Original research · Toronto & GTA · June 2026
ChatGPT Is Already Running Ads in Toronto. We Checked 90 Local Buying Questions to See Who's Buying Them.
We ran 90 Toronto buying questions through ChatGPT. Ads already show on 48%, from 33 advertisers, but only one was a local business. Industry map, opportunity tiers, and what to do first.
Queries with a live ad
43 of 90 GTA buying questions
Local business in-category
Out of 43 observed ad placements
Greenfield categories
Zero ads across all 15 queries
Cheaper clicks vs Google
Our campaigns, June 2026 benchmarks
We asked ChatGPT 90 of the exact questions Toronto buyers ask before they spend money: “best dentist in Scarborough,” “reliable plumber in downtown Toronto,” “best CRM for a Toronto startup.” Ads already appeared on 43 of the 90 (48%). This is not a future channel. It is live in your market today.
Executive summary
- Across those ads we counted 33 different advertisers, and exactly one was a local business advertising in the category the buyer was searching. We watched Lyft run ads against Botox, eye exams, and movers in Scarborough.
- Three categories showed zero ads: fitness, pest control, and electricians. High intent, real local demand, nobody buying the slot.
- Three categories are saturated (an ad on every query): B2B SaaS, travel, and finance, dominated by national and global brands, not local competitors.
- Our campaigns run a $35 CPM against a $250 Google Search comparison, with click-through 46% higher, roughly 10x cheaper clicks. The auction is uncrowded because local businesses have not shown up yet.
Why we ran this
Every agency post about ChatGPT Ads says the same thing: “it's early, it's cheap, get in.” None of them show you what is actually happening inside the answers your customers see. So we checked.
We wrote 90 high-intent buying questions a real GTA customer would type, across 18 industries. Then we ran the identical set through two AI engines and recorded, for every answer: did it name a specific business, did it name a Toronto or GTA business, and crucially, did a sponsored ad appear, and who paid for it.
An ad shows up as a sponsored card directly below the answer, at the exact moment someone has finished asking how to solve their problem. Right now, in Toronto, the answer is almost always neither you nor your direct competitor.
Want the optimization playbook, not just the platform overview? Get our free ChatGPT Ads cheat sheet — context hints, bid-floor tests, industry readiness, and the measurement stack from practitioners running real budgets.
Finding 01
Ads are already live on half of Toronto's buying questions
Of 90 high-intent local queries, 43 returned a live sponsored ad in ChatGPT (48%). Not a test. Not “coming soon.” Nearly every second buying question a Toronto customer asks already has a paid placement under the answer.
| Industry | Queries with a live ad | Status |
|---|---|---|
| B2B SaaS | 5 / 5 | Saturated |
| Travel | 5 / 5 | Saturated |
| Finance | 5 / 5 | Saturated |
| Education | 4 / 5 | Competitive |
| Real estate | 4 / 5 | Competitive |
| E-commerce | 3 / 5 | Filling |
| Legal & professional | 3 / 5 | Filling |
| Home services | 3 / 5 | Filling |
| HVAC | 3 / 5 | Filling |
| Beauty | 2 / 5 | Open |
| Veterinary | 2 / 5 | Open |
| Dental | 1 / 5 | Wide open |
| Optometry | 1 / 5 | Wide open |
| Auto repair | 1 / 5 | Wide open |
| Movers | 1 / 5 | Wide open |
| Fitness | 0 / 5 | Greenfield |
| Pest control | 0 / 5 | Greenfield |
| Electricians | 0 / 5 | Greenfield |
The lesson in one line: categories where money is already moving (SaaS, travel, finance) are commodity-bid contests dominated by big brands. Categories where a local business could own the surface for pennies (fitness, pest control, electrical, dental, optometry, auto, movers) are nearly empty.
Finding 02
The advertisers are almost never the local business, and sometimes they are Lyft
Across 90 queries and 43 ads, we counted 33 distinct advertisers, sorted by what they actually were relative to the question being asked:
| Who showed up in the ad slot | Share of ads |
|---|---|
| National brands (RBC, TD Insurance, IHG, Choice Hotels, Air Transat, LG, Belairdirect, Intact) | 16 of 43 |
| Global software (Monday.com, Jotform, Canva, Wix, HiBob, ApprovalMax, ManageEngine, Fivetran) | 11 of 43 |
| Product manufacturers (Merrell, Polar Bed, Metro Dentifrice, eManuals, Diamond Pet) | 6 of 43 |
| Adjacent local players (Skin Vitality, seoplus+, GWC Insulation) | 6 of 43 |
| Opportunists, unrelated to the query (Lyft) | 3 of 43 |
| The actual local business in the category searched | 1 of 43 |
Read that last row again. In 90 high-intent local buying questions, we found exactly one business advertising in its own category: Turnbull Real Estate, on a query about selling a Scarborough condo.
- Lyft ran against Botox near North York, eye exams downtown, and movers in Scarborough.
- RBC and TD Insurance owned nearly the entire finance category; RBC even appeared on first-time home purchase lawyer queries.
- Jotform advertised on small business lawyer, basement renovation, and roofing contractor queries.
- Diamond Pet, Metro Dentifrice, and LG showed up on vet, teeth whitening, and HVAC searches while service businesses sat out.
