This week on the S.O.B. (Small Owned Business) Marketing podcast, Vivian and I are discussing how Google Ads are not only still relevant, but how it has recently changed thanks to AI and a change in the consumer mindset.
Even if you’re not ready to spend money on Google Ads, we want you SOBs to play around with the platform and maybe even build an ad campaign. Experimenting can help you prepare for future campaigns for your small business!
This week’s Marketing HOT TAKE: Sometimes all you need is an ad! Creativity is important in marketing, but don’t forget about a simple, tried-and-true ad.
Disagree with me? Let me know in the comments!
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Chapters:
00:00 Welcome to our 150th Episode!
03:42 Google Ads for Small Businesses
09:21 Targeting and Placement: Where Google Ads Appear
15:07 The Shift from Keywords in Google Ads
22:38 Bidding Strategies: Smart Bidding and Automation
25:40 Ad Creation and Optimization with AI
29:17 Tracking and Measuring Success in Google Ads
30:29 TLDL; New and Improved Google Ads in 2026
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𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓:
Are Google Ads Still Worth It In 2025? https://youtu.be/9vi6yxFEGoM
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Chelsea: Vivian, can you also talk about where Google ads can show up, because I think this is a great misconception. When we think about Google ads we think about search automatically, but that's not it right?
Vivian: I love that you used the word great and misconceptions are bad. So did you mean great in size? This is a great BIG misconception.
Chelsea: Yes, I did.
*Intro*
Chelsea: Hey everyone and welcome to the S.O.B. Marketing podcast. Where we celebrate to S.O.B. you are, and if you haven't figured it out yet - we mean Small Owned Business, we don't mean S.O.B...
Vivian: Listen, we know that as a small business owner you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.
Chelsea: Our commitment here at the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, and promoting your business. And then what doesn't really work.
Vivian: And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.
*Beginning of Episode*
Chelsea: Vivian.
Vivian: Yes.
Chelsea: You're never going to believe this. This is our official 150th episode. Oh, yay! Did you know that?
Vivian: I did not.
Chelsea: I knew it.
Vivian: This is awesome. Pat on the back to us for keeping it going. 150 episodes in, and pat on the back to you listener for showing up week after week to listen to the marketing conversations we have.
Chelsea: Absolutely, and if you're new here, go listen to the other 149 episodes. Be kind to those first beginnings. Beginning episodes.
Vivian: Yeah. Use it as an inspiration. You guys can easily start your own podcast if you want to, or start any marketing initiative. The first ones are always a little clunky and then you the hang of it and yay for improvement.
Chelsea: Absolutely, because it's so much better now, right? OK, guys, welcome back to the SOB Marketing Podcast. SOB as in small owned business. We would never call you guys names. Before we get started with our wonderful topic today. Just a couple of friendly reminders. We would love it if you started following us, if you're not already following, or you can like this episode, if you're on YouTube. Do all the things. You know what everyone asks for. Do all the things. If you want to financially support this podcast, you could buy us a coffee. We promise we're not actually going to caffeinate me. It's just a metaphor, right, Vivian?
Vivian: That's right. So you can donate $5, $10 as much as you want. It helps to keep this conversation going. As you guys know, we're out there to help you SOBs. We want to help the small business community, and this podcast is just one of the very many ways we get to do that.
Chelsea: Absolutely. So consider buying us a coffee, and Vivian, what are we talking about today? Oh, I almost forgot the TLDL.
Friendly reminder, we do something a little different around here. We have a TLDL section, too long didn't listen. So if you're strapped for time, I totally get that. I have a chapter, too long didn't listen, where you can skip ahead and I'll give you a brief summary of what we talked about today. When you get the chance, go back and listen to this entire conversation about, Vivian?
Vivian: Google Ads. Yeah, so Chelsea, I know you have a hot take about everything. What's your hot take about this topic?
Chelsea: Okay, my marketing hot take for this week, for this week is, as marketers, we love to be creative. As small business owners, you guys love to think outside the box and I love that for us. Don't stop doing that. But sometimes good old-fashioned marketing is all you need. Sometimes you just need an ad.
Vivian: Yes.
Chelsea: Okay? Ads still work. Sometimes you just need an ad.
Vivian: Yeah. I'm glad you brought this up. It is true. So much of the conversation, I think because we are focused on small business, is around cost-efficient marketing opportunities, grassroots efforts and organic reach. So we love a good like, hey, if I don't gotta pay for it, let me hop on social media. Let me spread the word about this new product or service I have. If I don't have to pay for it, wonderful. However, we are taught in marketing school that part of an investment in a small business, is to actually budget for marketing and advertising. There's a reason for that because it does help to grow and expand your business.
