Latest / After the Demo / What AI Search Ads Actually Buy

Transcript

What AI Search Ads Actually Buy · After the Demo

0:00
Kate: Can I just pay ChatGPT to recommend me?
0:02
John Arndt: You can pay to be next to the recommendation.
0:05
Kate: How far next to it?
0:07
John Arndt: Inches.
0:08
Kate: Inches. And the recommendation itself?
0:12
John Arndt: OpenAI says the ads don't touch the answer.
0:14
Kate: So it's a flyer on the table. And the waiter's still recommending somebody else.
0:19
John Arndt: Pretty much.
0:20
Kate: I've eaten at the flyer place.
0:22
John Arndt: Okay. How was it?
0:24
Kate: The flyer had a coupon.
0:26
John Arndt: That's not what I asked.
0:27
Kate: That's all I remember about it. The coupon. Not even the name.
0:31
John Arndt: Hold that thought. The coupon's coming back.
0:34
Kate: The coupon gets its own segment?
0:36
John Arndt: The coupon gets a whole fight.
0:38
Kate: Then I'm not saying another word about the flyer place.
0:41
John Arndt: You'll say several.
0:54
John Arndt: This is After the Demo. I'm John Arndt. I run about fifteen small software products out of Sacramento, most of them built and run with AI agents, plus an AI consulting practice.
1:05
Kate: And I'm Kate.
1:06
John Arndt: And this one's about money. ChatGPT sells ads now, ads a local business can buy itself, without an agency. And Google is testing ads inside AI Mode.
1:16
Kate: Testing.
1:17
John Arndt: Small ones. I'll be careful.
1:19
Kate: So if you own a business, somebody's about to pitch you on this.
1:22
John Arndt: If they haven't already.
1:24
Kate: Then you want to know what you're actually buying, and how to try it without it eating your month.
1:28
John Arndt: And whether a coupon belongs in there.
1:30
Kate: He's very into the coupon.
1:32
John Arndt: And I'll give you a test you can actually run. Hard cap, stop date.
1:36
Kate: And if he gets excited about ad formats, I'm taking his wallet.
1:40
John Arndt: That's fair. I do get excited about ad formats.
1:43
Kate: I've noticed.
1:44
John Arndt: Start with what's actually on the shelf, because a lot of what people say about these ads is off.
1:53
Kate: Three things I've heard about these ChatGPT ads this month. Coffee shop stuff. You tell me, true or not.
2:00
John Arndt: Go.
2:00
Kate: First thing I heard. You can pay ChatGPT to put your business in the answer.
2:05
John Arndt: No. Not according to OpenAI. A spokesperson put it in one sentence: "Ads do not influence the answers received from ChatGPT."
2:13
Kate: And we believe them because?
2:16
John Arndt: We don't have to believe them or disbelieve them. It's their stated rule. And it tells you what you're buying. A labeled spot next to the answer.
2:23
Kate: The flyer on the table.
2:24
John Arndt: You're going to get a lot of mileage out of that flyer.
2:27
Kate: I paid for that flyer. Emotionally. Anyway, that's what's on the shelf. Whether they keep to it is a separate question.
2:35
John Arndt: Fair. Then hold them to it.
2:36
Kate: Oh, I will. Next one. It's already a billion-dollar thing, and everybody's on it.
2:42
John Arndt: Half true. In late August OpenAI said ChatGPT ads had hit a one-billion-dollar run rate. Fewer than two hundred days after launch.
2:50
Kate: Run rate meaning what?
2:52
John Arndt: Today's pace, stretched out over a whole year.
2:54
Kate: So, like, your best week times fifty-two.
2:57
John Arndt: Your current week, but yes. A projection, not a billion dollars already collected. And AdExchanger noted it's still short of what OpenAI itself had projected earlier.
3:07
Kate: A big number with an asterisk.
3:09
John Arndt: And on everybody being on it, OpenAI says tens of thousands of advertisers. They haven't said how they count that.
3:15
Kate: Tens of thousands sounds like a lot until you think about how many businesses there are.
3:20
John Arndt: Right. It's big for something this new.
3:22
Kate: Big, but younger than my car.
3:24
John Arndt: A lot younger than your car.
3:26
Kate: Hey.
3:27
John Arndt: You brought up the car.
3:28
Kate: I regret the car. Who's actually allowed to buy these, though? Is this a big brand thing? Soda companies and airlines?
