Google Ads vs. Google Trends

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
Google Trends
Score 7.3 out of 10
N/A
Google Trends is a search engine optimization software solution offered by .N/A
Pricing
Google AdsGoogle Trends
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 AdsGoogle Trends
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 Trends
Considered Both Products
Google Ads
Chose Google Ads
Google Ads is by far the best PPC advertising mechanism I've used especially when compared to the Microsoft/Bing platform. It's easier to navigate and the budgets are spent more effectively and efficiently. The display of the search results is easier to read and the quality of …
Chose Google Ads
Google Ads remains at the top advertising channel within our business for both lead volume and revenue generation, whilst maintaining a reasonable cost per lead (CPL). Both Meta Ads and Microsoft Ads have a much lower CPL, those channels don't contribute as much revenue and …
Chose Google Ads
Google Ads is one of the more advanced tools, all the above tools listed are great and provide very advanced features for advertising on those platforms. Usually a business would use multiple tools. Google Ads is great as it is very fined and established so you know what you …
Chose Google Ads
Google is a lot better at not just banning you for no reason. The platform is very intuitive and gets you in front of many people. Meta Ads is notorious for banning people and not giving them any reason. Google is very reasonable and has guidelines. Google clicks are also much …
Chose Google Ads
These are different channels, with different audiences and targeting options. It is important to first understand your objective, who you want to reach and at what stage of the journey.
Chose Google Ads
Well, I use Facebook/Meta pixels sometimes. But it is not as good as Google Ads. There are a lot of people searching on Google for good web development firms but how many are there finding the same sort of person on Facebook or Linkedin?
Thus, I like the abundance of users …
Chose Google Ads
It's gives me better results than the other platforms, cause by setting up keywords that are relevant to my business I can really target people who are actively searching for the topic. This really filters leads and brings better results.
Chose Google Ads
It is part of the Google suite of tools for content management for advertising and ads in the Google search engine.
Chose Google Ads
Google Ads is more robust and has more features as compared to Microsoft Advertising, aka Bing Ads. Google has better and more reach than other search engines in the market. Google stands well against all its competitors when it comes to media planning and buying. Go for it any …
Chose Google Ads
Google Ads can be more useful than LinkedIn & Facebook Ads because it is reaching a larger pool of users. Both platforms have even better/more targeting options, but they limit the amount of reach you will receive. Google Ads catches users at the top of the sales funnel.
Chose Google Ads
Google ads provide no customer service.
Chose Google Ads
We had to stop using Bing as the results were all over the place and so we couldn't trust the service.
Chose Google Ads
Google Ads clearly has high potential as more users search for their product when compared to other channels hence getting the desired audience.
Chose Google Ads
Neither platform seems to perform in my opinion. Google Ads is much more complicated while Facebook Ads are simpler to implement and run. No positive ROI on either though!
Chose Google Ads
We would use Facebook advertising often to generate strong reactions online. The benefit of using Google Ads is that people are always searching on Google and it's quick to pull your name first in a search ranking, where a majority of people are likely to click on compared to …
Chose Google Ads
In most cases, it's better between features, usability, performance (though Bing can sometimes cost less). Google is also smarter about its keywords. Bing is more similar to how Google was five or more years ago (needing to add variations to those keywords). I will say, though, …
Chose Google Ads
Google Ads is pretty strong when it comes to search and shopping campaigns. It's a great tool to target people who are ready to buy and actively looking for products we have to offer. On the other hand, Facebook has been a great tool for raising awareness, brand uplift, and …
Chose Google Ads
Other platforms like Facebook Business Manager or Twitter Ads do not allow the same level of optimization and control of targeting as Google Ads. In same cases it may have less reach, but being more precise is better to see a ROAS sooner.
Chose Google Ads
Google is the largest search engine with the most users so this is the first choice. Other advertising options can give results but not to the same degree that Google Ads does. They have a better platform than other types of platforms available. This makes it the best option …
Chose Google Ads
Google Ads has far more reach/audience capabilities than Microsoft Ads. More users use Google than Microsoft products.
Chose Google Ads
While it is still important to be present in those engines, Google Ads still offers the largest inventory, which helps reach more users and drive bigger volumes of conversions and achieve higher ROI.
Chose Google Ads
Facebook can be less expensive but everyone uses Google, so you have to run ads on Google. Other search engines also have similar features. The traffic on Google is significantly higher than its competition. Facebook ads can be an alternative but it doesn't quite work like a …
Chose Google Ads
I have used all forms of online ad platforms. In my experience, Google is by far the most expensive on a per-click and per-impression basis. None of these major players have much or any concern for small businesses.
Chose Google Ads
Everyone uses Google. They have and will always be the leader when it comes to search engines. Not only was Bing Ads more difficult to use, but the results didn't even come close to what we were (are) getting from Google Ads. It also seemed easier to get support from Google …
Google Trends
Chose Google Trends
Overall I think that Ahrefs is a better product when it comes to really drilling down and getting all the data that you need in order to understand a given behavior or problem. Ahrefs is much more powerful in its feature set but does not have the same level of overall …
Chose Google Trends
They are both great tools. I prefer Google Trends because of the location capabilities and being able to go hyper-local. It does not however provide the details on cost and competition like SEM Rush does.