Chelsea: Vivian, it's that old saying everyone knows, you gotta-
Vivian: It takes money to make money. Right? Is that it?
Chelsea: Yes, that's what I was going to say. I just wasn't expecting the song and dance. I love it. Okay.
Vivian: Not so much the dance, but you know.
Chelsea: I love the dance. I'm going to dance to it every time now. Takes money to make money. Okay. But I mean, there's a reason that's a saying, okay, because it's true. Yeah. Sometimes you gotta spend money.
Vivian: This is a great segue into bringing up the topic of Google ads specifically because we still want to be very smart about the way in which we spend our money.
Chelsea: Yeah, don't just spend money willy-nilly. You don't make money when you're spending money inefficiently or not effectively.
Vivian: Right, wasting money. Yes. Being wasteful. Yes. But-
Chelsea: I wanted to say dumb, but I didn't want to use the word dumb.
Vivian: Don't be offensive. So one of the things though is, Google Ads serves as a really wonderful opportunity for small business owners, regardless of where you are with your marketing budget.
Chelsea: Absolutely.
Vivian: If you have $150 to spend, if you have $2 to spend, Google Ads can be the place that you go to to start experimenting, see what works for you and how to drum up some business from these online search engines.
Chelsea: Yeah, and we recently, Vivian, had a conversation, you know, are Google ads still relevant here in 2025 going into 2026? Newsflash, kind of a, what's the word I'm looking for? Like a, not a surprise. Like I'm giving away the ending.
Vivian: Spoiler alert.
Chelsea: Yes. Spoiler alert. Our answer...
Vivian: I'm just a thesaurus.
Chelsea: I mean, honestly, that's what marketers are. We just spend all day looking up synonym for this word. That's a majority of our jobs. Spoiler alert. The response to that question in that episode is yes, Google ads are still relevant and they're still very effective no matter where you are in the business cycle. Whether you're a new small business, whether you are 10 years, 15 years into your business, it is still an effective use of your money. Today we are specifically, yes, talking about Google ads, but we're talking about how it has evolved with the changing marketing climate because, marketing is different than it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago when I graduated college which was… *long pause*
No, it wasn't that long ago. I'm sorry. I'm kidding. What are we in? 2026? So that was 7 years ago.
Vivian: There you go.
Chelsea: I graduated 7 years ago.
Vivian: She's inching her way towards the 10-year mark. I know she's very happy about that.
Chelsea: Well, this year is 10 years for high school.
Vivian: All right. I'm not even going to tell you what mine is. Let's give them very specific examples. Who, as a small business, who would be a great person to use Google Ads? I'll kick it off. Let's say that you're a new restaurant that just opened up a physical location. Google Ads would work for you.
Chelsea: Vivian, great example. Think about maybe if you're a real estate agent, maybe you're selling like e-commerce, an e-book, or a course online. Google Ads are great for that. Vivian, can you also talk about where Google Ads can show up? Because I think this is a great misconception. When we think about Google Ads, we think about search automatically. But that's not it, right?
Vivian: I love that you use the word great and misconception because usually misconceptions are bad. So did you great in size? Like this is a great big misconception.
Chelsea: Yes, I did.
Vivian: I love it.
Chelsea: Okay, let me see. This is when a synonym would have been appropriate. A large misconception, a common misconception.
Vivian: I like it.
Chelsea: What's a synonym for great?
Vivian: Whopping misconception.
Chelsea: Okay, Vivian, this is a whopping misconception. Where can you show up with Google Ads?
Vivian: Yeah, I think this is the thing that maybe we often gloss over. We know that if I run a Google ad, I have the opportunity to show up or the purpose is to show up in Google search results. However, because Google also owns YouTube you can actually show up in YouTube videos. So perfect example, the real estate agent that you were just talking about. If I wanted to target people that were thinking about moving to Houston, why would I not potentially go in and run ads specifically on videos that are Houston based, Like relocating to Houston, things you need to know. Those are the type of videos I want my ad as a realtor to show up on.
Chelsea: I love that.
Vivian: Yeah. Google search results, you can show up there, you can show up on YouTube, you can show up on Gmail, you can show up on various mobile apps and also on websites.
Chelsea: I love that. You know, we don't think about that, but we all play, well, I say we all, that's a general, a generalization. But we play those mobile games, right? And we get those ads. Yeah. Where do you think they came from?
