Google Ads works for Google first. Here's where you fit in.

There's a pecking order at Google, and it's worth knowing where you sit in it.

First come the shareholders. Google is a business, and its job is to make money for the people who own it.

Second come the people searching. That's how Google got so successful: it gave people what they were looking for, so they kept coming back. If search stopped being useful, the whole thing would fall apart.

Advertisers come third. That's you.

That's not a complaint

Google Ads can be brilliant. When someone types "boiler repair Taunton" and you fix boilers in Taunton, there's no better place to be. I've used it to win clients for my own businesses for over 20 years.

But it helps to be clear about whose interests come first. Because when Google's interests and yours line up, everything works. When they don't, you need someone looking out for you.

Where they don't line up

• Spending more. Google makes more money when you spend more. Recommendations to raise your budget, broaden your keywords or switch on more automation all tend to point the same way.
• More automation, less visibility. Each new automated campaign type asks you to hand over more control and more data, and often shows you less about where your money went.
• Your data. Every conversion you feed in teaches Google's systems. That can help your account. It also helps Google.
• Defaults. New campaigns often come with settings switched on that spend money in places you didn't choose.

None of this is a conspiracy. It's just a business doing what businesses do.

What it means for you

It means treating Google's advice as advice from a supplier, not from a partner. Useful sometimes. Never neutral.

It means checking settings, reading search terms, and judging the account on customers, not on whatever Google's dashboard says. And it means not handing over more money and data than you need to, just because a button says "apply all".

That's a big part of what I do. I'm on your side of the table, not Google's.