But running ads via Meta Business Suite to reach audiences on apps like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger can be as confusing as it is rewarding.

If you’ve ever questioned whether the numbers you’re looking at in the Meta Ads dashboard are good or bad, we’ve got the data to guide you. It’s all here in this report of almost 1,800 Facebook ad campaigns running over the last year.

We looked at performance averages by industry for four key Facebook advertising metrics: click-through rate, cost per click, conversion rate, and cost per lead. The data is broken out by two different core Facebook ads campaign objectives (traffic and leads).

This exclusive data enables you to benchmark your own results and see where you can improve. Plus, our expert insights will guide you through the tweaks you need to make to drive the best results from your Meta Ads campaigns so you beat the competition.

Contents

• Key takeaways: the big picture
• Facebook ads benchmarks: Traffic campaigns
  • Average click-through rate
  • Average cost per click
• Facebook ads benchmarks: Leads campaigns
  • Average click-through rate
  • Average cost per click
  • Average conversion rate
  • Average cost per lead
• How to improve your Facebook ads results

Key Facebook ads trends: The big picture

Despite rising advertising costs, Facebook ads continue to maintain a cost advantage over Google Ads, making Facebook ads an important part of an overall digital strategy.

Facebook ads with a traffic objective saw strong improvement year over year, with both higher CTRs and lower CPCs compared to 2025.

Facebook leads saw performance improvements after a slight decline last year, with an almost 11% increase in CVR, a 6.25% decrease in CPC, and a slight decrease in CPL (only down 1%, roughly).

Google Ads CPC is more than double the average Meta CPC. Google Ads may have more buying intent, but this is still a substantial win for Meta in terms of cost. It’s not that one channel is better than the other; it’s that they are complementary to one another. You can use Meta Ads to supplement your Google Ads campaigns and stretch your budget further.

Experts have noticed that Meta has been improving the bidding and optimization capabilities of campaign objectives such as the leads objective, so naturally, advertisers may be seeing increases in conversions and decreases in cost.

“These results align with what I’ve been seeing: Meta continues to be a cost-effective channel for both traffic and lead generation, especially as part of a broader digital strategy,” said Kendall Cagle, Product Manager—Social & Display Media at LocaliQ.

“Performance will always vary by vertical, audience, creative, and offer, but the year-over-year improvements in CTR, CPC, and lead conversion reinforce that Meta still deliver efficient results when campaigns are set up and optimized well.”

Want to take this data to go? Download our free 2026 Facebook ads benchmarks report here!

Facebook ads benchmarks for traffic campaigns by industry

Meta’s traffic objective for advertising campaigns acts like the “maximize clicks” bidding strategy on Google Ads. It’s focused on using your budget to serve your ads in a way that’s most likely to drive the highest volume of traffic to your website.

Most businesses consider traffic campaigns a staple part of their Meta Ads strategy since this objective shows your ads to audience members most likely to click off to your website, which helps move potential customers through your funnel.

Average click-through rate for traffic campaigns

Click-through rate is a no-brainer metric for measuring campaigns using the traffic objective in Facebook Ads, since their purpose is to drive clicks. A traffic objective Facebook ads campaign with a high click-through rate is a healthy one.

The average click-through rate in Facebook ads for traffic campaigns across all industries is 1.93%.

This is a 12.87% increase compared to last year’s average of 1.71%.

The industries that had the highest traffic campaign CTRs were Beauty and Personal Care (2.73%), Arts and Entertainment (2.72%), and Restaurants and Food (2.68%).

The industries with the lowest traffic campaign CTRs were Finance and Insurance (1.46%), Automotive—For Sale (1.47%), and Education and Instruction (1.50%).

Ready to see better Meta Ads results? Start with a free, instant account audit using our Facebook Ads Grader!

Average click-through rate: YoY

While overall average click-through rate for Facebook traffic campaigns increased for the majority of industries, there were also still a few industries that saw CTR decreases year over year.

For example, the industries with the biggest decreases in click-through rate for traffic campaigns year over year were Shopping, Collectibles, and Gifts (down 54.48%), Sports and Recreation (down 31.92%), and Travel (down 17.39%).

Meanwhile, the industries with the biggest increases in CTR for traffic campaigns year over year were Physicians and Surgeons (up 128.92%), Automotive—Repair, Service, and Parts (up 88.75%), and Restaurants and Food (up 60.48%).

New vehicle sales in the US have been down slightly, which Cox Automotive attributes to inflation and market fragmentation. Accordingly, consumers may be more focused on repairing or maintaining their current vehicles, which could explain why the Repair, Service, and Parts category saw performance increases in click-through rate year-over-year.

Average cost per click for traffic campaigns

Now you might have a high click-through rate for your Facebook traffic campaigns, but if you also have a high cost per click, you’ll still have a problem because an increase in costly clicks will eat your budget faster. That’s why most businesses prioritize average CPC when evaluating traffic campaign performance in Meta Ads.

The average cost per click in Facebook ads for traffic campaigns across all industries is $0.60.

This is 14.29% lower than last year’s average of $0.70.

The industries with the lowest CPCs in Facebook ads for traffic campaigns included Arts and Entertainment at $0.34, Travel at $0.42, and Restaurants and Food at $0.45.

In contrast, the industries with the highest CPCs in Facebook ads for traffic campaigns included Finance and Insurance at $0.86, Automotive—Repair, Service, and Parts at $0.74, and Apparel, Fashion, and Jewelry at $0.71.

You can learn how to lower your cost per click in Meta Ads here.

Average cost per click: YoY

As overall average click-through rate for traffic campaigns improved year over year for the majority of industries, so did cost per click.

Only two industries saw an increase in their traffic CPCs compared to last year: Shopping, Collectibles, and Gifts with a 73.53% increase, and Sports and Recreation with a 43.90% increase.

On the opposite end, the industries with the biggest improvements to their traffic CPCs year over year were Real Estate with a 39.56% decrease, Restaurants and Food with a 37.50% decrease, as well as Industrial and Commercial with a 37.21% decrease.

Facebook ads benchmarks for leads campaigns by industry

The leads objective is a bread-and-butter strategy for many Meta advertisers. It connects directly back to your business’s bottom line, as it encourages campaign behavior to serve ads to users most likely to convert.

For businesses looking to generate leads, rather than increase sales, the Facebook leads campaign objective is a must-have. That’s partially because of how it influences campaign behavior for the most leads possible, but also because it enables businesses to take advantage of Facebook Lead Ads—which are a special ad format that allows advertisers to build a widely customizable contact form right into their ad that viewers can convert off of without ever having to leave Meta apps.

Click to enlarge

“This year, we saw lead campaigns improve CTR, CPC, and CVR while keeping CPL essentially flat. That tells me advertisers are getting more engagement and stronger conversion efficiency without a meaningful increase in lead cost,” Kendall said.

Average click-through rate for leads campaigns

Although the primary focus of Facebook leads campaigns is, well, leads, click-through rate is still an impactful metric to look at when evaluating your performance. You still need your Facebook Lead Ads to be enticing and “clickable” to get users to your coveted lead form. After all, clicks are the first step to turning potential customers into leads.

The 2026 average click-through rate in Facebook ads for leads campaigns across all industries is 2.70%.

This is a 4.25% increase compared to last year’s average of 2.59%.

The industry with the highest CTR for Facebook leads campaigns this year was Physicians and Surgeons at 4.18%. That industry was followed by Real Estate at 4.17% and Furniture at 3.78%.

The industry with the lowest CTR for Facebook leads campaigns was Beauty and Personal Care at 1.35%, followed by Dentists and Dental Services at 1.62% and Education and Instruction at 1.74%.

Average click-through rate: YoY

The industries with the biggest drops in performance in terms of leads campaign average CTR year over year were Beautify and Personal Care (down 47.06%), Arts and Entertainment (down 14.80%), and Sports and Recreation (down 7.33%).

The industries with the biggest improvements in performance for leads campaign average CTR year over year were Furniture (up 155.42%), Health and Fitness (up 79.65%), and Dentists and Dental Services (up 54.29%).

It’s interesting that the Health and Fitness and Physicians and Surgeons categories had the top CTRs and CTR improvements year over year. This could partially be due to an increase of GLP-1 and weight-loss-related ads in the market as the demand for weight-control drugs has increased.

Source

Average cost per click for leads campaigns

Not only do you want to get clicks to your Facebook leads campaigns, but you also want them to be affordable. Monitoring the average cost per click in Facebook campaigns leveraging the leads objective helps you keep your budget pacing in check.

The 2026 average cost per click for Facebook ads leads campaigns across all industries is $1.80.

This is down by 6.25% compared to last year.

The industries with the highest leads ads CPCs were Dentists and Dental Services $5.70, Beauty and Personal Care $2.97, and Furniture as well as Home and Home Improvement—both at $2.18.

Meanwhile, Career and Employment has the lowest average CPC for Facebook lead ads at $0.73, followed by Arts and Entertainment at $0.88 and Sports and Recreation at $1.08.

Average cost per click: YoY

Average CPC for the leads objective improved for Automotive—For Sale, which was down 44.17%, Dentists and Dental Services, down 41.72%, and Health and Fitness, down 30.30%.

Only two industries saw a cost increase in leads campaign CPC year over year: Education and Instruction, which was up 4.24%, and Sports and Recreation, up 0.93%.

Average conversion rate for leads campaigns

The conversion rate of your Facebook leads campaigns directly ties back to the main purpose of the campaign because it indicates how efficient it is at increasing leads for your business.

The 2026 average conversion rate in Facebook ads for leads campaigns across all industries is 8.54%.

This is a 0.98% decrease compared to last year.

The industries with the highest conversion rates for Facebook leads campaigns included Education and Instruction (15.87%), Arts and Entertainment (15.31%), and Health and Fitness (7.98%).

Meanwhile, the industries with the lowest conversion rates included Automotive—For Sale (4.15%), Industrial and Commercial (4.50%), and Home and Home Improvement (5.32%).

But overall, many industries are seeing stable or improved conversion rates. “I’ve personally experienced a large improvement in conversion rate for Facebook Lead Ads, as well as a much lower cost per lead as compared to years prior,” said Brett McHale, Founder of Empiric Marketing. “Our Meta lead ads have never been more efficient, and much of that has to do with the technical improvements Meta has made to the platform over the past 12 months.”

Average conversion rate: YoY

Industrial and Commercial was the industry with the biggest year-over-year decrease in conversion rate—down 51.77%. This industry was followed by Automotive—For Sale, down 51.33%, and Career and Employment, down 6.76%.

On the other hand, Arts and Entertainment was the industry with the biggest year-over-year increase in conversion rate—up 63.90%, followed by Education and Instruction, up 57.37%, and Furniture, up 50.24%.

Average cost per lead for leads campaigns

Your average cost per lead for Meta leads campaigns is your “money metric” that translates how your campaign is contributing to your business’s ROI. The lower your cost per lead, the more leads you can afford to acquire.

The 2026 average cost per lead in Facebook ads for leads campaigns across all industries is $27.39.

This is stable, with only a 0.98% decrease compared to last year.

The industry with the lowest cost per lead for Facebook leads campaigns was Career and Employment at $12.30, followed by Real Estate at $13.74, and Arts and Entertainment at $14.59.

Dentists and Dental Services had the highest cost per lead at $61.56, followed by Beauty and Personal Care at $50.91, and Home and Home Improvement at $42.95.

Average cost per lead: YoY

Most industries saw a decrease in average cost per lead for Facebook leads campaigns year over year, but Home and Home Improvement saw a CPL increase of 4.10% as well as Personal Services with a CPL increase of 24.60%.

The Personal Services category includes businesses such as wedding planners, cleaners, funeral homes, and more, which tend to face higher competition on platforms like Meta as users are more willing to spend in these areas, and that’s typically coupled with a longer sales cycle. Those factors can make managing cost per lead more challenging for these businesses, but not impossible—I’ll explain in our tips section!

The industries that succeeded in the biggest decreases in cost per lead for Facebook Lead Ads year over year were Health and Fitness, which decreased by 48.83%, Physicians and Surgeons, which decreased by 32.29%, as well as Career and Employment, which decreased by 30.27%.

Some of the results across the same industry seem contradictory at first. If you feel your costs are fluctuating, but so are your conversions, you may be dealing with changes in your audience pool.

“These metrics are not independent. If clicks get cheaper and a smaller share of your audience converts, CPC and CVR can both fall. Cost per lead only improves if a drop in cost per click outweighs a drop in conversion rate,” said Sai Paturi, Data Science Manager at LocaliQ.

How to improve your Meta Ads campaigns

No matter where your current Facebook and Instagram ads performance lies in reference to the averages in your industry, there are ways you can improve and optimize your campaigns. Here are our top Facebook advertising tips for this year.

1. Use Meta Ads in tandem with other channels to balance your budget

No two advertising platforms are exactly alike, so there’s not one end-all, be-all channel you should rely on for digital ads. Facebook ads work best when they’re complemented with other channels so your customers have a smooth buyer’s journey across sites and apps.

For example, you can run Facebook ads that align with your Google Ads campaigns to achieve similar goals at different costs for greater budget efficiency.

“I often see Facebook ads perform at a much better cost than Google. With the increasingly sophisticated Conversions API and AI-infused targeting abilities, it has never been easier to achieve a positive ROAS on Meta and mold audiences towards your desired outcomes,” Brett said.

Want to optimize your Meta advertising campaigns to the max? Reach out for a demo to see how our solutions can help perfect your strategy!

2. Optimize your conversion tracking

Your Facebook ads conversion tracking can make all the difference when it comes to your advertising experience. You need to make sure you’re tracking the right actions, so that everything is weighed and accounted for correctly. If you set up the Facebook Conversions API, you’ll be able to track users through their buyer journey at a granular level.

“If you are able to, 100% get Conversions API established within the account,” Brett said.

To start setting up your Facebook Conversions API, navigate over to the Events Manager section of Meta Business Suite and follow the prompts under integrations.

3. Remember that Advantage+ settings are optional

Throughout the Facebook ads setup process, you’ll be prompted to opt into Advantage+ settings when establishing your bidding, targeting, ad creative, and more. Advantage+ is a suite of automated features Meta offers to advertisers to help streamline campaign workflows using AI.

Of course, the trade-off with Advantage+ is manual control. However, most advertisers have incorporated some level of Advantage+ automation into their strategy at this point. There is no right or wrong answer as to whether you decide to take, well, advantage of all the Advantage+ features, but you will want to proceed with caution. Try rolling Advantage+ optimizations into your strategy slowly to see what works best for your business.

“At the management level, be very selective with which AI adjustments and settings you enable. At the end of the day, you are still in charge of your brand and how it is presented to the world. If there is a cosmetic setting you don’t like, disable it,” Brett said.

4. Look at a variety of metrics when measuring performance

While our report focuses on four core metrics of Facebook advertising, there are many other numbers you may want to pay attention to in your account.

Customize your Meta Business Suite reports, and try not to get hung up on any one metric. Each part of your Facebook ads campaign reports works together to tell you a complete story about performance. The relationship between multiple metrics can indicate areas for improvement.

“Each metric can be helpful and worthy of benchmarking to monitor performance trends. But understanding how they work in tandem can help you see the bigger story,” said Michelle Morgan, Co-Founder of Paid Media Pros.

Kendall agrees. “Evaluate performance across the full funnel and refresh creative or adjust the experience based on where the data shows friction, rather than reacting to one metric in isolation,” she said.

“High CTR but low CVR? You have great creative, but you’re not delivering on the promise. In these instances, your call to action is too intense, not appealing, not aligned with the creative, etc. Maintain the strong creative but adjust your CTA to be in line with the expectations and experience you’re setting there.”

“High CPCs but low CPL? Despite reaching a lot of folks, you’re warning off those who aren’t the right fit and still finding the right target audience who is willing to convert at a high rate that keeps CPL low,” Michelle said.

5. Tweak ad creative according to your audience

The most successful Facebook advertising accounts A/B test creative elements on their ads often. You may need to have different visuals or messaging depending on the audience lists you target. Don’t be afraid to play around with your ad assets on a regular basis to inform your strategy.

“Audience controls on Meta can vary in efficacy. What we’re finding drives better results? Treating your creative as your targeting and letting Meta optimize for your outlined conversion action,” Michelle said.

Mat Wendler, Senior Manager of Optimization Strategy & Custom Solutions at LocaliQ, agrees that testing is essential.

“Being open to testing new creative, adjusting messaging, refining audience targeting, and experimenting with different ad formats can help see what resonates most with the audiences you are going after,” Mat said.