3:35
John Arndt: Not just big brands. OpenAI says ChatGPT ads are in more than sixty countries now. They added seven markets in Southeast Asia and Taiwan in late September.
3:45
Kate: Okay, but sixty countries of big brands is still big brands.
3:49
John Arndt: No. Eligible businesses, smaller ones included, can buy the ads themselves. There's a self-serve Ads Manager.
3:56
Kate: No agency.
3:57
John Arndt: No agency required. In the US it opened up to all businesses in May, and you can bid by the click.
4:02
Kate: Bid. Like an auction. For a plumber.
4:06
John Arndt: Kind of. It's one way to pay. You tell it what a click's worth to you, and you pay when somebody taps.
4:11
Kate: And local stuff? Plumbers, dentists, the guy who fixes garage doors?
4:16
John Arndt: Local services is one of the categories OpenAI says it's focusing on early.
4:20
Kate: So the plumber can do this tonight.
4:22
John Arndt: They can sign up tonight. If they qualify.
4:24
Kate: You had to add the asterisk.
4:26
John Arndt: I always add the asterisk. It's most of my personality.
4:30
Kate: It's a lot of your personality. Last one. Everybody sees them.
4:35
John Arndt: No. Only people on the free plan and the cheap Go plan see ads. If you pay for one of the bigger plans above that, no ads at all.
4:42
Kate: Okay.
4:43
John Arndt: So really, the ads are in the cheap seats. Which is kind of a footnote, honestly. The people paying the most never see them, so,
4:50
Kate: Wait.
4:51
John Arndt: What.
4:52
Kate: Wait. Go back. The people who don't pay are the ones who see the ads.
4:56
John Arndt: Right.
4:57
Kate: If I'm the plumber, those are my customers. The person with a flooded basement isn't upgrading their chatbot before they call somebody. They're on the free one, standing in water.
5:07
John Arndt: Huh.
5:08
Kate: Huh what?
5:09
John Arndt: I've been thinking about it as the cheap seats. Like it was the smaller audience.
5:13
Kate: For somebody who fixes sinks, the cheap seats are the whole room.
5:17
John Arndt: You're right. I had that backwards.
5:19
Kate: Thank you. Say it again, slower.
5:22
John Arndt: I had it backwards. The free users are your customers.
5:27
Kate: The free users are your customers. I'm writing that one down.
5:30
John Arndt: Which means the free answer is,
5:32
Kate: The one my customer actually reads.
5:35
John Arndt: Yeah. And if you pay for one of the bigger plans yourself, you never see the ads.
5:39
Kate: Oh. Because I'm in the nice seats.
5:42
John Arndt: Right. Nice seats, no flyers. And the answers you get might not look like the ones your customer gets either.
5:48
Kate: Then I've been looking at the wrong version.
5:50
John Arndt: You might be. So this week, open the free version. Log out, or use a free account. Ask it what your customer would ask.
5:57
Kate: And then I see exactly what they see.
6:00
John Arndt: Closer to it. Not exactly. Answers vary person to person, so nobody sees exactly what somebody else sees. But closer than your own screen.
6:08
Kate: Another asterisk.
6:10
John Arndt: That one's load-bearing.
6:12
Kate: Fine. That's ChatGPT. Google's doing this too, right? Tell me Google's are at least easier to spot.
6:23
John Arndt: Easier to spot? Depends who you ask. Google's own words first. In early September, Ginny Marvin, Google's Ads Liaison, called it "a small experiment that recently kicked off."
6:34
Kate: Small experiment. Okay. Doing what?
6:38
John Arndt: Text ads showing in AI Mode, from exact and phrase match keywords. And she said it's "limited to cases where there is explicit and direct user intent."
6:46
Kate: Translate explicit and direct.
6:49
John Arndt: My translation: the person said plainly what they want. Emergency plumber near me. Not, why is my pipe making that noise.
6:56
Kate: The pipe noise person is just scared.
6:59
John Arndt: The pipe noise person wants a conversation. The emergency plumber person wants a truck.
7:03
Kate: And the pipe noise person doesn't get an ad?
7:06
John Arndt: The way she described it, the experiment is aimed at the truck person. That's as far as she went.
7:10
Kate: Did she say where this is running? Or how it's doing?
7:13
John Arndt: The post gave no countries and no performance data. Small experiment is about all we've got.
