Google Ads vs. Google AdSense

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Ads
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Google Ads (formerly AdWords) is Google's pay-per-click online advertising program. With Google Ads users set their budget and choose where their ads appear in search listings, and on partner websites. Google Ads uses cost-per-click (CPC) bidding.
$500
in Ads credit in the first 60 days
AdSense
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Google AdSense provides a way for publishers to earn money from their online content. AdSense works by matching ads to your site based on your content and visitors. The ads are created and paid for by advertisers who want to promote their products. Since these advertisers pay different prices for different ads, the amount you earn will vary. AdSense displays relevant ads to your site visitors next to your content and allows you to customize the look and feel of ads to match your site.N/A
Pricing
Google AdsGoogle AdSense
Editions & Modules
Offer A
$500
in Ads credit in the first 60 days
Offer B
$1500
in Ads credit in the first 60 days
Offer C
$3000
in Ads credit in the first 60 days
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google AdsAdSense
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google AdsGoogle AdSense
Considered Both Products
Google Ads
Chose Google Ads
It is part of the Google suite of tools for content management for advertising and ads in the Google search engine.
AdSense
Chose Google AdSense
I have worked with some companies that provide Adsense and AdWords placement but found neither to be nearly as effective as doing it myself.
Chose Google AdSense
Actually, I can't say stacks up! every product has its unique function and services for any business owner may need. But, I can say that if Google Adsense merged with Google Analytics, It would be much useful and easy to use. However, I used them all and I think no successful …
Features
Google AdsGoogle AdSense
Ad Campaigns
Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of Product A and Product B
Google Ads
7.2
11 Ratings
11% above category average
Google AdSense
-
Ratings
Ad campaign creation7.911 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad deployment7.510 Ratings00 Ratings
Display advertising7.410 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad display and retargeting segmentation7.511 Ratings00 Ratings
Sequence targeting6.810 Ratings00 Ratings
Contextual advertising7.110 Ratings00 Ratings
Social advertising6.25 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Ad Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Google Ads
7.3
11 Ratings
6% above category average
Google AdSense
-
Ratings
Ad dashboards7.411 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad performance reports7.911 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad conversion tracking7.311 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad attribution reporting7.211 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad forecasting and optimization6.811 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad Auctions
Comparison of Ad Auctions features of Product A and Product B
Google Ads
7.9
10 Ratings
6% below category average
Google AdSense
-
Ratings
Ad bidding7.910 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Google AdsGoogle AdSense
Small Businesses
WordStream
WordStream
Score 6.9 out of 10
Amazon Advertising Sponsored Products
Amazon Advertising Sponsored Products
Score 5.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
WordStream
WordStream
Score 6.9 out of 10
Amazon Advertising Sponsored Products
Amazon Advertising Sponsored Products
Score 5.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Score 7.8 out of 10
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Score 8.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google AdsGoogle AdSense
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(126 ratings)
8.9
(7 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.6
(21 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.7
(17 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(8 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
1.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google AdsGoogle AdSense
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
Google Ads is a useful advertising tool to build brand exposure and generate lead volumes for your chosen product. Whilst it can be costly at times due to competitor bidding strategies and requires constant monitoring to ensure campaigns perform as expected, it typically provides the desired quality and quantity of leads for custom budgets.
Read full review
Google
I think any company selling a product or service can benefit from Google AdSense advertising as long as they come with a strategy of who to target with their Ad campaigns. If you just blanket anything and everything with your Google Ads it won't be as effective, and you will be wasting your spend
Read full review
Pros
Google
  • Automated targeting via Smart Shopping campaign. It's one of the best campaign types in Google Ads. In the beginning, you may see lower revenue and ROAS, but once you give some meaningful time to your campaign, it is most likely to perform well.
  • Smart bidding strategies: Google Ads has developed some really great bidding strategies such as maximizing conversion and maximizing conversion with ROAS settings. Based on one's requirement and their goal with revenue and target ROAS, they can choose the appropriate bidding strategy.
  • Reporting: A business owner and advertising must know about their audiences, how their campaigns have been performing, what's working and what's not, and for that reason, powerful, effective reporting is needed, and Google Ads provides rich details reporting that covers almost every aspect of a business.
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Google
  • Excellent Ads type and useful content
  • Excellent follow up and analytics
  • Secure your particular ads by following the plagiarism bloggers who steal your content. It happens to me and Google AdSense aware about these thief's by tracking my Google Adsense particular ad code
  • Excellent revenue for the bloggers who are honest about their content
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Cons
Google
  • If you don't know what you're doing, it will be a costly mistake. You need to target ads, and it is difficult the first time to do that.
  • There isn't a feature to run an add for a couple set date spans, just hours you want to run them or a single date span.
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Google
  • Google AdSense should monetize mobile applications
  • Google AdSense should monetize Mac native applications and games
  • Google AdSense should pay out more for a click for tier 1 countries traffic
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Likelihood to Renew
Google
I think Google Ads is good for getting your company out there and becoming more visible to potential customers in general. However, for specific product launches, social media advertising might be a better fit. Also, our user base is younger so social media is a better channel for our target audience.
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Google
No answers on this topic
Usability
Google
This is more of a subjective rating, because I think it can be increased with how much our ad spend is. The more of an ad spend, the more visibility we can get, and therefore all features can climb. With an overall larger presence the usability is that where we can get messages out quick, and that's the main thing we try to do with our campaigns.
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Google
I feel that Google AdSense has a plethora of features and detailed options for you to utilize when building campaigns. I do think there is room to make it more user friendly for beginning users. I had to request help from my Marketing team to build campaigns. Ultimately, that improvement would push my scoring to a 10.
Read full review
Support Rating
Google
We have not yet had an account rep who hasn't tried to bully me or other employees to raise our budgets. At the same time, several years ago, one attempted to help refine our ads and ended up changing the ads to be something we were not affiliated with
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Google
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Google
Daily use with advanced account structures. Familiarity with reporting/api and complex setups.
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Google
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Google
Our agency invests heavily in Google Ads (particularly paid search advertising) on behalf of our clients relative to competitors like Microsoft and Yahoo because Google is the top search engine in the world. Google collects the most search data which enables the company to improve its AI to drive better performance for agencies and brands. As such, our paid search and app install campaigns always start with Google. If a client has a large budget, we will allocate media dollars to other search engines, but in some cases, the entire search budget goes to Google because we see the best returns.
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Google
In addition to Taboola, we also looked at Amazon Associates. I believe the latter could have a place as a source of revenue for many small websites. As stated earlier, Adsense is simply the largest and easiest to use service out there for small to medium-sized websites. It offers the best tools and easiest path to monitization.
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Return on Investment
Google
  • Google Ads is often one of our highest ROI channels, especially when you factor in branded ads.
  • Depending on the stage your business is in, search ads can be really powerful from an ROI perspective, providing an investment with a very high spend cap.
  • If you do not manage the campaigns well though, you can quickly spend a lot of money on nothing. So make sure someone is keeping an eye on your account.
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Google
  • Helps us strategize better around potential ad revenue models
  • Helps us evaluate the impact of ads on the user experience on the front end
  • The optimization recommendations have generated an improvement revenue-wise
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ScreenShots