This is the easiest channel on the site to oversell, because "cheaper clicks" sounds like a free win. Sometimes it is. Often it is a small line item that costs more attention than it returns. The difference is predictable enough to set out plainly.
It works when the buyer skews older or corporate
The audience is genuinely different: more desktop, more Windows defaults, more searching from a work machine during business hours. That maps well onto B2B services, professional and legal work, healthcare, and higher-ticket home improvement where the decision-maker is likely to be older and better off.
In those categories we regularly see cost per enquiry come in below Google for the same terms. Not because the traffic is better, but because fewer people are bidding on it.
It works when a single customer is worth a lot
Lower volume is a smaller problem when one conversion pays for months of budget. A law firm or a roofing company can justify a second network on a handful of cases a year. A business selling a low-value repeat service usually cannot.
It does not work as a first channel
You need volume to learn quickly, and Google has it. Proving your economics on the smaller network takes longer and produces a noisier answer. Start where the data arrives fastest, then add this once you know what a customer is worth.
It does not work as a copy of your Google account
Importing campaigns is the sensible way to start and a poor way to continue. Device splits differ, the audience differs, and search term patterns differ, so a mirrored account slowly accumulates spend on terms that behave differently here.
Left untouched, an imported account is usually the version of this channel that people conclude "does not work".
It does not work for impulse or youth categories
If your buyers are young, mobile-first, or making quick emotional decisions, the audience skew works against you and the volume is thin. For those businesses the budget belongs on Meta or YouTube, and we will say so.
How we decide
We estimate available search volume in your market and category first, set it against your average customer value, and give you a straight answer on whether it is worth managing. Roughly half the time the answer is not yet.