Display Ads vs. Search Ads in Google Ads

Most advertisers wonder which format will meet your goals: display for awareness or search for intent-driven conversions; this overview explains how each channel works, typical performance, targeting options, and budget trade-offs so you can choose the right mix for your campaigns – see a detailed comparison in Search Ads vs. Display Ads: Pros, Cons + Which Works Best.

Key Takeaways:

• Search ads capture active, high-intent queries on SERPs; display ads are better for broad awareness and passive discovery across sites and apps.
• Targeting differs: search relies on keywords and query intent; display uses audiences, interests, demographics, placements, and contextual signals.
• Ad formats contrast: search is primarily text-based results; display supports images, responsive ads, video, and rich media for visual storytelling.
• KPIs and performance trade-offs: search usually drives higher conversion rates and cost-per-clicks (CPC); display delivers lower CPC, wider reach, and more view-through conversions.
• Best use cases and strategy: use search for bottom-funnel acquisition and direct response; use display for awareness, prospecting, and retargeting-combine both with smart bidding and remarketing for better ROI.

Understanding Display Ads

Definition and Purpose

You use display ads to place visual creatives-images, responsive designs, and rich media-across the Google Display Network to drive awareness, retargeting, and consideration. The GDN reaches over 90% of internet users across millions of websites, apps, and YouTube placements, so your campaigns are best when the objective is broad reach, frequency and brand recall rather than capturing immediate search intent.

How Display Ads Work

When you set up display campaigns you choose targeting like contextual keywords, topics, placements or audience signals such as in-market, affinity, custom intent and remarketing; formats include responsive display ads, uploaded images, Gmail ads and video. Bidding supports CPM, vCPM, CPC and tCPA, and you can layer frequency caps and automated bidding to prioritize viewable impressions or conversions based on your KPIs.

Auctions combine your bid, creative relevance and historical performance to determine delivery, while Google’s system dynamically optimizes placements across millions of impressions to hit goals. Viewability follows MRC standards (50% of pixels visible for one second), so prioritize strong visuals and track viewable CPM and conversion lift; adding remarketing with custom intent frequently boosts CTRs and lowers CPAs versus cold-audience buys.

Understanding Search Ads

When users enter queries, search ads capture that intent by appearing above or beside organic results, and because Google handles billions of searches daily your bids, relevance, and landing page determine visibility and cost; you’ll usually see stronger bottom-of-funnel performance – for instance, bidding on long-tail purchase queries often yields conversion rates 2-4× higher than broad awareness keywords, making search ideal when you want measurable actions like leads or purchases rather than reach.

Definition and Purpose

Search ads are text-based paid listings that target user queries; you use them to intercept active demand – phrases like “buy running shoes near me” – and drive direct responses (clicks, calls, form fills). Their primary purpose is to convert intent into action, so your keyword selection, ad copy, and landing page must align tightly with the user’s query to maximize return on ad spend.

How Search Ads Work

Search ads participate in an auction every time a query matches your keywords; Google evaluates Ad Rank (a function of your bid and Quality Score) to decide position and CPC, where Quality Score reflects expected CTR, ad relevance, and landing page experience. You configure match types, ad extensions, and negatives to sculpt traffic, and relevance plus historical performance often matters more than the highest bid for top placement.

Digging deeper, you’ll choose bidding strategies (manual CPC, Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize Conversions) that either hand control to you or to Google’s automated system; smart bidding leverages signals like device, time, location, and audience to adjust bids in real time. Monitor metrics such as impression share, average position, and search terms report to add negatives and refine keywords – advertisers often regain 10-30% more qualified traffic after pruning irrelevant queries and tightening match types.

Key Differences Between Display Ads and Search Ads

Targeting Methods

Search ads target intent through keywords, match types, negative keywords and SERP signals so you reach users actively searching for products or services; for example, exact-match bids on “running shoes men” capture high-intent queries. Display uses contextual placements, affinity and in-market audiences, demographics, and remarketing across the Google Display Network (which reaches roughly 90% of internet users), letting you prospect or re-engage visually before demand is explicit.

