Google Ads, explained in short films

Teach first. Sell second.

The approach behind every film on this page.

• Our approach

  Make your advert the lesson

  Every day, YouTube says, people come to learn something new. So make your advert the answer. An in-feed video advert can appear right in YouTube search results, when someone types a question like “how to care for a wool coat”. Teach something useful first. Then show the product.

Jargon, busted

Thirty-one Google Ads terms, each explained in thirty seconds.

• #1

  Demand Gen

  Demand Gen is a Google Ads campaign for people who aren't looking for you yet. The adverts run where people scroll: YouTube, Discover and Gmail. You're not catching a search. You're starting the want.

• #2

  Performance Max

  Performance Max is one Google Ads campaign that can show on every Google screen: Search, YouTube, Maps, Gmail, Discover and Display, from one budget. Google picks where each advert shows.

• #3

  Smart Bidding

  Smart Bidding means Google sets your bid for every single search, automatically. It reads signals you would never see, such as the device, the place and the time of day, to judge who is likely to buy.

• #4

  Target CPA

  CPA stands for cost per acquisition: what one customer costs. Set a target, say £20, and Google bids to keep the average there. Some customers will cost more, some less.

• #5

  Target ROAS

  ROAS stands for return on ad spend. £5 of sales for every £1 of advertising is written as 500%. Set that target, and Google bids to hit that return on average.

• #6

  Maximise clicks: clicks aren't customers

  Maximise clicks gets you as many clicks as your budget buys. But a click is a visit, not a sale. If you want sales, bid for conversions.

• #7

  Broad match vs exact match

  Exact match, written in square brackets, shows your advert for searches with the same meaning as your keyword. Broad match goes further: related searches, even ones without your words. Wider reach, less control.

• #8

  Negative keywords

  Negative keywords are words that stop your advert showing. Add "free", and searches with "free" in them stop costing you. Find them in your search terms report, then block them.

• #9

  Responsive search ads

  With responsive search ads, you write up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions. Google mixes them into different adverts, and learns which combinations work best for which searches.

• #10

  Consent Mode

  Consent Mode passes on what each visitor chose in your cookie banner. Said yes: Google tags use cookies. Said no: no cookies, just a basic signal, and Google estimates what it can no longer see.

• #11

  Maximise conversions

  Maximise conversions is a Google Ads bid strategy. Google bids for the most sales it can get, while spending your budget. If you have a set amount you'll pay for each customer, use Target CPA instead.

• #12

  AI Max for Search

  AI Max for Search stretches your keyword list with AI. Broad match and keywordless matching catch longer searches your list would miss. The search terms report labels every AI Max match, with a source column showing how each one matched.

• #13

  Keywordless matching

  Keywordless matching is part of AI Max for Search. Google matches searches using your website and your adverts, not only your keyword list. The source column in the search terms report shows which matches came this way.

• #14

  Search themes

  Search themes are hints you give Performance Max about what your customers search for, up to 50 per asset group. They add to what Google finds on its own. They don't fence it in.

• #15

  Auto-applied recommendations

  With auto-apply switched on, Google Ads applies its recommendations to your account regularly, without a click from you. Google says auto-apply won't increase your budget. You can switch it off at any time, and the History tab shows what was applied.

• #16

  Google Tag Manager

  Google Tag Manager is one box that holds your website's tracking tags. You add or change tags in Tag Manager, without changing your website's code. Google calls the box a container.

• #17

  Modelled conversions

  Some sales Google can't see: the visitor said no to cookies, or their browser can't be measured. Google estimates those conversions using data that doesn't identify anyone, and your Conversions column shows observed and modelled conversions together.

• #18

  Asset Studio

  Asset Studio is Google's own image and video maker inside Google Ads, under Tools. You can create images and videos, edit them, keep them in one place, and share a link with your team.

• #19

  SynthID

  SynthID is an invisible watermark on images made with Google's AI. Google says screenshots, filters and compression don't remove it. You can't see it, but tools can check for it.

