Adwords and Adsense: What is the Difference?

Since the time of its inception, Google has revolutionized everything related to our lives.

It has connected people across the globe, made searches easier, and has contributed everything that you can think of.

Google has brought a dynamic change in the world of business and marketing completely.

By introducing online marketing platforms, they have given huge leverage to small businesses. Since earlier they were struggling with the traditional form of marketing to sustain themselves.

Adwords and Adsense Difference

Google introduced the concept of Pay Per Click or PPC, those who are not familiar with it completely would have heard a lot about terms like Adwords and Adsense and the benefits it brings to promote the business or service.

The popularity of Google marketing platforms is so much, that not only small businesses but large organizations also use it to advertise them and reach out to the audiences across the globe.

Google Adwords and Adsense are two great marketing tools which are similar in nature but their functionality is completely different from each other.

What is Google Adwords?

Google Adwords is one of the most popular pay per click advertising platform. Because Google itself is one of the largest search engines with a huge database and information.

Google Adwords allows business owners to promote their website and businesses on Google search network, display network and their partner sites.

This online form of marketing is highly beneficial and efficient because it is not as expensive as traditional marketing. It allows you to fix your own budgets of ads and campaigns as per your convenience.

Understanding Google Adwords:

It provides you the information about how many people visited your website by clicking the ads. You can easily track the impression or the number of people that have seen your ads on Google Network.

You can also collect the information based on demographics, the time duration that people has spent on your website.

It allows you to create and run multiple campaigns and ad groups at the same time. You can also decide on the types of campaigns or ads you want to run. You can run and stop these campaigns of your choice, or change how much you intend to spend on these campaigns after analyzing their progress.

It is the easy availability of information, which makes advertising on Google Adwords popular among the marketers and business owners. You can use various ways to advertise your website, for example using only text ads or visuals depending on your requirement.

Google Adwords is very easy to use and one need not require any kind of technical knowledge to learn it. But with the incomplete knowledge, you may end up losing money.

Benefits of using Google Adwords:

For a small business owner especially Google Adwords is extremely beneficial, as it increases the reach of their business to the wider and targeted audience. Here are 5 top benefits of using Adwords for advertising:


The biggest advantage of all using Adwords is that it is highly cost-effective. You can set the budget for your campaign from as low as $10 to go above $10,000. The advantage it offers, is you only pay when someone clicks your ads.

If the person has not clicked on your ad and just saw it, you won’t be charged anything. You can also optimize or change the campaign budget in between the running ads, depending on their performance.

Easy to measure:

Another biggest advantage with Adwords is that you can easily measure return on investment or ROI of your ads. Adwords offers amazing lists of reports, which can tell you how many times your ads were clicked and how much you were charged for them.

It also explains the cost of each click, shows the conversion rates, let you track from where your audience came to your website.

Targeting method:

Another feature that Adwords offer is the capability to target your audience. It means you can directly reach out to the people who might be interested in your product or service. Below are a few types of targeting:

Location targeting:

In Google Adwords, you can choose a specific location where you would like to show your ads. It can range from an entire country, state, or a city, you can also target a specific radius around your business location.

Targeting language:

Depending on your requirement, you can target your ads for people who speak specific languages.

Targeting time:

You can choose to set the ads to show during some specific time only. For example, if you want to show your ads in between 4pm-6pm then you can set it accordingly.

Mobile targeting:

If you want to have a more focused approach to reach out to your audience, then mobile targeting will work for you. Adwords allows you to target your ads to specifically to Android users or iPhone users.


Google Adwords focus a lot on the relevance of your ads.

For example, if you have an ad for blue shoes, then someone who is searching for blue shoes on Google will get to see your ad.

To achieve this relevance you need to do thorough keyword research on what users are searching online, which will be relevant to your product.


It is also known as retargeting, a popular way of marketing among various businesses. If a customer has landed upon your website and saw a specific product, later left the page without making any purchase.

By using remarketing, you can target those visitors and show them the products they were browsing. This will encourage them to make a purchase later.

Example of Adwords:

Here we will consider an example to understand how Google Adwords function. Suppose you have an online store related to fashion items. Due to the sale season, you are offering up to 50% discount on your selected items.

Depending on your requirement, if you want to advertise through a text ad or a display ad(which will require attractive graphics) you can run an ad using Google Adwords.

