3 Google Ads Strategies That Still Work (Updated From the 2019 Case Studies)

The three real-world case studies behind this guide’s original 2019 advice, ditch stock photos, combine Google and Facebook, use Google Shopping for cheap acquisition, all still hold up as strategy. What’s changed is the machinery underneath: Google’s AI now reads your landing page directly to decide which ads to show, not just to calculate a keyword-level score.

Improving Quality Score from 5 to 8 on lead generation keywords reduces cost per lead by roughly 27%, according to 2026 analysis from LeadGen Economy, since a Quality Score of 8 pays roughly 37% less per click than a score of 5 at the same Ad Rank. That’s a more precise, current version of the original guide’s claim that landing pages were “39% of the puzzle.” The underlying lesson, that landing page quality directly controls cost, remains exactly right. Here’s how each of the three original strategies has evolved.

Strategy 1: Landing pages still decide your cost, but Google’s AI now reads them directly

The original guide’s four steps, ditch stock photos for authentic imagery, focus on one call to action, resist over-designing the page, and carefully test lead form length, all remain sound, unchanged advice. What’s genuinely new since 2019 is a structural shift in how landing page quality gets used: Google’s AI now reads your landing page content directly as part of deciding which ads to show and at what cost, not just calculating a hidden, static keyword-level score. This applies even on Performance Max and Shopping campaigns, where Quality Score itself isn’t displayed to advertisers but the same underlying mechanics, creative and destination quality feeding into Ad Rank, still operate.

One important clarification worth adding: Quality Score itself is officially a diagnostic tool, not a direct input into the ad auction, according to Google’s own documentation, though it correlates closely with the actual auction factors (expected CTR, ad relevance, landing page experience) that do determine cost and position. The practical takeaway from the original guide’s advice hasn’t changed at all: authentic photography, a single clear call to action, and a genuinely useful rather than merely beautiful page still directly reduce what you pay per click.

Strategy 2: Combining Google and Facebook still works, now with less manual sequencing needed

The original guide’s example, using Facebook for top-of-funnel brand awareness and Google remarketing lists for search ads (RLSAs) to close the loop, remains a completely valid strategy and RLSAs are still available and effective in 2026. What’s changed is how much of the sequencing logic this guide described manually, showing brand-awareness content on Facebook first, then hammering home conversion-focused search ads on Google, is now something AI-driven bidding and audience systems on both platforms handle with less manual campaign staging required. The underlying principle, that hitting the same prospect from two different platforms with two different message types outperforms saturating one channel alone, remains exactly as sound as it was when Jeff Baxter’s $70,000-from-$10,000 campaign was built around it. For the fuller playbook on connecting the two platforms, see our guide to combining Google Shopping and Facebook ads.

Strategy 3: Google Shopping still delivers cheap acquisition, now mostly through Performance Max

The core insight from the original furniture-store case study, that showing a product image upfront pre-qualifies traffic before you pay for the click, remains completely valid and is arguably more true now than in 2019. The average Google Shopping CPC in 2026 sits at $0.66, with average CTR at 0.86%, but top performers reach 2.5% or higher, according to Nightjar’s 2026 Shopping benchmarks, a gap driven overwhelmingly by product image quality, exactly the lever the original guide’s tips pointed to.

What’s structurally different since 2019 is that standalone Shopping campaigns have largely been superseded by Performance Max for most advertisers, which bundles Shopping, Display, YouTube, and Search inventory into a single AI-managed campaign. The original guide’s two tips, test different ad extensions and use high-quality images that show the product in genuine use, remain exactly the right advice, they’re just now feeding a broader automated system rather than a single Shopping-only campaign. Reviewing your feed and creative quality regularly is arguably more important under Performance Max, since a single asset group now needs to perform well across several ad surfaces at once, not just the Shopping tab.

What hasn’t changed at all

The original guide’s closing warning remains exactly right: headline case studies claiming a 500,000% conversion lift are still the 0.001% outlier dressed up as a template. The three strategies here work because they’re built on unglamorous fundamentals, real photography, cross-channel sequencing, and image-driven Shopping quality, that have held up across two Google Ads platform overhauls since 2019, not because of a growth hack.

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