“A/B testing is especially valuable, as it allows you to compare variations of creative, imagery, headlines, or messaging and make data-driven decisions based on performance. Consistent testing and optimization are often the key to improving results over time and maximizing your return on ad spend,” he said.

“Start by having sound, accurate conversion tracking on the goal you want. Then, leverage both the imagery/videos and the text portion of your ads to speak (implicitly and explicitly) to your target audience,” Michelle said.

Source

What these 2026 Facebook ads benchmarks mean for your business

These Facebook and Instagram ads benchmarks are meant to help you make confident decisions about your campaigns by establishing how your current performance compares to your average competitor. Use this data as a guiding light when you’re unsure if a new campaign is doing well or if your current campaigns need to be tweaked.

If your results don’t always align with the averages in your industry, don’t fret! Your Meta Ads strategy has flexibility, so you can always shift your strategy as trends evolve. Plus, you don’t have to navigate the nuances of Facebook advertising alone. Reach out, and one of our experts will show you how our solutions can help transform your strategy.

About the data

The traffic objective data is based on a sample of 1,377 US-based search advertising campaigns running between April 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026. Each subcategory includes at minimum 11 unique active campaigns.

The leads objective data is based on a sample of 452 US-based search advertising campaigns running between April 1, 2025, and June 30, 2028. Each subcategory includes at minimum 4 unique active campaigns.

For both objectives, “averages” are technically median figures to account for outliers. All currency values are posted in USD.

The post Facebook Ads Benchmarks 2026: NEW Data, Trends, & Insights for Your Industry appeared first on WordStream.

Despite having conversion tracking features in place for two decades now, it’s still not a clear-cut science on which portion of your marketing efforts drove the actual conversion.

That’s where attribution models come into play.

We’re going to talk through the two key attribution models Google Ads uses to attribute performance to your campaigns and help you uncover which one is likely right for you.

Contents

• What is an attribution model?
• Why do we need attribution models?
• What attribution models are available in Google Ads?
  • Last click attribution
  • Data-driven attribution

What is an attribution model?

Simply put, an attribution model is a framework that assigns performance credit to one portion of an account or another.

When a customer makes a purchase on your site, they likely didn’t have an idea, Google it right away, click your ad, and convert immediately. If that’s what happened, we probably wouldn’t need attribution models.

Instead, that person likely had an idea and maybe conducted a search, but they might have clicked on any other link or an organic listing. Then they came to your site, browsed around a little, then left. Maybe they came back to your site three weeks later when they saw a YouTube ad you’re running and made a purchase then.

In that case, should the credit for that conversion go to the first time they clicked your ad on Search? The second time on YouTube? Somewhere in the middle?

That’s what attribution models try to solve.

Want to know how your Google Ads campaigns are doing right now? Find out with a free, instant audit >> Google Ads Performance Grader

Why do we need attribution models?

Without attribution models, it becomes impossible to know which portions of your marketing efforts are driving results and, therefore, impossible to know where to focus.

If you have no idea if your Search campaigns are converting, are you more or less likely to invest further in them? The same question goes for any other marketing channel.

Without clear, understandable, and actionable insights on performance, we marketers simply wouldn’t know where to focus our attention.

What attribution models are available in Google Ads?

If you were to join the paid media industry 15 years ago (when I did), this question would take a lot longer to answer. At that point, there were five different attribution models (all the ones you see in the dropdown below, minus Data-driven, which is now the recommended model).

First click, linear, time decay, and position-based attribution models all went the way of the dodo in 2023, so now we’re left with two. Let’s go through each of them.

Last click attribution

Last click attribution was the default for many a moon in the PPC space. In this model, all credit for a conversion is given to the last ad click that was associated with it.

Here’s an example of how last click would work:

As the first touchpoint, someone watches a video on YouTube. Then they conduct a Non-Brand Search, but don’t convert. They then see a second YouTube Video, then a Display Banner Ad, then eventually conduct a Brand Search and convert on that touchpoint.

In this scenario, all of the credit would be given to the Brand Search campaign in this account, which is why the bar in the image above is entirely in the Brand Search column. (As a side note, this is a simplified version considering we’re only looking at the Google Ads account. Bringing in other channels and mediums makes this more complicated, but we’re only talking about Google today.)

What kind of results can you expect from your Google Ads campaigns? Find out by downloading our latest Google Ads Benchmarks >>

Data-driven attribution

Data-driven attribution is Google’s answer to the long-debated attribution question: which model is right for me?

All of the other attribution models that used to be in Google Ads.

Now that you’ve been through the last-click attribution model, you know how to reach each of these. The higher the bar, the more credit is given to that touchpoint in the conversion process.

Depending on your business model, any of these could have been a good fit. But the biggest problem with all of these is that they were inflexible. Once you chose a model, the respective touchpoints in that model would receive the same amount of credit in all transactions.

It’s highly unlikely that all conversion flows are identical for each user, even if they have the same number of touchpoints.

The solution to that was initially launched all the way back in 2013, but made its way to the mainstream in 2020 and became the default attribution model for all new conversion actions in Google Ads in late 2021.

For this model, Google uses AI to analyze all interactions (clicks and video engagements) across Search, YouTube, and Display, assigning credit based on which interactions most influence conversions. This credit is dynamic based on all of the touchpoints a user had across the Google network and weighs them differently based on that user’s past behavior and perceived impact of each touchpoint.

For two different users who take the same path we had above, you might get two completely different attribution credit allocations.

You’ll notice as well that with data-driven attribution, Google can give partial conversion credit to each aspect of the conversion funnel. That means you might have a campaign that has 0.25 conversions. While that might not seem logical at first, it’s important to understand how these fractional shares add up across campaigns to drive tangible business results.

The goal here is to have a more realistic view of how each touchpoint in the funnel influences the conversion and allow you to understand what’s driving performance.

Find the right attribution model for your Google Ads campaigns

In case you couldn’t tell from this article, it’s highly likely that data-driven attribution is the right model for you. Most businesses are going to benefit from using this model over last click to make sure all portions of the account that contributed to a conversion are getting credit.

If you want more help determining how Google Ads are attributing to your bottom line, reach out to one of our experts.

The post Google Ads Attribution Models Explained: Last Click vs. Data-Driven appeared first on WordStream.

A few sentences in a review can influence consumers more than an entire website. A difference of one star—or even a half-star—can be all it takes for a shopper to choose a competitor over you. Not to mention that reviews are a top local SEO ranking factor, and they can boost your AI visibility!

To get all those benefits, though, you need to ask your customers for reviews. This can feel awkward or self-serving, but people generally love to share their opinions; they just need that extra nudge.

In this guide, I’ll show you why and how to ask for customer reviews in a variety of scenarios—with examples and templates to make your life easier!

Contents

• Why ask for reviews?
• How to ask customers for reviews
• How to ask for reviews in person
• How to ask for reviews over the phone
• How to ask for reviews via text
• How to ask for reviews with email
• How to ask for reviews post-purchase
• How to ask for reviews with your website
• How to ask for reviews on social media
• How to ask vendors for reviews
• What to ask for in customer reviews
• How not to ask for reviews

Why ask for reviews?

You can already attest to the power of customer reviews and testimonials from your own shopping experiences. Think about the number of times you’ve chosen a business either because of what its reviews said or simply because it had reviews. Or maybe you were never on the fence at all, because you knew exactly what you wanted to buy because you heard great things about it from someone you know.

Want more? Download How to Get More Reviews: 8 Tips to Boost Ranking, Reputation, & Revenue

Reviews influence buyers

The fact of the matter is, what other people have to say about your business carries more weight than what you have to say about your business, even if they are complete strangers. Not convinced? Consider these online review stats:

• 93% of people read online reviews before making a purchase.
• 84% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
• People are willing to pay 22% more for a product or service if the company has a good online reputation.

Buyers are strongly influenced by reviews.

If that is not enough to get you to leave your comfort zone and start collecting reviews for your own business, here are some more stats that might give you the boost you need:

• You need a lot of reviews: 47% of consumers won’t use a business with fewer than 20 reviews.
• Consumers will leave reviews when asked: In a recent study, 83% of consumers left a review when asked (in another, it was 71%).
• Recency matters: 52% of consumers look for reviews written within the past month.

Source

Reviews influence AI search answers

The people who buy from you aren’t the only ones reading all those reviews. AI chatbots also read your reviews to understand what you do, who you do it for, where you do it, and if you’re any good at it.

As people get savvier about how they communicate with Google’s AI Overviews and ChatGPT, reviews will become an even more important signal that your business deserves a recommendation.

Reviews help AI platforms trust your business.

Even better, since SEO has a big crossover with generative engine optimization (GEO), what you do to improve your reviews will also help you rank on traditional search pages.

Different ways to ask customers for reviews

Whether you’re looking to get more Google reviews, improve your Yelp ratings, get five stars on Facebook, or ramp up your Amazon reviews, there are a variety of ways to ask for them, including:

• In person
• Over the phone (or via text)
• Through your website (ideally, a reviews page)
• Via email (email blast, personal email, company email, email signatures)
• Via social media (direct message or post)
• Via thank-you pages
• On receipts/invoices
• More

We’ll be covering all of these and more in this post, but remember that you don’t have to stick with just one method of asking customers for reviews. In fact, you should have a few strategies running at once to ensure a steady stream of feedback is coming in about your business. Multiple and recent reviews help earn you more trust from customers and also help your business to rank higher in search results.

You’re building trust and awareness with your reviews. Get 14 Super Fast Ways to Boost Conversions and turn them into revenue

How to ask for a review in person

Asking for a review in person can be intimidating, but it is the most effective approach. If the opportunity presents itself, seize it!

Ask in response to praise

The easiest scenario would be that of a customer who approaches you with unsolicited praise. In this case, express your appreciation for their taking the time to provide the feedback, and then make the suggestion. For example:

Happy customer: [singing your praises]

You: That is so great to hear. We really try our best to [do what you’re being praised for]. And thank you so much for taking the time to share your feedback.

Customer: For sure, thank you for providing such great service!

You: You know, if you could write what you just said in a review on [platform], that would be awesome. Those kinds of comments really help prospective customers to feel more confident in choosing us.

Customer: Sure!

You: Do you know how to do it?

Create opportunities with conversation

You don’t have to wait for a customer to come to you to ask them for a review. More often than not, you’ll need to strike up a conversation with them that will provide the opportunity. You can do so by asking questions about their experience with your store, services, or products upon checkout. Good questions include:

• Did you find everything you were looking for today?
• Is this your first time [using the product you’re about to purchase]?
• How is that [product you’re purchasing]? I’ve tried [a similar product], but I have yet to try this one for myself.
• I hope you had a good experience with us…anything we could improve, or that you liked?

Don’t force it

Important: Don’t ask for a review upon a customer’s first positive remark about your business. This will render your conversation ingenuine, and you will come off as not caring about their experience but rather just about getting the review. Reviews improve your reputation, but you won’t get any (and your reputation will plummet) if you don’t ask in the right manner.

Instead, get a read on the customer. If their response is short and indicates that they don’t feel like talking, don’t force it. If they respond positively and offer more information or feedback, continue the conversation. As it comes to a close, ask them for the review. For example:

“Well hey, thanks for the feedback. We love sharing that kind of stuff with potential customers so they can feel more confident about choosing us. If you’re comfortable with it, it’d be awesome if you could share any of what you said to me in a [platform name] review.”

Want a lot of leads for free? Download 14 Fast & Easy Ways to Get Free Leads (+Examples You Can Copy)

How to ask clients for reviews over the phone

If you own or operate a business that is customer support-heavy, you and your employees can find plenty of opportunities to ask clients for reviews over the phone. But choose who you’re asking wisely. If you’ve just helped a client through a long or difficult problem, it’s probably not best to ask them for a review.

However, if you have a self-proclaimed satisfied customer (ideally if they express gratitude for your help), this is a great time to ask for a review.

“I’m glad we were able to help you today and we so appreciate your business. If you have the time and wouldn’t mind, we’d love it if you shared this experience on [review platform of your choice]. People really like to see that they’ll get the support they need should an issue with our services arise, customer accounts, of course, are the best way to show that.”

You’ll make your customer feel appreciated and valued, which not only increases customer loyalty but also increases the chances they’ll actually leave a review.

How to ask for reviews via text

Text message communication is increasingly popular for businesses today, and you have two options if you go this route.

Personal request

Business: Hi Mike. We just completed your spring lawn cleanup. Looks great, bring on some rain!

Mike: Appreciate it. Can you email me the invoice?

Business: You bet, I’ll send it tonight. After looking over the yard, I’d love to get your feedback in a Google or Facebook review if you have 60 seconds. Just click here: [link].

Source

SMS service

There are also SMS review request services that can set up automatic texts after appointments and purchases.

Your [service] is complete! Show some love and rate your experience [We actually read it!]

How to ask for reviews via email

Email is a solid way for businesses to ask for reviews. First, it’s still a great channel for communicating with your customers: 93% of consumers check their email daily, and 58% check it before doing anything else online. Second, you can include the link to the review platform right in the email and even test out different formats and language.

You can ask for reviews via email in the form of an email blast or personal email.  You may want to do one broad email or segment it out as you see fit. Here are some simple templates to follow.

Review request email template #1

Hey everyone!

Positive reviews from awesome customers like you help other [athletes, parents, artists, ec] just like you to feel confident about choosing [business name]. Could you take 60 seconds to go to [link to review platform] and share your happy experiences?

We will be forever grateful. Thank you in advance for helping us out!

Review request email template #2

Hey everyone,

Did you know that the number of [business name] fans has doubled since last year? We must be doing something right! And whatever that is, we want to keep doing it. So tell us!

If you have 90 seconds today, we would love it if you went to [platform] and wrote a review. A few sentences is all it takes! This enables us to continue providing the best experience possible for you, and helps others understand how [ business name] can make their life easier.

Thank you in advance!

Review request email template #3

Dear [first name]

Thank you for your recent purchase. We hope you love it! If you do, would you consider leaving us a [platform] review? This helps us to continue providing great products and helps others like you to find us and make confident [item] decisions.

Thank you in advance!

Review request email template #4

Nothing makes a customer feel more appreciated than receiving a personal email from the business owner. Choose a handful of loyal customers who have done a great deal of business with you, or customers with whom you’re hoping to cultivate lasting relationships, and send them a personal note thanking them for their business and asking for the review.

Hi [first name],

We have a quick favor to ask. Would you mind heading to [platform] and writing a quick review?

Reviews help us keep up with your needs and they also help others like you to make confident decisions about [your topic].

Review or not, we still love you!

Hoping to see your smiling face soon,

[Name]

Company-wide email

Involve your employees in the process. Stress the importance of customer reviews to your staff and ask that they send personal emails to customers. Let them know that they would be personally contributing to the growth of your organization, and they’ll feel empowered to participate in the initiative.

How to ask for reviews post-purchase

For some businesses, asking for a review immediately after their purchase makes sense, while others may want to wait to give the customer time to use it. Be sure to tailor your post-purchase review requests accordingly.

Thank you cards

With a design tool like Canva, you can easily create little thank you for your purchase cards to go in your product packaging, attached to receipts, or next to the mints that encourage reviews. The card can say something like:

• “Did you enjoy working with us? Leave a review!”
• “How did we do? Let us know by leaving a review at [link]!”
• “Got feedback? We’d love to hear it! You can leave us a review at [link].”

Purchase confirmation emails

Post-purchase trigger emails are great places to ask for reviews. Here are two short and sweet ways to request reviews or feedback in your after-purchase thank you pages:

“Thank you for your purchase! If you enjoyed your shopping experience, tell us (and others) about it!”

“Thank you for your purchase! If you are happy with your [new product], please take a minute to review it here [link to review platform].”

Chewy’s email is a great example of providing the actual items the customer purchased and a link to review each.

We’d love to hear how you and your pet enjoyed these products. Please leave a review so we can share it with other pet parents just like you.

And I particularly like this one by Biscuiteers because they include others’ reviews. This helps give customers a starting point so they’re not starting from scratch.

Thank you so much for your recent order. Buying pressies should be good fun and we’re curious to find how easy you found it. If you can spare a few minutes to leave us a review we’d be super grateful!

How to ask for reviews on your website

You can include a call to action (CTA) to leave a review in various places on your website, but many businesses benefit from having a dedicated reviews or testimonials page accessible via their main navigation (as this is one of the first things a prospective customer seeks out when considering a business).

Have a “leave us a review” page

In the example below, this business has a review item in their main navigation, with the ability to read and leave reviews.

On the “leave a review” page, you’re asked to give a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Once you hit the thumbs up, you’re prompted to leave a Google review.

Include existing reviews

Be sure to have a page that shows existing reviews, or to include them right on your “leave a review” page. This shows people how short their review can be and gives them a starting point.

