Market Like a Genius with Ahmet Dogan
Listen to Ahmet Dogan on Spotify: ChatGPT Ads Golden Rule: Write to the Wound, Not the Product - By Ahmet Dogan, CEO at Citatix ChatGPT Ads Agency
Transcript of the Episode
Welcome back to The ChatGPT Ads Playbook. I am Ahmet Dogan, C E O of Citatix ChatGPT Ads Agency, and an official OpenAI Select Partner. Today we are talking about ad copy, and one simple idea that changes everything. Write to the wound, not the product. Here is the truth. Most ad copy fails for the same quiet reason. It talks about the product. But the customer only cares about the pain. This matters even more on ChatGPT Ads. Let me explain why. On a normal feed, you interrupt someone who was not thinking about their problem. On ChatGPT, it is different. The person is actively describing their problem, in their own words, in vivid, emotional detail, right before your ad appears. That is a gift, and it is a test. If your copy ignores the pain they just described, it feels off. It jars. But if your copy reflects that pain back to them, it feels like the answer they were already reaching for. After building ChatGPT Ads campaigns across almost every industry, I have learned one thing. The winning copy is rarely the cleverest. It is the copy that mirrors the customer's pain most precisely. So let me show you how to do that, step by step. Step one. Find the real pain, not the surface complaint. Every customer has two problems. The stated one, which is functional. And the underlying one, which is emotional. The emotional one drives the purchase. Here are three examples. A law firm client does not want a consultation. They want to stop lying awake at night, not knowing where they stand. An online shopper does not want durable running shoes. They want to stop getting injured, so they can keep running. A business buyer does not want software. They want to stop being the person who gets blamed when the process breaks. Where do you find this pain? In the language customers already use. Read your reviews. Read your support tickets. Read your sales call notes. And listen to how people describe their situation to ChatGPT. The exact words they use are the exact words your copy should echo. Step two. Map the pain to different segments. There is no such thing as the audience. There are segments, and each one hurts differently. Take a meal kit service. For a busy parent, it solves time pressure. For a young professional, it solves decision fatigue. For someone managing their health, it solves anxiety about what they eat. Same product. Three different wounds. So before you write a single line, know which wound you are writing to. Now every ad has a target. You are not writing an ad. You are writing the right ad for one specific pain. Step three. Structure the copy to mirror, then resolve. The best copy follows a simple arc. First, name the pain in the customer's own words, so they feel understood. Second, gently raise the stakes. Acknowledge the cost of doing nothing. Third, resolve it. Position your product as the specific relief for that pain. Fourth, make the next step feel small and safe. Here is a quick example. The weak version says, premium meal kits delivered to your door. The strong version says, too exhausted to figure out dinner? Get it decided. Healthy meals, planned and delivered, so you get your evenings back. The second one does not sell meal kits. It sells relief from a named pain. That is the whole game. Step four. Match the stage of awareness. People feel pain at different levels of awareness, and your copy has to meet them there. If they only know the problem, lead with the pain. If they know a solution exists, lead with why your approach is the right type. If they are comparing specific options, lead with proof and specifics. ChatGPT conversations reveal this stage clearly. So build a range of copy across stages. Do not stretch one generic message to cover them all. Step five. Test the pain, not just the phrasing. Most teams test the wrong thing. Do not just test headline style. Test which pain pulls hardest. Run one version led by lost time. One by lost money. One by fear. One by status. Keep the offer the same. Change only the pain. Then let performance tell you which wound is deepest. Once you know that, every future campaign starts ahead. Now, a few common mistakes to avoid. First, writing about features instead of results. Nobody buys the drill. They buy the finished shelf. Second, one message for everyone. It almost always loses to segment specific copy. Third, using marketer language. If your customer would not say it out loud, cut it. And fourth, selling before you name the pain. Earn attention by proving you understand first. So let us bring it home. ChatGPT Ads put you closer to the moment of pain than any channel before it. That closeness is your biggest advantage. But only if your copy meets the customer at the wound. Find the real pain. Segment it. Mirror it in their own words. Match the awareness stage. Then test which pain pulls hardest. Do that, and your copy stops sounding like an ad.