The local business your customer is actually trying to find is missing from its own moment.
Finding 02 · Advertiser mix
Finding 03
Three categories are completely empty
Fitness, pest control, and electricians returned zero ads across all 15 of their queries. ChatGPT still named real local businesses in every answer, which proves the commercial surface is there. There is simply no ad on it.
Finding 04
The "saturated" categories are saturated by outsiders, not locals
B2B SaaS, travel, and finance showed an ad on every single query, but from Monday.com, IHG, RBC, TD, Air Transat, and Choice Hotels. We did not see a single local Toronto SaaS company, boutique travel agency, or independent financial advisor in the ad slot. A tight, local, exact-intent ad can still win at a discount because big advertisers are not optimizing for it.
Finding 05
Being recommended is not the same as being in control
We ran the same 90 questions through Claude with live web search. Both engines named a Toronto or GTA business about 9 times out of 10, but almost never the same businesses, and lists shifted between runs. The ad slot is the one part of the AI answer you can buy, aim, and own. Everything above it is a recommendation you are hoping for.
The Toronto opportunity map
Pick your category to see who is buying the slot today, why the window is open, and your first move. Deep-link with ?industry=pestcontrol to share a vertical.
Greenfield play (fitness, pest control, electricians, dental, optometry, auto, movers): be the only paid voice under the question before a competitor notices.
Jump-the-queue play (beauty, home services, HVAC, legal, real estate): ads exist but thinly, mostly from adjacent brands and opportunists, not your direct rivals.
Challenger play (B2B SaaS, travel, finance, education): out-specific national brands with tight, locally exact context hints. You will not outbid RBC. You can out-specific them.
Why Toronto businesses have a real edge right now
- Canada is live. ChatGPT Ads run in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. You are early inside one of only four launch markets.
- It is cheaper than the Toronto Google auction. Roughly 10x cheaper clicks once higher CTR is factored in.
- The local seats are empty. Your direct competitors are almost entirely absent from the ad slot. That window closes first.
One honest caveat: health-adjacent categories
Dental, optometry, and veterinary are health-adjacent. ChatGPT restricts ads near sensitive health topics. Verify ad eligibility in Ads Manager for your specific service before you build a campaign.
Methodology and limitations
We tested 90 high-intent buying questions across 18 GTA industries (five each), mirroring how Toronto, Scarborough, North York, or Mississauga customers phrase purchase-stage queries.
Two engines: Claude with live web search (automated) and ChatGPT free tier (manual, June 19, 2026). Advertiser observations are founder-logged ChatGPT results.
Limitations: snapshot, not a census. Ad delivery rotates by user and tier. We will re-run quarterly and report what changes.
Stop renting your customer's attention to Lyft
The highest-intent advertising surface in your market is live, it is cheap, and the businesses that should own it are not there. That combination does not last.
Get the ChatGPT Ads Cheat Sheet or talk to us via paid search and media services or the contact form.
Shah Md. Rifat
Content Strategist · Stratezik · Toronto, ON · LinkedIn
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
- Is ChatGPT advertising available in Canada?
- Yes. ChatGPT Ads are live in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Toronto and GTA businesses can run campaigns today through OpenAI's Ads Manager at ads.openai.com, with no minimum spend.
- How much do ChatGPT ads cost in Canada?
- Pricing is set by auction, on a cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) or cost-per-click (CPC) basis. In our own campaigns we have run a $35 CPM against a $250 Google Search comparison, with roughly 10x cheaper clicks once higher click-through is factored in. Costs are low today because the auction is uncrowded, especially at the local level.
- Can a small Toronto business afford to advertise on ChatGPT?
- Yes, and the timing favours small businesses. There is no minimum spend, the interface is simpler than most ad platforms, and in several local categories (fitness, pest control, electrical, dental, auto, movers) there are currently no other advertisers to outbid. A modest test budget can put you in the only ad slot under high-intent questions in your market.
- Which Toronto industries should advertise on ChatGPT first?
- Based on our 90-query study, the clearest opportunities are the categories with high intent and zero or minimal current advertisers: fitness, pest control, electricians, dental, optometry, auto repair, and movers. Saturated categories (B2B SaaS, travel, finance) are still viable with tightly targeted, locally specific campaigns.
- How is advertising on ChatGPT different from Google Ads?
- ChatGPT has no keyword targeting. You write plain-language context hints describing the conversations where your business fits, and the system matches your ad to the live conversation. Ads appear as a sponsored card below the answer, at the moment of decision. It is closer to answering a question than bidding on a keyword.
- Will my business show up in ChatGPT answers without advertising?
- Sometimes. In our study, ChatGPT named a specific Toronto business in about 9 of 10 local queries, but the businesses it named changed between runs and rarely matched a second engine. Organic mentions are real but unpredictable. The ad slot is the only placement you can control.
Sources
- Stratezik Toronto AI Discovery study, June 2026: 90 high-intent GTA buyer queries across 18 industries. Dataset available on request.
- Stratezik internal ChatGPT Ads campaign data (CPM, CTR benchmarks), 2026.
- OpenAI ChatGPT Ads documentation; Ads in ChatGPT: the basics; Testing ads in ChatGPT.