Short answer: sometimes. The longer answer is the one that actually saves you money, so stick with me.
I’ve spent thirty years watching small businesses pour money into advertising and wonder why it didn’t “work.” The ads usually worked fine. The business around the ads didn’t. That distinction is everything, and it’s the difference between Google Ads being a smart move in 2026 and being a slow leak in your bank account.
And with AI Search becoming the new gold standard for finding what you’re looking for, Google Ads are slowly changing.
What Google Ads is good at
Paid search does one thing exceptionally well: it puts you in front of people who are already looking for what you sell, right now. That’s valuable. When someone types “emergency plumber near me,” there is no faster way to be the business they call. Ads buy you speed and they buy you data — you learn which messages convert and which fall flat, fast.
What Google Ads is bad at
Ads don’t build anything you keep. The moment you stop paying, the leads stop. If your entire marketing strategy is “run ads,” you’re not building a business — you’re renting customers, and the rent goes up every year as more competitors bid on the same clicks.
This is the trap most agencies are happy to leave you in, because many of them bill a percentage of your ad spend. The more you spend, the more they make. Read that again, because it explains a lot of bad advice.
The honest test
Before you spend a dollar on Google Ads, answer four questions. Are you laser focused on the real pain that makes your customers want to buy and the uniqueness of your business? Do you have an offer people actually want? Do you have a landing page that turns clicks into inquiries? Do you have a way to capture and follow up with the leads — an email list, a CRM, anything? If the answer to all four is yes, ads can pour fuel on a fire that’s already lit. If the answer is no to any of these, ads will just light your money on fire faster. And if you’re in an industry that is known for exclusivity, trust, and high-end solutions? Ads feel cheap.
The version of ads worth paying for
Run ads as one tool inside a system you own. Use them to fill the top of the funnel and to grow assets that keep working after the campaign ends — your email list, your retargeting audience, your content. Pay a flat fee, not a percentage of spend, so your marketing partner has every reason to make each dollar work harder instead of pushing you to spend more.
That’s exactly how we run paid ads. Flat fee, no percentage of spend, every campaign built to feed assets you own.
Google Ads in 2026 aren’t good or bad. It’s a tool. Used inside a real system, it’s worth it. Used as the whole plan, it’s the most expensive way to stay exactly where you are.