Chose Google Trends
Google Trends is probably the easier of the many other Google platforms to identify keywords. I haven't used other keyword platforms because I don't trust them—I rather use a tool directly from Google to evaluate popular keywords. That being said, Google Trends is very limited …
Chose Google Trends
I like using Google Trends because it gives you a clear visual of seasonal trends and compares multiple queries at once. However, I do prefer using other systems like SEMRush and Ahrefs because they are more detailed in the information they give you regarding your website and …
Chose Google Trends
It's not really an either/or thing — I use the complete "Google Marketing Stack" including Analytics, Trends, Keyword Planner, Search Console, etc. It's also essential to integrate some of their data, like making sure Google Search Console and Google Analytics are connected — …
Chose Google Trends
Google Trends provides insights that are only available through Google, however, it does not include other important trends such as those on social media or via their competitors.
Chose Google Trends
Google Trends is great used alongside a tool like MozPro. It complements the quantitive data found in the Moz Keyword Research Tool.
Chose Google Trends
I've used SEMrush, while more of a SEO Manager than keyword trend analyzer, it does have that option as it does relate to SEO management, but between the two, its nice to have the option in SEMrush, but Google Trends is better at doing the trend analyzing than SEMrush is.
Chose Google Trends
One of the most obvious reasons why I chose Google trends over other keyword research platforms is because it's free. At the same time, it also has the most relevant and easy-to-use features out of the bunch. Google Trends does not have as many features as SEMRush or BuzzSumo, …
Chose Google Trends
We used multiple platforms. Google Trends is just one of them! It's important to have multiple tools to check and reference back and forth. Google Trends is totally free for everybody so why not give it a try.
Chose Google Trends
I haven’t used any tools quite like Google Trends.
Chose Google Trends
Other Google products I have used would be Adwords. I would use this along with that program since they do entirely different things.
Chose Google Trends
Google Trends tends to be slightly more accurate than the other products, because Google has access to more user data for the algorithm to take into consideration when providing trends and information. We like this tool because it also aligns better with the Google tools we use …
Chose Google Trends
We use Google Search Console and Moz mostly for our website improvement, and Google Trends we use mostly to look for trends: what people are searching for now. Google Trends is free and has very clean, simple and understandable user interface, it gives lots of usable data for …
Chose Google Trends
We haven't tried anything apart from Google Trends.
Chose Google Trends
Google AdSense is much more detailed, but requires the user to be logged in and have an active Google Adsense account, sometimes it's quicker to just use Google trends.
Chose Google Trends
Google Trends has the biggest source of data and is the most accurate. It cannot be used without any other tool because of its own limits (keyword suggestion, semantical analysis, etc.).
Chose Google Trends
Google Trends is sometimes a helpful supplement to other analytics and advertising tools, but it is not very useful as a standalone analysis tool. We have seen much more benefit from the intelligence and audience information built in to our other core tools. Better predictive …
Chose Google Trends
Google Trends and Open Web Analytics are both similar and different. While both products allow a user to track the popularity of a given webpage or search term, Google Trends is more effective in providing content and suggesting trends. Furthermore, I liked the ability to use …
Chose Google Trends
Google Trends is a great place to start in the content curation, content research, blog post writing, and resource page creation process. It is not, however, a place to do serious SEO optimization. Tools like Moz, or Analytics SEO would be a better place to go after you do …
Chose Google Trends
They're different tools and thus have overlap, but still do quite different jobs. So there really is no exact comparison, in free to use tools, to Google Trends out there. If it could generate periodic reports it would be even better.

Other tools can be quite complimentary to …
Features
Google AdsGoogle Trends
Ad Campaigns
Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of Product A and Product B
Google Ads
3.9
Ratings
3% below category average
Google Trends
-
Ratings
Ad campaign creation2.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad deployment2.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Display advertising9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad display and retargeting segmentation8.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Sequence targeting1.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Contextual advertising2.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Social advertising1.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Ad Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Google Ads
6.4
Ratings
20% above category average
Google Trends
-
Ratings
Ad dashboards2.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad performance reports9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad conversion tracking9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad attribution reporting9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad forecasting and optimization2.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad Auctions
Comparison of Ad Auctions features of Product A and Product B
Google Ads
7.0
Ratings
3% above category average
Google Trends
-
Ratings
Ad bidding7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
SEO
Comparison of SEO features of Product A and Product B
Google Ads
-
Ratings
Google Trends
8.4
Ratings
8% above category average
Keyword analysis00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Backlink management00 Ratings4.60 Ratings
SERP ranking tracking00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Page grader00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Competitive analysis00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Site audit / diagnostics00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Site recommendations00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Task management00 Ratings6.20 Ratings
SEO Channels
Comparison of SEO Channels features of Product A and Product B
Google Ads
-
Ratings
Google Trends
10.0
Ratings
27% above category average
Local SEO00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Social SEO00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Mobile SEO00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Global SEO00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
SEO Platform & Account Management
Comparison of SEO Platform & Account Management features of Product A and Product B
Google Ads
-
Ratings
Google Trends
3.7
Ratings
78% below category average
Multi-domain support00 Ratings5.80 Ratings
Integration with web analytics tools00 Ratings1.60 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Google AdsGoogle Trends
Small Businesses
WordStream
WordStream
Score 6.9 out of 10
Nozzle
Nozzle
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
WordStream
WordStream
Score 6.9 out of 10
Advanced Web Ranking
Advanced Web Ranking
Score 8.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Score 8.6 out of 10
Dupli Checker (DupliChecker.com)
Dupli Checker (DupliChecker.com)
Score 8.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google AdsGoogle Trends
Likelihood to Recommend
5.8
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
1.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
6.4
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
1.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google AdsGoogle Trends
Likelihood to Recommend
Clients who are selling products such as dresses, clothes, jewelry, beauty products, etc., generally work well. Also, in some cases, it doesn't fetch a good ROAS for very small business owners. If a client is already doing well in SEO, the probability for it to perform well over Google Ads is always enhanced, and if it doesn't have a good organic reach, Google Ads also suffers.