7:19
Kate: And the part I keep hearing about. The ads that look like the answer.
7:22
John Arndt: That's a separate test. In mid-September, Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable reported Google testing ads in AI Mode that are styled like the answer's own text links. There's a label that says Sponsored, above the AI response.
7:35
Kate: Above.
7:36
John Arndt: Above the whole answer. Not on the link.
7:38
Kate: How big is the label?
7:40
John Arndt: I didn't measure it. Barry's view was that they look too organic. Too much like the regular answer. And he expects them to get fewer clicks than normal ads, because people just don't click links in AI answers much.
7:51
Kate: I'm taking a side on this one.
7:53
John Arndt: Of course you are.
7:54
Kate: If I can't tell it's an ad, neither can the customer.
7:57
John Arndt: You can tell. It says Sponsored.
7:59
Kate: Up top. Then there's the answer. Then there's a link that looks like every other link in the answer.
8:04
John Arndt: Sure, but,
8:06
Kate: Picture somebody in a hurry. They're reading on their phone, one hand, kid in the other arm. To them, the answer and the link are the same thing. Nobody's parsing that.
8:15
John Arndt: Let me argue the other side. Fairly.
8:17
Kate: You have one minute.
8:19
John Arndt: It's labeled. The experiment Ginny Marvin described is limited to explicit, direct intent. And if a link looks like the answer and nobody clicks it anyway, that's just a bad buy for whoever paid for it.
8:30
Kate: Whoever paid for it is the person listening to this.
8:33
John Arndt: Fair. The way I think about it, the answer is still the door. The ad is the sign next to it.
8:39
Kate: Nice line. No proof.
8:41
John Arndt: What?
8:41
Kate: Nice line. No proof. I'm keeping count now. That's one.
8:45
John Arndt: You're keeping count.
8:47
Kate: For the rest of the episode.
8:49
John Arndt: You're right on the proof. Google hasn't shared performance numbers for these. It's a test.
8:54
Kate: And my point stands. If a customer clicks that thinking it was the recommendation, and it wasn't, who do they feel tricked by?
9:01
John Arndt: Probably the name on the link.
9:03
Kate: Right. And Google's name isn't on that link. Yours is.
9:07
John Arndt: That's fair. That's the real risk for an owner. I'll give you that one. On the idea.
9:12
Kate: There's the asterisk.
9:13
John Arndt: Nobody knows yet if it plays out that way. But it's the right thing to worry about.
9:17
Kate: Remember the top of the show? How far next to the answer?
9:21
John Arndt: Inches. And styled like the answer's own links.
9:24
Kate: Inches and styled like the answer. That's a flyer printed right on the menu.
9:29
John Arndt: The flyer is getting promoted.
9:31
Kate: It's doing better than you.
9:32
John Arndt: Wow. Okay. One more Google test and I'll stop. On September twenty-second, Search Engine Roundtable reported a test spotted by an SEO named Gagan Ghotra. Links at the bottom of Google's AI Overviews that look like normal links. But you tap one, and instead of going to a website, it opens more AI Mode.
9:52
Kate: So the link goes to more Google.
9:54
John Arndt: In that test, yes. He posted, another day, another tactic.
9:59
Kate: He sounds tired.
10:00
John Arndt: He sounds like somebody who watches this all day. And it's one spotted test. Not a rollout.
10:05
Kate: Okay, but if even the free links stop leaving Google, what's left for the plumber?
10:10
John Arndt: Your name. If people don't leave, your name in the answer is the thing they take with them.
10:15
Kate: I know what I'd do about this one. Say I'm the plumber, and my agency tells me my Google ads might show up in AI Mode now,
10:22
John Arndt: Ask them to show you one.
10:23
Kate: A real one. With the label on it.
10:26
John Arndt: A screenshot. With a date on it.
10:28
Kate: Because until somebody shows me, it's a rumor about a flyer.
10:31
John Arndt: Fine. Then I'm saving the good one. Google's got one more piece in beta that I actually like.
10:37
Kate: Uh oh.
10:43
John Arndt: Let's do this one as a pitch. Say you run a dental office. I'm the guy pitching you.
10:47
Kate: Fine. I'm the dentist. You've got till my next patient.
10:50
John Arndt: Google Ads has a new asset called Direct offer. It's marked beta. PPC News Feed reported it on October seventh. It puts a promotion right inside AI Mode. A little bar under a sponsored result that says claim one-time code.
