What is Google Ads (PPC)? How pay-per-click advertising works
Google Ads is Google’s advertising platform. It lets businesses show ads in Google Search results, on YouTube, in Gmail, on millions of partner websites and apps, and in Google Maps. Most Google Ads campaigns are pay-per-click (PPC): you pay only when someone clicks your ad, not when it is shown.
How a search ad gets shown
When someone searches, Google runs a quick auction among advertisers who chose keywords matching that search. The winner is not simply the highest bidder. Google considers:
- Your bid: the most you are willing to pay for a click.
- Ad quality: how relevant your ad and landing page are to the search, and how likely people are to click.
- Context: the device, location, time and the search itself.
This means a relevant, well-written ad with a useful landing page can win positions at a lower cost than a careless competitor with a bigger budget.
Main campaign types
- Search: text ads in search results for chosen keywords. The best place to start for most businesses because you reach people who are actively looking.
- Display: image ads on websites and apps. Useful for awareness and for reminding past visitors.
- Video: ads on YouTube.
- Shopping: product ads with images and prices, for online stores.
- Performance Max: a largely automated campaign that runs across all of Google’s channels using your goals, assets and data.
Keywords and match types
Keywords tell Google which searches your ads may appear for. Match types control how closely a search must match:
- Broad match reaches the widest range of related searches.
- Phrase match shows for searches that include the meaning of your phrase.
- Exact match is the tightest, for searches with the same meaning as your keyword.
Negative keywords stop ads showing for searches you do not want. For example, a paid course might exclude “free”, “PDF” and “jobs”. Adding negatives regularly is one of the simplest ways to stop wasting money.
What affects the cost
There is no fixed price per click. Cost depends on competition for the keyword, your ad quality, your location targeting and the time of day. Competitive industries such as education, finance, real estate and healthcare usually cost more per click. The useful question is not “what does a click cost?” but “what does a customer cost, and is that profitable?”
Conversion tracking: the most important step
Without tracking you only know how many people clicked, not how many became enquiries or sales. Set up conversion tracking for the actions that matter, such as form submissions, phone calls, WhatsApp clicks and purchases, using Google Ads conversion tags or Google Analytics 4 with Google Tag Manager. Then you can see cost per lead and return on ad spend, and make decisions with real numbers.
Common beginner mistakes
- Sending ads to the home page instead of a page about the exact offer.
- Using only broad keywords without negatives.
- Targeting the whole country when customers are local.
- Running ads without conversion tracking.
- Changing too many things at once, so nobody knows what worked.
Is Google Ads right for your business?
Google Ads works well when people actively search for what you sell and when you can track results. It is fast, flexible and scalable, but it stops the moment you stop paying, so many businesses combine it with SEO for long-term visibility.
Learn to plan, build and optimise campaigns in our PPC Course (Google Ads).