You can select the ads to be shown on Google search network or Google display network. Then you can decide the budget and time duration to promote this ad.

Once your ad is ready, Google will approve it keeping it as per their rules and regulations. Now your ads will be showing on the Google network.

In your search results, the text ads are shown on top or bottom or side of the page. Which are green in color and “Ad” is written to the left.

Ads showing on display network are generally image ads showing on top, side, bottom or in between the content. On these ads, “sponsored by Google” is written.

The advantage here is, that if anyone clicks on these ads, only then you have to pay to Google. Once a user clicks, they will be directed to the sale landing page of your website to make a purchase.

What is Google Adsense?

Google Adsense is a platform or a distributor of the ads which Google Adwords advertises. As you put your money on Adwords to promote your website online, Adsense is a way in which a website owner can earn money by agreeing to show those ads on their website.

Google Adsense shows ads which are relevant to the website content. It is helpful in showing the ads in a targeted manner. It shows your ads on various blogs, websites, forums, and directories, etc.

Understanding Google Adsense:

For example, if you want to advertise a house for sale, so the chances are you will want your ads to show only within the city where the house is for sale.

The Google Adsense will show your ads to bloggers and websites of that city who are mostly into real estate, or news sites or pages where people might be searching for purchasing a house.

If you want to earn money through Google Adsense, then you need to create your own website and submit it to Adsense. Once they approve your website, they will provide you a code, which you need to use it on your website.

From here on you will be ready to advertise on your website. Here the important factor is that you need to keep your website updated and functional for ads to show them.

You will earn money only when someone who has visited your website, clicks on the ad. If there are no clicks on the ads then no money is earned.

Benefits of using Google Adsense:

Google Adsense is one of the best platforms for people to earn money online as per their convenience. Here are the 5 benefits of using Adsense.

No selling is needed:

The best benefit of using Google Adsense is that you do not need a huge website to sell some kind of product or services. Even a small blog, with good and updated content, is good to go with Adsense.

Adsense account can be used for multiple websites:

If you have more than one website or blog, then you need only one Adsense account to manage all of them.

Easy to use:

Google Adsense is extremely user-friendly and anyone can learn to use it. One does not need some technical knowledge to work with it.

Some work with the codes are involved but they can be easily learned from their tutorials and help guides.

Free to use:

To sign up for Google Adsense is free. You just need to create an account and share your website to Adsense, once approved by Google you are good to go.

Does not need extra time:

To use Google Adsense, one does not need to invest a lot of time. Just insert the code given by Adsense on your website or blog and it will start rolling.

Example of Google Adsense:

Here we will consider an example to understand how Google Adsense works. Suppose a travel agency has used Google Adwords to promote their tour packages for Thailand.

For example, if you are an avid traveler who has their own travel blog, where you share your travel experience and some interesting traveling tips.

As the ad posted by the advertiser is relevant to your website, therefore, if your blog is linked to Adsense. Then this ad will show on your website.

Now among all the visitors to your website, those who click that ad regarding tour packages for Thailand, then Google will pay you for that click.

Google pay about 68% of the ad cost and rest is kept by Google.

Difference between Adwords and Adsense:

Google AdwordsGoogle Adsense
It was launched in the year 2000.It was launched in the year 2003.
It is used by advertisers to promote their business.It is used by the publishers of a website or a blog to generate income.
Here the advertiser pays money to Google when someone clicks on their ads shown on Google networks.Here publisher is paid by Google when someone clicks on the ads shown on their website.
Adwords advertisers can choose to design their ads as per their choices and requirements.Adsense publishers do not have the authority to change ads shown on their website. But can decide the type of ad formats they would like it to appear on the website.
Only one ad can run on any of the Google networks.Each page of the website presents three content ads, three link ads, and two search boxes.
The advertiser can choose the money to spend as per click or impression.A publisher cannot choose the payment model as per click or per impression.
Advertisers know how much they will be spending on their ads.Publishers don’t have knowledge of how much they will be earning from advertising the ads on their site.

Can Google Adwords and Google Adsense be used together?

Adwords and Adsense are great platforms introduced by Google. Adwords is designed to promote and advertise your business, meanwhile, Adsense is a platform to earn money. It is important to have the right knowledge of both the tools to make the best use of it.

With the right information and understanding of knowing your right audience and demographics will help you succeed in both the channels.

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