11:05
Kate: Great pitch. Cited your sources and everything.
11:08
John Arndt: I always cite my sources. Listen. Google's own page says brands can upload promotions, "including discounts, giveaways, and local coupons." Local coupons, Kate.
11:18
Kate: I heard.
11:19
John Arndt: And then, quote, "Gemini then constructs a customized deal" for the specific search somebody typed.
11:25
Kate: Gemini makes up my deal.
11:28
John Arndt: Builds it. Their example is a special twenty percent off.
11:31
Kate: Is that a result? Twenty percent?
11:33
John Arndt: No, that's their example. An illustration on the page.
11:36
Kate: All right. Dentist questions.
11:39
John Arndt: Here we go.
11:40
Kate: Is that even for a dentist?
11:42
John Arndt: Honestly? Google's page is written for retailers, and hotel and travel advertisers. It mentions local coupons, but it doesn't say a service business can use it.
11:52
Kate: You're pitching me something that might not be for me.
11:55
John Arndt: I'm pitching it with a lot of energy.
11:57
Kate: Noted. What does it take to turn on?
11:59
John Arndt: The setup screen says offers only serve on campaigns using AI Max or text customization. So it's not a coupon you just bolt onto whatever campaign you've already got.
12:09
Kate: I don't know what either of those are.
12:10
John Arndt: Your agency would. Ask them before anybody turns anything on.
12:14
Kate: Has anybody said how it performs?
12:16
John Arndt: No. Google hasn't published performance data.
12:19
Kate: None.
12:19
John Arndt: None that I've seen. It's a beta.
12:21
Kate: Then my dental office would be the experiment.
12:24
John Arndt: Part of it, yeah. Somebody has to go first.
12:26
Kate: Somebody with a hotel, sounds like. And Gemini builds the deal. From what?
12:31
John Arndt: From the products and guardrails you give it, per Google's page.
12:34
Kate: Guardrails. On my prices.
12:37
John Arndt: Your guardrails. Yes.
12:39
Kate: Something I've never met decides how much to knock off my cleanings?
12:43
John Arndt: Inside the limits you hand it. That's how Google describes it.
12:46
Kate: And if I hand it sloppy limits?
12:48
John Arndt: Then it works inside sloppy limits. It's only as careful as you were.
12:51
Kate: Pitch meeting's over. Can I talk now?
12:54
John Arndt: You've been talking the whole time.
12:56
Kate: I'm saying no. And not just as the dentist. Any service business. A discount sitting inside an AI answer does two bad things to me.
13:05
John Arndt: Go on.
13:06
Kate: First, I'm giving up margin to get into a spot people might not even click. You told me a minute ago, people don't click links in these answers much.
13:14
John Arndt: Barry said that.
13:15
Kate: You repeated it. With feeling.
13:17
John Arndt: Fine.
13:19
Kate: Second, I'm teaching people to wait for the coupon.
13:22
John Arndt: Wait how? It's one code, in one answer.
13:25
Kate: People talk. One person gets twenty percent off a cleaning, tells her sister, and now the sister waits for her code too.
13:32
John Arndt: The sister.
13:33
Kate: There's always a sister. All the coupon finds me is customers who wanted a coupon.
13:39
John Arndt: That's,
13:39
Kate: A flyer with a discount stapled to it.
13:42
John Arndt: The flyer's back.
13:43
Kate: The flyer place, from the top of the show. I went for the coupon. I never went back.
13:48
John Arndt: You never said you didn't go back.
13:50
Kate: I'm saying it now. I don't even remember the name. I remember the coupon.
13:54
John Arndt: Let me push once. It's a beta. Early tests can be cheap. You try it small, you learn something.
14:00
Kate: Cheap to try. Expensive to undo. Once twenty percent off is out there, that's the price.
14:06
John Arndt: You could pull it.
14:07
Kate: And everybody who saw it remembers it. Nobody forgets a price that used to be lower. If I'm a dentist, now every cleaning is the full price plus a little disappointment.
14:17
John Arndt: Yeah.
14:18
Kate: Yeah?
14:19
John Arndt: You win. The offer test can wait. For a service business, I'd skip it for now. If you test anything, test the plain ad, on one service, with a hard cap.
14:28
Kate: Hold on. Was that a nice line?
14:31
John Arndt: That was a concession.
14:32
Kate: Test the plain ad. It had a rhythm to it. I'm counting it. That's two nice lines.
