OpenAI began rolling out ChatGPT Ads to 31 European markets on August 18, its largest expansion of the ad format to date, following a UK launch in June that Adthena is now using as the template for what to expect. Access starts gated through OpenAI’s ads team and partners, with self-serve availability arriving later, mirroring how the U.S. rollout phased in earlier this year.
The U.S. data Adthena has already collected is the real story for advertisers deciding whether to move early in Europe. Retail and fashion brands represented just 24% of query volume in the U.S. rollout but captured 39% of all ad placements, appearing in 6.55% of relevant queries against a roughly 4.5% average across categories. New markets, by contrast, start at a lower 4.47% ad frequency with mostly single-ad placements, meaning the category imbalance builds over time rather than appearing on day one.
Serra Benstead, Adthena’s chief marketing officer, drew the strategic conclusion advertisers should take from that gap: “the brands that establish position while a market is young are the hardest to dislodge once it matures.” Early movers in the U.S. data skew toward aggregators and comparison sites with broad commercial intent, exactly the kind of advertiser structurally suited to move fastest once a new ad surface opens, while regulated categories have stayed absent from early adoption entirely.
The original insight for marketing leaders outside retail and fashion: the U.S. pattern suggests ad frequency compounds as a channel matures, so waiting for ChatGPT Ads in Europe to “prove itself” before testing is the same mistake as waiting on Google Shopping or Amazon DSP in their first year, a category position that gets more expensive to claim the longer a brand waits.
Related: Ad tech is wiring itself into ChatGPT and why AI search keeps erasing familiar brands.
Source: Adthena
