 per click, but I bid between £0.15 and £0.07 and was still able to get traffic. However 0.46% is a shockingly low conversion rate.

I'm not an ad guru by any means, but isn't it expected that you will get junk clicks with a bid like that? Seems like a you-get-what-you-pay-for scenario.

advisedwang•11m ago

> ChatGPT recommends bidding somewhere around by £2 per click, but I bid between £0.15 and £0.07 and was still able to get traffic

Did they try bidding more? It's possible they are just only getting the dregs. (In which case the ads would be expensive instead of garbage)

water-data-dude•8m ago

For what it's worth, the picture at the top of the article is a textbook example of very high accuracy!

jmdeon•7m ago

Wouldn't it be low accuracy but high precision?

ok123456•8m ago

This will end in another 'adpocalypse' episode. Something like: ChatGPT generates recipes from the Anarchist Cookbook and adds Home Depot ads at the end, or inserts Amazon affiliate links for the Turner Diaries.

nikole9696•5m ago

I have no idea why anyone would click on any ad anywhere other than by accident, not knowing if the link might take them to some malware site these days.

probably_wrong•1m ago

I clicked on a couple ads once because I was desperate - I needed a cheap flight with a tight deadline and my usual search engines didn't help. I thought "if these ads deliver what they promise, I'll never book anywhere else".

Believe it or not, they did not deliver.

ryanmcbride•3m ago

Everything with ads is garbage. All the time. It poses no benefit to humanity even a little bit.

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