Many content management systems have a plugin or script that allows you to aggregate your reviews from other platforms into a feed on this page. But you can also add them manually. Either way, it is best to have the reviews appear on the page in text form (as opposed to a screenshot or image). This is because reviews are often packed with important keywords that can boost your SEO, but Google won’t pick up on these words if they’re in image form.

How to ask for reviews on social media

You can ask for reviews on any social media platform, but Facebook should be your top priority since it’s a top review site.

Ask and include a link

What better way to get Facebook reviews than via Facebook post? In the simple example below, this insurance agency writes:

We L VE our customers! If you want to show us some love, leave us a review!

Create posts out of existing reviews

The other way to go is to share reviews on your feed as they come in, as this local business does below. This works for every social platform. You can also add a link in the caption, a comment, or your bio for customers to leave their own reviews.

How to ask for reviews from vendors

If you do a lot of B2B work, consider your vendors and partners for reviews. Other business owners understand the value of a review, and leaving one on their website or listing may be enough to get one from them without even asking.

However, there are opportunities to ask for reviews from them as well. If you find yourself in a meeting with a client or a business partner, don’t be afraid to simply say,

“Mr. Smith, I really have enjoyed working with you on this project and value your insight. Would you be willing to share your experience with our company by contributing a short review for our testimonial page?”

Or

“Positive feedback from not just customers, but also the partners we work with really helps us to continue attracting more great customers and partners such as yourself. If you wouldn’t mind leaving a review, we would really appreciate that.”

What to ask for in reviews

Getting more reviews is great, but you’ll get a lot more out of them if customers put the right information in them. A descriptive review is more relevant to potential customers reading it and gives AI systems more details to build a complete recommendation.

A few key pieces of information you should ask reviewers to include are:

• Service or product: Instead of “Jone’s and Son were a big help,” ask reviewers to say “I hired Jone’s and Son to replace the plumbing in my guest bathroom.:
• Location: “I called on Thursday night, and they were at my house in Lincolnton by 9 the next morning.”
• Differentiators: “Their quote was very competitive, and they were the only option who could complete the job in my timeframe.”

These review upgrades will make your business the obvious AI recommendation when someone searches for a “Plumber in Lincolnton who specializes in updating bathrooms, is competitively priced, and can work quickly.”

To get there, ask reviewers to add these three pieces of information. Or you can even create a review template they fill in.

How not to ask for reviews

While you are encouraged to ask for reviews, there is a right and a wrong way to go about it. Here are some approaches you should avoid.

Incentivizing with gifts or discounts

You should not, under any circumstances, offer a discount or free gift in exchange for leaving reviews. This is against the terms and conditions of many review platforms like Yelp and Google, and can lead to a high volume of low-quality or star-only reviews (with no text). Reviews are meant to empower prospective customers to make informed decisions and gain exposure on AI and traditional search, and a lot of thin reviews won’t do it.

However, a pay-it-forward campaign like the one below would be perfectly suitable. It reads:

For every review we receive we will donate up to $10 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation

Buying reviews

Again, this policy is in place to keep review platforms honest and accurate. Buying reviews isn’t just dishonest; you could get flagged by review sites and end up much worse off than if you didn’t have reviews at all.

Asking apologetically

Don’t be afraid to ask for reviews. People are generally willing to leave reviews. People like being heard, and will be extra willing to lend their voice to a company they feel has met their expectations, as a way of returning the favor. Plus, you are empowering them to give other consumers just like them the confidence to make an informed decision.

Not responding to reviews

Don’t forget to respond to reviews. First, this acknowledges and expresses appreciation for the customer taking the time to do so. Second, this can help you build customer relationships and retain more buyers long-term. Finally, it shows the public that you are attentive to your customers’ voices. Responding also builds engagement and activity on your listing, which can help your Google Business Profile get more traction.

In fact, 80% of consumers say that responding to every review makes them more likely to work with a business.

Source

Use several methods to ask for reviews

There are many ways to ask for reviews, but the most effective method and/or platform will be different for each business. As mentioned above, your best bet is to have a few strategies in place at once, and to experiment with particular methods to find out which one(s) work best for you! Just remember these key takeaways:

• Reviews aren’t selfish; they empower your customers to help other consumers make smart and confident decisions.
• Be genuine and don’t force it.
• Keep email correspondence short and sweet. The faster the email reads, the easier they’ll perceive the process to be (a copywriting psychology principle!).
• Make it as easy as possible for the customer to leave a review (including using short, easy-to-remember links for printed materials).
• Remember that customers are willing to leave reviews.
• Respond to reviews, good and bad!

A steady stream of good-quality reviews is essential for your reputation, ranking, and ultimately even your revenue. So follow these tips and get a review strategy in place asap!

The post 25 Ways to Ask for Reviews (+Templates & Tips) appeared first on WordStream.

When customers ask ChatGPT or Perplexity things like “best HVAC company near me” or “who do people recommend for emergency dental care in Tampa,” some businesses consistently appear in the answers, and others don’t.

That’s because AI recommendations can pull information from more sources, and in a few different ways, than traditional search algorithms. So while SEO best practices provide a solid GEO (generative engine optimization) foundation, there’s more you can do to improve your standing with AI search engines.

The bigger problem, though, is that most businesses can’t see what AI thinks of them. Google Search Console won’t tell you if AI systems trust your business enough to recommend it. Your SEO tools won’t show when competitors start appearing in AI-generated answers instead of you.

This guide will help you benchmark your AI visibility, understand the signals that appear to influence AI recommendations, and identify the gaps that may already be costing you exposure.

Contents

• What’s hurting your AI visibility and how to fix it
• AI visibility priorities by vertical
• How to benchmark your AI visibility
• What to expect: A realistic timeline for increased AI visibility

Need the whole plan? Get The Complete AI Search Toolkit: Practical Strategies to Get Found Online

What’s hurting your AI visibility and how to fix it

AI search is still pretty new. And there are a LOT of visibility signals that are just being discovered. It’s understandable that many businesses haven’t mastered it all yet.

There are four patterns that come up repeatedly:

1. Vague positioning
2. Thin reviews
3. Inconsistent local data
4. Websites AI can’t retrieve from

Any one of them hurts. Many local businesses have all four.

Vague positioning

AI systems recommend businesses they can clearly categorize. The more generic your description, the harder you are to retrieve.

“We provide quality home services” gets passed over. “Emergency HVAC repair for older homes across Denver” is specific enough to match a prompt.

The difference is how AI reads and classifies what you do.

A roofing company in Phoenix that describes itself as “emergency and residential roofing across the Phoenix metro” is much easier to recommend for “best emergency roofer in Phoenix” than one that says “we handle all your roofing needs.”

Most businesses have slightly different descriptions on their website, their Google Business Profile, their Yelp page, and their various online business listings. That inconsistency makes AI less confident about what you actually do. Confident signals win recommendations.

The fix: Tighten your positioning everywhere

Start with a quick audit. Pull up your homepage headline, your Google Business Profile description, your title tags, and three or four directory listings. Read them in sequence. If they describe your business differently, different services emphasized, different geography, or different language, that’s the first thing to fix.

Pick one clear, specific description of what you do, where you do it, and for whom. Something like “pediatric dentistry and orthodontics in South Tampa, serving families since 2008” or “24/7 emergency HVAC repair across the Denver metro.” Make that the consistent thread across every surface. The specificity is what makes you retrievable.

Make sure your key value propositions are clearly noted on your website and beyond.

Thin or generic reviews

Volume still matters, but AI pays closer attention to what reviews actually say. A review that reads “Great company, highly recommend!” carries almost no informational weight. A review that says “They replaced our AC unit the same day it died during a heat wave—had cold air by 6 PM” tells AI the service type, the urgency, the location context, and the outcome.

The second review teaches AI something the first one doesn’t. It makes it easier to recommend for “emergency AC repair in Austin” because the signals all point to that specific capability. Multiply that across dozens of reviews, and the difference in how a business gets described and recommended becomes significant.

The fix: Adjust your review strategy

The goal isn’t to script reviews. It’s to help customers understand what’s actually useful to mention. After a completed job, you might ask for a review by saying: “If you have a moment to leave us a review, it helps other families in Tampa find us—especially if you mention what brought you in and how it went.”

Ask reviewers to mention the service provided in their review so AI platforms are more likely to recommend you to them in the future.

That framing doesn’t tell them what to write. It just reminds them that specifics matter. Most satisfied customers default to generic praise because no one has told them otherwise.

One firm rule: don’t offer anything in exchange for reviews. Every major platform prohibits it, and the risk of getting flagged outweighs any short-term gain.

Inconsistent local signals

Conflicting addresses, old phone numbers, and directory listings that don’t match your current information are among the most common and most fixable problems in AI visibility.

AI systems build confidence through verification. If your name, address, and phone number appear consistently across your Google Business Profile, Yelp, local directories, and your own website, AI has a cleaner picture of who you are and where you operate.

Unfortunately, it’s a common occurrence. Over on LocaliQ, we recently reviewed 100 random home services business listings and found that 85% of them had incorrect or incomplete information.

Businesses with messy local data don’t get penalized in an obvious way. They just get passed over in favor of businesses AI can confirm more easily.

The fix: Build consistent local authority signals off your website

As mentioned, AI systems trust businesses that appear repeatedly across independent sources. I mentioned the need to keep consistent information across business listings. But you can take this a step further by going beyond directories.

A mention in the local paper, a guest spot on a regional podcast, a sponsorship of a neighborhood event, a helpful post in a local Facebook group or subreddit. Each of these creates an off-site signal that AI can verify independently.

In-person appearances promoted online are additional trust and understanding signals for AI visibility.

This doesn’t require a PR campaign. A plumbing company in Chicago that answers a question in r/Chicago about preventing frozen pipes in winter has created a citation that ChatGPT can draw from. A dental practice that gets mentioned in a Tampa parenting blog has built a trust signal that Perplexity can reference. A lawn care company that sponsors a local high school sports team and gets mentioned on the school’s website has become slightly easier for AI to confirm as a legitimate, community-connected business.

Websites that aren’t retrieval-friendly

Most business websites are built for humans to browse, not for AI to retrieve–as they should be. But because of this, they can lack FAQs, service comparisons, pricing context, and neighborhood or city-level specificity that would actually be really helpful for potential customers as well as AI systems. These are exactly the content types AI draws from when forming recommendations.

A dental practice with a page titled “Emergency Dental Care in Tampa” that explains what to do, what to expect, and approximate costs is far more likely to surface than one with a generic “Services” page listing treatment names. A plumbing company with a page answering “How much does emergency plumbing cost in Chicago?” has given AI something to cite.

 A company with only a homepage and a contact form has given AI nothing to work with.

The fix: Create content built for recommendation prompts

Most SEO content is written to rank for short keywords. AI searches are longer and more conversational, and the content that does best matches that structure directly.

• An HVAC company in Denver that publishes “What to do when your furnace stops working in winter” or “Heat pump vs. gas furnace: what makes sense for older Denver homes” is targeting the exact prompts their customers run.
• A law firm in Austin that writes “What to expect from your first divorce consultation in Texas” or “How to choose between a general attorney and an immigration specialist” is creating content that directly answers what AI gets asked.
• A car rental company that publishes “Renting vs. rideshare for a week in Phoenix: what actually saves money” owns a comparison query their competitors haven’t touched.

Specific, local, practical, comparison-based content consistently outperforms generic service pages in AI search. It’s about being more useful than a competitor who wrote “HVAC Services in Denver” and called it a page.

“The businesses that do well in AI search are the ones that made their expertise legible to a machine,” says Stephanie Yoder, Director of Content Strategy at LaunchSquad. “Consistent signals, real specificity, and content that actually answers something. That combination is hard to fake and hard for a competitor to undo quickly.”

SEO is the foundation of AI visibility. Download How to Do SEO Right—Right Now! 

AI visibility priorities by vertical

Buyers add more personal context to their AI prompts than they do traditional searches. Those differences should reflect in how you address AI visibility.

Here are a few things to consider based on which type of business you need to get found.

Dentists

Dental practices should focus on treatment-specific pages, review volume and recency, insurance clarity, and local trust signals.

A page titled “Invisalign for adults in South Tampa: what it costs and how long it takes” or “What to expect from same-day emergency dental care” does more work than a generic services list.

Patients ask specific questions before they commit to a dentist. The practice that answers those questions gets recommended to the ones who ask them.

Home services businesses

Home services businesses should prioritize emergency service visibility and service-area specificity.

Review recency matters more in these verticals than almost any other because urgency is built into the query. When someone asks “Who can fix my furnace today,” AI leans toward businesses with recent, specific reviews that demonstrate they’ve done exactly that, not businesses with 50 reviews from three years ago.

Med spas and clinics

Med spas and related clinical practices should invest in treatment comparison pages, before-and-after proof, review sentiment, and local authority.

Content like “Botox vs. fillers: what to know before your first appointment in Scottsdale” or “What to expect from your first med spa visit” maps directly to how first-time patients research their options. In this vertical, trust signals matter as much as visibility.

AI is less likely to recommend a clinic with no external mentions than one that appears in local wellness publications, even if both have similar review counts.

Law firms

Legal firms benefit most from practice-area specificity and FAQ content.

A page that answers “What to expect from a divorce consultation in Texas” or “Immigration attorney vs. general attorney: what the difference means for your case” maps directly to how prospective clients actually research before they pick up the phone.

Authority mentions in local publications, a quote in a regional business journal, or a contribution to a bar association newsletter add the off-site credibility that Perplexity and ChatGPT weight heavily.

How to benchmark your AI visibility

The benchmarking process has three parts: running real customer prompts, recording what you find, and scoring yourself against competitors. Start with the prompts.

Run real customer prompts across AI platforms

The first step is simple: ask what your customers would actually ask. Not keywords. Full questions, the way a person types them when they need something.

• For an HVAC company in Denver: “Best HVAC company in Denver” or “Most reliable AC repair near me.”
• For a pediatric dentist in Tampa: “Best pediatric dentist in Tampa” or “Who do parents recommend for kids’ dentistry in Tampa?”
• For a plumbing company in Chicago: “Best emergency plumber in Chicago” or “Who fixes burst pipes fast near me?”

Run these across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. Each platform treats sources differently, and the results often look nothing like your Google rankings.

A dental practice might appear consistently in Gemini because it has strong Google Business Profile signals but disappear entirely from ChatGPT because no one on Reddit or in local forums has ever mentioned it. A law firm might rank in Perplexity because a regional publication covered them, but get skipped in AI Overviews because their site lacks structured FAQ content. Both are useful data points.

One test that reveals the most: comparison prompts. Ask “best HVAC companies in Denver” or “top-rated dentists in South Tampa.” These force AI to make a shortlist. The businesses that appear here are the ones AI trusts enough to recommend outright.

Record what you find

As you run each prompt on the various platforms, keep track of the responses.

For each prompt, note four things:

1. Whether your business appears at all.
2. Which competitors show up repeatedly.
3. How AI describes your business when it does appear.
4. Where you land when a customer runs a side-by-side comparison.

The description piece matters as much as the mention. If AI is describing your HVAC company as a “general contractor” or your dental practice as “a family dentist” when you specialize in pediatric care, that misclassification is costing you recommendation matches.

Ask AI what it thinks of your business and record what it says.

Build a simple AI visibility scorecard

Score your business on each signal below from 0 to 5. Then do the same for your top two competitors. The gaps tell you where to focus first.

A score below 10 usually means foundational problems: positioning or citation gaps that need to be fixed before anything else.

Between 10 and 17, you’re partially visible but inconsistent.

Above 17, you’re in decent shape but likely still losing specific prompt types to competitors who’ve been more deliberate about this.

What to expect: a realistic timeline for increased AI visibility

AI visibility builds through consistency, and it compounds over time rather than flipping overnight.

In the first 30 days, fixing your positioning and cleaning up your local data creates cleaner signals for AI to work with. You’re not adding new content or reviews yet. You’re removing the friction that’s causing AI to skip over you in favor of businesses it can confirm more easily. This is the lowest-effort, highest-return work on this list.

Between 60 and 90 days, with sharper reviews coming in and a few pieces of content targeted at recommendation prompts, your mention frequency in AI answers typically starts to improve. Comparison prompts start going your way more often. Local trust signals get stronger as new reviews mention specific services, locations, and outcomes.

At 3 to 6 months of consistent work, you should see recurring inclusion across multiple AI platforms, stronger comparative visibility, and a broader authority footprint across independent sources. The gap between a business that started this work six months ago and one that’s starting today is already meaningful, and it keeps widening.

