On 31 August OpenAI switched on self serve ad buying across Europe, India, the Middle East and North Africa. No sales rep, no minimum commitment conversation. A marketer in Casablanca or Cairo can now log in, set a budget and put a brand in front of people while they’re asking ChatGPT for advice.
Four weeks in, there’s been almost no public talk of results from African brands. No case studies, no agency posts bragging about cost per click.
That silence is an opportunity. Early inventory on any new ad platform tends to be cheap, because the big spenders wait for case studies before they move. Remember Facebook in 2012 or TikTok in 2020. The brands that tested early learnt what worked while costs were low, and they were years ahead by the time everyone else arrived.
We wrote back in May about OpenAI’s target of $100 billion in ad revenue by 2030. A number like that only happens if the company opens up market after market. North Africa going live is part of that plan, and sub Saharan Africa is the obvious next step.
So what should a marketer south of the Sahara do while waiting? Start with the questions your customers type into ChatGPT today. If someone in Abuja asks for the best way to send money to family in the UK, which brands come up in the answer? If yours doesn’t, ads won’t fix that on their own. Get your product pages, FAQs and reviews in good shape now, because that’s the material these assistants read.
And if you have a client with a presence in Egypt or Morocco, run a small test. Even $500 will teach you more than another webinar.