• #20

  Lookalike segments

  Give Google your customer list, and lookalike segments find people like them, with narrow, balanced or broad reach. In Demand Gen campaigns, Google is changing lookalikes during 2026 from a limit into a starting point.

• #21

  SKAGs

  SKAGs means single keyword ad groups: one keyword per ad group, often hundreds of groups. Google's own advice now is to move single-keyword ad groups into themed ad groups, so Smart Bidding learns from all the data together.

• #22

  Quality Score

  Quality Score is a one-to-ten rating on each keyword, built from expected clicks, advert relevance and your landing page. Google calls it a diagnostic tool. Quality Score itself isn't used in the auction.

• #23

  Ad Rank

  Ad Rank decides where your advert shows. Your bid counts, but so do the quality of your advert and landing page, and the search itself. A lower bid can still win a higher position.

• #24

  CTR

  CTR is clickthrough rate: clicks divided by the times your advert was shown. Five clicks from a hundred showings is 5%. A high rate is a good sign that people find your advert relevant.

• #25

  Cost per click

  Your maximum bid is the most you'll pay for a click. What you're charged is often less, sometimes much less: just enough to beat the Ad Rank of the advert below yours.

• #26

  Impression share

  Impression share is the share of times your advert showed, out of all the times it could have shown. Forty per cent means it missed six in every ten chances.

• #27

  Sitelinks

  Sitelinks are extra links under your search advert, each to a different page: prices, opening hours, a product. You need at least two for them to appear, and a computer screen can show up to six.

• #28

  Ad strength

  Ad strength rates a responsive search ad from Poor to Excellent on how varied its headlines and descriptions are. It doesn't decide whether your advert can show, and it isn't used for Ad Rank or Quality Score. It shows you how to improve the advert.

• #29

  Data-driven attribution

  Data-driven attribution decides which adverts get credit for a sale. Not just the last click: Google looks at the whole path and gives credit to the adverts that helped. It is the default for most conversion actions.

• #30

  Customer Match

  Customer Match lets you upload your own customer list and reach those people again on Search, the Shopping tab, YouTube, Gmail and Display. The list needs at least 100 people.

• #31

  Daily budget

  A daily budget is an average. On a busy day, Google can spend up to twice it. Across a month, it will never charge more than 30.4 times it.

The ABCD of video ads

Google's four principles for video adverts that work: attention, branding, connection and direction.

• Part 1 of 4

  Attention: the first five seconds

  On YouTube, a skippable advert can be skipped after five seconds, and for most people those five seconds are the whole advert. So don't open on your logo over black. Open on the product, moving, close to the camera.

• Part 2 of 4

  Branding: early, and often

  People scroll past most adverts before the end. If your name only appears on the last frame, most viewers never see it. Put the brand in the first seconds: your name on screen, your colours in the shot.

• Part 3 of 4

  Connection: people, and a voice

  Same product, same price, two cards: one shows the coat, one shows a person wearing it. Google's guidance for video adverts is that people on screen and a human voice help an advert connect.

• Part 4 of 4

  Direction: one thing to do

  End every advert with one thing to do. On a product card it's Shop now. On a video advert you choose the button. On a search advert it can be a call. On a map it's directions. Pick the one step you want.

What the machine does

How Google's automated campaigns place, learn and assemble your adverts.

• Part 1 of 4

  One Google Ads campaign, six places your advert can appear

  A Performance Max campaign can show your advert on Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps, from a single campaign and one budget. You don't build six campaigns. You build one, and give it good material.

• Part 2 of 4

  Why a new Google Ads campaign says "Learning"

  When you launch a campaign, or change its bid strategy, Google shows the status Learning. Google says it can take up to around 50 conversions, or 3 conversion cycles, to settle. Each big change starts the learning again, so change less, and wait.

• Part 3 of 4

  You bring the pieces, Google builds the advert

  In Performance Max you add headlines, images, a logo and a video. Google combines them into a different advert for each place it shows: a Short, a search advert, a Gmail promotion. Better pieces make better adverts.