The businesses AI recommends

The businesses winning in AI search are the ones easiest for AI to understand and trust.

That comes down to five things: specific positioning, strong and detailed reviews, consistent local data, repeated mentions across independent sources, and practical content that answers the questions customers actually ask.

Each signal reinforces the others. Reviews confirm positioning. Off-site mentions confirm reviews. Content gives AI something to cite when a customer asks the exact question your page was written to answer.

Traditional SEO forms the foundation of success in AI search. The best AI visibility then requires optimizing the entire digital footprint: the reviews, the listings, the off-site mentions, and the content all telling the same clear story. The businesses that get that right first build an advantage that takes competitors a long time to close.

The post What’s Limiting Your AI Visibility? Find & Fix Every Visibility Gap appeared first on WordStream.

The problem is sometimes knowing what to test. Depending on your Google Ads account performance situation, there is a slew of answers.

In this post, I want to help you find your way through the next phase of testing in your Google Ads account with some experiment ideas. Let’s get started!

Contents

• What to test in Google Ads to scale your account
• Google Ads tests for underperforming campaigns
• Google Ads experiments to help high CTR, low CVR performance
• Google Ads test ideas for campaigns with little to no data
• Google Ads experiment tips

Not sure what to test first? Instantly identify areas for account optimization and improvement with our free Google Ads Grader!

What to test in Google Ads to scale your account

If you’ve built strong performance in Google Ads and now need campaign growth, start with these experiment ideas.

1. Increase budget for more coverage

Are any areas of your account limited by budget? Those are easy places to add more funds.

There are a couple of caveats to this recommendation, though.

First, if you’re using automated bid strategies that have efficiency targets (think Target ROAS or Target CPA), giving a big budget increase all at once can have a negative impact on performance. If you’re trying to significantly scale, I recommend doing no more than 20% increases a day, then letting the algorithm catch its breath and regain performance before making another adjustment.

Second, some other bid strategies like maximize clicks, maximize conversions, and maximize conversion value will usually have a yellow alert that you’re limited by budget rather than red, but also, in my experience, it sometimes lags what’s actually possible to spend.

Try adding the daily average cost column into your view to see if you’re spending your full budget in the last 7 days rather than waiting for the alert to pop up.

2. Test new match types

If you’re leveraging only exact match keywords for search campaigns, it might be time to test out phrase match and see how it does.

If you’re using phrase and exact, it could be time to look into a controlled broad match test.

Each of these steps can help you get a little further from your root set of keywords to find other users who may also be interested in your products and services.

Before making these adjustments, I recommend adding in some proactive negative keywords (you could leverage the Google Keyword Planner for this if you need) to help curb some wasted spend, but also review your search query reports regularly for the first few days/weeks to make sure all queries are clean and have good intent behind them.

Ready to test some new keywords in your Google Ads account? Start with a free, custom keyword list complete with cost and competition data using our Free Keyword Tool!

3. Test AI Max for Search

If you’ve expanded to all match types and are still seeing strong performance and needing more volume, AI Max could be a great thing to test.

To help expand your reach, AI Max uses search term matching and combines broad match functionality plus keywordless targeting based on your assets and landing pages to trigger for search queries.

4. Expand geotargeting

If your business model allows, you could extend your reach to additional locations to get more customers. Many smaller businesses or folks new to advertising tend to be pretty restrictive with their geotargeting, and rightfully so. You don’t want to waste money on customers you don’t think you can support. But if performance is strong and you can extend your reach just a bit, you might find a nice amount of incremental traffic.

5. Fill the top and middle of the funnel

If all of your strong performance is coming from Search and you’re not able to simply increase budget or expand reach with the strategies I have listed above, it might be time to expand beyond Search and do a better job filling your funnel.

You’ve likely heard before that marketing is a funnel. Or a journey. Or a nurture sequence. No matter what you name it, there’s a process someone goes through before they’re ready to purchase from a company.

In college, they taught me the AIDA model: Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action.

For some purchases, like a candy bar or some other impulse buy (think things at the checkout in stores), that process can be really short. Just a few seconds to see the candy bar is there (become aware of it), develop an interest (what’s in that candy bar?), decide you want it (who doesn’t want a candy bar?), and take action (chuck it on the counter and pay your extra $1.25).

Other purchases can take much longer and likely can be influenced by multi-touch marketing strategies.

Campaign types like Demand Gen and Performance Max can help you reach a wider audience and make them aware of your product or service. Then that campaign, or a following search campaign, can help nurture them through the following stages to purchase.

The takeaway is: Search is a bottom-of-funnel channel. Someone actively searching for something is likely already aware and interested. Using higher funnel campaign types can help build that awareness and interest, so your Search campaigns can capture it later on, giving you increased sales volume through your strong-performing campaigns.

Google Ads test ideas for underperforming campaigns

If your campaign performance has declined and you need to increase efficiency, try these Google Ads test ideas.

6. Refresh ad copy

Sometimes one of the easiest ways to spur improvements is to update stale ad copy. If you haven’t rewritten or launched anything new in a month or two, maybe it’s time to switch up the message.

Here are some ideas of where to start:

• Review the assets report to see which headlines and descriptions are performing the best, then come up with new iterations of them.
• Review competitor copy to see what themes they’re leaning into and see how you can outflank them.
• Talk to your sales team and understand the questions/concerns potential customers normally have and address those in ad copy.
• Check out your reviews and pull snippets to use as compelling social copy.

I still stick to my RSA theme testing strategy for my clients and find it’s a great way to understand what messaging and angles work at a high level, while also letting me drill into the specifics of each to know exactly what moves the needle.

7. Review search terms to look for intent shifts

As part of regular optimizations, you should be reviewing your search terms report to find new keywords and negatives, but it’s also important to take a higher-level view and see if queries are trending one way or another.

Are your search terms becoming more educational rather than transactional over the last few weeks or months? Are competitor terms creeping in? Are people looking for knock-off versions of your offerings?

Whether these are happening because of actual market shifts or Google simply following a different pattern of queries based on its internal signals, it’s important to make sure you’re on the right intent path with your search terms.

8. Review Auction Insights

I’m a big fan of the Auction Insights report as there’s quite a lot you can do with it.

It’s useful in finding who your key competitors are for any given campaign or ad group in your account, but the better use is to spot trends within your competitor behavior.

In the Auction Insights report, head over to Segment, hover over Time, then select either the week or month option depending on your time frame.

Now we can see trends in the data for our account. For example, in this campaign, we’ve been seeing increasing costs and diminishing returns, likely due to the two competitors surrounding us.

Both sites are seeing increases in impression share since April, but so are we. The more telling stat is the absolute top of page rate (red). This shows us losing ground to our competitors and likely causing lower returns.

In this instance, it may be that the queries have shifted and our competitors’ offerings make more sense, in which case we should adjust our keywords and add negatives. It could also be that these competitors are simply finding efficiencies here and are willing to outbid us. In that case, we might need to adjust our bid strategies, revisit our economics, or simply be willing to lose ground if we’re not able to break even.

9. Test a new bid strategy

Sometimes decreasing performance just needs a little kick in the butt from a change in bid strategy. While I don’t recommend changing bid strategies lightly, it might make sense to do a split test and see if a different set of parameters might be useful.

Oftentimes, I find campaigns that have been running on bid strategies like maximize conversions or maximize conversion value simply get a little out of hand after a while. Without any guideposts to rein them in, they can go a kind of nuts. Test using TROAS or TCPA strategies for these campaigns and see if that helps bring things back in line.

10. Develop new landing pages

Likely the biggest lift for this section is developing a new landing page. Just like everything else in marketing, landing pages aren’t just one and done. While the page itself might not be causing the decline (in my experience, pages usually either do well or don’t and don’t really trail off unless the functionality wanes), it can be a big upside if you create something with even incremental conversion rate wins.

Whether you have an in-house team that can whip up a new page, or you need to use a tool like Unbounce to get you moving, testing a new page layout can be a great way to move the needle.

Google Ads experiments to help high CTR, low CVR performance

If you’re getting traffic, but not conversions, here are some Google Ads experiments worth testing.

11. Add negative keywords

Just like I mentioned above, search query reviews should be a regular part of your campaign optimization. If you’re not monitoring these, it can easily be a source of unqualified traffic.

If you’re getting a good amount of traffic but not converting any of it, do a spot check and make sure all of the queries you’re showing for are relevant and add negative keywords where needed.

12. Revisit match types

Sometimes, negative keywords are just band-aids that are trying to fix bigger problems. When reviewing my search terms, I regularly check the match type and keyword columns as well.

We all know broad match is going to be the broadest with targeting, and sometimes that’s okay. But if I notice a pattern of certain keywords matching broadly to irrelevant queries, it might be time to focus that term with only phrase and/or exact.

By default, the Keyword column is not added to this report. You can easily add it by clicking on the Columns editor, then choosing Keyword under the attributes section.

13. Add placement exclusions

Just like search queries, placements should be a regular part of your campaign reviews if you’re running campaigns that leverage the Google Display Network.

Adding individual placements as exclusions can be an easy win to help improve performance, but also look for patterns in the sites that have high click volume and no conversions.

It may be easier for you to simply exclude certain categories of content. You can use any of the controls in the content suitability category to help focus your ads either by inventory type or by controlling specific content types, placements, keywords, types & labels, and content themes.

As a rule of thumb, if a placement or content type isn’t a good performer but it’s an okay fit, you can exclude it within a campaign with the option to show others where it could perform better.

If it’s not a good fit for your brand, it’s best to add it as an exclusion at the account level.

14. Provide more specific audience targets and opt out of auto-targeting

For any campaign that leverages audiences for targeting (think Demand Gen), two common issues I see are having too broad of targeting or not providing enough points to narrow down on.

For the audience breakdown below, we’re only targeting a lookalike audience of purchasers. That’s all. There’s no direction on customer search behavior, their interests, demographics, or even exclusions. While a lookalike audience can perform well, it usually does best with some additional context.

Another sneaky setting is the optimized targeting option. This lives at the ad group level and basically gives Google the option to go beyond your set targeting if it thinks it can find good performance. While every account is different and testing is generally encouraged, I have yet to find an account where Optimized targeting works at all, let alone better than my existing targeting.

Make sure when leveraging these types of campaigns that you’re providing enough context for your ads to find the right users who are ready to convert and aren’t just letting Google run wild with targeting.

15. Write qualifying ad copy

While we usually want as high a CTR as possible, spending lots of money on clicks but no conversions can be very frustrating.

Many times, I find my clients have written ad copy that feels like it’s for everyone (which is why they all click) when the offer is actually catered to a specific audience.

Think about it this way: if you didn’t know the Rolex brand and their ads promoted an “everyday gold watch,” you might be inclined to click on it, not realizing the price point you’re walking into.

Writing qualifying ad copy helps you accomplish two things at once: you can ward off clicks from users who aren’t qualified and level-set expectations for the users who do click at the same time.

Rather than writing “Every Day Gold Watches” (which Rolex does not do, by the way; just sharing an example), they would be better off with something like “Luxury Gold Watches.”

16. Rework your AI Brief

One of the newest features to Google Ads is the AI Brief. This feature is so new I have to take images from help articles, as it hasn’t shown up in any of my accounts just yet.

But! If you’re from the future and reading this while leveraging the AI Brief and also seeing decent traffic but no conversions, you may need to revisit these directives.

The AI Brief can have impacts on the search terms your ads match to, the audiences you show for, and the messaging that’s in your ads. If you haven’t put in the work to make this as accurate and helpful to Google as possible, now’s your time to do that.

17. Change your call to action

At the highest level, if you’re regularly driving traffic at an efficient level but not seeing conversions, assuming none of the other optimizations in this section have worked, it might be time to rethink your call to action.

Assuming your bid strategy is either Manual or optimizing for some form of conversion, seeing reasonable CTRs means your message is resonating with your target audience, but no conversions means either you’ve misled them or they’re not willing to take the next step and convert.

For these scenarios, I try to dig into search terms, placements, and review website engagement to determine what a better call to action might be and adjust campaigns accordingly.

Google Ads test ideas for campaigns with little to no data

If your campaigns aren’t seeing any traffic yet or your ads can’t seem to get traction, here are a few more Google Ads tests you can experiment with.

Get baseline data to compare your Google Ads performance to using our free Search Ads Benchmarks and Display Ads Benchmarks reports complete with data for over 20 industries!

18. Expand match types

Match type expansion is usually a strategy I reserve for campaigns that are performing well, but if you’re not getting any traction with your existing terms on restrictive match types, it might be worth loosening your grip a little. You can’t make any sales from no traffic, but you might be able to optimize your way to some incremental sales from broader traffic. You just need something to optimize.

19. Test upper funnel campaigns

We all want conversions and sales. Believe me, I get it. But if your campaigns don’t have any volume coming through with restrictive targeting, it’s likely worth a shot at higher-funnel campaigns.

To be honest, after some optimization and functionality changes from Google, both Demand Gen and Performance Max campaigns have been a pleasant surprise when it comes to driving conversions for many of my clients. They have helped generate awareness and interest for their companies, and in some cases, even drive the bottom-of-funnel conversions right within the same campaign.

In other instances, we were able to finally generate enough traction and bottom-of-funnel interest to support Search campaigns. Google likes to call the combination of these 3 campaign types the Power Pack, and although that does sound a bit hokey to me, I have seen it work in some accounts.

20. Expand geographic coverage

Just like I mentioned in the section on expanding coverage for strong performing campaigns, sometimes a little wider geofence is just the thing it takes to get your campaigns off the ground. If you’re able to support a location, maybe add it to your mix and see if that gets the ball rolling.

21. Test new channels

While I would be astonished if you can’t get traction to some degree with the many different campaign types on Google, it’s worth noting that Google isn’t the only game in town. Customers are searching across platforms, so it’s reasonable to reach out to big players like Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Reddit, Quora, or any of the others to get some traction.

Examples of complementary marketing channels that can boost your Google Ads strategy.

Google Ads experiment tips

Now that you have some options of things to test in Google Ads, I want to leave you with some best practices on how to test them.

State goals before the test begins

Experimenting with a new bidding strategy or campaign type is great, but if you don’t know what you’re trying to achieve, you won’t know if you’ve succeeded. Set some parameters for what you are hoping performance will be. Once you get your initial results, you’ll know if you’re close to your targets and could optimize your way there, or if you’re completely off base and might need to cut bait.

Give a reasonable timeframe

As much as we’d all love for an experiment to have confident conclusions in just a couple of days, that simply isn’t realistic. Human nature is too fickle for that, but additionally, with the increasing impacts of AI on your campaign successes, it’s important you give them enough time to learn and iterate on the success/failures they see early on.

The shortest time frame I would ever recommend is one week, and that’s only for super high-volume tests and likely only a “cut bait” scenario if performance is abysmal. Two weeks is an easy-to-hit minimum, with some tests needing one month, two months, and sometimes a quarter to finish.

Depending on your industry, tests that run for over three months don’t tend to yield significantly different results for my accounts than they did at that three-month mark. If you hit that time frame, maybe give it a little more, but don’t be averse to calling it before you reach statistical significance if you’re not even close to it by that point.

Minimize the variables

Nothing is more frustrating than running a test, feeling like you have a conclusion, then having others poke holes in your findings. While it’s not always possible to test only one variable at a time (or very few), it’s in your interest to try and focus on just one to two things at a time so as to come away with a clear conclusion and winner without caveats.

Don’t pause your Google Ads assets; test them first instead

For just about every scenario with a Google Ads account, there’s a potential move you can make to help improve your performance. Hopefully this list gets you thinking of ways you can address the challenges you’re having in your account and get you on a path to better performance. For more ways to maximize your Google Ads campaigns, see how our solutions can help!

The post What to Test Next? 21 Google Ads Experiment Ideas appeared first on WordStream.

They don’t work for every business.

Our in-depth 2026 benchmarking study of 13,474 US Google Ads campaigns found that the average conversion rate was 8.18% and the average cost per lead was $66.69.

I have spent more than 15 years managing Google Ads accounts and millions of dollars in ad spend, and I can tell you that the answer to the question “do Google Ads work” is “it depends.”

When the three criteria outlined above hold, Google Ads is often the best-performing customer acquisition channel I work with. When any one is missing, the campaigns can lose money, and can lose it in a way that feels like the platform is broken when it is really the setup.

In this guide, I’ll walk through the criteria for making Google Ads work for your business, the industries where the math works and where it may not, and a framework to test which camp you are in without burning a big budget to find out.