Read full review
Google Trends is appropriate in so many scenarios, but I definitely suggest it for content ideas and inspiration. Many people utilize it after already writing their content to add in popular phrases or words, but that is not enough. The platform should be used prior and during the content creation process so that you can use the data to see what your audience/customers are interested in at the moment and create the content based on their interests. It can help, but I find it much less appropriate to use it after your article, eBook, etc. is already written. Maximize on this useful tool by ensuring the topic you're writing about is relevant in the first place before simply adding in popular keywords. An article that's written based on what's trending will be far more successful than an article that solely has popular phrases added to it.
Read full review
Pros
  • Keyword Research - Google Ads has a handy built in tool that helps determine important keywords to target both for Ads & SEO
  • Intuitive Analytics Dashboad - Google Ads makes it fairly simple to see and analyze important metrics on how your ads are running week after week
  • Intuitive Setup - Google Ads makes it easy to figure out how to run ads with little to no training (although training is highly recommended to run effective ads), as their interface is clean and easy to figure out (unlike competing products).
Read full review
  • Allows you to search keywords and phrases in certain locations to see search volumes, this is huge and helps us be successful with our Google Ad campaigns.
  • Shows us insights into trending topics which allows us to stay in the know and apply any relevant trends to current clients.
  • Year in Search and Trending Topics provides us great inspiration for our ads
  • Being able to search in certain locations gives us a ton of help when setting up campaigns and doing our keyword research for clients.
  • Being able to compare multiple keywords or search terms side by side is extremely helpful.
Read full review
Cons
  • Google's heavy dependence on AI makes many of the campaign behavior inscrutable and, often, it performs poorly as a result.
  • Their responsive ads, for example, which are heavily recommended by them, often perform significantly worse than normal text ads.
  • Their support, while relatively quick, becomes useless if you need any deep insight/help.
Read full review
  • Top charts: would be nice to include top charts for the current month.
  • Explainers: would be good to have some information buttons next to graphics and charts to show in depth what criteria go into making those charts.
  • More images: would be interesting to see trending image searches.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
As of today Google AdWords leads approximately 90% of paid searches globally. There is practically is no other network that can offer such a relevant and engaging audience at the price. The PPC model is also unique in that no media dollars are wasted, since PPC models ensure brand interaction versus traditional media which has heavy ad avoidance and clutter but still charges a hefty amount for ads.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Usability
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 Trends is very easy to use. you just search for a certain keyword or phrase, and it tells you how often that keyword or phrase is searched, where in the world it is searched, and over the last decade, how often it is per year.
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Support Rating
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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I haven't needed to use any support for Google Trends. However, I've used Google's support in general and it's a hit or miss. Usually, there's a long wait or they don't understand my problem. They are the only ones that can help, so sometimes I feel stuck. They prioritize paying customers for sure.
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Online Training
Daily use with advanced account structures. Familiarity with reporting/api and complex setups.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Google Ads remains at the top advertising channel within our business for both lead volume and revenue generation, whilst maintaining a reasonable cost per lead (CPL). Both Meta Ads and Microsoft Ads have a much lower CPL, those channels don't contribute as much revenue and lead generation.
Read full review
I've used SEMRush, while more of a SEO Manager than keyword trend analyzer, it does have that option as it does relate to SEO management, but between the two, its nice to have the option in SEMRush, but Google Trends is better at doing the trend analyzing than SEMRush is.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • Once we got the hang of it and had everything setup, it was a great monthly expense that we could count on ROI from. Either by obtaining new customers or literally staying above our competition in search rankings.
  • We also started consulting on ads for customers and helping them set things up, which created a new revenue stream for us.
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  • I can't really give a measurement of how Google Trends has directly contributed.
  • Since Google Trends is free I would have to say that it is all positive ROI.
  • I can say that Google Trends definitely makes it easier to accomplish my business objectives of delivering the most relevant and insightful advice to my clients regarding their SEO, Social Media Publishing, and Online Advertising.
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ScreenShots