Adela Mincea
The point
Google Ads captures demand. It doesn't create it. If nobody is searching for what you sell, no ad budget will change that.
A few years ago I worked with a company that had built a genuinely interesting product. Novel, well-executed, solving a real problem. Their founder was convinced that paid search would unlock growth.
We looked at the search volume data together. In their entire country, the search terms closest to describing their product were generating around 150 searches per month. Not per day. Per month.
There simply wasn't enough demand in search to build a paid search strategy on. The people who needed this product didn't yet know to look for it - they didn't have the vocabulary for it, and they weren't actively seeking a solution in that category.
No amount of Google Ads spend was going to change that. You can't place an ad in front of a search that doesn't happen.
This is a fundamental property of how paid search works - and misunderstanding it is one of the most expensive mistakes a business can make.
What paid search actually is
Think about how your behaviour differs in two shopping situations.
You need a specific drill bit. You go to a hardware store, walk to the correct aisle, pick up the right size. You knew what you were looking for before you walked in. The store's job was simply to have it and make it findable.
You're spending a Saturday afternoon in a shopping mall. You didn't come for anything specific. Something in a window catches your attention. You go in. You might buy, you might not.
Google Search is the hardware store.
Meta and Instagram are the shopping mall.
Paid search captures people who are already looking for what you sell. The intent exists before the ad. Your ad shows up at the moment someone has decided they want a thing and is figuring out where to get it. Your job is to show up clearly and not waste that moment with a confusing page or irrelevant offer.
Paid social creates the moment of attention for people who weren't looking. You're interrupting - which means the creative, the offer, and the hook have to do the work of creating a need or surfacing a desire the person didn't consciously have before the ad appeared.
Both work. They work differently. Using them interchangeably - or using paid search to do the job of paid social - is where budgets get wasted.
When Google Ads works, and when it doesn't
The distinction comes down to whether demand already exists in search.
| When paid search works well | When paid search struggles |
|---|---|
| Clear, searchable product or service | New category without established search vocabulary |
| High intent search volume (1,000+ searches/month in your market) | Very low monthly search volume locally |
| Competitive market where buyers know they want the solution and are comparing options | Product requires education before someone understands they need it |
| Landing page that matches what the searcher expected to find | Generic page that doesn't reflect the specific search intent |
| Established buyer journey where search is a natural step | Impulse or discovery purchase that requires interruption, not search |
When the conditions in the left column are present, paid search is one of the highest-ROI channels available. When you're operating under the conditions in the right column, you're spending to educate people who aren't ready - and the economics rarely work.
The mistake most businesses make with channel allocation
The confusion usually comes from treating paid media as a single channel with a single purpose.
"We need more traffic, so we'll run Google Ads."
But the traffic you need from Google Ads - high-intent visitors who are actively looking for your solution - is different from the reach you need from Meta - cold audiences who need to be introduced to the problem you solve.
In practice, many businesses end up doing the opposite of what works:
- Running Google Ads for awareness and brand education (wrong - Search isn't where you build awareness, it's where you capture intent that already exists)
- Running Meta retargeting to warm audiences who would likely have converted anyway (partially right, but misses the main opportunity)
The result: Google budget going to informational searches that never convert, Meta budget going to audiences that convert regardless of the ad.
Swap the logic and the economics change completely: Google to capture the people already searching, Meta to reach people who don't yet know they need you.
If your Google budget is going to searches that never convert, a Google Ads Audit identifies where intent is real and where spend is wasted.
Run the numbers →How to check if your search spend is capturing real intent
Pull your search term report. Don't look at the keywords you're bidding on - look at the actual terms people typed before clicking your ad.
The question to ask for each one: is this the search of someone who has already decided they want this type of product and is comparing options? Or is this someone still figuring out what they need?
The intent signal is usually clear in the phrasing:
High purchase intent terms:
- "[product] buy online"
- "[product] price"
- "[product] near me" / "[service] [city]"
- Competitor brand + product terms
- Specific model or specification searches
Low purchase intent terms:
- "what is [product]"
- "how does [product] work"
- "is [product] worth it"
- "alternatives to [product]"
- "[problem] solutions" (without specifying the solution type)
High intent terms should get maximum budget allocation. These are the people who are ready.
Low intent terms should either be excluded or significantly reduced in bid. You're paying to educate people who are likely to click, read, and leave without converting - because they haven't made the decision to buy yet, and a landing page is not where that decision gets made.
The question to answer before increasing budget
Before scaling your Google Ads spend, this question needs an answer:
Is the demand already there in search, and is my current spend capturing it efficiently?
If the demand exists and the account is capturing it well - scale. More budget goes to a proven mechanism.
If the demand exists but the account is poorly structured - fix the account first. More budget into a leaky system doesn't help.
If the demand doesn't exist in sufficient volume - the answer isn't more Google Ads budget. It's a different channel or a longer-term approach to building category awareness.
Each scenario calls for a different decision. All three require looking at the data before spending more.
Get in touch
A Google Ads audit includes a full search intent analysis - mapping what you're paying for against where purchase intent is actually concentrated.
Book at adelamincea.com/google-ads-audit or email hello@adelamincea.com if you want to talk through your current channel mix first.
In short
- Paid search captures demand. It doesn't create it.
- If nobody is searching for what you sell, no ad budget will fix that.
- Google Ads = the hardware store (people know what they want). Meta = the shopping mall (discovery).
- Using paid search for awareness is one of the most common ways budgets get wasted.
- Before scaling, check: is the demand there, and is my account actually capturing it?
Adela Mincea is a marketing economist, paid media strategist, and certified trainer. She helps growing businesses make marketing profitable before scaling it by validating margins, acquisition economics, and pricing power before deploying paid media and AI-enabled systems.
Adela Mincea
Marketing Economist
The Marketing Economist
One concept from economics. One marketing decision it changes.
One issue per month. Each one takes an economic concept and applies it to a real marketing decision, the kind that affects budget, margin, or growth.