14:38
John Arndt: Two.
14:38
Kate: And one good one, which was mine.
14:40
John Arndt: The sister one.
14:41
Kate: Thank you. And since I won, I'm giving the homework. If you have an agency, ask them one thing. Are any of our campaigns on AI Max?
14:50
John Arndt: You don't know what AI Max is.
14:52
Kate: I don't need to. They do.
14:54
John Arndt: And if they say yes, nothing with a discount or a code in it goes out unless you sign off. In writing.
15:01
Kate: Because I'd like to hear about my own discount before my customers do.
15:04
John Arndt: Because you set the price. Nobody else.
15:07
Kate: Okay. One service, hard cap. How hard? You've got a story about this, don't you.
15:13
John Arndt: The August one.
15:19
John Arndt: August. My database bill jumped.
15:22
Kate: Jumped how much?
15:23
John Arndt: Enough to matter.
15:24
Kate: That's not a number.
15:25
John Arndt: It's not. You're not getting a number. The cause was scheduled jobs. Little automations that check something on a timer. They were checking far more often than anything needed.
15:35
Kate: Checking how often?
15:36
John Arndt: More than anything needed. And no, I'm not giving you a count either.
15:40
Kate: So you had a machine refreshing its email.
15:43
John Arndt: Yes. Refresh, refresh, refresh.
15:46
Kate: And nobody noticed.
15:48
John Arndt: I noticed when the bill jumped. That was the noticing.
15:51
Kate: What'd you do?
15:52
John Arndt: Slowed them down. Every thirty to sixty minutes. And then I wrote a rule, so I wouldn't do it again.
15:57
Kate: Which is?
15:58
John Arndt: Every automation gets a cost ceiling, and a reason for its schedule.
16:02
Kate: Did you write that, or did a fortune cookie?
16:04
John Arndt: I wrote it. After the bill.
16:06
Kate: Okay. That one has a receipt. I'm not counting it against you.
16:10
John Arndt: Finally.
16:11
Kate: Don't get used to it.
16:12
John Arndt: I won't.
16:13
Kate: But hold on. That's a database. What's it got to do with buying an ad?
16:17
John Arndt: An ad test is the same animal. It runs on its own while you're doing something else, and every click costs something. If you don't put the ceiling on before it starts, you find out where the ceiling was from the bill.
16:28
Kate: Like you did.
16:29
John Arndt: Yes. Thank you.
16:31
Kate: Build it with me, then. Right now, out loud. I'm the plumber again.
16:35
John Arndt: Go.
16:35
Kate: One service.
16:36
John Arndt: Yes, but which one. The highest-intent one. The thing people search for when they're ready to book, not when they're just curious.
16:43
Kate: Drain cleaning. If I'm the plumber.
16:45
John Arndt: Good. Not plumbing in general.
16:47
Kate: Why not plumbing in general?
16:49
John Arndt: Because plumbing is everything. If it works, you won't know what worked. If it doesn't, you won't know what failed.
16:55
Kate: Fine. Next.
16:56
John Arndt: A hard monthly cap.
16:58
Kate: How much?
16:59
John Arndt: The amount you'd shrug off losing.
17:00
Kate: That's also not a number. You have a theme today.
17:04
John Arndt: That one has to be your number. I don't know your month. But it matters more with these ads than you'd think.
17:10
Kate: Why?
17:10
John Arndt: ChatGPT's self-serve ads let you bid by the click. So a busy week means more clicks. The cap is the thing that stops a busy week from turning into a bill.
17:20
Kate: Something running on its own, turning into a bill. That's your August.
17:24
John Arndt: That's my August. It just kept running, far more often than it needed to.
17:28
Kate: Stop date.
17:29
John Arndt: One month. Written on the calendar before you start. And the test ends unless you choose to keep it going.
17:35
Kate: And if I forget about it?
17:37
John Arndt: Then it ends anyway. You have to decide to extend it. You never have to remember to stop it.
17:42
Kate: Who writes it on the calendar? Me or the agency?
17:45
John Arndt: You. It's your money, so it's your date.
17:48
Kate: And the cap is mine too.
17:49
John Arndt: The cap, the date and the number. Hand off the clicking if you want. Keep those three.
17:54
Kate: I like that. Last piece?
17:56
John Arndt: One number.
17:57
Kate: Clicks.
