Google Ads Campaigns in 2025

Are your Google Ads working well for your business?

As a business owner, are you effectively managing your Google Ads campaigns, and getting optimal results from your campaigns. Have you noticed with the stronger push by Google to use their new Performance Max campaigns. Along with their increasing use of recommendations to switch to broad match keywords.

Performance Max is a significantly very different type of campaign compared to Search and Shopping campaigns. For many smaller sized budgets you may find that a Search campaign or a Standard Shopping campaign may deliver a higher ROI.

Google Ads Management in 2025

The Google Ads platform has undertaken many improvements over the last few months. Some of these changes work better for larger businesses. For smaller sized businesses and budgets, there are some smart ways to optimise your ad spend and campaign set up.

You may find a better ROI using Search and/or Standard Shopping Campaigns vs Performance Max.
Check that your bidding strategy is the best one for each of your campaigns. You have many options including Maximise Clicks, Maximise Conversions, adding a target CPA, adding a target ROAS. Google Recommendations often encourages a move up in a bidding strategy when it may not be the optimal one for your business, especially if your budget is on the smaller side, e.g. $10 – $15/day. Best way to do this is look at your Avg. CPC, and your tracked conversions, and look back over the current month, previous month, and previous 3-month period for these key metrics.
For Standard Shopping Campaigns: Set up separate campaigns for different product segments, each with their own campaign budgets.
For Standard Shopping campaigns, check that you are (1) price comparable to your competitors and (2) have good product Titles for each of your products you are selling on Google Shopping ads. Shopping campaigns have a much greater display focus on your items’s price, compared to Search campaigns.
Make sure you have set up ecommerce conversion tracking in GA4, and closely monitor your campaigns performance.

Do Regular Optimisation Tasks To Improve Your Results

By regularly doing some key optimisation tasks, this can significantly improve your campaigns performance. This includes looking at your selected keywords, the Search Terms report, and add in negative keywords that are taking unwanted budget and clicks.
Have you got your Locations set up correctly with the ‘Presence in’ option selected.
Look at your ad text, to aim for ad Click Through Rate (CTR) to be greater than 10%. Try different Headline text options and Call to Actions.
With your tracked conversions, make sure all good ‘conversion actions’ are being correctly tracked, especially if your are on a smart bidding option of Maximise Conversions, (with or without tCPA or tROAS).

Most importantly, be aware there have been a number of significant changes to the Google Ads platform over the last 12 months. It’s really important for smaller sized businesses that you set up and manage your campaigns optimally, to avoid budget ‘waste’.

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Note: Aztera Marketing in Wellington is an approved Google Partner. We are Google certified in Google Search Ads, Google Display Ads, and Google Shopping Ads. We specialise in supporting small and medium sized businesses.