How to Set Up ChatGPT Ads Conversion Tracking for Your Lead Gen Business

Before we get into it, here's the full video walkthrough if you'd rather watch me do it:

Okay, let's talk about ChatGPT Ads conversion tracking.

If you're running ChatGPT Ads and you're struggling to get your conversion data back into the platform so you can see what ad groups, what clicks, and what ads are actually tied to your conversions, this post is for you. And if you're just getting started and the whole conversion tracking setup is confusing you, definitely keep reading.

One thing up front: this is only about ChatGPT Ads conversion tracking. We're not going to get into setting up the perfect ad or best practices, because the platform is new and I'd imagine it's going to evolve a ton over the next few months. Honestly, I don't even know the best practices yet. I've been testing it constantly and it keeps changing. So this is all about tracking.

One of the biggest complaints I see out there is people struggling to get their conversions reported back into ChatGPT Ads Manager. They're seeing clicks, they're seeing conversions, but they can't see which ad groups, which clicks, and which ads are leading to which conversions. That's the whole problem we're solving here, and that's all we're going to talk about.

Quick intro

If you don't know me, my name is John, founder of LeadCapture.io. For those of you who know me, you know I don't produce overly polished videos or posts. Like you, I'm a business owner with a thousand and one things to do, and becoming a YouTube influencer is at the bottom of my list. But this is an important topic for anyone running ChatGPT Ads, and over at LeadCapture we happen to have built a really easy way to fire the conversion event without getting a developer involved.

The whole setup is three things (maybe four)

Here's how I think about it. There are basically three things you have to do, maybe four:

1. Set up your data source inside ChatGPT Ads Manager.
2. Set up your conversion event. We're only going to create one to start.
3. Make sure that conversion event actually fires when someone submits your lead quiz, lead funnel, or lead form. This is the big one.
4. Configure your campaign to report on that conversion event when you build it. I'm not going to spend much time here because they make it a required field, so you really can't screw it up.

The biggest thing is making sure your conversion event fires, which is step three. The good news is once you get the gist of the flow, this is all pretty easy.

Step 1: Set up your data source

Inside ChatGPT Ads Manager, go to create, then data source, then give it a descriptive name. Do not just leave it as the default first pixel name. Name it something you'll recognize.

Let's pretend we're a fictional lead gen company in the mortgage space generating refi leads. We'll call the data source "Tap My Mortgage Refi."

For type, you can't really mess this up because there's only one option right now, which is web. Click create.

Once it's created, ChatGPT gives you a few things: your setup code, your pixel ID, and an example event call. If you're not a developer, that can give you an instant headache. The good news is that if you're using LeadCapture, you don't have to worry about the setup code or the example event call. The only thing you need from this screen is your pixel ID. You can ignore the rest.

Step 2: Create your conversion event

Next, go to create conversion event. Remember, we only want one conversion event to start. Let's not overcomplicate things. Create one, test it, and make sure it's working before you do anything else.

When you create it, you'll pick from a set of base events that feels a lot like creating a conversion event inside Meta. You'll see things like app install, app open, appointment scheduled, checkout, contents viewed, items added, and lead created.

If you're running a lead gen campaign, like our Tap My Mortgage refi example, choose lead created.

Then set your data source to the one you just made, Tap My Mortgage Refi. For the conversion window, your only choice right now is 30 days, so you can't change it. Click create.

Step 3: Make sure the conversion event fires (the important one)

This is the step that everything hinges on, and it's where most people get stuck.

Start by going back to your data source and copying the pixel ID. Then head into LeadCapture.

Inside LeadCapture, open the funnel you're running. These are the lead capture pages, quizzes, and forms you use to capture qualified leads. Every step captures some data about your lead, and then you can fire that lead off into your CRM or lead distribution tool.

For a multi-step lead quiz, you want to fire the conversion event on the contact step, right before the lead gets redirected to the thank you message. If you only have one step, say a single contact step and then a thank you message, the same logic applies. Just pick the part of your funnel where you want the conversion to fire.

Here's the flow:

1. Click the pencil on that step to open the left-hand panel.
2. Find the dropdown labeled OpenAI pixel event and choose lead created. This has to match the conversion event you created in ChatGPT Ads Manager, so double-check the names line up.
3. Click save.

Then connect the pixel itself:

1. Go to Settings > Tracking and Attribution.
2. You'll see we make it easy to connect to your Meta Pixel, Meta Conversions API, Google Tag Manager, and the OpenAI pixel.
3. The OpenAI pixel is disabled by default. Flip the switch and paste in your pixel ID.
4. You don't need to touch debug logging unless you run into an issue. Click save.

That's it. You've now configured two things inside your funnel: the pixel ID and the ChatGPT Ads conversion event. No developer involved. It's really that easy.

Step 4: Point your campaign at the conversion event

When you build your campaign in ChatGPT Ads Manager, just make sure you choose the conversion event, or set of events, that you created. As I said, they make this a required field, so you really can't mess it up.

Then run your form, send some test leads through, come back into ChatGPT Ads Manager, and check that the events are firing. They should be, because it's genuinely that simple to set up.

My honest take on ChatGPT Ads

As of writing this, June 24th, I think the platform has a ton of potential and it's something I plan to keep testing here and there. But the biggest problem right now is that there's no way to get more granular insights into what's actually driving the clicks. Because of that, you can't fine-tune your optimization, and you kind of feel like you're flying blind.

To give you an example, think about Google Ads. You can go into a search terms report, see what search terms are driving clicks, and start optimizing by adding negative keywords or bidding on different keywords. ChatGPT Ads doesn't have that level of insight yet.

I think it's coming. I just don't know what it looks like, because I'm not sure they'd base it on search terms the way Google does. ChatGPT queries tend to be longer than a typical search term, so maybe they'll surface the threads you show up in, or something else entirely. Whatever it is, I'm hoping they give us insights we can actually optimize against. Until that happens, it feels like flying blind, and that makes me hesitant to lean in, because I could put that budget into channels where I get detailed insights.

That said, I do think ChatGPT Ads has a lot of potential, especially with so much search shifting to AI-based tools like ChatGPT. It's going to be interesting to test. I think it's the future, and it's something we're going to keep developing on at LeadCapture, at least as far as tracking and attribution goes.

If you end up using the LeadCapture ChatGPT Ads integration and you run into problems, or there's a feature you need us to add, reach out. Always happy to dig into this more and keep building it out.

If you want to see the whole thing done on screen, the walkthrough is here.