Through clickable text ads at the top of search engine results pages and product listings in Google Shopping, Google Ads connects billions of potential customers to products and services. The system has an auction-like format, although the highest bidder isn’t necessarily the winner because success hinges on how well your ad copy matches with the user’s intent and how quickly and easily they can find you. Rather than bidding on a frequency or number of users your ad gets shown to, you’re bidding on a specific keyword and only pay whenever someone clicks. Your advertising expense is based on how much Google has valued that keyword at. The more niche the keyword is, the lower the value is likely to be. Keywords with a great deal of competition for that top ranking will cost more.