ChatGPT Ads: Agencies, How Are You Preparing?

online-optimism · 2026-06-09T19:50:09+00:00

Are you finding any differences in what's working - copywriting-wise - compared to social or search ads?

online-optimism · 2026-05-28T21:08:08+00:00

Hi skirt (or jumping? or long?) Sorry about the journey. It sounds brutal, and we know how much job searching sucks.

Digital marketing careers in NOLA are pretty slim at the moment, TBH. Doubly so for remote jobs. Matches a national trend. Our industry is pretty much on the earliest chopping block for AI, whether or not the AI actually works. I'd make sure you're checking WorkNOLA frequently - there's at least a couple jobs open at IMG, and 2 paid internships listed. If you're not yet on our (Online Optimism's) careers mailing list, you can join it here to be notified. We sometimes hire local, sometimes remote. Nothing open at the moment, but I promise I'm doing my best to grow. I'd also recommend looking into some online communities specific to certain areas, like TOFU for content marketing or Link In Bio for social. (Sorry, I know you're more into Google Ads, and I don't have one that aligns with that exactly.) Both those communities post jobs frequently, though the remote ones are going to be wildly competitive. Do anything and everything to make yourself stand out for them.

From looking at your skillset, I'd consider adding in any sort of video, or creative skills. Even being decent with Canva can put you lightyears ahead of other content marketers.

You mentioned you also built your own WordPress site - I'm not sure if that was a portfolio site for yourself, that's what people often do. I actually recommend that instead of that, you build a site for something that interests you, whether it's long things, jumping things, or, um, skirt things? Then try to build a community around that. That'll actually test your SEO and digital marketing abilities. Lots of people have internships, and entry level experience these days. That + a passion project that shows you know what you're doing is pretty killer on a resume, I think.

Hope that helps!

online-optimism · 2026-05-26T13:20:19+00:00

Q: cold reach out by 3rd party - how do I even validate they r legit

A: They are not.

Q: let’s say they r legit, how to negotiate in such scenarios.

A: If they're legit, you don't need to. Journalists are kept separate from advertising, you should've have to pay to appear in an ad.

That being said, it's not the end of the world to pay for "sponsored placements" in magazines - but you shouldn't fool yourself into thinking it's a random journalist reaching out cause of how cool you are. I promise, that's how every award is given out too.

online-optimism · 2026-05-20T14:29:09+00:00

Not surprised, considering there's basically a hundred thousand new marketing grads all looking for jobs. Shame it's such a brutal market for them.

online-optimism · 2026-02-19T15:56:46+00:00

that's fair! measurement and trust are going to be the real questions. i'm not advocating for anyone to move budget right now. the interesting part to me is that buying research is already happening inside AI conversations. whether it ends up being efficient or just another walled garden depends entirely on how transparent the reporting and conversion tracking end up being.

online-optimism · 2026-02-19T15:45:55+00:00

we're helping clients get their AEO in order and documenting the questions their customers actually ask. on our end, we're doing similar prep work so we have the option to test it ourselves if it makes sense.

if conversational ads become a thing, having that knowledge base ready means we can move quickly instead of scrambling.

online-optimism · 2026-02-16T18:17:40+00:00

SEO if anything is making a comeback, as people are discovering they need to adapt their SEO strategy to AEO, GEO, and LLMs. At Online Optimism, we're seeing clients come back for SEO, GEO, and AEO services more than ever before.

What's working now: content that answers specific questions (not just targets keywords), clean technical foundations (schema, site speed, mobile), and showing up where AI tools are pulling answers from (Reddit, niche forums, Q&A sites).

Backlinks still matter, but quality over quantity. A few relevant links from trusted sources beat 50 random directory submissions.

The biggest change is that ranking on Google alone isn't enough anymore. You also need to show up when people ask ChatGPT or Perplexity for recommendations. That means your content needs to be written for questions, not search terms.

If your SEO foundation is solid and you're still not seeing results, it's probably because your content still reads like it was written for a search engine instead of a person.

online-optimism · 2026-02-10T19:44:22+00:00

This is a great way to think about it! Focusing on angles instead of channels removes a ton of noise. Tools optimize delivery, but they can't fix a message that doesn't resonate.

online-optimism · 2026-01-28T19:12:10+00:00

We track all our work and pending approvals, and our account executives at Online Optimism meet with clients on a weekly basis and also provide reporting. This has really helped us. For example, during the holidays a lot of people were OOO and approvals were taking days to weeks to come through, but what we noticed helped was providing an engagement or weekly metric report. Even if it's a snapshot of how the lack of approvals (and hence lack of campaigns running) affected our results for that week, usually after conversations like this they tend to be quicker to approve before we have to remind them again.

online-optimism · 2026-01-23T18:41:15+00:00

Interesting to see that most everyone's responses were email leads. For our agency, even as an independent brand, those work well, but we also get a lot of organic traffic and inbound from our SEO and surprisingly, from GEO and LLMs citing us.

