Is Google Ads Still Worth It in 2025?

In 2025, Google Ads remains one of the most widely used digital advertising platforms, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. According to the latest data from WordStream, nearly half of SMBs plan to increase their search advertising spend this year. But despite that investment, many marketers are wondering: is it still worth it?

Cost-per-clicks (CPCs) have risen sharply. Google's automation tools are more complex than ever. AI Overviews are reshaping how users see and interact with search results. And increasingly, businesses are questioning whether they’re investing in a performance channel or simply feeding a machine with no clear return.

This blog explores the real story behind Google Ads in 2025: what’s working, what’s changed, and how to navigate this new era of advertising strategically.

Rising Costs and Shifting Ground

Google’s 2025 advertising benchmarks confirm what many advertisers are seeing firsthand: costs are climbing, and results are harder to sustain without a solid plan. While the platform is still powerful, it’s no longer forgiving.

Some of the factors driving up CPCs and reducing margins include:

• AI Overviews, which push ads further down the search results page and increase competition for fewer visible spots.
  
  
• More inventory fragmentation, with multiple ads from the same brand appearing in different formats across the same page.
  
  
• Automation-first campaign structures, like Performance Max, that require high-quality data to deliver results, and can spend aggressively even with poor returns.

As Ed Leake, founder of God Tier Ads, puts it:

“CPCs are shooting for the moon… margins are shrinking at every turn”.

This isn’t just anecdotal. Platforms like Statista report that global CPCs have risen over 20% year-on-year in competitive verticals². For smaller businesses, the margin for error is vanishing.

Automation in 2025: Easier or Just More Expensive?

Google Ads has promised a simplified future: campaigns powered by artificial intelligence, managed by automation, and optimised with minimal input. The reality is more complicated.

For experienced marketers, automation can unlock efficiency and scale. For newcomers or those without expert oversight, it can quickly become a trap.

Hidden Defaults and “Dark Patterns”

Many of Google’s default settings prioritise simplicity, but they often come at the expense of performance:

• Search Partners and Display Network are enabled by default in Search campaigns, even though display traffic typically underperforms unless managed separately.
  
  
• Daily budget recommendations almost always suggest increasing spend, with little regard for return. There is almost never a recommendation to decrease spend.
  
  
• Smart Campaigns and Smart Shopping are designed to be turnkey solutions, but strip away control, visibility, and performance levers that experienced advertisers rely on.

Industry experts, including Roger Cooney of PPC Hero, describe these as dark patterns, subtle design choices that lead advertisers toward decisions that benefit Google, not necessarily the business.

The Performance Max “Black Box”

Performance Max campaigns, Google’s flagship AI-driven format, are particularly polarising. While they offer broad reach across Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail and Maps, they also hide many traditional controls and limit visibility into where and how your budget is spent.

Search Engine Land calls it a “black box” for a reason. Advertisers often cannot see:

• Which placements are converting
• What search terms triggered the ads
• How much budget is going toward each asset group

Without strong conversion tracking and disciplined structure, Performance Max can spend heavily without delivering profitable results.

So, What’s Actually Working in 2025?

Despite the challenges, Google Ads is far from obsolete. The channel still delivers strong returns for businesses that approach it with strategy, data, and discipline.

1. Master the Fundamentals

Ed Leake summarises the winning formula:

“AI and automation aren’t replacing you, they’re replacing marketers without strategy”.

The fundamentals now matter more than ever. These include:

• First-party measurement using server-side tagging, enhanced conversions, and offline tracking to give Google cleaner data and reduce wasted spend.
  
  
• Strong offers, which often outperform granular keyword tweaks. When costs are high, a clear, compelling offer matters more than ever.
  
  
• Campaign consolidation, with fewer, better-fed campaigns that give Google's AI enough signal to optimise properly.

2. Rethink What You Optimise For

Top advertisers are shifting away from ROAS (return on ad spend) as the sole KPI. Why? Because it ignores fulfilment costs, customer lifetime value, and margin differences between products.

Instead, many are passing gross profit or adjusted margin data directly into Google Ads via conversion value adjustments. This allows bidding algorithms to prioritise conversions that actually grow the bottom line, not just sales volume.

3. Creatives Matter, Even in Search

AI Overviews have blurred the line between organic and paid results. In response, high-performing advertisers are using deeper, more engaging ad creatives, even in text-based ads.

That means:

• Image extensions
• Call-out extensions
• Structured snippets
• Review and price extensions

These enhancements not only improve click-through rate but make your ads look more authoritative in an increasingly crowded space.

Practical Shifts We’re Seeing in 2025

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The Verdict: Is Google Ads Still Worth It?

Yes, if you treat it as a disciplined, data-driven profit engine. Google Ads in 2025 is no longer a plug-and-play solution. It requires strong measurement, a clear strategy, and consistent testing.

Accounts that succeed today:

• Control their offer and creative.
• Track first-party conversions accurately.
• Give automation the right guardrails.
  Bid based on profit, not volume.

Accounts that struggle:

• Rely too heavily on Smart features without oversight.
• Oversegment and starve campaigns of data.
• Optimise for vanity metrics like ROAS instead of margin.

In short, Google Ads still works, but it no longer works by default.

Want Help Navigating Google Ads in 2025?

Whether you're new to Google Ads or want to refine your current approach, Verum helps businesses design and manage advertising strategies built for today's market. We combine data, creativity, and platform expertise to grow your brand sustainably, without wasting your budget.

Let’s talk strategy.