What is Google Ads and why should you use it?

If your business isn’t on Google, does it even exist? There’s a lot of truth in that. Especially if you’re investing time and money in a website or an online store and you want to win new customers online. But a web presence alone isn’t enough. You won’t succeed without making the most of what Google Ads advertising has to offer.

In this article, Marcin Świątkowski, Google Ads Expert at 25wat, explains what Google Ads is and why it’s essential for reaching your business goals.

Why advertise on Google Search in particular?

Because Google dominates the search engine market and has led it for many years. Year after year, more internet users turn to Google Search than to any other search engine. Google Search holds close to 90% of the search engine market, both in Poland and globally (StatCounter data for September 2026: 89.56% in Poland and 89.94% globally). That’s exactly why showing up in its search results matters so much for your business.

Besides its search engine, Google also offers advertisers its own ad network, the Google Display Network (GDN). It’s a collection of partner websites and online portals. Google reserves placements on these sites, where image ads (banners) and text ads are shown to users. Today, responsive display ads are the standard here: you add images, headlines, a logo and copy, and Google assembles them into ads that fit each placement.

According to Google, the Display Network spans over 2 million websites, videos and apps that reach over 90% of internet users around the world (source: Google Ads Help, Comscore data). That makes it, like digital marketing as a whole, an extremely useful tool for building your brand’s reach and image, and a way to generate leads.

Google: presence alone isn’t enough

If you’ve taken care of the SEO side and your company website or online store ranks high on Google, you can attract users from free search results.

But the attention you win this way, and the results that website traffic brings, very often fall short of what business owners expect. Competition is one of the things that caps traffic volume. Dozens, hundreds or even thousands of your competitors also want their websites in the top 10 search results. There are far more contenders than spots on Google’s first page.

On top of that, for years Google has been steadily pushing free search results further down the page, replacing them with paid ads from its Google Ads platform. Search also increasingly shows AI-generated answers (AI Overviews, AI Mode), and some users go straight to AI assistants for information. Today, businesses get the best results when they invest in ad campaigns that run on this very platform.

What’s more, Google Ads advertising is an effective tool that complements SEO well. It gets you more space on Google and a place on the first page of search results. In practice, that means a higher overall click-through rate and more leads on your company website or online store.

What is Google Ads?

Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) is an advertising platform built by Google for creating and managing ad campaigns. For more than two decades, Google Ads campaigns have helped businesses grow, win new customers and reach their business goals.

The platform covers both Search and the Google Display Network mentioned earlier, which includes not only blogs and forums but also the largest web portals in Poland, such as Onet and WP. Google Ads also lets you reach YouTube and Gmail users. Performance Max campaigns reach all of these places at once, plus Google Maps and Discover. Demand Gen campaigns, which Google is moving Display campaigns into, cover YouTube, Gmail, Discover and the Display Network.

How does Google Ads work and where do the ads show up?

Ads run through Google Ads appear in Google Search above and below the free (organic) results once a user types in a query. Text ads are grouped under the “Sponsored results” label, while Shopping ads (Google Shopping), also marked as sponsored, can appear as a carousel with product photos and prices.

What does it look like in practice? For example, searching for “lodówki no frost sklep” (Polish for “no-frost fridge store”) brings up ads from various stores selling fridges:

What does the advertiser pay for?

The advertiser picks the keywords the ad shows up for in search results. In Search campaigns, the advertiser pays for actual clicks, not for impressions nobody interacts with. In YouTube and Display campaigns, billing depends on the bidding strategy you choose: you can also pay per thousand impressions (CPM) or per video view (CPV).

How much you pay when users click your ad depends on a whole range of factors, from what your competitors are doing and the quality and results of your campaigns to the specifics of your industry. Remember, though, that you’re always in control of your budget, and some bidding strategies also let you cap the maximum cost per click (CPC).

Protection against invalid clicks

You also don’t have to worry about paying for every click from competitors trying to burn through your budget by clicking your ads. Google automatically filters out most invalid clicks before you’re charged for them. If invalid traffic is only detected after you’ve been invoiced, you get a credit for it in your ad account, shown in billing as an “Invalid activity” adjustment (more in Google Ads Help).

The biggest benefits of Google Ads

• Fast start: your business shows up online almost as soon as you turn on the campaign.
• Huge reach: your ad message gets to customers not only through Google Search but also through the Google Display Network and YouTube.
• Targeting: you aim your ads at specific users, which makes campaigns highly effective and genuinely helps you win new customers. You can target different people by choosing specific geographic locations, any language, the devices they use and even their age and gender.
• Audiences: you target precisely defined groups of people in your market. For example, Google Ads lets you show ads to people who are in a relationship, have children, have a college degree, own an apartment or a house and work in construction.
• Remarketing: you get an easy way to run remarketing and reach people who have visited your website.
• Ad schedule: you choose the days of the week and the hours when your ads show.
• Budget control: you have full control over your budget and can set exactly how much you want to spend on a campaign.
• Automation and AI: AI is now at the core of Google Ads. Smart Bidding sets a separate bid in every auction. Performance Max campaigns choose placements, audiences and creatives on their own. In Search campaigns, AI Max features match ads to more queries and adapt the ad copy. It still pays to keep an eye on your goals and data, though: the system optimizes for whatever you point it at, so without properly set up conversions and a specialist’s oversight, it’s easy to end up with spend that doesn’t turn into sales.
• Measurable results: if someone clicks your ad, you’ll know. If a user then takes an action that’s valuable to your business, such as placing an order on your website, downloading an app or ordering by phone, you’ll know that too. The stats let you measure campaign effectiveness precisely, compare what the campaign costs with the revenue it brings in, calculate your return on investment and build an accurate picture of your ideal ad audience.
• Integrations: you can link your Google Ads account with other services, such as Google Business Profile, Google Analytics 4 or Google Merchant Center.

Summary

Google Ads campaigns are among the most effective in online advertising. If you hand your campaigns over to skilled specialists, you can expect tangible results and a return on what you spend.

So why not make the most of what Google advertising can do? See how we can help: explore our Google Ads and digital marketing services, then get in touch.