Two AI platforms, two advertising opportunities, limited test budgets. The question every forward-thinking PPC marketer is asking: where do you place your early bets?
Perplexity already has ads in market. ChatGPT's are coming. Both represent the future of AI-native advertising, but they're not identical opportunities.
Current State of Play
Perplexity Ads (Live)
Launched late 2024 with "Sponsored Follow-Up Questions." Major brands testing. $30-50 CPM pricing. Strong engagement rates exceeding display benchmarks.
ChatGPT Ads (Coming)
Confirmed but not yet live. Native ad formats integrating with conversational interface. Specifics on pricing and availability unclear.
The key difference right now: Perplexity is testable today. ChatGPT requires waiting.
Audience Differences
- •Perplexity skews toward research-intensive queries. ~15M MAU. Professionals, researchers, users seeking factual accuracy and citations.
- •ChatGPT has broader mainstream adoption. 300M+ weekly active users. Spans casual users, professionals, students, and shoppers.
For B2B targeting professionals, Perplexity's focused audience may deliver better fit. For consumer brands seeking scale, ChatGPT's massive user base offers advantages.
Format Implications
Perplexity's Sponsored Follow-Up Questions appear after the initial answer. Users see the AI response first, then sponsored questions leading to brand content. Educational rather than interruptive.
ChatGPT's likely formats include native integrations within responses—sponsored recommendations, brand mentions within answers. ChatGPT's Operator adds agentic ads influencing autonomous purchases.
Measurement Readiness
Perplexity offers cleaner measurement for now. Sponsored questions drive users to trackable landing pages. The challenge is scale—smaller audiences mean slower learning.
ChatGPT measurement will be complex. Conversational influence is harder to attribute. Plan for incrementality-based measurement on both platforms.
Budget Considerations
Perplexity minimum viable tests can run smaller: $10-25K monthly can generate meaningful learnings. Accessible for mid-market advertisers.
ChatGPT will likely require larger budgets. Larger audiences, competitive auctions, and need for statistical significance point toward higher minimum investments.
The Testing Framework
Test Perplexity first if:
- • Audience skews professional/research-oriented
- • Content-rich offerings benefit from educational discovery
- • Budget under $25K monthly for AI tests
- • B2B or high-consideration B2C purchases
Wait for ChatGPT if:
- • You need mainstream consumer reach
- • Shopping and transaction integration matters
- • Scale matters more than early access
- • Limited bandwidth for experimentation
Test both if you have innovation budget exceeding $50K monthly and your audience spans both research and mainstream segments.
The Bottom Line
The risk of waiting: ChatGPT launches with high competition. Early Perplexity advertisers build AI expertise that transfers. The risk of testing Perplexity: budget spent on smaller platform instead of reserved for ChatGPT.
For most advertisers, modest Perplexity testing now while preparing infrastructure for ChatGPT is the right answer. The expertise gained has value regardless of which platform dominates long-term.
