Your bad ad is costing me money.

I want to share something about Google Ads that is not immediately obvious to most advertisers. Even though Google Ads is technically pay-per-click, you are absolutely paying for impressions.

I know what some of you are thinking. Avi, Google Ads is pay-per-click, not pay-per-impression. And yes, on paper, that is true.

But here is the part that actually matters.

Google does not make money if no one clicks on your ad. So Google is not going to treat all impressions equally.

Do you really think Google will let my ad with a one percent click-through rate pay the same cost per click as a competitor running a ten percent click-through rate?

Of course not.

Click-through rate directly affects Quality Score. Quality Score directly affects how much you pay per click. Which means weak ads with low engagement drive your costs up across the board.

So when your marketing person tries to explain away a bad campaign by saying, at least those impressions did not cost us any ad spend, stop them right there.

Those impressions absolutely cost you money. They lower your Quality Score, inflate your cost per click, and make every future click more expensive.

In Google Ads, bad ads are not neutral. They are a tax on your entire account.