Write the conversation, not the keyword.
ChatGPT Ads has no keywords, no audiences, no lookalikes. You describe the conversations you want to appear inside, and the auction reads those descriptions. Writing them well is the whole craft.
Context hint: a plain-language description of the conversation a buyer is having at the moment your ad should appear. Not a search term. Not a demographic. A situation, with the constraint or deadline that is driving the purchase.
These are a starting point. Hints win or lose on live delivery data, and ours comes from campaigns we funded ourselves.
Have us run themThree things the auction rewards.
Name the moment, not the product.
"Espresso machine" is a keyword. "When someone is setting up a coffee corner in a studio kitchen before the weekend" is a conversation. The second one wins placements the first one never sees.
Include the anxiety driving the purchase.
Buyers arrive at an assistant with a problem, not a product category. Counter space, a deadline, a budget ceiling, a past purchase that failed. Hints that name the constraint match the conversations that convert.
A perfect hint under the bid floor delivers nothing.
The auction is relevance-weighted, so precision genuinely beats budget. But bids below roughly three dollars rarely clear delivery thresholds, and no amount of good writing rescues a hint that never enters the auction.