Contents

• When Google Ads work and when they don’t
• Average Google Ads performance by industry
  • Benchmarks Lookup Tool
• The three conditions that determine if Google Ads will work
• The break-even math: How to tell if Google Ads will work for you
  • Google Ads Break-Even Calculator
• Industries where Google Ads reliably work
• Industries where Google Ads often do not work
• Why some Google Ads campaigns fail
• How to test Google Ads without wasting money
  • Google Ads Viability Scoring Tool
• Google Ads vs SEO and AEO vs social: When each is the right bet
• What changed in Google Ads in 2026
• When your Google Ads are not working: The diagnostic
• Where to go next with Google Ads
• Frequently asked questions

See how your Google Ads are really performing. Try our Free Google Ads Performance Grader >>

When Google Ads work and when they don’t

Google Ads work when three independent conditions hold at once:

1. People search for what you sell: There is commercial-intent demand to capture.
2. You can profitably pay the click cost: Unit economics allow you to reach those searchers without losing money.
3. You have the capacity to manage the account: Either the time to do it yourself or the budget for someone else to do it for you.

Search demand ebbs and flows depending on the vertical. As more and more businesses use Google Ads, prices have risen in most verticals due to the fact that Google Ads works as an auction-based system. Whether or not you have the capacity to properly manage your own account is often dependent on the first two factors: how much demand there is (how large is your account) and how good the economics are for your business.

Lots of businesses can check all three of these boxes and run Google Ads very profitably (some businesses even power most of their demand generation efforts with Google Ads alone), and there are plenty of businesses who start Google Ads campaigns, lose money, and abandon the channel.

Average Google Ads performance by industry

Across the Google Ads benchmarks I mentioned, search click-through rate was 6.64%, the average cost per click (CPC) was $5.42, and the average conversion rate was 8.18%, with wide variation by vertical.

CPCs swing hard depending on what you sell:

1. High-CPC verticals: Attorneys and Legal Services near $9.87 per click; Dentists around $8.00 per click.
2. Low-CPC verticals: Restaurants near $2.05, travel near $2.14.
3. Average cost per lead across all industries: $66.69, which in 2026 was actually the first year-over-year drop in cost per lead in five years.

The variation matters more than the average. A $5,000 monthly budget buys roughly 500 clicks at legal services CPCs and more than 2,000 clicks at restaurant CPCs, so the same spend produces very different amounts of data to learn from. The combination of your CPC and your conversion rate (and most importantly, your personal cost-per-conversion weighted against how you value a lead or sale), not the headline average, decides whether paid traffic can pay for itself.

There are two honest ways to use benchmark data:

• Before you launch, set expectations: If your projected cost per lead is half the benchmark for your industry, your assumptions are probably too rosy. If it is three times the benchmark, you are likely underestimating cost or overestimating conversion rate.
• After you launch, triangulate: An account running 40% below benchmark does not prove Google Ads “do not work.” It points at something specific and fixable, and the failure-reasons table later names the usual culprits.

INTERACTIVE TOOL

Google Ads Industry Benchmarks

Pick your industry to see typical CTR, CPC, conversion rate and cost per lead. Based on WordStream's 2026 benchmarks study of 13,474 US search campaigns.

INDUSTRY

Get the Full 2026 Benchmarks Study →

Source: WordStream 2026 Google Ads Benchmarks (Search Network).

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The three conditions that determine if Google Ads will work

Here’s a deeper dive into the factors that lead to bad or good Google Ads outcomes.

Condition 1: Commercial-intent search volume exists

Your offering has to be something people search for with buying intent, not just “top-of-funnel” curiosity:

• “What is hyaluronic acid” is research demand.
• “Hyaluronic acid serum” is commercial demand.

Google Ads works for the second, but not typically for the first. You can quickly get a rough sense of demand for your target terms by:

1. Pulling your top ten transactional keywords into Google Keyword Planner.
2. Summing up the monthly search volume for your target geography.
3. Looking at the available clicks and spend, and determining if that’s interesting enough for you to invest in Google Ads.

Condition 2: Unit economics support the CPC

For each conversion, your gross profit has to clear your cost to acquire it by a comfortable margin. The math is basically:

• Divide clicks by conversion rate to get clicks per conversion.
• Multiply by CPC to get cost per acquisition (CPA).
• Subtract that from your gross profit per conversion (order value times margin).

If the number left over is reliably positive, and ideally more than about 30% of gross profit, the channel can work at scale.

The failure pattern I see most is a business with a $25 to $50 order value, thin margins, and no repeat purchases. The break-even math rarely works for them in any paid channel, not just Google Ads. The fix is not better ad copy. It is a different model or a cheaper, more scalable channel.

Condition 3: Operational discipline

Google Ads in 2026 can be a managed product. Google has features like automated bidding, Performance Max campaigns, and smart campaigns, which can require almost no input from the advertiser.

The problem with those campaigns is that they don’t guarantee lead quality and will be optimized to spend your budget, even if it’s not generating a profit for your business. Before you start a campaign, you need to have a few things in place to make Google Ads work for you:

• Be able to build a quality landing page that is likely to convert.
• Be able to measure not just how many leads you’re getting, but the actual quality of the leads and the impact on your business.
• Have a point person monitoring performance and looking for opportunities around ad copy, keywords, negative keywords, and bidding to squeeze more volume and revenue from the campaigns over time.

A high-converting landing page helps make the Google Ads math work.

Ready to make Smart Bidding work for you? Get The Fool-Proof Guide to Smart Bidding (+How to Get Started Fast)

The break-even math: how to tell if Google Ads will work for you

The break-even math for Google Ads is simple for many businesses: divide your gross profit per conversion by your cost per conversion, where cost per conversion is your CPC divided by your conversion rate. Then compare the result to your target cost per acquisition or payback window to see whether the numbers hold at scale.

Your business and your niche will always perform differently than benchmarks and industry standards. But that data can be a useful place to get a rough sense of whether Google Ads is likely to work for you. You can run the math three ways:

• At industry benchmarks (the calculator pre-fills these): If it fails at averages, you have a structural problem, not a tactical one.
• At your best case: the lowest plausible CPC and highest plausible conversion rate. If it fails even here, do not run Google Ads. The optimistic case rarely survives contact with a real account.
• At your worst case. If the math still holds when you are pessimistic, you have enough margin of safety to absorb the surprises that always come.

Some important caveats:

• Live data: Using data in your actual account against your actual landing page as part of a test is always better than rough estimates.
• Benchmarked estimates: These don’t account for day-to-day fluctuations or conversion quality (again, something you have to monitor over time).
• Lifetime value data that’s relevant to the value of a conversion, and/or multiple values across conversions, could impact the value you get across conversions.

INTERACTIVE TOOL

Google Ads Break-Even Calculator

Will Google Ads make money for your business? Enter four numbers to see the math.

AVERAGE ORDER VALUE OR LTV ($)

GROSS MARGIN %

EXPECTED CPC ($)

SMB Search median: $5.42 (WordStream 2026 benchmarks)

EXPECTED CONVERSION RATE %

SMB Search median: 8.18% (WordStream 2026 benchmarks)

Run the math →

Math reflects steady-state CR after 60+ day learning period. Initial 30 days typically run 30 to 50% worse.

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Industries where Google Ads reliably work

These businesses tend to have a higher success rate:

• Local service businesses: Plumbers, HVAC, electricians, roofers, dentists, attorneys, and accountants. High commercial intent, high gross profit per job, and a defined geographic audience. The CPCs run high, but a single won job can cover weeks of ad spend in some of these verticals.
• B2B SaaS with a proven customer profile: Once you know who buys, what they search for, and what they will pay, Google Ads is one of the most predictable ways to capture demo requests and trial signups. The operative word is proven. Pre-product-market-fit SaaS rarely works.
• Ecommerce with healthy margins: Apparel and specialty goods at 40% or better margin, low-competition niches, and branded stores with repeat purchase fit here. Performance Max in particular tends to work well here once you have a clean product feed and enough conversions to feed Smart Bidding.
• Professional services with high lifetime value: Financial advisors, business coaches, executive search, and premium consulting fall into this category. Cost per lead runs high, but the lifetime value of a client justifies it. Judge it on lifetime value, not first touch.
• Education with concrete outcomes: Trade schools, certifications, and continuing education with documented job-placement or income results. The conversion path is long, but the offer is specific enough to support paid search.

Local Services Ads are a particularly useful form of Google Ads for service-based businesses.

Industries where Google Ads often do not work

These are hard-and-fast convictions, but these types of businesses may want to look hard at the numbers before investing in Google Ads.

• Pre-product-market-fit startups: No proven conversion mechanism, no validated audience, and no lifetime-value data. Google Ads can scale demand once you have found fit. It cannot find fit for you.
• Low-margin commodity ecommerce: Anything where the economics live or die on retention and first-purchase margin is under about 20%. The break-even math is upside down on the first transaction in any paid channel, so this is not a Google Ads problem.
• B2B with long sales cycles and small deal sizes: Sales cycles beyond six months paired with contract values under roughly $10,000 rarely justify paid search. The payback stretches too far, and attribution gets noisy.
• Brand awareness with no existing intent: Google Ads is a demand-capture channel. If nobody is searching yet, paid search cannot manufacture the demand. That budget does more in content, social, or display advertising to generate demand.
• Businesses with a broken funnel: If your process leaks at the demo or proposal stage, paid traffic just fills a leaky bucket faster and more expensively. Fix the funnel before you scale acquisition into it.

Display ads are great at generating and influencing demand with buyers before they use search.

Why some Google Ads campaigns fail

In the “Google Ads do not work for us” accounts I audit, a short list of patterns explains most of the failures, and none of them are evidence that Google Ads is broken. They are evidence that the account was set up or maintained in a way that violated one of the three conditions above.

INTERACTIVE REFERENCE

Why Most Failed Google Ads Campaigns Fail

14 recurring patterns from account audits, ordered by how much damage they usually do. Tap any row for what it actually means and the fix.

Expand all

Source: WordStream account audit patterns and the WordStream Google Ads mistakes guide.

wordstream.com

How to test Google Ads without wasting money

If you’re completely new to Google Ads, I like to start with a 90-day project designed to be a “pass/fail” to help determine whether you should keep the campaign running. A few notes on how to think about this:

• Give it around 3 months to run before determining if it’s been effective.
• Budget will depend on your niche and how expensive clicks are, but for most small to mid-sized businesses, a $3-10K total budget is a good range to get a sense of whether Google Ads can work.
• Set a target cost per acquisition (CPA). Your campaigns actually don’t necessarily need to hit this by the end of the window, but they should be trending in the right direction and close enough that you have some confidence they’ll get inside that target CPA and become profitable soon.

This type of campaign setup and monitoring can be a good service to work with an experienced Google Ads pro on, particularly if they’re willing to do this setup and early monitoring for a fixed fee.

Phase 1: Setup (days 1 through 14)

• Set up conversion tracking and verify it actually fires. Everything downstream depends on it.
• Construct two or three tight ad groups around your highest-intent transactional keywords, phrase match as the backbone with exact match for proven winners.
• Build a starter shared negative keyword list.
• Launch on Maximize Conversions, sized to generate 50 to 100 clicks a week at benchmark CPC.
• Do not touch the bid strategy in this window.

Using tight ad groups will help make your results more actionable.

Phase 2: Controlled testing (Days 15 to 60)

Remember that on small budgets, you can’t make a lot of changes at once and get an actual signal from those tests or tweaks.

• Smart Bidding enters its learning phase, so do not pause or swing the budget during the first few weeks.
• Review the Search Terms Report weekly and add a handful of negatives with each pass.
• After about two weeks of conversion data, ask one question: Are you generating conversions at a cost per acquisition below your gross profit per conversion?
  • If yes, you are on track. If no, run the diagnostic before you spend another dollar.

Phase 3: Scale or stop (Days 61 to 90)

Once learning settles, you finally have a clean signal, and there are three honest outcomes:

• Profitable and scalable: Raise budget gradually, roughly 20% at a time, so you do not knock Smart Bidding back into learning.
• Profitable but capped: Expand into new ad groups.
• Unprofitable or empty: Run the diagnostic, fix the most likely cause, and either pivot or stop with a clear conscience.

The test is not optional overhead. It is the cheapest way to find out which of the three conditions your business actually meets. Most accounts I see that “did not work” never finished it. They paused around day 20, before Smart Bidding had learned anything.

INTERACTIVE TOOL

Google Ads Viability Score

Eight questions, about a minute. Get a 0 to 100 score across the three criteria that decide whether Google Ads will work for your business.

Three criteria: search intent, unit economics, account discipline.

wordstream.com

Google Ads vs. SEO and AEO vs. social: When each is the right bet

The three channels solve different problems on different clocks, and choosing well starts with being honest about what you actually need next quarter.

• Choose Google Ads when you need predictable leads inside 90 days, your economics support paid CPCs, and commercial-intent demand already exists. It is a demand-capture channel: it works because people are already searching. Time to first results is days, cost is variable but controllable, and volume is something you can turn up or down.
• Choose SEO and AEO when you have 12 to 18 months of patience, your buyers research before they purchase, and you can produce good content consistently. SEO and AEO compound. The first six months can show almost nothing (depending on the niche), and the next twelve can build a moat paid channels cannot match. Time to first results is months, cost is mostly upfront, and volume scales with content velocity.
• Choose paid social when you have a visually compelling offer and a defined audience that Meta or LinkedIn can target. Paid social is a demand-generation channel: it works when people are not searching yet. Time to first results is days, cost is variable, and volume scales with how fast you can refresh creative.

Social ads work well when you have a visually compelling story to tell.

Most established businesses I work with run two or three of these together: Google Ads to capture existing intent, SEO/AEO for the compounding long-term moat, and paid social for awareness against new audiences. The common mistake is treating them as substitutes when they are complements with different timelines.

What changed in Google Ads in 2026: AI, Performance Max, Smart Bidding

The 2026 Google Ads landscape differs in a few ways that actually change the “does it work?” question:

• Performance Max is default: Available to all advertisers since November 2021, it is now the default recommendation for many SMBs, folding Shopping, Display, and YouTube into a single AI-managed campaign.
• Smart Bidding matured: Maximize Conversions, Target CPA, and Target ROAS are the baseline for any campaign with enough conversion data, which is why account discipline and clean tracking now matter more than manual bid tweaking.
• Privacy reshaped measurement: Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (iOS 14.5, April 2021) cut into app and cross-site attribution. Consent Mode v2, required for advertisers serving EEA traffic since March 2024, changed how conversions get modeled and reported. Enhanced conversions and server-side tagging moved from nice-to-have to baseline.
• Clicks got more expensive: As we saw in the benchmarks data, the average Google Ads CPC is now $5.42, more than double the $2.32 average from 2016.
• AI arrived in Search: Ads now show alongside or below AI-generated answers on many queries. The early pattern is that transactional queries keep monetizing while informational traffic shifts toward AI answers, which sharpens the case for focusing paid search on commercial intent.

The fundamentals did not move. Commercial-intent demand, unit economics that support the CPC, and account discipline still decide whether Google Ads work for a given business. The execution layer got more complex. The strategic question is the same one it was in 2015.

When your Google Ads are not working: The diagnostic

If you have an account running and the performance feels off, work the diagnostic from symptom to root cause instead of jumping to “Google Ads do not work.” The interactive tool below ranks the likely causes for whatever combination of symptoms you select.

The pattern of symptoms tells you where to look first:

• No impressions usually points to budget, bid, or targeting limits (such as keywords not being broad enough, or negatives blocking relevant traffic).
• High impressions, low click-through points to ad copy or query relevance.
• Clicks without conversions points to the landing page, the tracking, or wrong-intent traffic.
• Conversions reported but no real sales points to a tracking error, the single most common root cause across every symptom.
• Conversions that lose money points to unit economics or keyword strategy.
• Performance that fades after a strong start points at ad fatigue, a disrupted learning phase, or rising auction competition.

High impressions but a low CTR suggests a need for stronger, more emotionally driven ad copy.

Before you conclude that Google Ads do not work for your business, run the diagnostic. In my experience, the verdicts break down roughly like this, and I would treat the proportions as directional:

• Most turn out to be tracking errors, missing negatives, or landing pages that do not match the ad.
• A smaller share is due to the wrong campaign type or an unrealistic budget.
• A small remainder are businesses where the three conditions genuinely do not hold.

Doing the diagnosis before drawing the conclusion is what separates “we tried it, and it did not work” from “we ran the math, found the failure pattern, fixed it, and now it works.” The conclusion is usually the same: Google Ads work for businesses that pass the three gates and get managed with discipline. The honest path runs through diagnosis, not hope.