17:58
John Arndt: No. Booked,
17:59
Kate: Why not clicks? That's what I'm paying for.
18:01
John Arndt: That's what you pay for. What you want is booked jobs. Booked drain cleanings, from that month.
18:07
Kate: Booked jobs. Which means somebody has to answer the phone.
18:11
John Arndt: Yeah.
18:13
Kate: That was a long pause.
18:15
John Arndt: Because that's most of it. Someone who goes by The Boring Marketer posted on October ninth, and I'm paraphrasing, that if you sell to boring businesses, the money isn't in selling them AI automation, or AI agents.
18:27
Kate: Then where is it?
18:29
John Arndt: In the thing that turns the traffic they already get into booked jobs. Built with AI, sure. But that's where the post says the money is.
18:36
Kate: Who's that aimed at? Owners?
18:39
John Arndt: People who sell to owners. But I think it's just as right for owners who are buying.
18:43
Kate: So before I buy more calls, answer the ones I've got.
18:47
John Arndt: Yes.
18:47
Kate: No asterisk?
18:48
John Arndt: No asterisk. If your phone goes to voicemail half the day, the ad test is measuring your voicemail.
18:54
Kate: Oh, that's a nice line. Three.
18:56
John Arndt: That one's true!
18:57
Kate: Still counts. True doesn't get you out of the tally.
19:00
John Arndt: Okay.
19:01
Kate: Define answer the phone.
19:03
John Arndt: Somebody picks up, or calls back fast, and writes down where the person heard about you.
19:08
Kate: Otherwise the ad works and I never find out. Last push. Say I do all of it, start to finish. And after a month, the number says nothing.
19:17
John Arndt: Then the test worked.
19:18
Kate: That's a very convenient definition of worked.
19:21
John Arndt: No, really. It told you something, for the price of the cap, and you didn't find out from a bill. You stop it and move on.
19:28
Kate: You'd be a terrible ad salesman.
19:30
John Arndt: Probably. That's sort of the idea.
19:32
Kate: That's the ad, then. But it feels like the whole answer is getting crowded.
19:36
John Arndt: It is. There's more coming into it.
19:43
Kate: Then let's do the rest rapid fire. Short answers. You're bad at short answers.
19:48
John Arndt: I'm great at,
19:50
Kate: Go. Question one. Is ChatGPT turning into an app store?
19:54
John Arndt: At DevDay, September twenty-ninth, OpenAI said ChatGPT will start suggesting apps in the middle of a conversation, when it sees one could help.
20:02
Kate: That's a yes.
20:03
John Arndt: It's a maybe. TechCrunch noted they didn't announce any billing or revenue sharing, the way an app store works. So it's a place things get found, and OpenAI didn't say how the money works.
20:14
Kate: So, no idea.
20:15
John Arndt: So, no idea. It's a big place to get found, though. OpenAI says ChatGPT has one point two billion weekly users.
20:23
Kate: That was two answers.
20:24
John Arndt: The second one was free.
20:26
Kate: Does any of it matter to a plumber?
20:28
John Arndt: Not this week. Same pattern, though. More stuff getting suggested inside the answer.
20:32
Kate: Stuff that isn't me. Question two. Should I run the image ads?
20:37
John Arndt: You should explain the image ads first.
20:39
Kate: You explain. Short.
20:41
John Arndt: TechCrunch reported on October fifth that OpenAI is adding display ads next to images people ask ChatGPT to make. Later in October, US only for now, from a first test group of advertisers. And OpenAI says they'll be clearly labeled and won't influence answers.
20:56
Kate: That wasn't short.
20:58
John Arndt: Probably not for a plumber. That's short.
21:00
Kate: Nobody's generating a picture of a clogged drain.
21:03
John Arndt: Maybe somebody. Not your customers.
21:05
Kate: Who is generating a picture of a clogged drain?
21:08
John Arndt: I'm not going to find out on air. Or off it.
21:11
Kate: Question three. I saw a headline that OpenAI's money isn't what people thought. Do I care?
21:16
John Arndt: There are three parts to this, and if I give you one, I'm lying to you a little.
21:20
Kate: Not short, then.
21:22
John Arndt: Nope. The Financial Times reported OpenAI's annualized revenue was close to fifty billion dollars at the end of September. About twenty billion less than investors had been led to believe.
21:32
Kate: Ouch.
