PPC Campaign Types: Which Is Right for Your Business?

What even is a PPC campaign

We know all these marketing buzz words can get a little overwhelming but, the basics of PPC advertising are actually quite simple. PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click. It is a digital advertising model where advertisers pay a fee every time someone clicks on their ad.

Rather than gaining website traffic organically (via a search engine), PPC campaigns (and most popularly Google Ads) allow businesses to drive visitors to their site by paying for each click on their advertisements. 

Want to drive a little deeper? Check out our Guide to PPC.

How many types of PPC campaigns are there?

There are eight main types of PPC campaigns provided by Google, designed to reach audiences across search, display networks, video and apps. However, the PPC world never sits still. Google is always rolling out new features and formats to keep us on our toes.

One of the newest additions to the Google Ads lineup is Demand Gen campaigns. These are built to drive engagement across Google’s visual, AI powered surfaces, including YouTube, Gmail and Discover. They’re designed to capture attention earlier in the customer journey, when people are browsing, watching and discovering new brands rather than actively searching for them, similar to social media paid advertising. 

Demand Gen campaigns also come with AI-driven capabilities, such as automatically generated video assets and follow on view optimisation, helping advertisers create quality content and keep the momentum going after that first interaction. 

The types of PPC campaigns

Search ads

Search ads are the cornerstone of advertising on Google Ads, allowing us to bid on specific, high-intent keywords so ads appear at the top of a search results page. By targeting keywords that users actively search for, we can reach people who already have a strong intent to find information, purchase a product or use a service. When a user enters a search query, Google runs an automated auction that considers the advertiser’s bid amount, the relevance of the ad, and the quality of the landing page to determine which ads appear and in what order. Because search ads typically operate on a pay-per-click (which is where the the term ‘PPC’ comes from) model, advertisers only pay when someone clicks on their ad, making it a highly targeted and data driven channel that can quickly drive traffic, leads, or sales, providing a direct ROI. 

AI Max, Video & Display Campaigns

Google’s AI Max capabilities within search capture high-intent users who are actively ready to buy across both B2C and B2B verticals, making them one of the best places to start when working with a smaller budget. Alongside Search, Video campaigns (YouTube Ads) help build awareness and consideration through engaging visual content, while Display campaigns support both prospecting and remarketing by re-engaging previous visitors and reaching new audiences across the web. Together, these campaign types create a strong foundation across the customer journey, from discovery through to conversion.

Shopping ads

Google shopping ads are visual based ads that display products, prices and seller information at the top of search results, on the shopping tab and across partner sites. They’re designed to drive sales by displaying products themselves, based on product titles and descriptions rather than being keyword-driven by the advertiser.

Shopping ads are perfect if your business sells physical products and you’re an ecommerce brand online, although its vital conversion tracking and data is accurate. Ideally we combine dedicated shopping and pmax campaigns; segmented by product type, best sellers, clearance, sale, high profit etc.

Performance Max (PMax)

PMax is a campaign that uses automation and machine learning to run ads across all Google channels, such as search, display, YouTube, Gmail, Discover (e.g. the Google app), and Maps within one campaign, allowing us to utilise custom audience segments (by demographic and/or online behaviours), retargeting and search activity under one holistic campaign.

Display 

Dynamic retargeting ads are personalised, automated display ads that show previous website visitors the exact products (or content) they viewed, but haven’t yet purchased. By keeping those products front of mind, these ads can retarget high intent users with tailored messaging that encourages them to return and complete their purchase, or objective on a website. 

Demand Gen

Demand Gen Google ads are AI powered, visual first campaigns that are designed to drive engagement across upper funnel channels such as YouTube, Discover and Gmail. They are used to create demand and educate potential prospect audiences using image and video assets and ‘lookalike’ audience technology, rather than just capturing search intent.

For building brand awareness, typically excellent within b2b and SaaS industries, or a new brand/product launch we recommend a combination of demand gen, display and video reach. 

Video 

YouTube ads help brands build awareness and engagement through highly visual, video-led campaigns across YouTube and Shorts. Within Demand Gen campaigns YouTube ads are particularly effective for B2B, SaaS and product launches, helping educate audiences before they actively search.

