Google Ads in plain words

Somebody searches Google for «cordless drill». Before the ordinary results, a few adverts appear. A Google Ads campaign exists to put yours right there, on that search. That is the great advantage over traditional advertising: you interrupt nobody, you talk to people already looking for you.

You interrupt nobody: you talk to people already looking for you, and you pay only if they click.

How it actually works

When several companies want the same slot, an auction starts. But Google does not look only at who bids most: it weighs the quality of the advert and of the landing page too. In plain terms: a well-made advert can cost less than a badly-made one, even when the other party bid higher. It rewards being useful, not just paying.

What you can afford to pay for a click

Before starting it pays to know what a click can cost you without losing money. The reasoning is simple: start from the margin a sale leaves you, decide what share of it you are willing to put into advertising, and account for how many visits turn into a purchase.

On low-margin products, certain kitchen items say, the sum can put your break-even at a few tens of cents per click. Numbers that low are alarming, but they tell a healthy truth: a few right clicks beat a lot of random ones. The goal is not traffic, it is sales.

How to start, in five moves

• Open the account. On Google Ads it takes minutes, especially if you already have a Google account.
• Choose your keywords. Use the planning tool and speak the same language as your customers. Use tight match types, so you are not paying for clicks from people looking for something else entirely.
• Write honest, specific adverts. One clear benefit is worth more than ten inflated promises. Say what you offer and who needs it.
• Look after the landing page. That is where the real conversion happens. If clicks arrive but never turn into anything, the problem is usually the page, not the advert.
• Turn on conversion tracking. With Google's tag connected to GA4 you can see which clicks become enquiries or purchases. Without it you are flying blind.

Where to begin among the options

At the start the search network — the adverts among Google's results — is the best choice: you catch people who already have a specific intention. Google also offers more automated formats, Performance Max and Demand Gen, but those come later: first learn to read the numbers on a search campaign, then widen out.

Three rules to keep you out of trouble

Start small: fifty euro a month is enough to run tests. Keep it simple, and resist building dozens of adverts you will never manage to follow. And be patient reading the data: the results that matter show up after about a month, not on day one.

You can run it yourself at the beginning. But it is easy to burn budget on the wrong words or too wide an audience: once the account grows, having somebody who does it for a living saves you more than it costs. It is our trade: Google Ads and Meta.