I do have one other thing Vivian before we move on that I want to say. Some things are changing when it comes to Google's AI search and Google ads. And this is something that we're talking a lot about in our SOB community. Or I know if we haven't talked about it yet, I have it in my notes that I want to bring it up in our future community calls. So if you want to hear about what's going on and what's changing when it comes to ChatGPT and ads, Google AI and how ads work in the new AI search. Make sure you join our SOB community.
Vivian: Absolutely, and you guys can get more information on that if you go to www.skool.com/sob, all lowercase. $50 a month. You guys can hop on there and have weekly calls with us where we talk all things marketing, including your marketing.
So I love that you bring this up because one of the things, and I know we covered this in the episode we've already done about Google ads, highly recommend that you guys go listen to that where we talk about just if they're still relevant and we give you the case for why they are. The thing that messes or trips people up right now in 2026 I think is because we all think, great, why am going to run an ad for something that people aren't going to click on because AI is like taking everything over, right? Because it's changing the way that we interact with that Google search engine. Yes, this is true, but I'm just going to make one point here. Do y'all think that with as much money as Google makes off of ads, they are not going to figure a workaround for this. They are not in the business of losing money. What they are in the business of doing is connecting potential advertisers or advertisers with an audience, right? With their target consumer and customer. They have figured all of this out. They have opened up opportunities for businesses to show up in that AI overview. Also, don't forget, one of the other things is we have changed the way that we utilize it. For example, I'm looking for a little black dress. Naturally, now I'm going to click over to that shopping tab where it shows me all the dresses, the prices, where I can find them. They have gotten so great about putting those items there. Where else do you think they're putting advertisers? In that shopping tab.
Chelsea: Yeah.
Vivian: All right. So these are opportunities that are available to you as a small business owner, regardless of how much money you have to spend. We want you guys this year to make a commitment to yourself. We want you to say, at some point in 2026, I am going to try Google Ads.
Chelsea: Yes. Just give it a shot.
Vivian: Give it a shot. See what's in there. Even let's say you don't actually hit schedule on the campaign to run. We want you to go in there and build out an ad so that you can see the different things that are available to you. Then when you do have the money to spend, you know that's an option.
Chelsea: Yes, because let me tell you, Google ads has changed a lot, especially since the last time I personally have created a Google ad. It's changed even the way that we think about and the way that we build Google Ads. For example, Vivian, one of the big things is keywords.
Vivian: Yes.
Chelsea: Okay. All we do, y'all, is talk about keywords when it comes to Google Ads, right? Well, here's the thing. Keywords, I'm not going to say they're not relevant anymore because they're still important, but they're not the key focus anymore.
Vivian: Right.
Chelsea: The way that Google Ads work is different. So there's less of a focus on keywords and more of a focus on signals. So it's targeting that relies heavily on audience behavior, on their demographics, on the interactions with the keywords being used as one of the many signals. Yes. Yes.
Vivian: So what she's talking about, the easiest way to look at this is think about the way you use Google in today's day and age. First place you may go to is Google. Let's say you're relocating to a city.
Chelsea: To Houston.
Vivian: To Houston. Yes. All right.
Chelsea: To Wichita.
Vivian: To Wichita Falls.
Chelsea: Wichita Falls. That's where I was born.
Vivian: Yes, Chelsea's a Texan, y'all. I'm a California girl. Chelsea's a cowgirl. Yep. So let's say you're moving to Wichita Falls, Texas. You would start with a Google search, right? You would look to see maybe what are the different neighborhoods in Wichita Falls, Texas. What are the employment opportunities in Wichita Falls, Texas? How big is Wichita Falls, Texas? Things to do in the area. These are all places that you start to kind of, you go, start to create a picture of what you're needing. If you're a realtor, that may be a very good spot to start, right? Maybe you think the best place for you to show up in an ad is if somebody goes and types in Wichita Falls, Texas Visitor Center. Maybe that's the first step, right? Or maybe you decide that it's a Wichita Falls things to do, whatever that is. Search phrases, those terms are still relevant, but there are so many more opportunities. As I mentioned earlier, I could also then go to YouTube and start to run ads for videos that are very specific to providing information for people wanting to relocate.
It does broaden the field a bit, but the search terms may be the first place to start.
Chelsea: Absolutely. Also, interesting conversation I was reading. Vivian, do you remember the conversation we had about broad keywords versus long tail keywords?
Vivian: Sure.