Where to go next with Google Ads

A few ways to take the next step:

• Get a free read on an existing account: Run the Google Ads Performance Grader. It benchmarks your account against thousands of others and surfaces the failure patterns above.
• Have a partner run it: Find a partner that manages Google Ads campaigns with monthly performance reviews and a dedicated strategist.
• Do it yourself: The tools throughout this guide (break-even calculator, viability score, benchmark lookup, and failure diagnostic) are meant to be used in order. Start with viability, run the math, set up the test, and diagnose what is not working as you go.

The honest answer to “do Google Ads work?” is “yes, for some of you, under specific conditions, with consistent execution.” If you are one of those businesses, the next step is the 90-day test. If you are not, the next step is a different channel, and knowing that early is worth more than another month of spend.

Frequently asked questions

Here are answers to some common questions about the effectiveness of Google Ads.

Do Google Ads actually work in 2026?

Yes, for businesses that clear three conditions: real commercial-intent search demand for the offering, unit economics that support the cost per click in the vertical, and the discipline to manage the account weekly. Outside those conditions, Google Ads tends to lose money, and fairly predictably. The platform has not gotten worse. The gap between accounts that meet the conditions and those that do not has widened.

Are Google Ads worth it for small businesses?

Google Ads are worth it for a small business when your profit per sale clears your cost per sale at your vertical’s CPC. For most local service firms, B2B SaaS with a proven customer profile, and higher-margin ecommerce, they usually pay off. For pre-product-market-fit startups, low-margin commodities, and businesses with no proven way to convert a visitor, they usually do not. It is a math question, not a yes or no.

How much should I spend on Google Ads to see if they work?

Plan for enough budget to buy roughly 100 clicks a month at your vertical’s average CPC, and run it 60 to 90 days so Smart Bidding can finish learning. For most SMB verticals, that lands somewhere around $1,500 to $5,000 a month for a real test. Spending less than that usually just buys noise, not a decision.

Why are my Google Ads not converting?

Google Ads usually stop converting for one of four reasons: broken or double-counted conversion tracking, a landing page that does not match the ad’s promise, broad match running without a negative keyword list, or a budget too thin to clear Smart Bidding’s learning phase. In the accounts I audit, these are the usual causes, and most are fixable within about 30 days once you find the real one.

Should I do Google Ads or SEO first?

If you need leads inside 90 days and your economics support paid clicks, start with Google Ads, since it captures demand that already exists. If you can invest over 12 to 18 months and your buyers research before purchasing, start with SEO. Most established businesses I work with eventually run both, because they solve different problems on different timelines.

Asking “Do Google Ads Work?” is a great place to start

Google Ads is an investment in the growth of your business. And like any investment, the outcome can be a gain or a loss. That’s why asking this question first and following the steps in this guide are so important.

Google Ads delivers a big return for many businesses from many industries and of just about every size. With the right approach, it can accelerate your business growth, too.

If you’re ready to try Google Ads, or if you’ve dabbled and would like the support of technology-backed experts, reach out!

The post Do Google Ads Work? Pros, Cons, & Tools to Guide You appeared first on WordStream.

However, like all digital marketing strategies, it comes with challenges. Nailing down display ad campaign performance can be tricky. Since these media-based ads show passively across sites as people surf online, they pack on impression numbers quickly.

To help navigate this lucrative but complex channel, we analyzed over 60,000 LocaliQ display and video advertising campaigns from two different data sources to bring you our first-ever Display & Video Advertising Benchmarks, including performance averages for key metrics like click-through rate, cost per click, cost per lead, and viewability.

As mentioned, the data is split two ways: industry benchmarks covering display ads running across properties like Google, Microsoft, and YouTube, then overall performance averages for display ads running solely across the USA TODAY Network.

You can use these benchmarks to gauge how your display ads are performing and find out where you may need to improve—whether it be your audience targeting or display ad creative.

Let’s get into it!

Contents

• How to read this data
• Display and video ads benchmarks by industry
• High-impact display ads benchmarks
• Video display ads benchmarks
• Native display ads benchmarks
• Tips for the best display ads

On the go? Take this data with you! Download our free 2026 display and video ads benchmarks report here.

How to read our display and video ads benchmarks data

This report contains our new display and video ads benchmark data to help you better understand and maximize your campaign performance and budget. A couple of things to know about this report:

• Display ad industry metrics include average click-through rate, average cost per click, and average cost per lead.
• High-impact, video, and native display ads metrics include click-through rate, video completion rate, and viewability.

The metrics we chose to look at are specific to the nature of display ads. Display ads impact conversion rates indirectly (which is a measurement called view-through conversions), but they naturally have lower conversion rates attached to them directly, which is why we decided to omit that metric.

“My biggest advice when evaluating visual ad formats is to honor that they might not be delivering conversions themselves. Even when they do, they should not be held to the same benchmarks as search formats,” said Navah Hopkins, Ad Product Liaison at Microsoft.

Meanwhile, display ads yield tons of impressions, so even though their click-through rates look quite low if you compare them to other tactics like search ads, that can still equate to a lot of impactful clicks in the grand scheme of impressions versus clicks.

“Most people aren’t going to immediately click a display ad. They’ll come back to your site directly, weeks or months later, when they need you,” said Greg Carter, Vice President of Marketing at Clutch.

Ultimately, you want your display ads to get seen (or watched) and turn into real results, which is why we included viewability, video completion rate, cost per click, and cost per lead.

Display and video ads benchmarks by industry

For our first round of display ads benchmarks, we’ll look at click-through rate, cost per click, and cost per lead for standard display campaigns broken down by industry. These ads run on over 350 exchanges, networks, and publishers, including Google, YouTube, Meta, and Yahoo, and include multiple formats, such as banner ads, video, and more.

Here are some examples of these types of display ads in the wild.

Here are the display and video ads benchmarks for cost per click, cost per lead, and click-through rate for each industry.

Click to enlarge

While click-through rate isn’t a make-or-break metric for display ads (because they’ll naturally yield way more impressions than clicks), it can be an initial indicator of how enticing or clickable your image or video creative is.

The industry with the highest click-through rate for display ads was Education and Instruction at 0.40%, followed by Arts and Entertainment at 0.27%. Arts and Entertainment is a very visual industry to begin with, so it makes sense that people would be more likely to click on those ads.

Costs per click and lead for display ads vary. Typically, clicks are cheaper for this ad type compared to search ads. Beauty and Personal Care had the highest cost per click at $5.58, which checks out, as this particular industry is extremely competitive.

Want to optimize your Google display and video ads fast? Start with a free, instant account report using our Google Ads Grader!

High-impact display ads benchmarks

High-impact display ads running specifically on the USA TODAY Network show in larger, more visible placements across USA TODAY-owned sites. They tend to be full-screen, cinematic experiences. They can include GIFs and interactive, clickable features to grab lots of attention, and in turn, make a big impact on your business’s display advertising goals.’

Here is how high-impact ads on the USA Today Network typically perform in 2026:

• The average viewability rate for high-impact display ads is 62%.
• The average click-through rate for high-impact display ads is 0.26%.

Video display ads benchmarks

Video display ads showing on the USA TODAY Network are playable ads that viewers can watch, replay, and click on. Video is the preferred ad format for many, with 75% of consumers making a purchase after watching a video ad in the last year.

So, what results can you expect from a typical video ad in 2026? Here’s what we found.

• The average viewability rate for video ads is 71%.
• The average click-through rate for video ads is 0.09%.
• The average video completion rate of video ads is 67%.

A lower CTR isn’t a cause for concern with this ad type because viewers tend to watch the video, absorb the content, and move on. But video ads can make a memorable impression, and viewers are more likely to come back to your business’s offer later.

Native display ads benchmarks

Native display ads integrate your brand directly into the USA TODAY experience. These ads blend in across headline pages, articles, and newsletters, so your message seamlessly shows up in context where audiences are already engaged.

Native display ads had similar click-through rates and viewability rates to the other USA TODAY Network ads we looked at. In 2026:

• The average viewability rate for native display ads is 70%.
• The average click-through rate for native display ads is 0.28%.

Tips for the best display ads

Whether you’re new to display advertising or a seasoned display campaign veteran, this benchmark data can be a practical reference point when assessing and optimizing your strategy.

“I read these benchmarks as targets. I want to be above the number for my industry,” Greg said.

Ready to take your display and video ads to the next level? Here are some display advertising tips (based on this data) to help you get started.

1. Try a variety of placements

On average, all of the display ad types we covered in this report brought in a good number of clicks and views. For maximum reach, be sure to have display ad creative that’s flexible across major placements on the Google Display Network (including YouTube), Microsoft Audience Network, USA TODAY Network, and more.

“Display can add depth to your strategy—just simply getting in front of your target audience and reinforcing your position in their mind is deeply valuable,” said Brett McHale, Founder of Empiric Marketing.

2. Prioritize your display budgets when allocating ad spend

It can be easy to let your display campaigns fall by the wayside when planning your budgets, but it’s not that search ads are better than display or vice versa; they’re complementary to one another. Your display ads are part of your pre-marketing strategy, meaning you want them to be familiar with your business before it’s even time to buy the types of products and services you offer. This drives users to search for your business later.

“What makes display advertising so useful is that it can be leveraged at the beginning of the customer journey to inspire awareness, just as easily as it can remind a customer to complete their transaction towards the end with remarketing,” Navah said.

So, while you can factor in that display ads have a lower average CPC than search ads, you’ll want to treat budget allocations similarly. With display ads, you’re often paying per view or impression, rather than per click. You’ll need a competitive budget to get seen as much as possible.

“One way to improve display performance is to have a larger budget allocated for these types of campaigns. More budget means more impressions, and more data to optimize with,” said Rhett Chassereau, Supervisor of Programmatic Buying & Optimization at USA TODAY Co.

3. Continuously test different creative elements

While you’ll want to leverage multiple placement types across networks in your display strategy, you should also constantly test various creative elements. For example, see if your audience is more receptive to certain color schemes, image types, calls to action, and more.

“Cycle in new creative and make multiple copy variations for each. Launch a number of ads and find out which one performs the best,” Brett said.

“From there, you can take the top-performing and make more variations of them,” he added.

Like anything with PPC advertising, testing your display ads will be a bit of a balancing act that requires both patience and agility.

“Give the channel time, then be proactive about your display ad creative. Judge individual ads fast and rotate them out as soon as the data is clear. But judge overall display campaigns more cautiously, because they’re a brand play that won’t necessarily pay back on a short timeline,” Greg said.

4. Use AI to scale your display ads

AI, when used thoughtfully, can help you quickly scale your display campaigns. For instance, it can help you brainstorm test ideas or quickly duplicate and tweak current creative your team has designed. Just be sure to give any AI-generated display assets a final, manual edit before you set them live to avoid any glaring AI fails or off-brand elements.

What these display and video ads benchmarks mean for your business

Whatever your industry, you can make display ads work for your business. Display ads help you reach a wide but highly qualified audience. You can remarket to potential customers already interested in your business and pre-market to brand-new potential customers, too. Just be ready to flex your display strategy according to test results and placement trends, so your display ads always catch the attention you’re looking to grab.

For more help making the most of your display ads, see how our solutions can maximize your campaign strategy!

About the data

The display and video ad industry data is pulled from 7,074 LocaliQ customer display advertising campaigns running from April 2025 through June 2026. High-impact, video, and native display ads benchmarks data is based on 55,798 location-based display advertising campaigns run on the USA TODAY Network between July 2025 and June 2026. “Averages” are technically median figures to account for outliers. All currency values are posted in USD.

The post Display & Video Ads Benchmarks 2026: Exclusive Data & Insights for Every Industry appeared first on WordStream.

The framework has staying power for a reason. In the Competitive Intelligence Alliance’s State of SWOT report, nearly half of respondents had run at least one SWOT in the previous two months, and 76% said no other framework could replace it. That survey ran in 2023, but in my experience the pattern holds: SWOT is still the default starting point for strategic planning.

The problem is that most SWOTs die as a list on a whiteboard. In this guide, I’ll walk you through how to do a SWOT analysis with examples, questions to ask, and a free template. Then I’ll show you how to convert the finished grid into actual strategies using a TOWS matrix. There are interactive tools throughout so you can build yours as you read.

Contents

• What is a SWOT analysis?
• Breaking down the SWOT analysis definition
• SWOT analysis internal and external factors
• How to do a SWOT analysis
  • SWOT Analysis Builder
• SWOT analysis questions
• What makes a good SWOT entry?
  • SWOT Quality Scorer
• A full SWOT analysis example
• SWOT analysis example: acting on your results
• Turn your SWOT into strategy with a TOWS matrix
  • TOWS Matrix Generator
• 8 common SWOT analysis mistakes
• How often should you update a SWOT analysis?
• What is PEST analysis?
• Benefits of SWOT analysis for small businesses
• Free SWOT analysis template
• SWOT analysis FAQs

What is a SWOT analysis?

A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning framework that maps your business’s internal Strengths and Weaknesses against external Opportunities and Threats in a four-quadrant grid, so you can see in one view what to build on, what to fix, what to pursue, and what to defend against.

The framework is commonly credited to Albert Humphrey’s research at Stanford Research Institute in the 1960s, though management historians still argue about its exact origin. What nobody argues about is its reach: it has been a fixture of business planning for more than half a century.

SWOT analyses can be applied to an entire company or to individual projects within a single department. Most commonly, they’re used at the organizational level to gauge how closely a business is tracking against its growth benchmarks. But they also work well at the campaign level, for example, to assess how a paid search program is performing against initial projections.

Whatever you apply it to, the output is a grid-like matrix with four distinct quadrants, one for each element. That format has two real benefits: it separates internal factors from external ones at a glance, and it compresses a lot of information into something the whole team can read in a minute.

Prefer to watch first? Our video covers the whole framework:

Want this info to go? Download the guide >> How to Do a SWOT Analysis (With Examples & Reusable Template)

Breaking down the SWOT analysis definition

We know SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Here’s what each element actually covers.

Strengths

The first element of a SWOT analysis is Strengths.

• Things your company does well. Capabilities you can point to with evidence, not aspirations.
• Qualities that separate you from competitors. A defensible unique selling proposition (USP), not “great service.”
• Internal resources. Skilled, knowledgeable staff; strong leadership; a proven engineering team.
• Tangible assets. Intellectual property, capital, proprietary technology, distribution.

Strengths can be intangible (brand attributes) or concrete (the USP of a specific product line). The test I use: would a competitor agree this is an advantage? If yes, it belongs here.

Weaknesses

Weaknesses are internal, harmful factors: the gaps holding your business or project back.

• Things your company lacks. Missing capabilities, missing roles, missing infrastructure.
• Things competitors do better than you. Be honest here. This row only helps if it hurts a little.
• Resource limitations. Budget, headcount, time.
• An unclear unique selling proposition. A common one in crowded markets.

Weaknesses can include organizational challenges like a shortage of skilled people or budget constraints, as well as competitive gaps like the lack of a clearly defined USP.

Opportunities

Opportunities are external, helpful factors: openings in the market you could capture.

• Underserved markets for specific products. Demand that existing players aren’t meeting.
• Few competitors in your area. Geographic or niche gaps.
• Emerging needs for your products or services. Trends moving toward you.
• Press or media coverage of your company. Attention you can convert.

Can’t keep up with the volume of leads your marketing generates? That’s an opportunity. Developing something that opens a new market or demographic? Also an opportunity. This quadrant covers everything you could do to grow sales or advance the organization’s mission.

Threats

Threats are external, harmful factors: anything that puts your company’s success or growth at risk.

• Emerging competitors. New entrants or established players moving into your space.
• Changing regulatory environment. Rules that could raise your costs or limit your model.
• Negative press or media coverage. Reputation risk you don’t fully control.
• Changing customer attitudes. Shifts in how your market perceives your category or brand.

Threats also include financial risks and market volatility: essentially anything that could jeopardize the future of the company or project and sits mostly outside your control.

Free Guide >> The 37 Best Ways to Promote Your Business

SWOT analysis internal and external factors

The four elements above are common to all SWOT analyses, but the more useful cut is the one running through the middle of the grid: internal versus external.

Internal factors

Strengths and Weaknesses are internal factors. They result from decisions and conditions under your company’s control. A high churn rate is a weakness, but improving churn is within your control, which is what makes it internal.

External factors

Opportunities and Threats are external factors. An emerging competitor is a threat, but there’s very little you can do to stop a competitor from existing, which is what makes it external. This is why you’ll sometimes see SWOT analyses called Internal-External Analyses or IE matrices.

Subcategorizing this way isn’t strictly required, but it tells you something practical: how much control you have over each item on the grid. That tends to change what you do about it.