Cost and Pricing Models

Search commonly uses CPC bidding and performs well with conversion-focused smart bids (Target CPA, Target ROAS); average search CTRs hover around ~3.17% with average CPCs near $2.32 in benchmarks. Display often runs on CPM or vCPM and lower CPCs (benchmarks near $0.63) with visually driven CPM buys, though you can also use CPC or CPA bidding for remarketing and performance campaigns.

How you bid changes outcomes: choosing Target CPA makes Google optimize for conversions so your effective CPA can fall even if CPC rises, while CPM buys prioritize reach and brand metrics. In practice, combining low-cost display retargeting (often 2-3× higher conversion rates than prospecting) with search’s intent-driven bids can lower blended CPA; one retailer cut CPA ~40% by shifting post-click retargeting to CPA bidding and reserving search for high-intent, high-value queries.

Advantages of Display Ads

Across the Google Display Network you reach over 90% of internet users, so you can massively scale awareness with image, responsive and rich-media creatives. You’ll typically buy on CPM or CPC, test dozens of creative variations quickly, and use contextual or audience targeting to refine placements. Because bids and attention patterns differ from search, display often delivers lower CPCs and cost-per-acquisition for top-of-funnel goals, letting you build audiences for later search or conversion-focused campaigns.

Visual Impact and Branding

You can use large formats (300×600, 300×250), native placements and in-banner video to showcase product photography, logos and storytelling that search can’t convey. Brands that run video or rich media on GDN often see lift in ad recall and view-through conversions; for example, a 30-second brand spot combined with display banners increases cross-channel recall and lifts direct traffic within 7-14 days. Creative consistency across sizes boosts recognition and CPM efficiency.

Retargeting Opportunities

You can re-engage visitors with remarketing lists for search and display, tailoring messages by behavior-product viewers, cart abandoners, or high-value purchasers-usually using 30-, 60- or 90-day windows. Dynamic remarketing pulls your product feed to show the exact item a user viewed, improving relevance and often increasing conversion rates relative to prospecting audiences. Frequency caps and sequential messaging help avoid ad fatigue while pushing users back down the funnel.

In practice, segmenting your remarketing audiences by intent and value yields the best ROI: prioritize cart abandoners with a limited-time discount, show category-level creatives to casual browsers, and exclude recent buyers for 30 days. Combine dynamic remarketing with smart bidding (target CPA or ROAS) and cross-device lists so you reach users on mobile first, then desktop for checkout. Test different lookback windows and creative sequences; many advertisers find layered segments plus exclusions reduces wasted spend and improves conversion lift.

Advantages of Search Ads

Search ads give you direct access to users actively seeking solutions, often producing higher CTRs and conversion rates than display; typical search CTRs hover around 3-5% with conversion rates frequently in the 2-6% range depending on industry. You can control spend precisely with bid adjustments, use ad extensions to boost visibility, and measure ROAS in near real-time, making search a performance-first channel for lead gen and ecommerce.

Intent-Driven Targeting

You capture intent through keywords, match types and negative keywords to match searcher queries exactly when they want answers. By leveraging exact and phrase match, and targeting long-tail queries (which represent roughly 70% of search volume), you lower CPCs and increase relevance; for example, swapping broad-match traffic for long-tail terms often improves conversion rates and reduces wasted spend by 20-40% in optimized accounts.

Immediate Traffic Generation

You can start seeing clicks within minutes after ads are approved, making search ideal for time-sensitive promos or product launches. Because auctions trigger on query, increasing bids or daily budget immediately raises impression share; campaigns with higher bids during peak hours often capture a disproportionate share of high-intent traffic compared with organic search timelines.

To accelerate results, you should combine aggressive bid adjustments, targeted keywords and ad extensions: increase bids 10-30% for top-converting queries during peak hours, enable sitelinks and call extensions to boost CTR, and monitor impression share and search lost-rate metrics hourly; this hands-on approach can convert a newly launched campaign from zero to steady traffic and measurable conversions within a single business day.

When to Use Each Ad Type

Match ad type to the buyer’s journey: use search for bottom-funnel intent-keyword-driven campaigns often produce 2-5× higher conversion rates than display for purchase queries. Conversely, deploy display for top-of-funnel awareness and retargeting; CPM campaigns can generate millions of impressions and recapture roughly 30% of cart abandoners when paired with dynamic creatives. Hybrid approaches, like search plus display remarketing, have improved overall ROI by 20-40% in several case studies.