• Part 4 of 4

  Demand Gen or Performance Max? Two jobs, two campaigns

  Demand Gen runs on YouTube, Discover, Gmail and Display, the places people browse, to build interest. Performance Max is built around your conversion goal, across all of Google. Run both: one creates interest, the other converts it.

Steer the machine

The controls you still hold when Google automates the bidding.

• Part 1 of 6

  Why fewer Google Ads campaigns give the machine more to learn from

  Google's guidance is to run as few campaigns as possible. Split the same products across ten small campaigns, and the bidding learns from a tenth of the data in each. Put them together, and one campaign learns from all of it.

• Part 2 of 6

  Audience signals tell Google where to start looking

  In Performance Max you can add audience signals: your customer list, people who visited your website, searches your customers make. They tell Google where to start looking. Google can still show your advert to people outside them, if they're likely to buy.

• Part 3 of 6

  Negative keywords and brand exclusions: tell Google where not to spend

  Negative keywords stop your adverts showing for searches you don't want: free, second hand, pattern. Brand exclusions do the same for brand names. In Performance Max they cover Search, Shopping and YouTube search.

• Part 4 of 6

  The search terms report shows what people actually typed

  The search terms report lists the searches that showed your advert, with the clicks and conversions from each. Performance Max has one too. Find the searches that sell, and the ones that only spend, then add those as negative keywords.

• Part 5 of 6

  Google Ads recommendations: apply, test, or dismiss

  Google Ads recommendations are suggestions. You can apply one, test it first as an experiment, or dismiss it. Some fix real problems. Others widen where you spend. Read each one before you click Apply.

• Part 6 of 6

  AI Max for Search: a wider net, so check the catch

  AI Max for Search uses broad match and keywordless matching to find longer, conversational searches your keyword list would miss. Some will be worth having. Some won't. The search terms report marks which matches came from AI Max, so check what each one costs.

Count what counts

Measuring Google Ads properly, so the bidding learns from real sales.

• Part 1 of 2

  Before you change your landing page, find where the sale is counted

  Google Ads counts a conversion when the conversion tag on your website fires, usually on a booking or thank-you page. Send people somewhere that skips that page, and the bookings still happen. Google just doesn't see them. Smart Bidding learns from the conversions it can see. So before you move anything, find where the result is counted.

• Part 2 of 2

  Enhanced conversions: better data in, better bidding out

  Enhanced conversions add your own data to the count. When a customer books or buys, details they gave you, like an email address, are scrambled with a one-way code called SHA256 before they leave your site, and sent with the conversion. Google says this improves the accuracy of your conversion measurement. Check your customer data policies and privacy notice first.

Pictures are the lever

Why the images and films you give Google decide how far your adverts go.

• Part 1 of 5

  No video in your Google Ads? Google makes one for you

  If your Performance Max campaign has no video of yours, Google makes one automatically from your images and text. Upload your own film, and the automatic ones stop.

• Part 2 of 5

  Your Short starts the sale. Search finishes it

  Someone watches your Short. Later, they search for you by name. If your search advert and your product cards are waiting, the Short gets its sale. Run video and search together.

• Part 3 of 5

  6 seconds, then 30, then the film

  Six seconds first: a bumper advert can't be skipped, so everyone sees it. Then thirty seconds for the people who watched. Then the full film for the ones who stayed.

• Part 4 of 5

  Check your product photos before 31 January 2027

  In Google Shopping, the product photograph is most of what people see. From 31 January 2027, Google's minimum size for product images rises to 500 × 500 pixels. Check every image in your catalogue now.

• Part 5 of 5

  Google Ads makes AI images for free. Choosing is the work

  Google Ads now generates images for you, free, from a sentence. Each one carries SynthID, an invisible watermark that marks it as made by AI. The tools are free. Knowing which picture will sell is the work.

Want these ideas applied to your own account?

Book a free 20-minute call and we will look at your Google Ads account, or at whether Google Ads suits your business if you have never advertised.

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Google Ads screens in the films are illustrations, and the figures are examples.