Google Ads Turns 25 – What’s Changed?
From a start-up in a garage in California to becoming the world’s largest online advertising company by revenue, Google has undergone a remarkable evolution in 25 years. Google Ads remains the largest source of revenue for Google’s parent company Alphabet, generating over $200bn annually.
What started as a tool for advertising within the “10 blue links” of Google Search has grown into an ecosystem of advertising products and services, including AI creative generation & advertising capability on YouTube, Maps, and Gmail. As Google has expanded & fundamentally changing how we access information, connect with others, and navigate the world, Google Ads has followed.
Google Ads has pushed forward the innovation across all search-based advertising, integrating increasing AI tools throughout their offering since 2012, leading the way for platforms like Microsoft to catch up with.
In recent years, AI has been key to Google Ads’ capability and expansion. Lessening keyword control, AI-powered ads, and automated bidding strategies are now the norm. ROAS & conversion volume have overtaken CPCs & clicks as KPIs as smart bidding has become more prevalent. Audience targeting and image assets are now an important focus of search strategy. The tight campaign controls advertisers had become used to have been decreased, with less visibility of search queries and placements, e.g., with the deprecation of “average position” as a metric in 2022.
Perhaps most notably, in 2025 Google introduced double-serving of ads. For the first time since inception, Google Ads now displays multiple ads from same advertiser on search results. This has created much confusion among advertisers, leading to significant growth in impression volume alongside decreasing CTR & engagement rates.
As Google’s priorities change, so follows Google Ads, and with further changes to Google’s functionality predicted in 2026, further embracing of AI & comfort with less control will be key for advertisers to succeed.
What Should Advertisers Know?
Google Ads remains a key channel for advertisers to reach users at a key moment within purchase decision making, with 90% of transactional search queries happening on Google in 2025. However, Google Ads has evolved from a tightly-controlled, granularity focused medium to an AI-powered advertising ecosystem, encompassing multiple channels and formats.
Becoming comfortable in a world of less control & new performance metrics is key to succeed. Advertisers must focus on audience-centric, AI-powered campaigns, feed AI with first-party data, and prioritize visual/video creative formats where possible in order to adapt to this new ecosystem. Moving from impressions to ad-opportunities and CPC to ROAS has been a fundamental shift in recent years and one we expect to continue into the next 25 years