21:33
John Arndt: A source told Reuters the gap mostly came from trying to line the number up against Anthropic's. And Reuters noted Anthropic counts sales through cloud partners that OpenAI doesn't.
21:43
Kate: So it's how they counted. What's the third thing?
21:46
John Arndt: That's what the source said, and I'm not going past it. Bloomberg reported OpenAI expects its annualized pace to reach seventy billion or more by the end of the year.
21:55
Kate: Annualized pace. Like the ads.
21:58
John Arndt: Same idea. A year-end pace, not this year's total.
22:01
Kate: Run rate again. Best week times fifty-two.
22:04
John Arndt: Current week. But yes.
22:06
Kate: Good news or bad news, then?
22:08
John Arndt: For you? Neither. The practical part is small. Don't prepay, and don't sign anything long for an AI ad product this early.
22:15
Kate: That part I understand.
22:17
John Arndt: Same as the stop date. Short commitments, while it's this new.
22:20
Kate: So the answer's turning into a storefront.
22:23
John Arndt: A busier one. And the answer itself is still the part OpenAI says the ads don't touch.
22:28
Kate: Question four, and this is the one I actually care about. Still the plumber. Before I pay for the spot next to the free answer, how do I know if I'm already in it?
22:38
John Arndt: By hand, first. Ask the free version the question your customer asks, without your name in it. See who it names.
22:44
Kate: Who it names, or whether it names me?
22:47
John Arndt: Both. If it names three other plumbers and not you, you want to know that before you buy a flyer next to it.
22:53
Kate: And if I don't want to do that every week, forever?
22:56
John Arndt: That's the job Mentioned On does. It asks six assistants, ChatGPT and Gemini among them, the questions customers ask, without naming you, and keeps the answers so you can see the trend.
23:07
Kate: And it gets me in?
23:08
John Arndt: It can't. It can't promise anybody a spot, and it says so. It asks through the model APIs, so you're seeing a trend, not the exact screen somebody sees in the free app. The instant scan is free.
23:20
Kate: It tells me where I stand. It doesn't move me.
23:24
John Arndt: Right. And none of these ads, the way they've been described, buy you the recommendation itself. That's the whole episode.
23:30
Kate: Then before I pay for the flyer, I should know what the waiter's saying about me.
23:34
John Arndt: The flyer's a guess. The waiter's the answer.
23:37
Kate: Okay, that's four.
23:39
John Arndt: That's four?
23:39
Kate: It had a waiter and a flyer in it. Four.
23:42
John Arndt: Fine. But there's one more, and you can't count it.
23:45
Kate: Why not?
23:46
John Arndt: Because it's yours. You said it at the start. The free users are your customers. So the free answer is the one to look at first.
23:54
Kate: I did say that.
23:56
John Arndt: You did.
23:57
Kate: All right, that one doesn't count. It's mine.
24:00
John Arndt: Deal.
24:00
Kate: Give me the one thing. Before I spend a dollar.
24:04
John Arndt: Open the free version of ChatGPT. Log out, or use a free account. Ask it the question your best customer asks about your best service, without your name in it. And read what it says.
24:15
Kate: Read the whole thing. Not just whether you're in it. Who is.
24:19
John Arndt: Then make one decision. Either you run a test, on one service, for one month, with a hard cap and one number to watch. Or no test yet.
24:28
Kate: And no test is a fine answer.
24:31
John Arndt: It might be the smart one this month.
24:32
Kate: And answer the phone first.
24:34
John Arndt: And the cap goes on before the test starts. Not after the bill. That's my August.
24:39
Kate: The ceiling. Final score, by the way. Four nice lines. One receipt.
24:44
John Arndt: I'll take the receipt.
24:45
Kate: You should. It's the only one that came with a bill.
24:47
John Arndt: It's the only one I paid for.
24:49
Kate: And send this to whoever handles your ads. Before they turn on anything with a coupon in it.
24:54
John Arndt: Links are in the show notes. The stories we talked about, and Google's own page on those offers.
24:59
Kate: So, back to the top. Can I pay ChatGPT to recommend me?
25:03
John Arndt: You can pay for the flyer. Asking the waiter is free.
25:06
Kate: And I'm still not going back to the flyer place.
25:09
John Arndt: That's several.
25:10
Kate: That was one.
25:12
John Arndt: Several. That's After the Demo. I'm John Arndt.
25:15
Kate: And I'm Kate. Go ask the waiter.