One Vancouver shop, several different "looks": in a Google search result your Google Ads ad is a line of text; before a YouTube clip it's a short video; in the sidebar of a local food site it's an image banner; in a shopping search it's a product photo with a price. This article isn't about choosing which campaign to run (that's a separate piece). It's about recognising what your ad actually looks like, and where a customer bumps into it. Getting this straight pays off in practical terms. You'll know what each format is doing for you, so you won't pay to make a video and then wonder why it isn't showing up in search results. And when you talk to whoever runs your ads, you'll be able to tell at a glance which kind of creative they're showing you and where it sits. Below we follow one Vancouver speciality coffee roaster to see how its ad changes shape and turns up in the different places its customers pass through every day.
Who is this article for? ❓
If you run a business in Vancouver and you're about to advertise on Google, or already are, but have never pinned down what your ad actually looks like and where customers see it, this is worth a few minutes. It won't teach you to build campaigns yourself; it gives you a clear mental picture, so you can make sense of the ad creative someone produces for you and judge whether it fits. If what you really want is "which type of campaign should a business like mine run", that's a separate article, linked at the end.
First, separate two things that often get muddled
When people talk about "ad types" in Google Ads, the phrase can mean two very different things, and blurring them is how conversations go sideways:
- Campaign type: this is the strategic choice: what goal you're after, and therefore which network the whole campaign runs on (the Search Network, the Display Network, YouTube, Shopping, and so on). "Should a business like mine choose Search or Shopping?" is a question about this layer.
- Ad creative / ad copy: this is what the single ad your customer actually sees looks like: a line of text, an image, a video, or a product card. That's the layer this article is about.
The two are linked. The campaign type you pick largely decides the form your ad takes: a Search campaign produces text, a Display campaign produces images, a Video campaign produces short videos, a Shopping campaign produces product cards. So this article focuses on the form; for "which type should I run", see /en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11862&lang=en. Put simply, that article helps you decide which to run, and this one shows you what each one looks like to the person who sees it.
Think of each format as a kind of media you already know
You don't need to memorise the jargon. Map each one onto a traditional medium you already understand and the picture comes into focus straight away. Our Vancouver speciality coffee roaster below is running several of these at once.
Text ads: like a newspaper classified
The plainest format: just a headline, a description and a URL, words only, appearing on the Google search results page. It speaks to someone actively looking right now. When a neighbour searches "Mount Pleasant coffee roaster" or "Vancouver fresh roasted beans" on their phone, the roaster's text ad shows up near the top of the results. What the customer sees is a line of text closely matched to what they just searched for. It doesn't feel like an interruption; it feels well-timed.
(One note for accuracy: to create new search ads today you use a responsive search ad, where you write several headlines and descriptions and Google assembles the best-performing combination. The old fixed "expanded text ad" can no longer be created. For how to write a responsive search ad, see /en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11957&lang=en.)
Image / display ads: like a printed leaflet through the letterbox
This is a visual banner. It can be a fixed image, or a "responsive" image-and-text ad that resizes itself to fit each available slot, appearing across the Display Network's thousands of partner sites and apps. It isn't aimed at someone searching for you; it reaches a new audience who are browsing something else and may not know you yet. The roaster's banner might appear beside a brunch article on a local food blog or news site, letting a reader who's never heard of it register the name for the first time. What the customer sees is an image that suits the page they're reading and doesn't break their flow: familiarity now, so they're likelier to recall it next time they search for coffee. (Finding that relevant new audience by the page's subject is done through targeting, a separate layer mentioned below.)
Video ads: like a television commercial
This is a short video on YouTube (and partner video slots), played before or during something someone is already watching. It's best for telling a story or showing a process. The roaster might run a fifteen-second clip: beans tumbling in the drum, steam rising, finishing on a poured flat white. A local viewer about to watch a brew-method tutorial sees a small ad with sound and motion, which conveys "this place's coffee really does look good" far better than a line of text can.
Shopping ads: the product photo and price, right at the top of search
This format is only for businesses selling physical goods: it puts the product photo, title, price and shop name straight into shopping-related search results. If the roaster sells beans online, a search for "soy-free coffee beans Vancouver" or "espresso beans online" brings up a product card with a price above the results. Before clicking through, the customer already sees what it looks like and what it costs. For someone ready to buy, it's the most direct format there is.
Beyond these four most common formats, there are others, such as app promotion ads (driving mobile app downloads). If you've heard of call-only ads (an ad on a phone that dialled your number with one tap), note that Google is retiring this format: new ones can no longer be created, and existing ones stop running in 2027. The phone-call function now lives as a call asset attached to a responsive search ad instead, so a "tap to call" button rides along with your normal text ad. For most small Vancouver businesses, though, getting the four formats above straight, what each looks like and where it appears, is enough to build sound judgement.
The same shop, but customers meet a different "it" in different places
Back to the roaster, and stringing it together makes the point at a glance: someone searching for coffee meets a line of text; someone reading a food article catches an image banner; someone watching a brewing video on YouTube sees a short clip; someone after beans sees a product card with a price. Same shop, same budget, but appearing in the form that best suits each moment. That's the point of telling the ad formats apart. It doesn't settle "whether to advertise"; it settles "in what shape, and where, you get seen".
Where this sits in your business
Ad format belongs to the marketing and customer-acquisition side, on its "creative presentation" end. It's the face your business shows when it appears in front of a prospect for the first time (and the times after). It sits between two things. Ahead of it is the campaign type you chose, which decides the formats available to you. Behind it is your website: whichever format a customer clicks, they land on your site, which has to catch them and turn interest into an enquiry or a sale. However well the format suits the moment, a landing page that can't hold them will blunt the result.
What happens if you don't get this clear
The usual muddle is lumping "form" together with "which type to run" and "who to show it to": assuming a video you made will turn up in search results, or paying for a stack of image banners and then puzzling over "why doesn't anyone searching my name see them". Image banners don't appear in search results in the first place; they're on the sites other people are browsing. When the form and the setting don't match, money goes where customers simply won't meet you that way. Get the mental picture clear first, and you won't pay for the wrong thing.
When to think this through
A few common moments: you're about to advertise for the first time and want to know what your money will turn into; you're already advertising but can't say "what my ad looks like now, and where it shows up"; or someone has produced a batch of ad creative for you and you want to judge whether they've used the right formats in the right places. Hit any one of these and a few minutes spent telling these formats apart is well spent.
How 5U Website helps
Choosing the right ad format is never about "whichever looks coolest". In our years building websites and running digital marketing for Vancouver businesses, we often have clients arrive with a batch of ad creative they can't make sense of, asking "does this actually work?" Here is the judgement we usually give a small local shop: start with text ads on search, because they catch the people already looking for what you sell, and that is where the money works hardest at the start. We'd generally hold off on video and image/display until search is pulling its weight, since those formats build awareness rather than catch ready buyers, and a small budget spread across all four at once tends to do none of them well. Shopping ads we recommend only if you actually sell physical products online. So what we do for a client is first work out where and how their customers will encounter them, then make the creative for the formats that fit, and join it up with the website so the click has somewhere to land. If you're about to advertise, or your current creative just isn't getting results, take a look at our website design and digital marketing services, or drop us an email about your situation. We usually reply within one to two business days.
To go deeper, start with the overview /en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11860&lang=en for the whole framework of Google Ads. It's easier to see where each of these ad formats sits once you have the bigger picture.
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