LLM Advertising Wave: New Acquisition Channel

Your next customer may never click a search ad again. Instead, they will ask ChatGPT what to buy, and trust the answer. Large Language Models are changing how people discover products, compare options, and make decisions. And with that shift comes a completely new advertising channel: LLM advertising. Brands that understand this early will have a major competitive advantage.

Whether you’re a brand looking to get ahead of the curve or an affiliate exploring new traffic sources, this guide covers everything you need to know about how LLM ads work, who they’re for, and how to prepare.

Table of Contents

1. What Is LLM Advertising?
2. LLM Ads Launch Timelines: What’s Coming and When
3. How Will Ads Look on LLM Platforms?
4. How Is LLM Search Advertising Different Than Traditional Search Engines?
5. What Types of Targeting Options Can We Expect in LLM Ads?
6. Understanding the LLM User (And Why They’re Not Like Search Users)
7. How to Prepare Your Brand
8. FAQs

What Is LLM Advertising?

For the first time, advertising is entering personal conversations, not just search results.

LLM advertising refers to paid promotional content displayed within Large Language Model platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, Perplexity etc. This is not theoretical. It is already happening. Unlike traditional search or display advertising, LLM ads appear within conversational interfaces where users are actively seeking answers.

Source:https://openai.com/index/our-approach-to-advertising-and-expanding-access/

Here’s the shift: people don’t want to search for what they want to find. More than that, they want to know, understand, and make decisions. Traditional search engines provide links to sources, leaving users to sift through results. LLMs deliver direct answers, synthesizing information into conversational responses tailored to user intent.

Source: YepAds

How to Prepare Your Brand for AI Ads

Most brands are not preparing yet. That creates an opportunity.

1. Identify Which Verticals Would Benefit From AI Ads The Most

Some verticals will benefit massively from LLM advertising. Others may not, at least not immediately. LLM advertising isn’t going to be the right fit for everyone. So don’t go throwing money at LLM ads immediately. Here are some verticals/offers that have serious potential: 

Products that require research – Think enterprise software, financial products, healthcare solutions, higher education. If your customers spend time comparing options and reading up before they commit, LLM platforms are where those conversations are already happening.

B2B with longer sales cycles – If closing a deal means walking buyers through features, addressing concerns, and building trust over time, the conversational nature of ChatGPT plays right into your strengths.

E-commerce where choice overload is real – Categories like electronics, home goods, and specialty products where people genuinely need help narrowing down options. LLMs are becoming the go-to for “which one should I actually buy?”

Travel and hospitality – This one’s already proven. ChatGPT is influencing 18% of travel purchase decisions. Users are planning entire trips, comparing destinations, and booking based on AI recommendations.

Where it might not make much sense for now:

• Low-cost impulse buys where there’s no research phase
• Pure brand awareness campaigns without a clear conversion goal
• Heavily regulated industries that might trigger content restrictions around sensitive topics

2. Prepare Creatives That Match The Conversational Nature of LLMs

Here’s what brands might overlook and screw up: they take their current copy and approach from Google Ads and copy paste into ChatGPT ads

This approach will not work in conversational environments.

With understanding the nature of these conversational LLM’s ads needs to feel like recommendations, not interruptions, you’re quite literally entering someone’s conversations, you need to account for that.

What Works

• If you’re dealing with [problem],[product] is built for exactly that. Here’s what it does….
• Direct, useful and tied to what the user was actually inquiring about
• Matching the conversational tone (detailed for detailed questions), and relaxed for more laid-back casual questions)

What You Should Avoid 

• HUGE SAVINGS! BUY TODAY! DONT MISS OUT!
• Broad claims that aren’t contextualized to their specific intent of the problem the user is trying to solve
• Copy that was written for different purpose ie(sales poster)

Another thing that LLMs like OpenAI have hinted at is that users might be able to converse and ask questions to the ads. Which means your copy needs to withstand the interrogation, if someone asks “is this a fad or does it really work, and how?” “What’s the catch?” you need to be prepared.

3.Optimize Your Content for AEO

Before spending money on LLM ads, there is something even more important: organic visibility. You might think it doesn’t matter but it does. If ChatGPT recommends your competitor in its answer and then lists your sponsored ad underneath this is a massive issue. You’re paying to be the last recommendation under organically ranked suggestions. Brands already mentioned organically will have a major advantage when paid ads scale. 

RUN an AEO audit

• Is your brand mentioned when people ask a chatbot about your category? You can test this for yourself. Search a detailed prompt “whats the best product for ____ specific issue/category) and see what the results are.
• Do you have clear information on your site? ChatGPT pulls from content it can easily process, product descriptions, prices etc
• Are you naturally mentioned on third-party sites? 
• ChatGPT weighs multiple sources from the web, discussion websites, Reddit, review blogs and sites, publications, and LLMs take these things in to account
• Is your content recent? 95% of your ChatGPT citations come from content that has been updated in the past 10 months, stay on top of content; old content gets ignored.

4. Prepare the Launch Strategy

Do this now:

• Ask ChatGPT questions about your product category and see if your brand comes up organically
• Tighten up your positioning if you can’t describe what you offer in a single clear sentence; fix that first
• Make sure your tracking and attribution setup is ready for a new traffic source

Over the next few weeks and months:

• Map out the types of conversations your ideal customers are having (what questions do they ask before buying?)
• Start drafting ad copy that sounds like a helpful suggestion, not a sales pitch
• Get your team up to speed on how conversational advertising works differently
• Earmark some test budget somewhere in the 5-10% range of your current paid spend

Before the platform opens up:

• Make your landing page congruent with the AI conversation that sent them there
• Build out FAQ style content that could support back-and-forth ad interactions
• Define success metrics that account for this being a brand-new, experimental channel
• Put together a proper testing framework so you’re learning, not just spending

Final Thoughts

A new advertising channel is emerging faster than most brands realize. The shift from search to conversation is already happening. Users aren’t browsing through pages of results anymore; they’re asking AI for direct answers and trusting what they get.

For brands, the opportunity is clear: get ahead now. Start optimizing for organic LLM visibility, rethink your creative for conversational formats, and be ready to test when these ad platforms open up.

Want help preparing for what’s next? Work with Yep Ads to build a strategy ready for the AI advertising era. 

FAQs About LLM Ads

Do ads influence ChatGPT’s answers?

No. OpenAI explicitly states ads don’t influence responses. Ads appear separately, clearly labeled, after the organic answer.

Which LLMs will have ads?

Expect major LLMs to consider offering an ad platform in the near future. Chat GPT ads are now live, Meta and Perplexity could be next to launch. 

How are LLM ads different from traditional search ads?

LLM ads are integrated directly into the AI-generated responses rather than appearing as listings on their own. This creates an ad experience that is more contextual and conversational compared to keyword-based search ads on Google.