Business Goals and Objectives

If your goal is direct sales or immediate leads, prioritize search and allocate 50-70% of conversion-focused budget there; a retailer using phrase match and Shopping ads increased ROAS from 2× to 6× in six months. When the objective is brand lift or reach, allocate 30-50% to display with frequency caps and contextual targeting-campaigns delivering 1-5 million monthly impressions can boost recall by 15-25%. Tie decisions to KPIs like CPL, ROAS, and impression share.

Audience Considerations

You should segment audiences by intent and behavior: in-market and custom intent audiences drive higher engagement on search, while affinity and demographic segments perform better on display. Implement RLSA to bid more aggressively for returning visitors-RLSA can double conversion rates versus generic search-and use Customer Match to extend high-value lists across both networks.

When targeting specific verticals, apply concrete tactics: a B2B SaaS company built custom intent lists from competitor keywords and event terms, then used RLSA to increase bids-this cut CPL by 35% and doubled conversion rate from 2% to 4%. For e-commerce, combine dynamic remarketing with Similar Audiences to scale reach 3-5× while keeping CPA within 10-20% of original benchmarks.

Final Words

To wrap up you should treat Search Ads as intent-driven tools that capture high-conversion prospects while Display Ads build awareness and nurture audiences across the web; your optimal strategy blends both-use Search for immediate conversions, Display for reach and remarketing, and align creative, targeting, and bids to your funnel stages. Continually test messages and measure outcomes so you can scale what drives cost-effective results.

FAQ

Q: What are the main differences between Display Ads and Search Ads in Google Ads?

A: Search Ads are intent-driven text ads that appear on Google search results when users query keywords; they tend to drive direct response and higher conversion rates but often have higher CPCs. Display Ads are visual (banner, image, responsive) ads shown across the Google Display Network and YouTube; they offer broad reach for awareness, lower CPC/CPM, and are well suited for branding and prospecting or remarketing. Search targeting focuses on keywords and query intent, while Display targets audiences, topics, placements and contextual signals.

Q: When should I prioritize Search Ads over Display Ads and vice versa?

A: Prioritize Search Ads when users are actively searching for products or services-useful for bottom-of-funnel conversion goals like purchases, leads, and direct response promotions. Prioritize Display Ads for top-of-funnel goals such as brand awareness, demand generation, and audience building, and for mid-funnel tactics like remarketing and dynamic product ads to re-engage visitors who didn’t convert on search.

Q: How do targeting options and audience signals differ between the two, and how does that affect campaign outcomes?

A: Search relies primarily on keyword matching, negative keywords, and search audience overlays (RLSA) to capture high-intent queries; outcomes typically show higher conversion rates and predictable ROI per keyword. Display offers audience targeting (in-market, affinity, custom intent), contextual targeting (topics, placements), and automated targeting; outcomes emphasize reach and frequency, higher impression volume, lower CTR, and useful view-through conversions for brand lift and later-stage conversion opportunities.

Q: What metrics and optimization tactics should I use separately for Search and Display campaigns?

A: For Search focus on CTR, Quality Score, CPC, conversion rate, CPA, and ROAS; optimize by refining keyword lists, adding negatives, improving ad copy and extensions, enhancing landing pages, and using bid strategies like Target CPA/ROAS. For Display focus on impressions, view-through conversions, CPM, engagement rate and CPA for remarketing; optimize by testing creative formats (responsive vs image), refining audience segments, excluding low-performing placements, setting frequency caps, and leveraging smart display or automated bidding with conversion signals.

Q: Can I combine Display and Search in a unified strategy, and what tactics work best together?

A: Yes-combine them across the funnel: use Display for prospecting and building remarketing lists, then employ Search to capture high-intent traffic and convert those audiences. Use RLSA to adjust bids for known audiences on Search, implement Dynamic Remarketing on Display to show personalized products, apply shared audiences across campaigns, and adopt data-driven attribution to credit cross-channel paths. Test budget splits, creative sequencing, and automated bidding that uses cross-campaign conversion data to maximize combined performance.