Google Ads Campaign Types Explained (2026)

Quick answer

Google Ads is not one product. It is nine campaign types, each built for a different job, and picking the wrong one is the most expensive mistake in the account.

If you want enquiries from people searching right now, use Search. If you sell products online, use Performance Max with a clean feed. If you are a local service business, use Local Services Ads. Everything else is a variation on those three.

The rest of this page explains what each type does, who it suits, and what it costs to run here.

Which type should you use

Most people arrive at this page wanting an answer, not a list. Here it is.

If you are starting from nothing with a service business in Singapore, the usual answer is Search first, then add Performance Max once you have ninety days of conversion data worth learning from.

The nine campaign types

1. Search campaigns

Text ads at the top of the results when someone searches a term you target.

They reach people at the moment of intent, which makes them the highest-converting type for most businesses and the place most SMEs should start. You control the keywords, the match types and the negatives, which means you can see and fix exactly where money is going.

Best for: leads, calls, bookings and sales from people already looking.

Watch out for: broad match without negatives. It is the fastest way to pay for searches that have nothing to do with you.

2. Performance Max campaigns

Google’s automated campaign type. From one campaign it serves across Search, Shopping, Display, YouTube, Gmail, Maps and Discover, using your assets, your audience signals and Smart Bidding.

It works well when it has good data to learn from and strong creative to use. It works badly when conversion tracking is unreliable, because it optimises toward whatever you told it to, including the wrong thing.

Best for: ecommerce and lead generation with tracking you trust, wanting reach across all of Google.

Watch out for: reporting. You get less visibility into where the money went than any other type, so set it up only when you already know your numbers are clean.

3. Display Ads

Visual banners across the Google Display Network, which reaches millions of sites and apps.

Cheap per impression and useful for staying in front of people who already visited you. Poor as a first channel, because you are interrupting rather than answering.

Best for: remarketing and brand visibility.

Watch out for: placement quality. Exclude apps and low-quality sites unless you want to pay for accidental taps.

4. Shopping campaigns

Product listings with an image, price and store name, shown in the results and the Shopping tab.

Shopping is driven by your product feed, not by keywords, so feed quality decides performance. Titles, images, availability and pricing in the feed do the work that keywords do in Search.

Best for: online stores promoting products.

Note: Google is steadily folding standard Shopping into Performance Max. Build the feed properly and it serves both.

5. Video Ads (Youtube)

In-stream before or during videos, and in feeds.

Built for reach and consideration rather than immediate response. Useful when what you sell needs explaining, and when you have something worth watching. A bad video at scale is just an expensive way to be ignored.

Best for: awareness, brand building and explaining a complex offer.

6. Demand Gen campaigns

Google’s visual, social-style type, which replaced Discovery campaigns.

Image and video ads in YouTube, Discover and Gmail feeds, aimed at people who are not searching yet. It behaves more like Meta advertising than like Search, and it needs the creative to match.

Best for: creating demand at the top of the funnel when you have good visual assets.

7. App campaigns

Promotes a mobile app across Search, Play, YouTube, Display and Discover from one campaign, optimised for installs or in-app actions.

You supply assets and a budget, Google handles placement. Very little manual control by design.

Best for: app installs and in-app engagement.

8. Smart campaigns

A simplified, heavily automated option: set a goal and a budget, and Google runs it.

Honest assessment: Smart campaigns trade almost all control for simplicity, and Google is steadily moving advertisers toward Performance Max instead. If you have anyone at all managing the account, a basic Search campaign will outperform a Smart campaign for the same money.

Best for: a business with genuinely nobody to manage it, as a stopgap.

9. Local Services Ads

A separate product for service businesses such as plumbers, cleaners, clinics and tuition centres.

They sit above everything else in local results, often with a Google Guaranteed badge, and you pay per lead rather than per click. That pricing model changes the maths entirely: you are buying enquiries, not traffic.

Best for: local service businesses wanting calls and enquiries.

Note: the old Local campaigns for store visits have been folded into Performance Max, so store-visit goals now run through PMax.

Ads inside AI Overviews

This is the question we get asked most often in 2026, and it has a short answer that surprises people.

It is not a campaign type. Ads shown inside an AI Overview are served from campaigns you already run, mostly Search, Shopping and Performance Max. There is no separate campaign to build, no separate budget to set, and no way to buy the placement on its own.

What you can influence is whether your existing campaigns are eligible and whether your assets are good enough to be chosen. In practice that means the same things that have always mattered: relevant keywords, strong assets, a landing page that matches the query, and conversion tracking that works.

If someone offers to sell you an “AI Overview campaign”, they are selling you Search.

What each type costs in Singapore

Cost per click varies more by industry than by campaign type, but the type does set the shape of the spend.

Search and Local Services Ads cost the most per interaction and convert the fastest. Display and Video cost the least per impression and convert slowest, if at all, without a Search campaign running alongside. Performance Max sits in between and is the hardest to forecast, because it spends wherever it expects a conversion.

A more useful planning figure than cost per click is cost per enquiry, because it accounts for the landing page. Two businesses paying the same per click can be paying very different amounts per lead.

A common mistake worth naming

Running every campaign type at once because the account offers them.

Each type needs enough budget and enough time to produce a readable result. Splitting a small budget across six types gives you six campaigns that all look inconclusive. Start with one, get it working, then add the second for a reason you can state.

Frequently asked questions

How many types of Google Ads are there?

Nine campaign types are currently available, though Google renames and merges them regularly. Smart campaigns and standard Shopping are both being wound down in favour of Performance Max.

Which type is best for a small business in Singapore?

Search, almost always, because it reaches people already looking and it is the easiest to measure. Local Services Ads if you are a trade or a clinic.

What is the difference between Search and Performance Max?

Search is keyword-driven and you control it. Performance Max is automated across every Google surface and you influence it through assets and signals. Search first, Performance Max once you have conversion data worth training on.

Do I need a separate campaign for AI Overviews?

No. Ads in AI Overviews come from your existing Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns. There is nothing separate to buy.

Is Shopping being replaced by Performance Max?

It is moving that way. The product feed remains the foundation either way, so building it properly is the work that carries over.

Should I use Smart campaigns?

Only if there is genuinely nobody to manage the account. A basic Search campaign managed by a person beats a Smart campaign on the same budget.

How long before I can tell whether a campaign type works?

Four to six weeks for Search with enough volume. Longer for Performance Max, which needs a learning period before the numbers mean anything.

Getting it run properly

MediaPlus Digital has been running Google Ads for Singapore businesses since 2013, with around 60 in-house specialists and more than 1,800 projects delivered. Your account stays in your name.

See our Google Ads management and search engine marketing services, or read about Performance Max and AI Max in detail.