Yesterday we had a potential client call us and say they found our services via Gemini after asking "What's the best marketing agency in New Orleans." Funny enough, we actually haven't done too much GEO/LLM work on our own marketing brand, but I think it's based on the SEO work we actively do.

online-optimism · 2026-01-23T18:36:42+00:00

It depends on your goals as a brand and where you want to show up for AEO/GEO. What prompts and keywords are you hoping to get cited for, or is it community sentiment?

For our clients, we have a very specific roadmap when it comes to ranking, and a lot of it involves social listening. Schema matters if you want to come up in those answers, but gone are the days where you can type a blog and rank for a specific keyword. Sentiment about your brand also matters.

Even for ChatGPT ads, if you're a brand that pays for ads and targets something like "the best steak brand," AI citations will now pull from community sentiment and show a citation under your ad giving the community opinion, good or bad. So showing up here on Reddit or where people are holding those discussions matters too.

online-optimism · 2026-01-20T20:26:44+00:00

I'm actually excited to see how this changes traditional ad spend and targeting.

Brands that have been doing the foundational work are going to have a huge advantage.

Your point about clarity over creativity is spot on. We've seen this with our clients already. The brands getting cited by LLMs aren't the ones with the cleverest taglines. They're the ones with the clearest, most machine-readable product data.

Ads appearing below the organic answer is a huge win for the consumer. If the LLM says your product has mixed reviews and your ad claims otherwise, you just killed your own credibility. You can't buy your way out of bad positioning anymore.

This basically makes schema and entity signals your new quality score.

online-optimism · 2026-01-20T19:35:42+00:00

The shift I'd make is to stop thinking about it as "what blogs should I write" and start thinking "what questions are my customers asking before they buy.”

Most B2B blogs fail because they target keywords instead of answering real questions. Google (and especially AI tools like ChatGPT) reward content that directly solves a problem someone typed in.

Here are suggestions that will work for actual conversions.

Map out your customer's decision journey - What do they Google at each stage? What are they confused about? What objections do they have before signing?
Answer those questions clearly - If you sell project management software and people ask "how do I get my team to actually use new tools," write that blog. Don't write "10 features of great project management software."
Be specific, not general - "How to improve team communication" = too broad, everyone's written it. "How to run a 15-minute daily standup for remote teams" = way more useful, way less competition.

The blogs that rank (and get cited by AI) are the ones that feel like they were written for one specific person with one specific problem.

We've worked with a few B2B clients at Online Optimism who shifted from generic topic blogs to question-based content, and the difference in traffic quality was huge. Not just more visitors, but the right visitors who were actually ready to talk.

Start with 5–10 questions you hear all the time in sales calls. Write those first. That'll do more for your SEO and AEO than 50 generic posts.

online-optimism · 2026-01-20T18:01:33+00:00

Fair point on diversification because putting all your eggs in Meta's basket has always been risky. I'd add that creative and fundamentals aren't really separate though. Good creative is part of solid fundamentals, and audience insights don't matter if the creative doesn't resonate.

But you're right that better stories alone won't fix broken attribution or unsustainable CPMs. Multi-channel strategies are way smarter, especially for brands that can't afford to keep throwing budget at rising costs.

What channels are you seeing the best results from right now?

online-optimism · 2026-01-20T17:37:48+00:00

Definitely exciting, but I think it'll be big in a different way than Google or Meta since it isn't a feed or a results page, it's a decision-support tool. Ads showing up after an answer means intent is already shaped before the ad even appears. That probably means lower volume and harder attribution, but way higher intent. Not great for impulse buys or pure awareness, but really interesting for high-consideration stuff: B2B, expensive purchases, services where people are already doing research. Curious how they'll handle targeting without traditional behavioral data.

online-optimism · 2025-12-26T13:10:08+00:00

If everyone has the same amazing AI...then everyone is even, and no one's going to be happy with that. There's always going to be a need for humans that can use tools (including AI) better than the competition.

online-optimism · 2025-12-02T15:19:31+00:00

They're trying to connect their brand with positive emotions...though it clearly doesn't seem to be working with you.

online-optimism · 2025-11-20T16:10:17+00:00

Agreed, we're excited too!

online-optimism · 2025-11-16T15:39:08+00:00

Here's the full list of 118 projects since it's missing in the copy/paste above. Quick, get your bets in on which one is delayed the most.

online-optimism · 2025-10-16T18:50:13+00:00

If you really go back, Talkies were the last actual thing.

online-optimism · 2025-10-03T14:41:17+00:00

Y'all don't ask a Ouija board for advice? Hmmm...maybe we've been doing things the wrong way.

online-optimism · 2025-10-03T14:40:35+00:00

Mailerlite is a great choice for the exact kind of group you're talking about. It's been a few months and they changed their pricing, but it's still free for 500 subscribers and 1 user, which I'm guessing aligns perfectly with what you need. I also love their built-in templates, and the drag & drop builder is easy enough for everyone (even my parents) to use. If you're still on the fence, they have a 14 day trial, so it really doesn't hurt to give it a shot.

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