Chelsea: Okay. So everyone, a broad keyword is something kind of vague. So black dress. A long tail keyword is going to be black mini velvet dress. Well now, because of AI search, we are supposedly, and I, there's not enough research on this yet. I don't know how I feel about this yet, but this is an opinion piece that I just want to bring up. So it's in the back of everyone's minds, but people are moving back to broad keywords because of the way that we talk to AI. Because we're asking questions Okay, and because we're being kind of vague when we're asking them. So we say hey ChatGPT I'm looking for a black dress. I kind of want it to be short. Maybe I want it to be velvet, but see because I'm not specifically saying black velvet mini dress, it's not going to work if I use that specific long tail key word. But if I use the broad term, it should come up. I don't know how I feel about it.
Vivian: I'm very conflicted about that because I will tell you this. This is all just kind of going back to thinking that it's 1996 and apparently we're keyword stuffing and that's the only way that the platform has to crawl for information. That's not the case anymore. So what I, yeah.
Chelsea: I love that point. Yes. Absolutely.
Vivian: The reason I say that is this, you're selling black dresses using the example you just gave. It is going to not just search for the description that you put on the product, the black velvet dress. It's also going to look for the data fields that you have uploaded, the sizes of the dress, the material the dress uses. These are all points of contact that the search engine, the platform has to ping the product. I feel like that's not giving, think of it this way. Yes, AI has come a very long way in this, you guys. They are doing the same thing for the search results, for finding the product or the thing that the person's looking at. The same way, a very small example of this, that on YouTube, you upload a YouTube video, it actually has voice recognition now that it knows specifically what you're saying in the first couple of sentences. So that way it can easily match, this is a topic that they're looking for.
I think that's where we're not giving the AI in the search engine enough, I think kudos or respect to what it's actually doing in 2026 versus what it was doing in 2016.
Chelsea: Sure. I love that point. But I think the key here is keywords, signals. Google Ads keeps, I don't want to say they're tracking us, but I mean...
Vivian: I mean, they are.
Chelsea: Yeah, they're keeping track of what everyone is doing, and that's going to help to better match people to your ad.
Vivian: Absolutely.
*S.O.B. Community Ad*
Vivian: This episode of the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is brought to you by the S.O.B. Community. If you are a small business owner that is neglecting your marketing and you feel like you've wasted time and money on marketing help that didn't deliver. Or if you're just craving support from people who actually get what it's like to run and promote a small business, then our membership community is for you. Visit skool.com/sob to sign up today to get instant access and weekly support. That's S-K-O-O-L dot com slash sob.
*End of S.O.B. Community Ad*
Chelsea: Okay, Vivian, the next thing I want to talk about is bidding because it is a little different now and that's how pricing works with Google Ads. It's how much something's going to cost. So if you don't know, the way Google Ads works is you bid on a keyword or a phrase and if you win that bid, that's how you're going to show up. ow you set a budget and you can say this is how much I'm willing to bid on keywords or you say this is how much I'm willing to spend a day and then Google would decide what's the best way to bid throughout the day, right? Okay. Well now with all the new AI features that are on Google Ads, there is now smart bidding. So smart bidding uses AI to optimize bidding for conversions for each quote unquote auction, which is also known as auction time bidding.
There's two different business goals when it comes to smart bidding, two different smart bidding strategies. There is increased sales or leads and there is increased profit. So based on your business goal changes the way Google ads bids on all of your keywords, and all of this is automated. It's all AI. You don't have to do anything.
So for example, increase sales or leads. What the campaign goal is, it's to get as many conversions as possible at a fixed budget or fixed ROI. To increase profit, instead your campaign goal is to get as many conversions as possible at a fixed budget or fixed return on ad spend. So really at the end of the day, the point is all of this is automated. You just tell Google, this is what my goal is. I want to either increase profits or I want to increase sales or leads.
Vivian: Really, I think it's also good to note though that you still have the option to manually do that. Yes. You don't have to the smart bidding if you're not comfortable, and if you're like, you know what? I tried it and I kind of would rather just set my own price or set my own cap. You can still do that stuff. But it's nice that like we said, they know the platform best and so they're going in there and they're offering help or assistance in terms of you tell it what your ultimate goal is and it will do what it needs to on the back end to bid on your behalf to be able to meet those goals. So I think those are really great things to bring up.
The other thing that they use AI for now and one of the big changes that I have seen is in the ad creation process. Okay. So it has become, whereas before, I'll tell you, it used to take me a little more time to actually create Google ads because it's always been best practice to have a variety of headlines and a variety of descriptions. The thing is sometimes that that would take me a little more time to put together.
