At Butler/Till, we believe that every media dollar should work smarter—not just harder. That is why we take a close look at all the tools and features available across platforms, including Google Search Partners, to ensure we are delivering both performance and precision for our clients.
What are Google Search Partners?
Google Search Partners are websites outside of Google and YouTube that help extend the reach of your ads and free product listings. At a glance, this expanded network can seem like a clear opportunity—more impressions, broader visibility, and the potential for lower cost-per-clicks (CPCs).
But when it comes to long-term value and campaign performance, we dig deeper. Our focus is not just on reach—it is on relevance, quality, and outcomes that matter. Through careful analysis and testing, we have found that while Google Search Partners can drive volume, it is just as important to evaluate whether that volume is delivering meaningful engagement and real results.
What we saw in the data
After evaluating the performance of our healthcare client’s campaign with Google Search Partners enabled from October 1 through February 29, we uncovered some telling trends:
- Daily impression volume dropped by 60% after Google Search Partners was turned off
- Daily click volume fell by 97%
- Average CPC spiked by 608%
- Search impression share and top impression share improved dramatically, +245% and +226%, respectively
- Absolute top page rate also increased after Google Search Partners was removed
While this paints a complex picture, the real story lies in engagement and quality.
Quality over quantity
We tracked critical metrics that better reflect campaign effectiveness and user intent:
- Session rate was 18% higher post-Google Search Partners removal, showing that more users who clicked actually engaged with the site
- High-value action rates increased 9%, with savings card engagement rates soaring 186%
- While daily high-value action and savings card submission volumes dropped (due to reduced overall traffic), the quality of user actions improved—a sign of better targeting and audience alignment
These results underscore a key insight: more traffic does not always translate to better performance.
Why it matters for healthcare brands
For pharma clients, the implications are even greater. Search Partners comes with limited transparency, making it hard to monitor where ads are placed. This can pose serious brand safety and compliance risks, including:
- Ads appearing on pirated or adult content sites
- Use of non-PRC/MLR-approved creative assets
- Engine algorithms optimizing toward cheaper, low-quality inventory
- Reports of Google Search Partners bypassing site-level exclusions
As one of our Integrated Planning Directors, Celeste Root, put it:
“We pushed the client to think differently about Search. While Google Search Partners offered volume, our KPIs—like audience quality percentage and cost per Dx reach—told a different story. Once we removed Google Search Partners, the lift in audience quality helped us defend the value of Search more effectively.”
Our recommendation
Default Google Search Partners settings often lure advertisers in without fully understanding the tradeoffs. At Butler/Till, we advocate for turning off Search Partners as a best practice unless there is a clear strategy in place for their use. Here’s why:
- You regain control over where your ads appear
- You reduce exposure to brand safety risks
- You improve audience quality and lower funnel performance
- You ensure every dollar is spent on intentional, high-value search behavior
Final thoughts
In an era of AI-driven targeting and constant platform changes, transparency and precision are more important than ever. Disabling Google Search Partners might mean fewer impressions, but it can also mean smarter spend, stronger performance, and a cleaner path to conversion.
