The most useful data in your Google Ads account that's often overlooked

Most marketers don't have a data problem.

They've got dashboards. Reports. Keyword lists. Plenty of numbers to look at.

What they don't have is confidence.

Confidence in what customers actually want. Confidence in why performance changes. Confidence when they're asked to explain results to someone else.

That gap isn't about effort or skill. It's about how we've learned to look at search data.

The keyword abstraction problem

Keywords have been the default way to think about search for a long time.

They're tidy. Easy to sort. Easy to optimise around.

But keywords are an abstraction. They flatten things that matter:

• Context
• Intent
• Language
• Hesitation

Anyone who's spent time reviewing real search term reports will recognise this straight away. The interesting stuff almost never lives in the neat keyword buckets.

Modern search behaviour makes this even clearer. Search outcomes are increasingly shaped by trust, bias, and how people make decisions — not just by matching terms to pages (Advanced Web Ranking, 2025).

The human part of search matters more than ever. Keywords alone don't capture that.

Search queries are voice-of-customer data

A real search query isn't a keyword. It's someone trying to solve a problem, in their own words.

Compare these:

• "accounting software"
• "is accounting software worth it for a small business"
• "accounting software alternatives to X"
• "problems with accounting software"

They're not just variations. They reflect different moments:

• Curiosity
• Uncertainty
• Comparison
• Readiness

Google's own documentation hints at this shift. The Search Terms report is described as a way to see what customers actually searched for and to use that insight to improve messaging and landing pages — not just targeting (Google).

That's telling.

Search terms aren't just inputs for bidding. They're signals of intent, language, and need.

Intent is about timing, not topics

Intent is often treated like a label: informational, commercial, transactional.

In reality, intent is about timing.

Today's SERPs reflect multiple stages of decision-making at once — research, reassurance, comparison, and purchase overlap heavily (Advanced Web Ranking, 2025).

Two people can search for similar things and be in completely different headspaces:

• One is exploring
• One is doubting
• One is ready to act

Understanding intent means understanding where someone is in their thinking, not just what topic they're looking at.

What searches reveal that keyword lists don't

When you look at real queries instead of aggregated keywords, patterns start to show up.

How customers frame their problem

Are they searching for symptoms or solutions? Outcomes or tools? Urgent fixes or long-term answers? That framing should shape how you explain what you offer.

What they're worried about

Searches like "is X worth it", "X problems", or "is X safe" surface objections early — in the customer's own language.

What they're comparing

"Alternatives", "vs", and brand-adjacent searches are strong signals that someone is actively weighing options.

The questions that come next

Search behaviour often fans out into follow-up questions. Related queries and People Also Ask results show paths of intent, not isolated searches (Advanced Web Ranking, 2024).

None of this shows up clearly in a flat keyword list.

Why this matters more in 2025

Search hasn't disappeared. But how people consume answers has changed.

AI-generated summaries, richer SERPs, and shifting click behaviour mean that traffic alone is a weaker signal than it used to be. CTR studies show large differences by industry and device, reinforcing that clicks don't always reflect true interest or readiness (Advanced Web Ranking, 2025).

People still search, but generative AI is changing how they interpret and trust what they see (Nielsen Norman Group, 2025).

In that environment, understanding why someone searched becomes more valuable than simply counting how often they did.

Search insights should shape more than ads

If search queries are voice-of-customer data, their value shouldn't stop at bidding and ad copy.

They should inform:

• Website messaging
• Landing page structure
• Email subject lines
• Product descriptions
• FAQs and onboarding content

When you use the words customers already use, things feel familiar. That recognition builds trust.

This isn't about gaming algorithms. It's about aligning how you speak with how your customers think.

A better question to ask

Instead of asking: "How do we target this keyword?"

Try asking: "What is this person trying to do, and what words are they using to describe it?"

That shift — from keywords to intent, from lists to language — is where clarity starts.

In short

Keywords tell you what people type. Searches tell you what people mean.

The answers are already there, in the data you're looking at every day. You just have to listen to it properly.