How to do a SWOT analysis

To do a SWOT analysis, gather a cross-functional team, set up the four quadrants, fill each one with specific evidence-backed entries, prioritize the top three to five per quadrant, and then convert the grid into strategies with owners and deadlines.

You can get the full walkthrough in our video below. The rest of this article expands on every step.

Here’s the process step by step:

1. Gather your team. Sales, marketing, operations, and customer-facing staff each see different things. Bring candy. This should be a meeting people want to attend.
2. Set up your quadrants. Whiteboard, projector, or our free template below.
3. Start with Strengths. Work through the strengths questions listed in the next section.
4. Repeat for Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Same drill, same honesty.
5. Pressure-test every entry. Each one should be specific enough to argue with and backed by at least one data point. “5-star Google rating with 312 reviews” beats “great reviews.”
6. Prioritize and document. Cut each quadrant to its top three to five entries and send the document to the team with notes.
7. Reconvene to assign action items. A second meeting converts the analysis into strategies, owners, and deadlines. The TOWS matrix section below is built for exactly this.

You can build yours right here as you work through the article:

INTERACTIVE TOOL

SWOT Analysis Builder

Fill in each quadrant. Your work saves automatically in your browser. Export to CSV or copy as Markdown when done.

YOUR BUSINESS OR INITIATIVE

Download CSV Copy as Markdown Clear all

Saves to your browser. The TOWS Matrix Generator below can load these entries.

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SWOT analysis questions

The fastest way to fill the grid is to ask a structured series of questions for each quadrant. Here are the ones I use.

Strengths questions

• What do your customers love about your company or product(s)?
• What does your company do better than other companies in your industry?
• What are your most positive brand attributes?
• What’s your unique selling proposition?
• What resources do you have at your disposal that your competitors do not?

Answer those, and you’ll have a solid starting list of organizational strengths.

Positive brand attributes associated with WordStream, as identified by our customers.

Weakness questions

• What do your customers dislike about your company or product(s)?
• What problems or complaints come up repeatedly in your negative reviews?
• Why do your customers cancel or churn?
• What could your company do better?
• What are your most negative brand attributes?
• What are the biggest obstacles in your current sales funnel?
• What resources do your competitors have that you do not?

You may find that strengths and weaknesses come together much faster than opportunities and threats. That’s expected. Internal factors are visible from inside the building. External factors usually require more data and more digging.

Opportunities questions

• How can we improve our sales, onboarding, or customer support processes?
• What kind of messaging resonates with our customers?
• How can we further engage our most vocal brand advocates?
• Are we allocating departmental resources effectively?
• Are there budget, tools, or other resources we’re not using to full capacity?
• Which advertising channels exceeded our expectations–and why?

Identifying opportunities often requires real competitive analysis or an examination of wider economic trends. But opportunities can be internal too, surfaced directly from your own strengths and weaknesses.

Want a look at what your competitors are doing? Free guide >> How to Spy on Your Competitors: 7 Ways to Become a Competitive Supersleuth

Threat questions

Threats tend to surface without much prompting. Most teams can list them cold: emerging or established competitors, changing regulatory environments, market volatility, or internal threats like high staff turnover that could derail current growth. If you want a structured starting point, run the opportunities questions in reverse: where are we losing ground and to whom?

What makes a good SWOT entry?

A good SWOT analysis entry is specific, evidence-backed, and prioritized: “website last updated in 2019” is a usable weakness entry, while “outdated web presence” is wallpaper. In the SWOT analyses I’ve reviewed, vague entries are the single most common reason the exercise produces nothing.

Three tests I apply to every entry:

• Specific enough to argue with. If nobody could reasonably disagree with it, it’s too vague to act on.
• Backed by at least one data point. A review count, a churn rate, a traffic number, a named competitor move. If you can’t cite one, downgrade the entry.
• Ranked, not just listed. Three to five entries per quadrant. Twenty sticky notes is a brainstorm, not an analysis.

Score your own SWOT against the full eight-point checklist here:

INTERACTIVE TOOL

SWOT Quality Scorer

Most SWOTs fail because the entries are vague, opinion-based or untestable. Check off what's true of yours, then score it against 8 quality criteria.

Score my SWOT →

Eight criteria from analyst-grade strategic planning practice.

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If you score under 75%, tighten the entries before you take the analysis to a planning meeting. A weak SWOT confidently presented is worse than no SWOT at all.

A full SWOT analysis example

To show how this works in practice, here’s a SWOT analysis example for a fictional family-owned restaurant: single location, urban area, competing against chains. Here’s the completed matrix:

As you can see, this matrix format allows you to quickly and easily identify the various elements you’ve included in your analysis.

Strengths examples

• Excellent, well-trafficked location
• Good reputation in local community
• Seasonal menu, locally sourced

Weaknesses examples

• Higher costs than comparable chain restaurants
• Single location means limited reach
• Modest advertising budget
• Not currently on food delivery apps

Opportunities examples

• Growing interest in locally sourced ingredients
• Seasonal menu keeps the offering fresh and newsworthy
• Potential growth via delivery apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats

Threat examples

• Intensifying competition from established chain restaurants
• Uncertain economic environment
• Rising cost of ingredients

The matrix format makes the tradeoffs readable at a glance: a strong local brand with real cost and reach disadvantages, in a market where delivery demand is growing. If you run a restaurant yourself, our restaurant marketing ideas guide pairs well with this example.

SWOT analysis example: Acting on your results

A completed SWOT matrix is a diagnosis, not a plan. The value shows up in the two moves that follow: matching strengths to opportunities and converting weaknesses into strengths. Here’s how that works with the restaurant example.

1. Harness your strengths

The best thing about your strengths is that you’re already doing them.

In our example, the location, reputation, and seasonal menu are all strengths. The play is to keep investing in what’s working: keep experimenting with the seasonal menu and keep nurturing the regular-customer relationships that built the reputation.

Acting on strengths mostly means doing more of what you’re already good at, deliberately instead of accidentally.

2. Shore up your weaknesses

Acting on weaknesses is trickier, not least because it requires being honest about them in the first place.

Some weaknesses resist direct attack. A single-location restaurant can’t out-purchase a chain. But it can compete where the chain structurally can’t: deep, personal customer relationships. And some weaknesses are just unfinished tasks. Not being on delivery apps was a weakness in this example; joining DoorDash or Uber Eats converts it directly into an opportunity captured.

3. Seize opportunities

The opportunities quadrant is the most actionable part of the grid, by design.

In this example, growing consumer interest in locally sourced ingredients is a major opening, but it doesn’t capture itself. It might mean sourcing local produce more aggressively to bring costs down or building the delivery-app presence to widen reach. Two cautions from experience: opportunities decay if you don’t fund them. Even an iron-clad advantage erodes if you stop maintaining it.

Every business’s opportunities differ, but every business needs the same thing: a clearly defined roadmap for capturing each one, internal or external.

4. Mitigate threats

Threats are mostly external, so full mitigation is usually impossible. The goal is monitoring plus positioning.

In this example, all three threats are hard ones. Competing with chain prices could force a choice between cheaper ingredients and thinner margins. Economic uncertainty can’t be mitigated at all, only planned around.

But look for the crossovers between quadrants. Locally sourced ingredients showed up as an opportunity while chain competition showed up as a threat. Highlighting the restaurant’s relationships with local farmers reinforces its community position AND blunts the chains’ main advantage. When one move captures an opportunity and reduces a threat at the same time, that’s usually your first priority.

Turn your SWOT into strategy with a TOWS matrix

A TOWS matrix converts a finished SWOT analysis into four types of strategy by crossing internal factors against external ones: SO strategies use Strengths to capture Opportunities, WO strategies fix Weaknesses to capture Opportunities, ST strategies use Strengths to defend against Threats, and WT strategies minimize Weaknesses to avoid Threats.

The framework comes from Heinz Weihrich’s 1982 paper “The TOWS Matrix: A Tool for Situational Analysis”, published in Long Range Planning. It’s the standard answer to the most common SWOT complaint: “we made the grid, now what?”

Here’s how each intersection works:

• SO (Offensive). Your strongest assets meet the best market openings. These tend to be the highest-leverage plays on the board.
• WO (Catch-up). The opening is there, but a gap blocks you from taking it. These are investment plays.
• ST (Defensive). Use existing assets to neutralize incoming threats. This is where you protect your position.
• WT (Survival). Vulnerabilities meet incoming threats. Triage these first, even if the work is unglamorous.

In practice, SO and WT pairs are the easiest to spot. The WO and ST intersections are where I most often find strategies a team hadn’t considered.

Here’s a worked example using a dental practice’s spring marketing plan, so you can see what evidence-backed entries and month-level strategies look like side by side:

And here’s a generator that crosses your own entries automatically. It pulls from the SWOT Builder above. You can also paste entries directly:

INTERACTIVE TOOL

TOWS Matrix Generator

SWOT is a list. TOWS turns it into action. Load your entries from the SWOT Builder above or paste your top entries below, one per line.

Load from SWOT Builder →

YOUR TOP STRENGTHS (S)

YOUR TOP WEAKNESSES (W)

YOUR TOP OPPORTUNITIES (O)

YOUR TOP THREATS (T)

Generate TOWS strategies →

TOWS matrix framework: Heinz Weihrich, Long Range Planning (1982). Four strategy types from SWOT crossings.

wordstream.com

Generate the candidates, then pick two or three to actually commit to, each with an owner and a deadline. A strategy without an owner is a suggestion.

8 common SWOT analysis mistakes

The most common SWOT analysis mistakes are vague entries, mixing internal with external factors, treating the exercise as an unfiltered brainstorm, skipping supporting evidence, stopping at the list instead of converting it to strategy, running it solo, letting it go stale, and letting confirmation bias inflate the strengths quadrant.

I see the same failure patterns over and over. The full breakdown, with what each mistake costs you and how to fix it:

REFERENCE TABLE

Eight Common SWOT Analysis Mistakes

These patterns turn an analysis into wallpaper. Each row pairs the mistake with the cost and the fix.

THE MISTAKE

WHAT IT COSTS YOU

HOW TO FIX IT

THE MISTAKE

1. Vague entries

WHAT IT COSTS YOU

"Strong team" or "good reputation" tell you nothing. The SWOT becomes wallpaper and cannot drive resource decisions.

HOW TO FIX IT

Every entry must pass the "specific enough to argue with" test. "5-star Google rating with 312 reviews" beats "great reviews."

THE MISTAKE

2. Mixing internal and external

WHAT IT COSTS YOU

Putting "competitor X is winning" in Weaknesses (it is a Threat) or "we should hire a marketer" in Opportunities (it is a TOWS action).

HOW TO FIX IT

S and W are about your business. O and T are about the market. If you control it, it is internal.

THE MISTAKE

3. Treating it as a brainstorm

WHAT IT COSTS YOU

20 sticky notes per quadrant. No prioritization. No filter. The output is a noisy list, not an analysis.

HOW TO FIX IT

Cap each quadrant at 3 to 5 top entries. Forced ranking surfaces the real signal.

THE MISTAKE

4. No supporting evidence

WHAT IT COSTS YOU

"Our customer service is amazing" with no NPS data, review analysis or churn numbers to back it. Opinion masquerading as analysis.

HOW TO FIX IT

Every entry needs at least one anchoring data point. If you cannot cite one, downgrade the entry.

THE MISTAKE

5. Stopping at the list

WHAT IT COSTS YOU

SWOT alone is description. Without TOWS, you have not produced a single decision or action.

HOW TO FIX IT

Always pair SWOT with TOWS. Generate SO, WO, ST and WT strategy candidates and pick 2 to 3 to commit to.

THE MISTAKE

6. Doing it alone

WHAT IT COSTS YOU

A founder running SWOT solo misses sales-team objections, customer-success patterns and operations gaps invisible from the top of the org chart.

HOW TO FIX IT

Include sales, marketing, customer success and operations. Each lens surfaces different entries.

THE MISTAKE

7. Updating once a year (or never)

WHAT IT COSTS YOU

An annual offsite SWOT goes stale by month four. Market shifts, competitor moves and internal capability changes all invalidate entries.

HOW TO FIX IT

Refresh quarterly at minimum. Do a full rebuild if a major event (new competitor, regulatory change) reshapes your market.

THE MISTAKE

8. Confirmation bias

WHAT IT COSTS YOU

Strengths inflate, Weaknesses shrink, Threats get minimized. The SWOT becomes the story the team wants to tell, not the one the market is telling.

HOW TO FIX IT

Assign a "red team" to attack the SWOT. Use AI tools for devil's advocate prompts. Pressure-test before committing.

Source: WordStream practitioner notes from SMB strategy engagements.

wordstream.com

Two of these deserve special emphasis:

• Stopping at the list. SWOT alone is description. Without a conversion step like TOWS, the meeting produced a poster, not a plan.
• Confirmation bias. Strengths inflate, weaknesses shrink, threats get minimized. Assign someone to red-team the grid before you commit to it. It’s a lot cheaper to be wrong in the meeting than in the market.

How often should you update a SWOT analysis?

I recommend refreshing a SWOT analysis quarterly, with a full rebuild whenever a major event reshapes your market: a new competitor, a regulatory change, a pricing shift from a key player, or a big swing in your own capabilities.

An annual offsite SWOT tends to go stale within a few months, because the external half of the grid is a snapshot of a moving picture. Competitor moves and market shifts don’t wait for your planning cycle.

A practical cadence that works for most small businesses:

• Quarterly: 30-minute review. Re-read every entry and ask “is this still true?” Update what changed.
• Annually: Full rebuild with the whole team, starting from a blank grid rather than editing last year’s.
• Event-driven: Rebuild the external quadrants any time a major competitor, regulation or technology shift lands.

If you’re tracking competitors between refreshes, a lightweight competitive analysis template makes the quarterly pass much faster.

What is PEST analysis?

While we’re here, it’s worth covering a related but separate framework: PEST analysis.

External pressures like regulatory change and market volatility can be listed as threats in a SWOT, but they’re often driven by dozens of underlying factors, which puts them beyond the scope of a typical SWOT session. That’s the gap PEST fills. A PEST analysis works much like a SWOT analysis but focuses entirely on four external forces:

1. Political
2. Economic
3. Sociocultural
4. Technological

Pros of PEST analysis

Many of the factors that land in a PEST matrix are also relevant to the Opportunities and Threats quadrants of your SWOT. Political and economic volatility can pose real threats (and open real opportunities) for many businesses, but these forces tend to be more complicated than typical SWOT entries, with broader scale and messier underlying causes. PEST gives them the dedicated treatment they need.

Cons of PEST analysis

PEST obstacles usually sit on much longer timeframes. It’s a lot faster to fix high staff turnover than to wait out an economic cycle.

Image via Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue/Hofstra University

For most small businesses, SWOT plus a quarterly refresh covers it. Add PEST when regulation or macro conditions are a first-order driver of your business.

Benefits of SWOT analysis for small businesses

If you run a small business, you might wonder whether a SWOT analysis is worth the overhead. In my experience, it usually is, for three reasons:

• Get a bird’s-eye view. It’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day weeds. A SWOT analysis forces a broader look at your business and the position it occupies in your market. Pairing it with a clear mission statement makes the “where are we going” half of planning much easier.
• Improve specific campaigns and projects. The framework scales down well. You can SWOT a forthcoming ad campaign, a content project, or a trade show appearance, not just the whole company. Here’s an example of a project SWOT analysis:

Source

• Develop tangible roadmaps. The exercise surfaces what you do well, where you lag, and what’s coming, then hands you the raw material for budgets, hiring plans, and mid-term strategy.

The overhead is one or two meetings. The return is a shared, prioritized picture of the business that everyone in the room helped build.

Free SWOT analysis template

Ready to put it all into practice? Here’s our free, editable SWOT analysis template.

It’s a Google Sheet, so you can add and remove rows, edit and answer the questions, paste the grid into a slide deck, and more. We’ve included a blank version too.

Grab your copy of the free SWOT analysis template here.

If you’d rather work in the browser, the interactive SWOT Builder earlier in this post exports to CSV and Markdown as well.

SWOT analysis FAQs

What does SWOT stand for?

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Strengths and Weaknesses are internal factors within your company’s control, while Opportunities and Threats are external factors coming from your market, competitors, or operating environment.

What is a SWOT analysis used for?

A SWOT analysis is used to assess a business, department, or project before making strategic decisions. Common uses include annual planning, evaluating a new campaign or market entry, preparing for competitive shifts, and building a shared, prioritized view of the business across a leadership team.

How do you do a SWOT analysis?

Gather a cross-functional team, draw a four-quadrant grid, and fill in Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats using structured questions. Make each entry specific and evidence-backed, prioritize the top three to five per quadrant, then convert the grid into strategies with owners and deadlines.