Local Services Ads (LSA) 

for local trade businesses (ads show locally on Google maps, local SERPs and are geo-targeted on a CPA basis)

Which PPC campaign is right for my business?

Choosing the right PPC campaign for your business ultimately comes down to what you want to achieve. Different campaign types are designed to support different goals, so the best option will depend on where you want to make the biggest impact.

If your focus is high intent, immediate conversions, Search + Shopping ads are often the go to choice for e-commerce businesses, putting your products directly in front of people who are actively searching for them.

For brand awareness, Display + Demand Gen campaigns can help introduce your business to new audiences as they browse websites and apps across the web. And if your goal is lead generation, Search ads are a powerful way to capture demand by appearing when potential customers are actively looking in-market for your products or services.

In reality, the most successful PPC strategies rarely rely on just one campaign type. A winning approach often combines several formats to support different stages of the buyer’s journey from building awareness and interest, right through to capturing intent and driving conversions - a top to bottom funnel strategy is most fruitful for building and scaling online, mapping the execution out carefully. 

PPC campaigns for ecommerce

PPC campaign strategies for ecommerce businesses revolve mostly around Google shopping and PMax. These ads drive traffic by reaching users with high purchase intent, either in the shopping feed, or utilising the Google display network. 

At ADA Digital Marketing we know a thing or two about managing PPC campaigns for ecommerce businesses. We have decades of experience of helping turn underperforming campaigns into scalable revenue drivers.

For example, with The Cast Iron Radiator Centre, we rebuilt their PPC strategy from the ground up after they experienced declining ROAS and rising CPCs. By implementing a full funnel approach carefully developing a tailored strategy for every stage of the buyer's journey from product discovery through to purchase. We achieved a +73% YoY increase in revenue, improved ROAS, reduced CPA, and increased AOV within 12 months. 

Pretty Impressive Right? Read the full case study for more. 

How to choose the right PPC campaign

Partnering with a Google advertising expert can help you choose the right PPC campaign, as they understand how to align your advertising strategy with your business objectives. Working with specialists ensures that your campaigns are structured effectively, targeting the right audiences and maximising your return on investment.

We’re a Google Partner agency, which means we’re certified by Google to manage Google Ads accounts on behalf of other businesses. This certification shows that we meet Google’s standards for performance, optimisation, and ongoing campaign management (in short we're awesome).

Our team can help you select the most effective campaign type, optimise your targeting and keywords, and continuously refine your ads to improve performance and drive better results.

What our ADA Digital experts say: 

“Ultimately, this is dependent on your marketing goals, business type, sector and budget. We’ll want to identify your primary goal, and ensure we align PPC with this, build solid foundations, prove ROI and demonstrate the ability to scale. Getting the basics right is essential. 

By basics we mean, ensuring your conversion tracking and data is accurate, we capture people in-market ready to buy, with high intent search campaigns. Then we start to layer relevant campaigns from lower to upper funnel; pmax, shopping, then demand gen, ai max, display and video reach, accordingly. 

We analyse your account, provide insight into your audience, market and competition, talk to you about your business to uncover your ideal customers, creating target audience segments and optimised campaign structure. We present you with a plan, align priorities and roll this out for you; with a high emphasis on being data-driven and providing returns. 

Our aim is to scale winning campaigns, that achieve a target ROAS or target CPA that is profitable, and be 100% transparent along the way with our advice, recommendations and actions. It’s still often thought that PPC is just Google search, but there are a multitude of campaign types available to us to capture demand, raise brand awareness and nurture people into customers.” - Tom Murrell, Digital Director 

Ready to supercharge your Google Ads?

Get in touch, we’d love to hear about your business, chat through your goals and create a tailored Google ads strategy that is built for big results. 

Plus, if you pop in to see us, we make great coffee and have a very adorable office dog - which we think is a pretty great bonus!

Chat to an expert

Written by:

Scarlett Hanlon, Digital Marketing Executive

Approved by:

Tom Murrell, Digital Director & Chris Gedge, PPC Specialist

Published:

22nd May 2026