Yes, these are completely different platforms serving opposite sides of the digital advertising ecosystem, and the confusion is totally understandable given Google’s naming choices. Google Ads: Designed for advertisers to promote products/services and drive traffic, leads, or sales. Meanwhile, Google Ad Manager: Tailored for publishers to manage ad inventory, optimise revenue, and deliver a better ad experience to users.
Let’s break down Google Ads first since that’s what most business owners need. This is Google’s advertising platform where you create and manage paid search campaigns, display ads, YouTube ads, and shopping campaigns. You’re the advertiser here – paying to show your ads to potential customers. You bid on keywords, create ad copy, set budgets, and target specific audiences. It’s where businesses go to buy advertising space across Google’s massive network. Every time someone clicks your ad, you pay Google. This is the platform we work with daily at Ronin to drive leads and sales for clients.
Google Ad Manager operates on the flip side. This is for website owners and publishers who want to sell advertising space on their own sites. Think news websites, blogs, or any site with significant traffic looking to monetise through advertising. Ad Manager helps these publishers manage their ad inventory, set pricing floors, control which advertisers can show ads, and optimise revenue from their available ad space. Publishers use it to serve ads from multiple sources, including Google AdSense, direct deals with advertisers, and programmatic buying platforms.
The confusion often comes from overlapping terminology and the fact that both platforms deal with online advertising. But the fundamental difference is simple: Google Ads is for buying ads, Google Ad Manager is for selling ad space. One spends money to reach customers, the other makes money from displaying ads. You’re either an advertiser (Google Ads) or a publisher (Ad Manager) – rarely both unless you’re running a complex media business.
For the typical Australian business owner, Google Ads is what you need. It’s where you’ll run your search campaigns, display remarketing, and shopping ads. Ad Manager only becomes relevant if you’re running a high-traffic website or blog and want to monetise it through advertising. Even then, most smaller publishers start with Google AdSense (a simpler monetisation platform) before graduating to Ad Manager’s more sophisticated capabilities.
Through our work at Ronin, we occasionally encounter clients who’ve accidentally stumbled into Ad Manager thinking it’s where they manage their Google Ads campaigns. If you’re trying to advertise your business and drive customers to your website, Google Ads is your platform. Ad Manager is a completely different beast serving a different purpose, despite the confusingly similar name.