What’s the difference between SWOT and TOWS?

SWOT is the diagnosis; TOWS is the prescription. A SWOT analysis lists Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, while a TOWS matrix crosses those quadrants (SO, WO, ST, WT) to generate four types of strategy, from offensive plays to survival moves.

How often should you update a SWOT analysis?

Review your SWOT quarterly and rebuild it annually; in my experience, the minimum for keeping it decision-grade. Also rebuild the external quadrants after any major market event, such as a new competitor entering, a regulatory change, or a major pricing move by an incumbent.

What’s the difference between SWOT and PEST analysis?

A SWOT analysis covers internal strengths and weaknesses plus external opportunities and threats. A PEST analysis is external only, examining Political, Economic, Sociocultural, and Technological forces. Larger companies often run both: SWOT for near-term action, PEST for longer-term strategy.

Who invented the SWOT analysis?

The SWOT framework is commonly credited to Albert Humphrey’s research at Stanford Research Institute in the 1960s, though its exact origin is debated among management historians. The TOWS matrix extension was introduced by Heinz Weihrich in a 1982 Long Range Planning paper.

What are examples of strengths and weaknesses in a SWOT analysis?

Strength examples include a 4.8-star Google rating, long-tenured staff, or a high-traffic location. Weakness examples include an outdated website, no paid acquisition program, or limited hours. The common thread: each is internal, specific, and verifiable rather than a vague label like “good reputation.”

Where to go next

A SWOT analysis is worth the meeting it takes to build, but only if you convert it: prioritize the entries, cross them in the TOWS generator, and leave with two or three owned, deadlined strategies. Then put a quarterly review on the calendar before everyone forgets.

From here, the natural next steps are a proper competitive analysis, a look at your competitive positioning, and, if you compete in search, a competitor keyword analysis to see where rivals are winning attention you could own.

The post How to Do a SWOT Analysis (with Examples, a Free Template, & Tools) appeared first on WordStream.

But one area that they’re not great at: positioning our businesses in the way we want to be. The AI algorithms can craft compelling messaging that speaks to our customers’ desires, but they’re not always great at making sure that the messaging is compatible with your brand voice and market position.

The solution: AI Brief. It’s a new tool announced by Google in May 2026 that aims to help advertisers leverage AI systems that can get better results, but with direct advertiser input to make sure the messaging Google uses passes the sniff test. Here’s the full rundown.

Contents

• What is AI Brief in Google Ads?
• Which Google Ads campaigns have AI Brief?
• Where will Google Ads AI Briefs be applied in campaigns?
• Which parts of Google Ads won’t be impacted by AI Brief?
• When will AI Brief roll out?
• Benefits of Google Ads AI Brief
• AI Brief potential limitations and drawbacks
• Tips for using AI Brief in Google Ads

What is AI Brief in Google Ads?

In the shortest terms, AI Brief is a new feature that lets advertisers provide context to Google’s AI to help give direction on the type of messaging to use, searches to match for, and audiences to engage with.

In the image below, you can see what this new input system looks like. You start by defining your ideal ads. This is a simple open text box for you to give directions in.

There are additional areas to help craft messaging. Specifically, you can add words to avoid, as well as longer messaging to include or exclude from messaging.

While the image doesn’t show it (and I haven’t seen this live in any of my accounts yet), you can also give direction on the queries your ads match to, as well as the audiences you serve for.

Which Google Ads campaigns have AI Brief?

This feature was announced for AI Max campaigns in Google Ads, but has since been expanded to include AI Max for Shopping, and will be rolling out to Performance Max as well.

Essentially, any area of the Google Ads platform that leverages the “asset optimization” feature is likely going to get access to the new AI Brief functionality.

AI Max campaigns will now have an AI Brief option during the creation process.

Where will Google Ads AI Briefs be applied in campaigns?

AI Brief specifically impacts three areas in AI Max search campaigns:

• Messaging: Tell Google AI what it can and can’t say in assets (ad text) that it customizes for you.
• Matching: Provide guidelines for the types of queries you want to show for and those you want to avoid. This is more of a broad direction than keywords or negatives. Don’t say “Exclude ‘free,’ ‘cheap,’ ‘discount,'” etc. Instead, give broad directions like “We’re a premium brand and want to avoid all queries where someone might be looking for discounts or low-cost products”.
• Audience: Create a portrait or persona you want to target with your ads and have Google’s AI find users in line with that group rather than using specific audiences from their prebuilt library.

Which parts of Google Ads won’t be impacted by AI Brief?

While you are able to give direction on matching and audiences, AI Brief is not intended to be a replacement for keyword targeting, audience signals, Smart Bidding, or landing pages. It’s essentially just another layer of signals that can help Google get you the best results based on your account or campaign goals.

When will AI Brief roll out?

While Google hasn’t released a fixed rollout calendar, AI Brief will roll out in AI Max for Search campaigns (English-only to start) over the coming months before expanding to Performance Max and AI Max for Shopping campaigns. Any of your existing text guidelines will be migrated into AI Brief once the feature is activated in your account(s).

Once that rollout is complete (or close to it), AI Brief functionality will begin rolling out to Performance Max and AI Max for Shopping campaigns.

Benefits of Google Ads AI Brief

Ask any of us old-timers; we’ll tell you search behavior has changed quite a bit over the last 10 years. Searches are regularly longer and more conversational than they were in the past. Users are no longer trying to distill their query into the shortest amount of text they can, because the machines can understand their intent much better now. Google can now serve ads to people based on the intent signals it gathers from those queries.

Additionally, Google tends to have a decent handle on what messaging the user wants to see at that moment. The introduction of automated messaging helps businesses serve a compelling message to someone in the midst of a high-intent interaction with Google.

The problem really comes down to making sure that the compelling message Google serves in that high-intent moment is in line with your business. With AI Brief, you’re able to give direction to the AI exactly like you would with a creative agency or copywriter.

AI Brief potential limitations and drawbacks to be aware of

At this point, everything AI Brief has to offer probably sounds pretty good. No business is ever too disappointed when they’re able to make sure the brand messaging is followed while getting good results, right?

But that’s just one side of the situation. Here are some things to keep in mind with AI Brief:

• Garbage in, garbage out: It’s still on you to give good direction to AI Brief. Without clear direction, the system still might target the wrong users, leverage the wrong brand voice, and so on. Put in the effort for this area of the account to make sure you’re leveraging it fully.
• Guidance, not hard rules: The direction you give in the AI Brief is still just that: direction. The language you use here won’t categorically override certain bid decisions, auction choices, asset combinations, or matching to specific queries if Google thinks it can see results. If you need more firm rules, address those in your campaign settings.
• It only works for AI Max (and other highly-automated options): I don’t know about you, but I’ve tested AI Max for many of my accounts, and the results are….well, I later turned it off. Performance Max has a better track record for me, but it’s still on thin ice in some places. AI Brief isn’t a feature for regular Search campaigns. You must be opted into AI Max. If you’ve already tested this and didn’t see results (i.e., me), it might be worth another round of testing, but just be aware that AI Max is part of the deal you opt into with AI Brief.

For best results, you should treat your AI Brief as you would any other AI prompt.

Tips for using AI Brief in Google Ads

Once AI Max is rolled out to your account, here are some things I think you should keep in mind when you begin to leverage it for the first time:

• Use natural language in your direction, but keep it clear. Don’t try to get too fancy with your direction or “game” the AI for one thing or another.
• Be clear about the messaging you want included or excluded.
• Highlight the differentiators between you and your competitors.
• Give a clear picture of who your target audience is based on the keywords you’re leveraging in that campaign.
• Review Google’s suggested assets and search queries before finishing up. If you notice something’s amiss, you can adjust your inputs to get what you’re looking for.
• This isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it tool. Regularly review your AI Brief if your business, audience, campaign strategy, or some other portion of the ecosystem changes.

How to turn AI Briefs into your next go-to Google Ads tool

It’s been said for a while that advertisers in Google Ads are slowly shifting from campaign managers to machine managers to make the campaigns work. AI is a part of every system in the platform, but AI Brief is the most direct example of this shift. Advertisers simply give direction, then lean on the machine to execute.

Again, it’s not a full solution, but it’s the first step in that direction. This can be a great tool for getting better results from AI Max campaigns, but it is also likely a skill advertisers are going to need to develop to see success in the future.

For more ways to run efficient, automated advertising campaigns on Google and beyond, see how our solutions can help!

The post Google AI Brief: Everything You Need to Know appeared first on WordStream.

These are the questions our team has been asking for months. So we’ve been using an AI analytics tool to track all the activity originating from AI bots on our sites to understand what they’re doing behind the scenes.

And let me tell you…it was quite interesting. In some cases, it was interesting in a good way; we could see the pages that AI is scraping the most and glean insightful takeaways from that. In other cases, it was not so good; we could see for sure that while AI bots are scraping our site millions of times, they’re certainly not sending millions of visits our way (we’re not surprised, but a girl can dream).

So if, like us, you’re curious what AI bots are doing on your site, what types of content they’re interested in, and what ratio of traffic they’re potentially sending your way, I’ve got you covered.

Contents

• AI bots scraped our site millions of times but referred a much lower volume of traffic
• Our most resource-intensive data studies are the pages most frequently scraped
• AI bots and real people have different reading habits
• Some pages have a higher scrape-to-referral ratio (AKA they’re easier to plagiarize)
• OpenAI was by far the top scraper
• The AI scrape-to-referral ratio is getting worse over time

6 crazy things we found from tracking our AI analytics data

Here are the most interesting, kind of scary, or just plain maddening takeaways from tracking our AI scraped data.

1. AI bots scraped our site millions of times but referred a much lower volume of traffic

Here’s the headline: AI scraped our site over 4.45 million times in just six months. What do we have to show for it? A scrape-to-referral ratio of 201:1. Which, to spell it out, means that we received one visit for every 201 times AI bots scraped our site.

That means that AI systems consumed our content at a rate more than 200X higher than they referred users back to our site.

I’m being a little redundant, but it’s worth driving the point home.

Especially when you consider that AI bots scraping your site does have an impact on your site. With bots now making up over half of web traffic, their frequent visits to your site can actually increase your hosting bandwidth and any costs associated with that.

It’s also getting harder to track and mitigate any potential issues that arise from their frequent visits.

“It used to be easier to classify the bots visiting our sites and to know if they were malicious, or search crawlers, or RAG bots,” said Justin Al-Qudah, director of web strategy and growth for LocaliQ.

“We’ve seen a massive increase in the number of bots hitting our sites, and with that increase, the majority have an unknown classification. This means more time reading up on the purpose of the bots and determining whether we block their crawls.”

“Not only that, but some have found fun new ways to sneak into our analytics, which means troubleshooting just to get a clear view into your analytics,” Justin said.

Looking for more ways to drive people to your site? Free guide >> 25 Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Website

2. Our most resource-intensive data studies are the pages most frequently scraped

When we looked at the most-scraped pages on our site, we noticed almost all of them had something in common: they were data-focused.

Top scraped pages:

1. Facebook Ads Benchmarks (2025)
2. Our homepage
3. ChatGPT Plus vs. Free
4. Google Ads Benchmarks (2025)
5. Best Time to Post on Social Media
6. Conversion Rate Benchmarks
7. Average Cost Per Click
8. Facebook Ads Benchmarks (2017)
9. 2026 Video Marketing Trends
10. Facebook Ads Benchmarks (2024)

Our benchmarks (Google Ads, Facebook ads, and conversion rate), a post around the average cost per click, and data on the best time to post on social media hit the top 10. These are some of our most resource-intensive posts—requiring hours of data analysis, time identifying and reaching out to experts to contextualize the data, and design resources to create our data visualization pieces. To know that these pages are getting scraped most frequently without, in many cases, driving traffic or even credit is pretty frustrating.

Funnily enough, the main post that doesn’t really fit the mix—ChatGPT vs. Free—is one that doesn’t get a ton of traffic, but it was one of our top-scraped pages. Which begs the question: Does AI love reading about itself?

But I digress. Aside from that post, this list shows that AI bots heavily favor (at least on our site) data, statistics, and definitions. Which isn’t a surprise—GEO experts have been preaching the importance of first-party data if you want to get sourced in AI search—but it’s definitely validated with this list.

Download some of our best reports: 2026 Google Ads Benchmarks + our Facebook Ads Benchmarks >>

3. AI bots and real people have different reading habits

While there is some overlap in our most-scraped pages and our most-visited pages on our website (for instance, our advertising benchmarks are consistently top performers), there’s a lot of variation. Strange, almost like bots and real people have different goals. People are looking for ideas, tools, and data to help inform their strategies. And bots are looking for first-party data and research they can take and use as their own.

Our most-visited pages overall—not from AI referrals—include two of our free tools (our Free Keyword Research Tool and our Free Google Ads Performance Grader if you want to check them out ) and some more evergreen content or ideas-related posts.

As we’ve talked about in our blog before, free tools are a bit of an AI-search buster—AI search bots can’t replicate these tools in search results, and there’s not much for them to crawl, aside from recommending them when someone asks for a set of tools.

4. Some pages have a higher scrape-to-referral ratio (AKA they’re easier to plagiarize)

When we look at the pages that are generating the lowest scrape-to-referral ratio, we see data-related posts winning again, along with in-depth learning resources. This is likely because people are seeing the data sourced in AI search results and then clicking to get more details, validation, or (in our dreams) expert insights to explain the data.

When we look at the pages with the highest scrape-to-referral ratio, we see that they are probably instances where someone is getting the full answer directly from an AI search result.

If you ask for social media image sizes, an AI platform like ChatGPT is probably just replicating (or simply stealing) a chart from our post (or from a smattering of posts) and calling it a day. There aren’t many opportunities to follow up. (AI search platforms, you’re welcome!)

5. OpenAI was by far the top scraper

And…we’ve got a stalker. It’s OpenAI with by far the largest share of AI crawler traffic to our site. I’m talking nearly 3X the number of scrapes compared to Meta. This isn’t surprising, as OpenAI, which powers ChatGPT, is one of the largest AI chatbots around, with an over 77% market share.

Speaking of Meta, we were surprised to see them and ByteDance not only on the list, but so high on the list. Are people really using their AI search functions frequently enough to warrant this level of scrapes? Curious. Especially considering Google is so low on the list, and we actually see a good number of referrals from AI Mode. However, our SEO analyst did inform me that he’s seeing Meta AI start to send some referrals our way.

6. The AI scrape-to-referral ratio is getting worse over time

Annoyingly, AI is sending us less traffic over time. The scrape-to-referral ratio worsened by 19.2% from 207:1 to 248:1 over a three-month period.

Could this be because as more people rely on AI search, they’re clicking into results less frequently? Perhaps. Google searches now end without a click nearly 70% of the time, up from just over 60% two years ago.

Searchers seem to be getting more comfortable getting their answers directly from AI chatbots without validating the information directly from the source.

AI chatbots have also adjusted the way they present and source information, oftentimes removing or hiding the original data or source.

This search result from ChatGPT answers my question without a single source listed.

This shift has caused what Daniel Stanica is calling “the great blogging collapse.” As blogs have seen traffic decline due to AI search (in his study, the average blog had lost 85% of organic traffic over four years), many businesses have stopped publishing altogether. And even news publishers are feeling the heat—with many beginning to consider blocking AI bots from crawling their websites at all.

As bots continue crawling at such high rates without sending meaningful traffic back to websites, this problem is only going to compound. Which means less relevant, insightful, and useful content for humans to consume (and less good content for bots to learn—or steal—from).

What this all means

Why share this data? Well, first of all, our team found it particularly interesting as we’ve been hearing how important it is to optimize your content to get found in AI search results. To do that, obviously your site is going to need to be scraped.

As evidenced by some of the most-scraped pages on our site, AI bots are simply taking our first-party data, research, and insights and replicating it directly within their results. This isn’t surprising; we understand what the modern search experience looks like. But between this and our data on whether or not you should try to optimize for AI Overviews, it does beg the question:

Is the rate at which AI bots are scraping our site really worth the measly amount of traffic it’s sending our way?

Many other website owners have the same concerns, as evidenced by this note on Reddit:

Secondly, it is interesting to see the pages that AI bots are scraping and sending traffic to at a higher rate. Those are areas we might want to focus on to play the GEO game.

Overall, we know that AI search isn’t going anywhere, and the modern search experience has made AI a big piece of the puzzle. So, we’ll take this data and use it to continue adjusting and optimizing our own content plan for the channels, topics, and strategies that work best for us (not necessarily the bots).

The post We Analyzed Millions of AI Bot Scrapes. Here Are 6 Crazy Things We Found appeared first on WordStream.