Chelsea: Well, I mean, it should take you a little more time.
Vivian: Yeah. Now what you do is you go in there and you actually will type, give it a little information, tell it what your project or service is, put in there your website so that way it could crawl your website, get all the information, and it will generate like eight different headlines, eight different descriptions. Now, you could go in there, and I highly, highly, highly recommend that you go in there and tweak them because it is AI, and so it doesn't get everything correct. Some of them are a little clunky, some of them kind of don't make sense. So I do go in and I review every single one of them, change, maybe move some of the words around if you need to make it make sense. But it does help with the creation and just kind of cutting down the amount of time that you're having to spend doing that bulk work.
Chelsea: Yeah, Vivian, and since we're talking about building ads, let's also talk about your assets as well. So your assets are going to be, you know, the actual individual things that build out-
Vivian: The components.
Chelsea: Yeah, the components to your ad.
Vivian: Yes. So this includes anything from like the call outs to the structured snippets. Remember, snippets are going to be those things that appear at the top when people are asking questions. The small two to three sentences that kind of appear there. So when you're building out the ad, there's a whole section that shows you the assets that go with that. Think of it, this is going to be your graphics, your creative stuff. You want to review all of that to be sure that it is going to do what you're wanting it to do. It's going to be attracting that customer. You're speaking their language. You're making something that's enticing enough for them to want to go in there and click on the actual ad and then move over to checking out your website or purchasing from you.
Chelsea: Vivian, you know, Google Ads now also has an Ads Advisor.
Vivian: My very own advisor.
Chelsea: Yes, your very own advisor. It'll scan your ads and tell you any top issues that it spots and tell you how to fix it. Honestly, this makes sense. Google wants your ads to do well, obviously, because then you'll keep making Google Ads and they get more money. They want you to do well. So they created an ads advisor to help you tweak your ads so that they can be more effective.
Vivian: What I love about this too is that it's so easy to spot. Like it usually will show up on the right hand side. So your ad will be running and it's fine when you look at the campaign, how well it's doing, you're going in there to check in and at the top or on the side, it'll tell you, hey, some recommendations we have. So like you said, makes it super easy and it benefits you because hopefully the recommendation they give you is actually going to stretch your budget or get more people to actually click on your ad. The final thing I will add to this discussion is, remember that a campaign is only going to be as good as the tracking that you attach to it, okay?
So you want to be sure that you are actually setting up the tracking mechanisms on these campaigns really well and that they're functioning and working because it's not going to do you any good if you spend $250 and you get data back that says like, hey, we weren't able to track any of your stuff because you didn't set it up correctly. You're going to be like, did it work? Did it not work? Where did I get these leads from?
Chelsea: No, absolutely.
Vivian: Yeah. So be sure that you're paying specific and close attention to the tracking mechanism you have, whether that be on the specific website, on the landing page, on a pixel or whatever that is.
Chelsea: Most important thing, y'all. You knew we were going to bring it up, obviously tracking. Yes. Our favorite thing, data. Vivian. Are we ready for the TLDL?
Vivian: We are, give it to us.
Chelsea: Okay, perfect. So TLDL, too long didn't listen. If you skipped ahead, I'm going to give you a brief summary of what we talked about today, which is Google Ads and how they've changed a little bit. But you know what? When you get the chance, go back and listen to this entire conversation. It'll make more sense if you do.
We talked about Google Ads. They are still relevant, but they are changing and evolving, especially in this new day and age with AI. Make sure you are remembering that it's not just search, but that they can show up on websites and YouTube and Gmail and mobile apps, all of that good stuff. It's changing in the ways that we are bidding, in the ways we think about keywords versus signaling.
Google Ads has really embraced AI when it comes to ad creation. Make sure you guys are going in there and playing around with Google Ads. Even if you're not going to pay for a Google Ad right now, just play with it a little bit so whenever you get the chance to buy a Google Ad, you know what you're doing, okay? So I think Vivian, does that wrap it up? Oh wait! Make sure you are tracking everything.
Vivian: There you go.
Chelsea: Track, track, track everything. Okay. Vivian, that was our conversation today. I want to say everybody, we really want to hear from you. So maybe leave us a voice note and we would really love if you guys wore our merch everywhere. Go to, I put it in the link or in the bio in the little podcast description, episode description, go check it out. Okay. What am I forgetting, Vivian?
Vivian: I think that's it.
Chelsea: Okay, you know what? Go be the best SOB you can be.